THE TWILIGHT SAGA: ECLIPSE.

We all know my feelings on Twilight (if not, check out my review of the books, as well as my thoughts on the first two movies). In quick summation, I've seen all the Twilight movies in theater (though not since) and think they are vastly superior to the books... mostly because they cut out most of the stupid and add in everything awesome the books cut out or glossed over. So now that I've seen the next installment, does this trend continue? By leaps and bounds.

Eclipse starts a year prior where a boy named Riley (Xavier Samuel) gets attacked and turned into a vampire. Pick up a year later, and we have Bella (Kristen Stewart) and her shiny vampire boyfriend Edward (Robert Pattinson). Edward continues to ask Bella to marry him, and she continues to (illogically) turn him down, though begs to be turned into a vampire instead. Her father Charlie (Billy Burke) would prefer her to be with her old friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner), who just so happens to be a shapeshifter/werewolf (though not really a werewolf). And Jacob loves Bella and won't take no for an answer. Meanwhile, chaos is going on in nearby Seattle where Riley is building an army of powerful newborn vampires. Oh, and Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard) is back, hanging around the Forks forestry... (I wonder if these can be connected?). So now the Cullen family (Jackson Rathbone, Ashley Greene, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellan Lutz, and Nikki Reed) must figure out a way to stop what's going on in Seattle while simultaneously protecting Bella before the Volturi show up to investigate (assuming they aren't responsible for it themselves) and find out that Edward hasn't broken his promise by not having turned Bella into a vampire yet.

Eclipse is considered the best of the books, and it is certainly the best of the movies thus far. Unlike the previous two, it wasn't even mostly so bad it was good. On the whole, it was actually a decent movie. Yes, it has its Twilight-y cheese and stupidness. The "I won't marry you, but I want you to turn me in a vampire so I can be with you forever" thing is still insanely idiotic and nonsensical. The dialogue is mostly horrendous (with a few scene exceptions) and delivered painfully. Because, as we all know, the Twilight movies are famous for their cardboard performances that can make Hayden Christensen look like Marlon Brando.

What made it decent was the fact that, similar to the previous movies, it added in a whole section that isn't in the book. Riley becomes a pretty huge part of the film, getting pretty much every other, or maybe every third scene. You see what's going on with him in Seattle, etc., which is only mentioned briefly every now and then in the book. Also, you get to see the creation of Bree (played by Jodelle Ferland), though she's pretty much only shown in two scenes--maybe one and a half--prior to the climax battle (and I would have liked to see more of her, which could have given the ending a bit bigger impact). And that's another thing. You actually get to see the battle! Again, like the other two movies, this one adds in an actual climax fight where the books did not. In this case, the book had the battle happen "off screen" while the fight in front of Bella was happening so fast she couldn't see it. The movie, on the other hand, shows it all. The only downside to all the action? It's almost completely bloodless... and for a very strange reason. I don't remember this description in the books, so correct me if I'm wrong... but the vampires here break off like ice when they're hit. It's very odd... almost comically so. I mean, it kinda explains the "sparkling in the sunlight" bit, assuming they're made of ice and/or diamonds. But it's just... strange.

Again, the acting is painfully dull, with only a few exceptions. Xavier Samuel as Riley, Taylor Lautner as Jacob, and Jodelle Ferland as Bree (despite her only having about half a line). Normally I have Ashley Greene's Alice and Anna Kendrick's Jessica in this list, but they're in the movie so little, it's pretty pointless to even bring them up. But Taylor Lautner continues to be really the only one of the main bunch to show any kind of range, which I know isn't true considering I've seen Kristen Stewart act very well in other things.

One thing that continues to bother me is how well, writing-wise, these books are adapted to the screen (while other adaptations, such as the quite recent Last Airbender, are adapted so poorly). I mean, honestly, these movies are not only faithful to their source material, but they actually improve upon them. The only thing I can actually think of that this movie left out from the book is when Charlie congratulates Jacob on forcing himself on his daughter and then subsequently breaking her hand... which I'm monumentally ecstatic they left out of the movie (it made me want to throw the book across the room for its stupidness). If any Twi-fans hate the movies, it's only because they don't realize how terrible the books are while reading them. Most of the dialogue and mannerisms come straight from the page. And I mentioned earlier how there were a couple scene exceptions that don't have the bad dialogue... I was very happy to learn that the tent scene was left in the movie, as it was probably one of the few things Stephenie Meyer wrote well in the entire series. And it's probably one of the best non-action scenes of the movie.

Overall, the movie has pretty good pacing, with only a few lags here and there near the end. There was a decent balance with the cheesy romance scenes and the added Riley stuff, giving the movie a sense of building suspense and purpose. The acting isn't any better than the last two, except where you'd imagine it would be (Taylor Lautner et al.). The visual effects, particularly the wolves, are much better than in New Moon, and they look really good. Really, it doesn't matter what this review says. If you haven't seen the first two, you're not gonna see this one. If you saw the first two, you'll see this one no matter what. I don't think I've ever heard of any Twilight fan that was on the fence about seeing the next movie. Unless, of course, you're like me and don't care for the series, but have a disturbing fascination... like watching a train wreck. It's not a bad movie. It's not great by any means, but it's not bad. And it's probably the first one I saw where I didn't feel completely embarrassed after having watched it. I can't not give it the following rating, considering I gave the last two this rating and I consider this one better than the last two... but again, know that it's not a score based on the film's quality, but of its entertainment value (whether that means it was actually good or so bad it was good).


A Keanu 'Whoa'

(P.S. The most disappointing factor of this experience? They didn't show the Deathly Hallows trailer before the movie as promised...)

New: NEW MOON Review + Personal Update.

I posted a REVIEW of NEW MOON in the MOVIES section.

Also, I just felt like updating everybody, since I've been absent a bit. This past Wednesday, I left to Austin for a teacher conference that lasted until Friday. Unfortunately, Tuesday night, my laptop decided to stop functioning properly. So I spent the entirety of the trip (when I wasn't in the conference) trying to find the issue and fix it. Needless to say, I couldn't really watch movies or read blogs or make posts of my own. Then, yesterday (Saturday the 21st), I moved into my own place. Still have some boxes to unpack, but I'm almost there. Anywho, I'll keep this short. I ended up figuring out the issues and fixing my laptop, so now I'm able to get stuff posted up once again, as well as view all of your blogs out there in the blog-o-sphere. So yeah, that's about it. Y'all enjoy the review.

THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON.

I'm gonna do this review a bit differently than usual (don't worry, you're not missing anything by me skipping the usual plot blurb at the beginning. There isn't much of one to begin with. Anywho...). It's no secret that I have a large disliking of the Twilight books. Yes, I've read them all. No, it's not because I'm a lit snob (I'm really not). If you want a full list of reasons why I don't care for them, you can check here. Otherwise, I'll keep it to New Moon in this post. And on top of not liking the books, I hated New Moon the most of them all. But ever since I saw the first film and discovered, much to my surprise, that the film was actually better than the book (not hard to do when all you can do is make improvements... the books are, for the most part, unfilmable to any common viewer, so they have to add into the films everything the book was lacking to make them work), I actually started to anticipate New Moon. I wondered if it would take out everything that made me hate New Moon: The Book and make New Moon: The Movie actually enjoyable.

So let's go through a list of why I hated New Moon: The Book so much:

1) Bella is an insufferable, unlikable, selfish character who just uses and abuses those around her to satisfy her own needs.

2) Jacob goes from great character and much more suitable love interest to unlikable jerk about halfway in.

3) All depression, not much humor. And without much plot to keep you going, that's not that great.

4) Long, drawn out scenes of Bella being a moaning zombie... and not that kind that eats human flesh.

5) Absolutely zero action (as is the case with basically the whole series, really).

So how does New Moon: The Movie fare with these five aspects? Let's see:

1) Bella, unfortunately, is still an insufferable, unlikable, selfish character who just uses and abuses those around her to satisfy her own needs. But hey, at least she admits it once or twice in the movie (not in those harsh of words, but whatever). Oh, quick note while we're on the subject of admitting things. I love an admission she makes at the beginning of the movie that I don't believe she makes in the book. Bella and Edward are fighting over age, and Bella says something along the lines of "Isn't this kinda gross? I should be disgusted" based on their age difference. That made me smile.

2) Jacob... oh, Jacob. I loved Jacob in the first half of the book and came to hate him in the second half. In fact, Jacob didn't start to turn back around to likable again until about the mid-point of the last book. So I am delighted to announce that not only does Jacob stay likable in the movie, but his bursts of anger feel more rationalized in the movie than in the book. However, because of this, I feel movie goers are going to have an even harder time accepting that Bella would rather choose Edward over him. I think the only thing that helped me rationalize her choice in the book was the fact that Jacob became kind of a douche at times. And while he has some moments in the movie, they actually make some kind of sense, unlike the book. But the actor did a really good job with the character. He was very fitting (and funny).

3) Which brings us to our next point. The book was pretty dark, dull, and depressing. Like the book, the movie still has not much of a plot, and just kinda bounces from scene to scene. But the movie inserted some much needed comedy, particularly with Jacob and his La Push friends (though I'm actually kinda upset that they basically all but removed Quil and Embry, giving them only a couple lines each). And surprisingly, a lot of the humor was purposeful. Though there was quite a bit that wasn't, as well. For instance, there's a scene with Edward walking in slow motion as the wind blows his shirt back, as if he's some TV model (who eventually starts to sparkle). I'm sorry, but that's just so terrible it's funny. That's really the only thing that helped me get over the ridiculous melodrama of the whole thing--it takes itself so freakin' seriously that it almost makes a mockery of itself. In fact, I'm wondering if the director purposefully gave it some self-deprecating moments because he understood just how silly it was.

4) So, I've already mentioned the melodrama. Some of this does, indeed, include Bella as a moaning zombie. Her nightmares are particularly stupid, as she continually screams into the night, annoying her father (who is so far continuing to be one of the better film version characters) along with the audience. However, one of the eye-rolling sequences of the book (at least for me) was when there are just four pages with the name of the month on it, showing how she just mopes about for four months after Edward leaves. This is actually handled very artfully in the film. Bella sits in a chair staring out the window, and the camera slowly rotates around her. As the camera gets back to showing out the window, it shows a different season outside while giving a subtitle of the month. Eventually, there is also some voice-over of her speaking out her emails to Alice, which was a nice touch that I don't remember from the book. I like how they use the emails to Alice throughout the film to show that she's actually missing other Cullens besides Edward (of course, the emails don't go through, but she keeps trying nonetheless).

5) In the first film, they added the climax fight that wasn't shown in the book. They even tossed in some action bits here and there throughout the film to keep the tempo going. So how did this one fare? There were some moments interspersed... nothing really major, though. But they also added in the scuffle with the Volturi at the end, which was awesome. The action looks much better in this film than it did in the first. It's much more stylized and fun. You can tell they had a bigger budget this time around. One of my favorite scenes in the film is when Charlie and Harry are out searching for the "wolves," and Victoria shows up. The whole action of the scene is so muted with the music and it's really nicely shot. Of course, all this leads up to the "big scene" that jump starts (no pun intended) the climax. But tying all of it together was a great way to make it flow into the ending.

So I said the first Twilight film was better than the book. I also said I hated the book of New Moon, but would hope, like its predecessor, the movie version would also be better than the book. Was I right in this assumption? Yes, I think I was. And it pisses me off that Hollywood seems capable of adapting a bad book into an entertaining movie, yet seems incapable of adapting a good book into one. But that's another post.

I can't, in right mind, give it the following score for being a good movie. The acting is mediocre at best (the best of it coming from Billy Burke, Ashley Greene, Michael Sheen, and Taylor Lautner). But that's what makes it so laughably good (in adding to the melodrama). The characters aren't particularly likable (except, ironically, for the characters played by the aforementioned actors... except Michael Sheen, but I only say that because his is a villain, and he isn't 'likable' in the same respect). The dialogue, most straight from the book, is nearly vomit inducing. But there's still just something about it that I liked. Maybe it's just a good 'bad' movie. So I'm giving it this score based solely on entertainment, I suppose. And I can't wait to love/hate the next one (assuming it, like the last two, is better than the book).


A Keanu 'Whoa'

R2D2... The One With Geek-Outs And Freak-Outs.

Been holding back for about a week on this, though I'm glad I did for a few reasons (new or updated news, for instance). Anywho, here's some random thoughts for ya.


- After nearly 4 years of waiting, Vin Diesel finally announced that a new Riddick movie should be underway soon, as David Twohy has just finished working on the script (or is at least putting the finishing touches on it). It's about freakin' time! Chronicles wasn't a great as Pitch Black, but Riddick was still fun in it. And it left the ending on such a cliffhanger, I was starting to get pissed that they didn't seem to be making another one. But Vin loves the character so much that I guess he'd fund the project, which is awesome.

- In interesting news, the characters of Mundungus Fletcher and Bill Weasley have been cast for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. The movies are already rather behind on introducing these characters, as they were introduced much earlier in the books (well, Order of the Phoenix for Dung and even earlier for Bill). I'm wondering how they're gonna do it, because Dung's relevance to book 7 is reliant on already knowing what kind of person he is; Bill's purpose, on the other hand, starts way back in Goblet of Fire, though it isn't brought up until Half-Blood Prince when the Fleur relationship is brought up. Similarly, they're also bringing Dobby back, which is awesome, even though they've cut him out of every movie except the one he's introduced in--the second, Chamber of Secrets. So I'm excited for all of this, but at the same time curious how they're gonna pull it off well.

- Next, I wanted to discuss Dragonball fans. I know I discussed fandoms in my last R2D2, but this one is striking me as odd. Maybe it's just been too long since these people have watched Dragonball, but... okay, let me set this up first. A few clips from the upcoming movie were released, and a lot of fans are swayed into liking it more now, because it is somewhat reminiscent of the show. On the other hand, there are fans who are complaining because a lot of stuff is either really cheesy or too hyper-real. To this I say to those critics: Were you actually fans of Dragonball? And I'm talking about Dragonball, not Dragonball Z. Dragonball was incredibly cheesy, childish, and over-the-top for the majority of the time. So this is really a really good adaptation of the feel of the show. But these fans seem to keep confusing Dragonball with Dragonball Z (which was much more serious)... and this is most obvious when they complain about there being no Vegeta and whatnot. These must be the same fans who complained that Speed Racer was too cheesy and bright, even though the show it was based on was exactly the same.

- I just read some casting information on the live action Avatar: The Last Airbender movie. Apparently, Slumdog Millionaire's Dev Patel is playing Prince Zuko. That's an interesting casting choice, I think. I know he'll have the sympathetic side to Zuko down, but I'm wondering how well he can do the anger. He hinted at it in Slumdog, but not a whole bunch. However, I think he has the charisma to play the character very well.

- So Mickey Rourke and Scarlett Johansson are gonna be in Iron Man 2. I just hope that Johansson's performance is nothing like it was in last year's The Spirit. Otherwise, thumbs up.

- My last bit of news discussion is on the director of the third Twilight movie, Eclipse. I had a long paragraph typed out on the announcement of the director, but I just read moments before I was going to publish the post that it was actually false. The rumor was that Spanish visionary director Juan Antonio Bayona (The Orphanage/El Orfanato) was going to lower his standards and direct the film. It was mostly a rant, but as it's not true, I guess I don't have to go there. So instead, let me just give a 'hooray!' that this is not true (he should focus on better material).

R2D2... The One WithOUT A PSYCHIC SQUID OMG?!

Well, I had a really bad f*cking Monday. Anybody else? Anywho, I felt I would take some frustrations out on fandoms and see how many people I can piss off (bring on the crazy).


- Let's start with Twilight. The director taking over for the second film isn't going to be able to direct the third film. Why? Because they're trying to pound the money out of the series before all the teen girls forget about it in about a year. They're gonna start filming while the second is still in post-production. The second film is to come out this November. The third film is to come out in June or July of NEXT YEAR. They're not even separating two films by a year, and they're not filming simultaneously, either. They're gonna rush the third one. Not that I care. But a lot of the fandom do. But you know what? There's not enough plot for them to destroy. The books are bad and terribly rushed and edited to begin with, so if they make a bad film that was rushed and poorly edited, I'd say they stayed pretty close to the books (after all, each book was published within a year of each other, which means each was written in about the same time as they'll take to make the film).


- Next... Harry Potter. So I keep reading how people bash David Yates and praise Alfonso Cauron and beg for him to come back. I can understand that if you're basing your opinion on the overall magical look/style of the picture. But no, these people are basing it on the fact that they believe Yates made a bad adaptation because he cut so much from the book and Cauron didn't. Have these people both read the books and seen the films? Cauron made, by far, the worst adaptation in terms of sticking with the book. Cauron cut out the entire PLOT and PURPOSE of the book, added in random and useless things (including some pointless slapstick and talking shrunken heads), and got continually warned by JK Rowling because he wanted to change the plot completely, which would have ruined any chance that the future books could have been adapted into films. He also ruined the fourth film, because he talked Warner Bros. into making it short and choppy, even though he wasn't even involved.

Yates, on the other hand, took the largest book with almost no plot, cut out all the things that weren't relevant to anything (Quidditch, for instance, which took up half the book), and made it coherent and meaningful, telling all the important details in the book in a little over 2 hours. And it looked good stylistically. So if you're a fan of the movies and not the books and liked Cauron because his film looked good... fine. But you can't be a fan of the books and say Cauron made a more faithful film than Yates (who, outside of Chris Columbus and his page-for-pagers, made one of the closests damn adaptations of the films).


- So I finally finished reading Watchmen yesterday (Sunday). It took me about 2-3 months to get through it... not because it was bad, but because I kept getting distracted with other things. Anyway, I really enjoyed it, and I can't wait for the movie in a couple weeks. But while I was reading it, I kept seeing stuff on the internet that was like "OH EM GEE THEY CHANGED THE ENDING IT'S GONNA SUCK NOW!" Now that I've read the graphic novel, I looked to see the ending of the movie (if you haven't read the graphic novel and/or don't care to read the ending of the movie, STOP READING NOW).

So in the graphic novel, half of New York is blown up because one of the characters scientifically constructs a giant squid monster that uses the brain of a human psychic and uses a partially functional teleportation machine to transport it, which triggers its psychic explosion. In the movie, half of New York is blown up with nuke-like devices to frame Jon/Dr. Manhattan. Both are done to stop the war and bring peace. Both succeed. But the fans are like "NO GIANT SQUID THAT GOES BOOM? BLASPHEMY!" Who the fuck cares? Hell, when I read the novel, I couldn't stop staring in disbelief at the pure, over-the-top silliness of that whole part. It almost destroyed the rest of the novel for me. I actually really like what the movie is doing instead, as it focuses it back on the characters, making it more realistic (as realistic as Watchmen can be), and just keeps it along the same lines as the feel of the story was up until that point in time. The only thing I don't like is that I heard a rumor that the Rorschach diary twist at the end of the book isn't included in the movie, which is the part I do hate, because that's what really made the entire book for me. That's what made it complete and pure awesome. And if they leave that out... that's just lame. I hope that isn't true.


I think that's all I have to say for now.

TWILIGHT.

As some of you might know, I’ve read all the Twilight books. I don’t consider myself an avid fan, but I have read them all, and I believe there are some pretty entertaining bits to be found within them. I also have often said that, as opposed to the norm, the Twilight series would probably work better as a film series than a book series. Tonight, I have taken a step further into believing that very theory.

After Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves away from her mom in the big city of Phoenix, Arizona to the small town of Forks, Washington with her dad, Charlie (Billy Burke), she doesn’t think anything will ever get better for her. She’s clumsy, and she hates the cold and the rain, so of course Forks, a town laden with constant rain and chill, would be ideal for her, right? But then she meets Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), a mysterious young man at her high school who seems to loath the very sight of her upon their first meeting. But as they start to know each other, they start to get closer. And when Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) entices her curiosity over the true nature of the Cullens, Bella starts on a journey to discover the truth about the family… that they’re vampires (though they feed off animals instead). But this cannot stop the true love. Oh no! It must prevail… even after a dangerous Tracker vampire by the name of James (Cam Gigandet) shows up and will stop at nothing to get Bella all to himself.

So first let me talk about the movie as an adaptation. I’ve been reading a lot of things about how this movie is so different from the book and how you shouldn’t go in to this film expecting it to be anything like the reading experience. Did we see the same film? Seriously, the movie was pretty dead on with the book. Sure, there were a few new scenes, a couple cut scenes, and other things like that, but every major scene was there, every major character was there, and basically every important element of the book was counted for. There was even dialogue taken straight from the book, and a voice-over narration very much like Bella’s first-person narration in the book (in fact, some of it is directly from her narration in the book).

The casting was pretty much perfect, specifically the Cullen family, even more specifically Alice and Emmett. They were pretty much dead on with my imagination. The others worked really well, too. The only complaints I have in casting were Bella and Jacob, and only moreso the latter. And it’s not because the acting was bad. In fact, I thought Taylor Lautner acted it just fine. But in the book, Jacob was this massive hulk of a guy, nearly twice Bella’s size (something more like Emmett). And even if he were thin in the first book and got huge later, I have no idea how they're going to pull that off with this guy in the next couple films. But besides his looks, he was good. And my Bella complaint was moreso on how she acted the character, which is probably more of a director complaint than an actress complaint. The Bella in the book is much funnier, wittier, and sharp. The Bella in the movie is so freakin serious and overdramatic all the time. She so totally doesn’t become whiny, serious, and overdramatic until book two. Oh, and one more complaint when it came to characters… what the heck was up with Carlisle’s super-thick white makeup upon his introduction? It got better later, but damn… that was some hardcore thickness right there.

To get into a few more of the movie workings, I had a few issues with logistics in things they did in changing/adding stuff. First of all, they made it the middle of March at the beginning of the movie, as opposed to the book when I believe it’s closer to January. This doesn’t seem like that big of a deal… until you get to the parking lot wreck scene when the whole place is icy. Granted, I don’t live in Washington, but will the ground really be covered in ice in March/April? Another thing is that Edward is so overprotective of Bella, mostly because of how clumsy she is. So why on Earth would he take her to the top of an incredibly tall tree and then let her loose to climb it on her own (much less Bella actually be willing to do so)? That just seemed incredibly out of character for the both of them.

On some other positive sides, there was some good chemistry between characters, though the two characters I felt had the most chemistry aren’t the two most would think. I felt that the relationship between Bella and her father Charlie was done very well. When a specific thing happens towards the end of the movie, I actually felt really bad, much like I did when I read it in the book. There was also some good chemistry between Bella and Jacob, and I really did like Jacob in the film despite his size. And they even added more of him in, which was smart. In the first book, he had a really bit role, and then becomes this huge character come the second installment. But they upped his role in the first film, which, again, I really liked. Finally, of course, there was the good chemistry between Bella and Edward. It was pretty tense most of the time, as Edward gets upset a lot in the first book. Though there wasn’t nearly as much humor between the two of them in the film as there was in the book (I mean, it was there… just not as much. They focused more on the serious stuff in the film).

But one of the biggest flaws of the film is also one of the biggest flaws of the books: Edward and Bella's relationship is purely superficial. And what people aren't seeming to grasp, including the uber-fans of the book, is this flaw. In the movie, Edward and Bella argue a lot before suddenly falling head-over-heels for each other for no apparent reason, and then will do anything for each other. Well, sorry to break this to you, but the books are exactly the same. If you take away every superficial quality about Edward (and even Jacob brings this up in one of the books), there'd be absolutely no reason that Bella would love him like she did. The relationship comes from nothing, is based on nothing, and stays hollow for the entirety of the series. And that was emphasized even further within this movie, even to the chagrin of the fans who thought it otherwise. So, yet again, the movie keeps to the heart of the books just fine.

The film is no masterpiece by any means, just like the book isn’t a new classic (no matter how much the fan base of 15-year-old girls thinks it is). Both the books and the films, once they make the others, will simmer down with time. But I figure that if they stick to it like they’re doing now, by staying close to the book, yet altering it just slightly so that it fits good for a movie, and taking out all the bad writing and annoying little descriptions of Edward’s godly breath and godly this and that (though they did almost allude to all of that during one part of the movie), then I really do believe that the movie series will be much better than the book series. I anticipate the next film now, especially since I hated that book the most in the series… I can’t wait to see if they actually make it good. After all, they did a pretty good job with this one (and the following score is more based on entertainment value and adaptation abilities than actual quality of film... plus, when it comes to the Twilight series, you aren't in it for quality to begin with anyway, so it's all good).

A Keanu 'Whoa'

Book Review: The Twilight Saga by Stephenie Meyer.

Alrighty... I originally had a review for all 4 books up separately, but I feel my opinions on the series would work better as one (especially since my opinions of the books in the old reviews didn't come out even close to how I truly felt about them). So I'm going to do a re-review, mish-mashing thoughts from the four reviews into one uber-review for the quadrilogy. So, needless to say, spoilers are abound.

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The Twilight Saga is 4 books and around 2000 pages of absolutely nothing. It's pure angst written horribly through the eyes of who has to be one of the worst main characters ever conceived (with the exception of one epilogue and one section of the last book, which is through another character's POV... and, in my opinion, one of the few good parts of the series).

Let's set it all up. The first book, Twilight, is full of high school romance and seduction that focuses on the smaller, more insignificant characters of the series. Isabella Swan (Bella) has just moved from the big city of Phoenix, Arizona to a small town where everybody knows everybody called Forks, Washington to live with her dad, Charlie. Forks is a town of constant rain and other dreary weather, and Bella absolutely loathes it there. But she decided to stay there for a while so her mom, Renée, could travel with her step-dad, Phil.

Bella is the type of girl who could trip over her own feet walking down a perfectly paved road, so the constantly slick pathways of Forks don’t much help her situation. She starts up school at the local high school and immediately catches the attention of the local boys, much to her chagrin. She also begins the long road of romantic complexities: Mike has a crush on Bella, but Bella’s new friend Jessica has a crush on Mike; however, Tyler has a crush on Bella, almost in a literal fashion as his van nearly impales her body in an accident and he’ll do anything to repay her. Unfortunately, Lauren now hates Bella because she likes Tyler and would prefer the attention from him. Bella, on the other hand, would much prefer everybody leave her alone… except for Edward Cullen, that is.

Edward and his family, including Alice, Emmett, Rosalie, and Jasper, are all quite mysterious outcasts at the school, but they are also incredibly graceful and almost godly beautiful. And after Edward saves Bella from Tyler’s near-collision in a most unnatural way, Bella both realizes she’s become infatuated with the very breathtaking boy, as well as curious. But Edward is very curious, indeed, as his very first day around Bella, before he even speaks to her, he acts as if she has infuriated him and he wants to do nothing but attack her. And then at a beach party, Bella learns some very important information from a Native American boy, Jacob Black, that is friends of the family. And after having this information confirmed, there are “about three things [Bella] was absolutely positive. First, Edward was a vampire. Second, there was a part of him—and [she] didn’t know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for [her] blood. And third, [she] was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him.” And the love is returned, quite ironically, as Edward explains that she is basically his favorite “brand of heroine.” So, in essence, “the lion fell in love with the lamb.”

But the Cullen’s aren’t your typical vampires. They, along with their adoptive parents Carlisle and Esme, refuse to feed on humans and simply prey on animals instead. But that doesn’t make it any less difficult for them, especially Edward toward Bella. Unfortunately, when a Tracker (a vampire who hunts humans for sport as well as food) shows up to town and narrows his sights on Bella, the Cullen family must do everything in their power to keep Bella safe.

This is the basic setup for the whole series. Everything rather snowballs from this event (which doesn't even happen until the last 100 or so pages of the book, kinda like Stephenie Meyer was like "I guess this book needs some suspense or a climax or something... oh, I'll throw in some bad vampires."). Edward gets nervous for Bella's safety after her near-death and, with only one more small occurrence within his own family, decides to leave for good. This causes Bella to turn to friend Jacob, who she uses and abuses like the selfish bitch she is. But Jacob is a werewolf and becomes a jerk himself, so it's all good. And then Edward tries to kill himself, which gets the attention of the Volturi, who keep an eye on Bella, who shouldn't know of vampires. Then the lover of the bad vamp in book 1 comes back and goes to kill Bella (though really just used by the Volturi as an excuse to get rid of Bella)... which spirals into this huge thing where Bella ends up pregnant and the Volturi come to massacre everybody but don't. There. I saved you 2000 pages.

Seriously, though, the best thing about the first book (and movie, really) was the relationship between Bella and her father (which I think Meyer really screws up later in the series). But let's get into the specifics of the series as a whole.

First... the vampires. Let's just get this out of the way first. They sparkle in the sun, are godly in every way imaginable (including breath), and (at least the main ones) don't drink human blood. Yeah... I know. Kinda takes away the cool or 'menacing' factor, huh?

But my biggest issues with the series, besides the horrible writing, really began with Book 2, New Moon. And they spawned from my realization that Bella is a horrible, horrible person. Just starting in Book 2, all of these things continue (and even strengthen) as the series goes on:

Because Edward leaves her early on (within the first few chapters), Bella becomes an inconsolable mess. To look at the first half of the book first (because there is a strong difference between the first and second halves), the following are traits of Bella:

1) She's selfish (which even she admits).

2) She has strong, obviously romantic feelings for Jacob, but stubbornly refuses to go with them.

3) She's just using Jacob and continues to string him along (which she's done since the first book).

4) After all this time (over 6 months), she still mopes around whining about Edward... which is highly annoying (and unrealistic), especially considering she obviously has feelings for Jacob.

5) She's superficial. She's constantly (both in this book and the last) going on about how gorgeous Edward is, and also about Jacob's looks (and sometimes how they don't compare to Edward's).

6) She's dependent to the point that she's, for all intents and purposes, a multiple-drug addict.

Now, I will expand a bit on this last point. Bella didn't just purely love Edward... it was more of an obsession... an addiction. Even the way the book(s) describe(s) is more like a drug addiction than love. Then Edward leaves cold turkey... and Bella curls up in the fetal position, shaking in the forest (withdrawal)... then only becomes a shell of her former self for months afterward, much more over-the-top and melodramatic than it would be in reality (especially for a relationship that only lasted a few months).

Then she rediscovers Jacob, who is like a less potent version of Edward-drug. It gets her by enough so she doesn't have to think about Edward-drug. And she just uses him, trying to tell herself it's because they're good friends but knows that it's really because he's a good 'replacement drug'. Then she discovers a way to experience Edward-drug again without him actually being there (adrenaline), so she scrambles like a crack addict in rehab who just got a recent taste. She'll do anything in order to experience even the littlest part of Edward-drug again, even if that means dying in the process (which, inevitably, is what she has to almost do in order to experience it). Not only is this a person that is highly unlikeable, but it's not a very good role model and/or lesson for the young girls reading this series (Become incredibly clingy and superficial. If and when you lose your first boyfriend, become a blithering idiot and use your best friend. When that doesn't work, kill yourself). Oh, and it's apparently better to love a stone-hard, cold-as-ice, pseudo-jerk, than a warm, soft, loving, compassionate, sensitive guy (though by the time the werewolf thing kicks in, Edward and Jacob are basically, for all intents and purposes, the same person... Edward just 'looks better').

And thus the second half of the book kicks in. First, I must say that I was a much bigger fan of Jacob/Bella than Edward/Bella (because Jacob feels real, and treats Bella realistically, and their interactions feel natural. The relationship with Edward feels forced and makes me continually wonder, along with Bella and Edward themselves, why one loves the other. It's just never explained, and given as pure, straight-up fact. It's also never shown realistically, either, like it is with Jacob). Jake just seemed like an all-around good guy, caring and loving and friendly. But then, out of nowhere, it begins to read like Stephenie Meyer realized she couldn’t have purely nice-guy love interests, so she changes his personality to an extreme so it’s almost like he’s exactly like Edward (minus the godlike beauty). He’s secretive to the point he can be a jerk, he has anger issues, and he’s way overprotective of Bella. But then, once that begins, it seems as if Stephenie Meyer then realizes she can’t just change a character’s personality halfway through a book, so she starts to flip-flop back and forth between Edward-like personality and Jacob-like personality, and it just feels awkward.

And all of this just continues for the rest of the series. Jacob and Edward are assholes, and Bella is a selfish, superficial, anti-feminist bitch. Jacob continues to fall as a character, and Edward gets a bit more tolerable, but for the most part, both are insufferable. Even Charlie (Bella's dad) turns into a dick in Book 3. The only real constantly likeable characters are Alice and Emmett, two of Edward's "siblings."

And then there's the whole "marriage" issue. This made me want to slam my head repeatedly into something solid and painful. Bella will willingly turn herself into a vampire for all eternity (even though she's afraid of blood) to be with Edward, even if it means losing all of her friends and family forever. However, Edward suggests that he wants to get married first. Bella has a massive fit and thinks marriage is the stupidest idea ever and is too much of a commitment. Um... WHAT? Just even trying to complain about it again makes me want to hurt myself. So I'll just leave it there.But then comes the book that makes the (about) 1500 words we'd read thus far completely and utterly pointless. Let's start off by getting out of the way the whole "I'll show an incredibly descriptive and bloody birthing scene, but I'll constantly fade to black and refuse to show the sex scenes." Well... I think that about sums that up. Like I said earlier, if there's one thing that came from this, it was PART TWO of this book, wherein we get to see things from Jacob's point of view. It's kind of random and out of nowhere this late in the series, but I thought it was interesting. However, it then switches back to Bella... and everything falls apart even more than it already had.

Because then it drags. And drags. And drags. I mean, it was interesting. I wasn’t totally bored reading it. But it didn’t captivate me utterly and completely, either. All the major characters that aren’t Edward, Bella, and Renesme (worst. name. ever.) seem to take a back seat, including Jacob. Jacob’s just kind of… always around, but not overly important. Seth, Leah, and pretty much every Quileute character disappears from the story. Rosalie, who had such a large role in part two, is barely mentioned. I could keep going, but you get the picture. It just reads like everything is happening and nothing is happening all at the same time. And there were a couple moments that tossed in some conflict, but not much. And then the big conflict starts up, and everything starts to get set up for roughly 200 pages for this final ultimate showdown of awesomeness. And some of it continues to drag, but some of it is interesting (and a lot of it is repetitious), but it’s easy to get through knowing it’s all building up for this super awesome showdown as has never been seen before between vampire ancience and other vampires and werewolves and superpowers and a wonder baby.

And then the moment comes. And then it goes. No fighting. Again. Just like the last three books, Stephenie Meyer has found a way to exclude an incredibly awesome battle sequences in the climax of her books, not allowing the reader the benefit of relief. I mean, ARE YOU KIDDING ME?

Twilight: Bella passes out and the reader doesn’t see the big fight.

New Moon: There IS no big fight (or much of any action whatsoever).

Eclipse: The major fight is happening elsewhere, and the action that Bella is around can’t be seen by her human eyes.

Breaking Dawn: “Oh, how about I build up the book for 200 pages in talks of fighting and training Bella to fight and how fighting is inevitable and how they’ll round up a bunch of vampires and such to be there as witnesses, but will be there in case of a war, too…. AND THEN HAVE THE BAD GUYS RUN AWAY BEFORE ANYTHING HAPPENS.” They stand around for 50+ pages, talking with their minds (so there can't even be the action of moving their lips), before they shrug and go home.

So… yeah, that bothered me. It was VERY anti-climactic and really seemed as if it made the entire last third of the book pointless and just filler to make for a longer book. Imagine, if you will, if everybody prepped for battle at the end of Harry Potter to fight Voldemort and all his Death Eaters… and after books of waiting and hundreds of pages of build-up and excitement and preparation for this major confrontation… Ginny or, say, Arthur Weasley walks out on the battlefield (before anything starts), talks with Voldemort for about 50 pages, and then Voldemort decides “What the hell, I got nothin'. Come on guys, let’s go home.”It's utterly ridiculous, and just makes reading the series pointless. And it's not as if reading everything that came before it was an easy task, either. Stephenie Meyer desperately needed a new editor, because these books had to have the single worst editing jobs I've ever seen. There were typos and grammatical errors galore. Not to mention just the horribly poor writing in general. There wasn't really enough story to warrant a 4-book saga. Hell, if she removed every time Bella worshipped Edward's godly breath, you'd probably remove at least 1000 pages (I'm not kidding. She was addicted to the dead boy's godly breath).

I'm probably missing quite a bit in this, but you get the picture. As a whole, the series is awful. There's no point to it, and it's terribly written. Stephenie Meyer doesn't deserve her popularity, and it literally makes me nauseated at all the preteen girls that worship these books (and especially those who say they're even good enough to at least rival Harry Potter). Don't get me wrong, there are some moments of suspense, as well as some moments of comedy. As such, there are the rare moments of entertainment value that the books do possess. But outside of a few side characters (such as Alice), all of the characters are awful. Bella is the single worst main character and/or role model to ever grace the pages of young adult literature. And although I've read all four, I wouldn't recommend them to anybody. In fact, I try to talk people out of reading them if they show any interest. So... there.

That's my opinion on The Twilight Saga, and I'd be happy to go over with you in any further detail in the comments if you so wish.

Twilight Teaser Trailer.

I hate teaser trailers... because they're such a tease! I adored the book (and still need to read the next couple in the series), but the Twilight teaser trailer has finally hit the internet! And It. Is. Awesome.

(And is it just me, or does Robert Pattinson remind anybody else of Timothy Olyphant a couple of times in this teaser?).

R2D2... The Ones with Books to Movies.

For this Random Ramblings, I don't have too much to note, but I have a few minutes before I gotta get ready for class, so I felt I could share a thing or two...

- Any anime and/or manga fans out there? Akira is being remade as two live-action movies starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Tetsuo and Leonardo DiCaprio as Kaneda. Similar to my Most Bizarre Cast Ever post, it's odd that they have two white guys playing two Asian guys, but it should be pretty awesome. I can't wait to see Kaneda's motorcycle live action.

- I just finished reading the teen romance/vampire book Twilight, and I still have a hard time picturing Robert Pattinson (Cedric Diggory of Goblet of Fire) as Edward... I guess he works, but that's still slightly off from how I pictured him.

- Similarly, I just read that a companion book is coming out for the Twilight series where the first book, Twilight, is going to be retold, but through Edward's point of view this time. I think that's awesome.

- For those who don't follow Harry Potter movie news, it was just confirmed recently that a brand new scene that is not from the books is being added to the next movie in which a bunch of Death Eaters are going to attack the Burrow (The Weasley house) and there's going to be this big fight there. I both can and cannot see this working well. I guess I'll just have to wait it out and see.

- The author of the book The Giver let it slip not too long ago that David Yates, who directed Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, and is currently directing Half-Blood Prince, had to turn down directing the film version of her book (at least for now, pushing it back), because he wants to finish out the Harry Potter series. Hooray! I loved Order of the Phoenix. Though it hasn't officially been confirmed, it's a pretty reliable source.

Really, that's about all I have. I told you I didn't have much. And I gotta go. Later!