“Twilight” is apparently the new “Harry Potter,” only darker, sexier, more emo and perfect for cutter tweens who’s parents just don’t understand. What the fuck is it about and why is the book and soon-to-be movie such a Beatlemania -like phenomenon with goth-looking tweens already?
We’ve been waiting for someone to explain and the latest Entertainment Weekly’s cover story kind of did that which means the cat is out of the bag for fans (surely some of them are bemoaning “Twilight” reaching the “mainstream”, but basically kids will always adore unrequited love stories ala Romeo and Juliet. If these stories come awash in ashy, pale personas, goth clothing and emo, blood lusting characters, all the better.
Their behind the scenes look at the upcoming film “Twilight,” adapted from Stenphanie Meyer’s novel of the same name essentially tell us what we already knew: the dramatic teen drama has enough hype to match the fervor behind the “Harry Potter” franchise and its legion of devote nutcases.
Though, “Twilight” has an even stronger female demographic. Women, from pre-pubescent jailbait to twenty-somethings and even a middle aged women would have you believe this melodramatic novel could actually happen. Those same loyal fans (the are legion and they are terrifying) were in an uproar over the depiction of the two main characters on EW’s cover, as well as the casting choice made for the leading man.
Edward Cullen, the ninety-year old vampire who in the novel “Twilight” falls in love with a seventeen year old girl, was given a description in the book as we all know ninety- year old vampires to look, “devastatingly inhumanly beautiful.” Well, apparently British actor Robert Pattinson didn’t quite match up with the picture that many over-imaginative, sex starved fans held in their minds (how dare he!).
The extremely believable plot follows a stunningly beautiful outcast (Kristen Stewart) as she struggles to make friends in her new Washington high school. Against all odds she finally does find someone who can tolerate her, but the young stud (Pattinson) turns out to be a vampire who is attempting to abstain from living off human blood, which causes these two star-crossed lovers to be caught in an predicament that shamelessly plugs sexual abstinence in teens (she will cease to live as a mortal being if he succumbs to his desire and “takes” her, come on, really?).
Regardless, it doesn’t seem that any amount of miscasting and plot holes can stop “Twilight” from taking over America’s women when it opens later this year on December 12th. For example, does anyone question the practicality of a vampire who has walked the earth for ninety years with an intense thirst for human blood choosing to attend a high school full of tasty teens? Is he afraid of college? Why can’t he seem to graduate? Who in their right mind would want to hang out all day with people seventy years their younger? Though this movie sounds quite devastatingly inhumanly terrible, the director is none other than Catherine Hardwicke, the mind behind the exploratory teen-drug drama, “Thirteen,” and underrated 2005 film, “Lords of Dogtown”, which followed a group of teens as they created the skateboard culture of Venice, California. Could she help “Twilight” overcome its incredibly campy plot and heroine-chic leading man to actually be a good movie? We’re on the fence, but it really doesn’t matter, because come December (12), we will all have succumbed to the madness.
“Twilight” teaser trailer
