Dear Twilosophy Class,
Normally on Fridays we like to go all “dumb” on you- post a funny story, a picture we can all lust over, etc. etc. etc. But today, you’re gonna have to DEAL with it because Moon & I got all Twilosophical through an email conversation with our friend EastFriend (yes- from The Quad- she’s still alive!) and it just HAD to be shared. While this may not be our normal Friday thang, you don’t want to miss this conversation. And we don’t want to miss your thoughts (although, I (UC) just left for vacation, so I’m going to have to miss it!)
EastFriend kicked us off sharing something she just read in Rolling Stone Magazine about Vampire Diaries, contrasting it with Twilight:
“We’re surrounded by bat-porn fantasies these days, but Vampire Diaries is the one that feels most authentic, because it’s the most adolescent, the most ordinary. It would kill the fantasy if there were anything glamorous about Elena. (That’s why Twilight was so great, when Kristen Stewart was just some mousy girl in a flannel shirt, and New Moon sucked, when Kristen Stewart was a movie star.)
EastFriend:
Really? “Twilight was so great?” “New Moon sucked?”
I do get the charm of the cast being relative unknowns when Twilight was 1st released, and the “old hat” feeling of them by the time we got to New Moon. And I also accept the fact that a percentage of the fandom is not on board with Eclipse due to (a) Being over it, (b) Hating Kristen, (c) Hating Rob for being with Kristen, (d) Worrying over David Slade and all these reshoot/new editor/blah-blah-blah rumors of late, etc., and (e) Complete over saturation of the series (how has Harry Potter maintained the magic for well over a decade?!?), which would fall in line with being over it, I guess.
Was Twilight “so great” because it was so “unknown” at first (and by unknown, I mean by the world at large–not by us, who’d read it at Hilton Head and knew greatness long before the masses!), and did New Moon suck because a cast full of young adults, heretofore unknown, had spent the previous year in our faces? Blogs, TV, magazine covers, websites, premieres, award shows, film festivals, etc.
Seriously. I have to discuss this.

Who is the best British fantasy star? I'm not sure, guess we'll have to see YOU naked, Rob...
UC:
The difference between Twilight and Harry Potter is that with HP we have to wait SO long between movies. I get why we don’t have to with Twilight:
#1- Summit wants the money NOW
#2- They don’t want the cast members to “Age,” but come on- it’s the MOVIES. you can make it work!
And about Twilight seeming so GREAT vs New Moon….I think it depends on who you ask about NM vs TWI…. reviewers & industry people hated both, but hated New MOON more- I think because it was a better quality movie- more money, more effort, less indie/rando/Cathy Cougar is a little drunk feeling. I think a lot of people connect with Catherine’s style & saw her portrayal of Twilight for what it was- a movie gearing towards the MTV crowd… and it was okay. It worked for what it needed to do. But with New Moon, Summit is trying to compete with major block-busters- with the Harry Potters & the comic-book-series of these days… and well, it falls majorly short if that’s what you’re comparing it to. But for us as fans (and most of the people that we come into contact with) the actors did SUCH a better job in NM & it was just less cheesy & more true to the book- so we love it more.
However… that being said.. I don’t have the emotional connection to New Moon like I did with Twilight. I haven’t watched the DVD yet. I didn’t see it as much in the theaters. Is that because of being inundated so much in the Twi world? After my emotional mess when I was entranced by this Twilight world and before I had the blogs to run to, I’d cry when I put on songs #7-12 of the soundtrack… the New Moon soundtrack is SOO GOOD and yet I never cried….. What IS that?
Get even DEEPER after the jump! Continue reading →
Filed under: Catherine Hardwicke, chris weitz, movie, New Moon movie, Twilight, Twilosophy | Tagged: Cathering Hardwicke, chris weitz, New Moon, New Moon vs. Twilight, Rolling Stone, Twilight, Twilosophy, Vampire Diaries | 104 Comments »