Ok, so to begin with, I haven’t read the books yet (I’m getting them soon, but I needed to stay focused on my work through the end of the semester), and I might have spoilers from the movie.

So I went and saw Twilight tonight, and while I still want to read the book, I felt very lost and confused. I felt like I did when I watched the fourth Harry Potter movie, except that I had read that book, so I could feel in the details. So I guess what I’m saying is I felt like what I assume people who hadn’t read the books felt like – very lost and confused. This was definitely a movie whose intended audience was readers of the series. Elements of the story seemed to be taken for granted, and the character development seemed to jump from stage to stage in rather large bounds. I’m sure all of that will make more sense once I finally get to read the books, but for now it was a little disconcerting. We got to the pivotal moment in Bella’s character development for this book, and I felt as though I had been side-swiped because I didn’t see where it came from.

And all of this is without comment on the acting.

I’m not entirely sure when we shifted to the “act like you would in real life” but I don’t care for it. The characters were supposed to be in high school, so I prepared for awkward moments. I did not prepare for excruciatingly long awkward sections. Especially since most of the awkwardness was communicated through the slight twitches in the actors’ faces. And the cinematography leaned heavily on the artistic side, which is fine, except when the same movement was repeated for the 50th time.

Overall, I enjoyed the movie. I’m looking forward to reading the books because I felt like I just heard a dis-jointed re-telling of the story by a young uber-fan of the series, so I want to see what really happened. I’m also interested in what the movie makers left out from the books. I love a good vampire story, so I am interested to see how the author plays with our ideas of vampire and our conceptions that go along with those.