This Weekend @ the Boxoffice: 2008.Nov.24

[Mallus]

Pfah. There's enthusiastic fandom and then there's loopy fanaticism.

Oh sure, the quotes you posted are batty... but we spend time online discussing the minutiae associated with pretending to be elves (disclosure: I have several posts in the 20 page-long thread on quantum wounding...).

We should try to be a little charitable!

 

[Farganger]

I saw it this weekend with my wife (she is a vampire fan). I thought it was a fine movie and worth seeing. Not amazing anything, but fine. My wife loved it.

I did see this coming as far as sales. It's being touted as the next Harry Potter series. HSX.com saw it coming as well, which actually mildly overpriced it near the end (it actually dropped 5% after the weekend numbers).

Similar experience here. My wife and I enjoyed it.

She's a TV writer, and was quite happy that all the CV nattering suggesting films aimed at women can't "open big" was somewhat disproved. Also, what with the books and screenplay being written by women, and a woman director, this film really does stand out: a successful movie that's essentially "by" and "for" women is heartening indeed.

I wish it well in the coming weeks.

 

[Mark]

We should try to be a little charitable!

Or ignorant. We could just be ignorant. Ignorant of what? I have no idea.

 

[Hand of Evil]

Or ignorant. We could just be ignorant. Ignorant of what? I have no idea.

I was ignorant about the whole freaking nature of Twlight, yep, knew it was a book but did not know how freaking big it's following was and I just saw this as just another 90210 with supernatural plot hook. I went on: No named stars, not a big name director, not really a horror movie, a date flick based off some book I had not heard off.

In a way it is a bit disappointing to me to see the movie do this well, knowning fandom has failed to get behind other movies in the same way!

 

[Brown Jenkin]

In a way it is a bit disappointing to me to see the movie do this well, knowning fandom has failed to get behind other movies in the same way!

I'm not sure what fandom you are refering to. If you are talking genre stuff it does, we just don't have the numbers to do something alone. The most recent fandom film to hit big based solely on fandom was another tweener film, Hanna Montanah.

 

[Mallus]

We could just be ignorant.

I hear it's strength!

 

[Hand of Evil]

I'm not sure what fandom you are refering to. If you are talking genre stuff it does, we just don't have the numbers to do something alone. The most recent fandom film to hit big based solely on fandom was another tweener film, Hanna Montanah.

Speed Racer, X-Files, Serenity, D&D (okay bad movies), DOOM (another bad movie), etc. Here you have fan base, good size and they show up, so you get more. Why can't the rest of the Sci-fi/fantasy crowd do the same, are we really that small?

 

[Mistwell]

For the nerd in me, here is what I liked about Twilight:

Each vampire seems to have a special power in addition to just being a vampire. One can read minds, one can see the future, one has enhanced hunting senses and strength and speed to back up that hunting, etc.. Essentially it makes for an interesting adventuring party, without everyone being the same class.

Vampires can and do fight other vampires, and the fight scenes are pretty good. Lots of stuff breaking, and some nice wire work for jumping from tree to tree and such.

Vampires often live in the pacific northwest, because it is overcast all the time, hence they can go about during daytime hours without much trouble. They are not harmed by the sun in this version of vampirism, they just glow in a bit of an alien way, which would call a lot of attention to them if humans saw it.

A particular vampire "family" lives in a nice big house with large open windows, and they call themselves "vegetarians" because they do not feed on people, just animals. They seem to spend a lot of time reading and listening to music and jumping around in the trees in the forest, since they have a lot of time on their hands given they never sleep (and they own no coffins, and have no trouble with religion, or garlic, or being invited into a house). They send one person to school most of the time, to help extend the time they can live in one place without moving and maintain an illusion that they are a normal family (the "father" is a doctor in town). One of the running jokes for this family is a big display of dozens of graduation caps they have, representing how many times the younger-looking vampires have graduated from high school. This family gets really excited when a human comes over for dinner, since they get to use their nice kitchen for the first time.

The vampires have a territorial and non-aggression pact with the werewolves, who are some Native Americans in the region. We do not see much of the werewolves in this movie, but it's made clear who they are, and that they exist, and that the werewolves are not particularly happy that a vampire is dating a human whose family the werewolves are friends with.

There are some other elements I found interesting. Obviously not much of your classic vampire, but still a fair amount of interesting details that shows that we are working with a more complex fantasy world than just "vampire/human love story".

Oh and someone mentioned teen-age sex. There is no sex in this film. There is barely kissing in this film.

 

[Hand of Evil]

So, it is White Wolf's vampire and Werewolf, with them having issues with Underworld a few years ago, you would think they would have issues here too.

 

[Felon]

For the nerd in me, here is what I liked about Twilight:

Each vampire seems to have a special power in addition to just being a vampire. One can read minds, one can see the future, one has enhanced hunting senses and strength and speed to back up that hunting, etc.. Essentially it makes for an interesting adventuring party, without everyone being the same class.

Vampires can and do fight other vampires, and the fight scenes are pretty good. Lots of stuff breaking, and some nice wire work for jumping from tree to tree and such.

Vampires often live in the pacific northwest, because it is overcast all the time, hence they can go about during daytime hours without much trouble. They are not harmed by the sun in this version of vampirism, they just glow in a bit of an alien way, which would call a lot of attention to them if humans saw it.

A particular vampire "family" lives in a nice big house with large open windows, and they call themselves "vegetarians" because they do not feed on people, just animals. They seem to spend a lot of time reading and listening to music and jumping around in the trees in the forest, since they have a lot of time on their hands given they never sleep (and they own no coffins, and have no trouble with religion, or garlic, or being invited into a house).

So basically, Twilight vamps get all of this cool stuff from being vampires, and marginal hassles at best. Because, y'know, vampires are just cooler and better than humans, and everyone should want to be one. For the nerd in me, it's that kind of pandering, that total lack of parity, that is off-putting. I can't stand characters that have all the perks in the world and whatever challenges they have are to a large extent self-induced.