Sunday, November 30, 2008

My impressions on my first REAL exposure to the literary juggernaut that is "Twilight"

Ok Sharon, so "Twilight" wasn't that bad. Was it as good as everyone made it out to be. Nope. Not in the least. But from a stand-alone point, it was ok.

Juggernaut is not necessarily a good or bad thing. It's fan base is just large. Raving girls are a scary thing.

So I saw the movie the other day. My talks with Miss K made me intrigued about this book. Not so much the book itself, but why it's so "awesome". What's the big deal, is what I say. When I first heard the premise of it, I was more confused than anything. My reaction along the lines went:

"It's a romance novel...with vampires. So...it's sex with vampires...?"

I think Michelle told me back in the summer. She made a big deal out of it. I ran the idea a couple of times after that and the more I thought about it, the weirder it sounded. As I was writing this on the train back to Rochester, it hit me that the Japanese stuff that I read are just as wacky. Just to name a few:
  • One Piece: Main character wants to be the pirate king. Devil Fruits give its eaters super powers ranging from manipulating the elements to manipulating one's own body, but in doing so prevents the eater from swimming. The weirdest power I can recall off the top of my head is being able to make any part of the body explode. Including boogers. Oda's retarded sometimes.
  • Eyeshield 21: Football manga. Main character is Japanese and can run 40 yards in 4.1 seconds. Not possible. Openly says that black people are naturally physically superior than Asians and White people.
  • BoBoBo: Nose-Hair Kung fu. 'Nuff Said.
I'd like to note that none of the above comics are taken seriously in their context, unlike "Twilight" =D.

Anyway, it wasn't until I spoke about it with Miss K where things got weirder and more interesting. Dwelling deeper into wiki, it became apparent that it was just more than "sex with vampires", and then "sex with emotional vampires". Nope. After watching the movie, I find why people, mostly tweens and teenagers, eat this stuff up. It's just adolecense and noobery in love, over-eggagerated. It's cute. It's lovey dovey and it plays with the emotions of its readers. Very entertaining. Especially when they talk about Edward Cullen, main male character and supposed vampire hottie. From what I'm told, he's supposed to be ultimate boyfriend material.

Why guys read this book I have no idea. Maybe they can tell me. Phil. I, for one, will not read it. It's not appealing enough. I have enough literature to read with school work and my japanese and american comics. I like my "Avengers" thank you very much.

I will say this though. I think kids at that age are just hormonal and just wants some of that high school lovin, hence the swooning over the imaginary super guy. Or maybe they really want genuine love, and have imagined their perfect match for the future. People can imagine, right?

So what about the movie? It's a movie you take someone a date with. Not exactly awesome, but I've seen much worse. It's also supposedly worse than the book. By how much, I'll never know. Sometimes the actors tried too hard to play their characters, and it got kinda cheesy at certain points, but I'm a sucker for love stories, so I was partial to it at times. With an obvious sequal in the loom, I for one, will look forward to it. Since I'm too lazy to read the books =D.

To end this, I'll leave you with some excerpts
Miss k: i know why she didnt describe them having sex now
me: lol
me: why
Miss K: because later on she turns into a vampire & when they have sex as vampires its even better
Miss K: it just helps the reader understand how big the difference is
Miss K: that like the human sex or whatever was so insignificant compared to how amazing vampire sex is
Miss K: it was a moment of literary genius !
Me: uh huh
Me: right =D
Miss K: it was !
Me: oh, i believe you
Me: cause yeah
Me: for real
Me: vampire sex is a whole lot better
Miss K: HAHAHAHAS
Me: Cause the author? She would totally know.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I'm used to liking unpopular things. I'm also willing to see where they fall short. Frequently, people write off a show or book by attempting to summarize it in one sentence, deeming that one sentence's concept as a bad thing, and therefore saying the show/book is not worthwhile. Frankly, I've had a lot of trouble reading books these past few years. It makes me very sleepy. In this case, I didn't read the book or see the movie. The problem I see here is that those who like it seem like they would be equally satisfied by fantasy-themed porn.