But more than remind me of New Moon, the Deathly Hallows scene just made me think about the ENORMOUS difference in quality between the two film series. Harry Potter is just in a completely different universe than Twilight when it comes to quality - not just in movie-making but in storytelling as well. I will admit that I haven't read the HP books, and I only started watching the movies because my cousin Katie forced me to go with her to see the first few back when they first came out (she was a huge fan of the books). I've always found the movies entertaining, but I think I'm gaining much more appreciation for them in these last two or three films. I think it's partly because the themes are a bit more "adult" as the characters get older ... so the movies go from being "cute" to actually being compelling on a more general level. I haven't seen HP7.5 yet but it's out now and I plan to see it next week. HP7.0 was great and it really got me wanting to see the next (and last) one. And maybe after this I'll finally get around to reading the books. ;-)
I also have to admit that I haven't read the Twilight books either, and those I don't plan to read because I've seen the movies and they are just ... lame. It goes back to my complaint in my last blog entry about Bella Swan being the weakest lead character I have ever seen. Now again, my not having read the books means that whatever I say here has to be taken with a few grains of salt. Katie has read the books and she did enjoy the first couple, so they can't be THAT terrible. A book allows you to get into the lead character's head and really feel their thoughts and motivations behind everything they do, which would probably allow me to find Bella Swan at least a little bit more relatable. Maybe ... I dunno. But I suspect that to some extent, the movies may be exposing the weaknesses in the overall story that are not so apparent when you read the books, because the movies to some extent have to strip the books down to their basics. Otherwise you'd wind up with like a 6 hour movie for each book. That's just my theory though.
Anyway the second thing that I saw which triggered me to post this entry was a quote by Stephen King that showed up in my Twitter feed today. At first I wasn't sure if the quote was real, but I googled it and from what I could tell ... it seems to be a real Stephen King quote. It goes like this:
"Harry Potter is about doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." -Stephen King
Dude. So true. I mean look, I love a good romance story as much as the next girl, but what turns me off about Twilight is that I think that's ALL the entire series is about. It's the center of the story. And to make matters worse, Bella is a character who spends her entire life just waiting for some guy to save her. She can't do anything for herself; she needs the guy to do all the brave/hard stuff. That's what drives me nuts.
Hahah I mean look at her in the above picture ... she's just like, "AAHH Oh Edward save me, I so scurrrred!! What do I do!? Fly me to your vampire paradise Eddie!! EEEEK!!" I can't respect this chick for that. And I think I tend to prefer books/tv shows/movies that are about something compelling, with the romance piece as a subplot that grows out of the circumstances that the characters are put in.
The funny thing is that if there's anything that the HP movies don't do well, it's the romance part haha ... there are romances in them, but the movies don't do a great job of making you care much about them. I think it's because they have so much story to fit into the movies from the books that it's hard to squeeze a ton of the romance stuff in there too. But the point is that I don't even mind that, for two reasons:
a) The theme/story is very compelling in its own right
b) I really like the characters. They're not perfect because humans are not perfect, but I can have respect for each of them for their good qualities (same way it is in real life). One thing I find is that I tend to be more interested in character development than the actual storyline sometimes in the entertainment I watch/read. ;-)
I dunno, these characters just seem to have SO much more depth to them ... or maybe the bottom line is that I've always been kind of a geek and these characters are also fairly geeky, so maybe I just identify with them more. ;-) I also love that so many of the supporting characters are so great too. I mean who the hell would have thought that I ever would've cared about Dobby?? He was a little bit on the Jar-Jar Binks level in Chamber of Secrets, but when he came back in Deathly Hallows pt. 1, I loved him. He even got me choked up, and the character is entirely CGI!!
Anywho, thanks Harry Potter, for providing quality entertainment for the masses. :) Can't wait to see Deathly Hallows pt. 2 as soon as I get a chance.
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