CCCToad on 27/11/2009 at 20:35

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Thats true to a degree. I hate it because its popular.

However, its not just because its popular that I hate it. Its also a lot of crap. Now, there's a lot of crap literature(includuing movies and games) that I also have run into, but don't hate. The difference is that the crap literature I mentioned is, unlike Twilight, widely unknown and/or regarded as crap.

What I hate is rabid fanboyism/fangirlism for a crappy series. I especially hate it when the enthusiasm is so rabid that it negatively affects future entertainment.

A good example is Halo and Regenerating health. Due to Halo's popularity, regenerating health became a staple of FPS games. Due to regenerating health, Developers could no longer make games a challenge by forcing player to carefully measure out their supplies against their health (ie, do I use my limited grenades to kill quickly or risk losing too much health?). As a result, the dominant level design technique is to throw huge numbers of enemies at the player while adjusting how much cover is available. The end result is that FPS games(aside from tactical ones) give me much less of a mental workout than they used to. Thanks to COD, devs now seem to think that infinite enemies are cool(its not fun, just a dull slogging feeling).

My point is that when crap becomes elevated to flash fad status, it can have a detrimental effect on future work. I think its safe to say that as a result of twilight, we can see a whole lot more crappy vampire films and books a few more years down the road.

Muzman on 27/11/2009 at 21:09

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Well your average male under 25 would hate everything that's not their favourite hard core rock act, so that covers most of it.
The rest are just perplexed to such a level it makes them angry. I mean, I don't get why people go so nuts for Britney Spears, but it comes, it goes, you can safely ignore it. This, however, is all encompassing. Scores of women in their forties! Not apparently all idiots either.
With, say, Beatle Mania everyone eventually had to admit that these guys really knew what they were doing, even if they didn't like the results. But no one much over 14yrs thinks these books are any good. They make Harry Potter look like great literature (not that I think HP's bad at all). Even people who read only Wilbur Smith and Dan Brown think they're crap. And they still read them! Ok, so its pulp teen romance fantasy escapism, with vampires. But that stuff's always been there. Jeez there's plenty of it around now. A quick glance around the TV and movie properties being developed will show a slew of similar material coming along in the wake of Twilight, but most of it derived from older, similar stuff you never heard of.
Why this self righteous obsessive wallowing in fandom; why so widespread; why over this (peculiarly terrible thing) in particular; and why now?

These are the questions that could drive a person to insanity! (note to self: concoct spoof sketch likening Twilight to Necronomicon and do nothing with it.)

I don't think it's going to do any great harm to the world, for what it's worth. It even makes me a bit optimistic that there's a mass desire for romantic stuff. I had thought we were all supposed to be ruthless social economists these days. And it might even get some 14yr old to read some better stuff one day.
But, as I say, it's perplexing.

Muzman on 27/11/2009 at 21:45

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Yeah, there is a element of "I can't quite grasp just how long it's been since the last one". I don't think it was ever quite this large though. There's an extra quality to this (which many will lay at the feet of it chaste mormon porn et al. And maybe it is)

Kolya on 28/11/2009 at 04:08

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Well I just watched the first Twilight movie with my girlfriend and none of us were exactly charmed by it. Everything about it looked like made for TV, the story, the acting, the effects. Some cute moments, like when the vampires cook Italian or when he pretends to sleep at the hospital, but most of the time it just dragged on.

Notes:
- American highschools seem to make everyone really awkward.
- There was some conflict with one of his "sisters" I'd like to have seen elaborated upon, but then the non-veggie vampires came in the way.
- When Edward says "I'm going to show you what I really look like" and walks into the sun you expect him to burn/become an ugly monster/die but not to sparkle a bit. What a let-down.

All in all it wasn't very bad just a bit boring. I don't think I want to read the books or watch the second movie though. I can't say I missed the sex. Sex scenes are so often cut, especially when it's made for a young audience, and when they suddenly lay on that flowery meadow it was easy enough to imagine that they just had sex.

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There is a vampire movie I can very much recommend and yeah it's from the 80s but I don't think too many of you have seen it, despite the fact that several actors from "Aliens" play in it:
In Near Dark ((http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093605/) imdb) a smalltown guy falls for (http://pagesperso-orange.fr/vampyrworld/jphotoneardark.htm) a girl who turns out to be part of a travelling vampire gang with Lance Henriksen as their head. Bloodshed ensues.

frozenman on 28/11/2009 at 05:54

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Sold!

HENRIKSENNN