Twilight: The Movie, Not the Book

Well, it's time folks. Time to put down the pages and look up at the screen. Stephanie Meyer's record-breaking literary success had been released as a movie by Summit Entertainment.

Out of respect to the fans I have done my best to keep spoilers away from the following words.

I discovered Twilight, and its four subsequent books this past summer, shortly before the final novel, Breaking Dawn, was released. I was immediately entranced by the world of vegetarian vampires, wayward teenagers, and shape-shifting Native Americans. I am rarely as intoxicated by a story as I was by the Twilight Saga. I read each other the books in mere days, something I have never done with a series of this size, not even Harry Potter.

So, like the rest of the (dare I say it) Twihard community, I have anxiously awaited this movie more than any holiday, birthday, or event I can remember (well, possibly the birth of my son).

So, after months of scanning chat rooms, websites, and Hot Topic stores, I paid ten dollars for a ticket, and waited in line for over two hours with a hundred screaming teenagers. But OME was it worth it!

The movie was far from a disappointment. The story, the characters, even the sets were incredibly true to the words of the novel. Only a few major changes and they are understandable. The biggest change is we see warnings of the three nomadic vampires (James, Laurent, and Victoria) early in the movie. They aren't mentioned in the book until a few chapters before their appearance. Also, a few conversations from the book are broken up, to keep a better pace and make the scene more visually appealing. The right words are still there. There is an absence of a few of my personal favorite lines though, such as "Do I dazzle you?" (spoken by Edward on p.168) and "I'm betting on Alice" (p. 480). I also noticed that neither Bella nor Edward say they love each other. I mean, sure, you don't want to be sappy, and it's only said in the book a couple of times, but I don't remember the actual words in the movie at all.

But on the positive, Edward is gorgeous, and sparkly as ever, Bella is clumsy, and perfectly co-dependent, and Mike Newton is...well, let's just say Michael Welch can shake it.

So Twilight meets my approval. The only goal now is to see it as many times as possible in order to ensure Summit reaches its goal of $150 million dollars and approves the making of New Moon.