New Moon vs New Moon

Don’t expect this to be a long one, since I don’t plan to repeat anything I said the last time I compared the movie to the book, but here we go.

The Good

A while back I mentioned that the Harry Clearwater character was important, but only in the movie and only if you’re someone like me. See, he was played by Graham Greene who played dynamite “expert” Edgar Montrose on The Red Green Show. I went to college in a city that actually had a pretty cool PBS affiliate, you see, and…yeah, you don’t care. Anyway, to be honest the movie also did a little more to set up his character, with Charlie hanging out with Harry instead of Billy a couple times. Not quite enough, but they tried more than Meyer. His death’s also tied into the plot; because he gets Victoria to come after him while trying to spare Charlie, as opposed to dying just to set up Edward getting the wrong idea (which still happens because of his death, sadly).

Uncle Red, you have 30 seconds to get Edgar to say this word: plotless.

I get even more of a sense that Bella’s not telling the whole story. Or at least the correct one. When she and Jessica to go to Port Angeles to catch a movie, Jessica’s the picture of friendliness, not doing it grudgingly at all. It’s only after Bella starts accepting invitations from lowlifes that Jessica starts to resent her. Coupled with the sense I already had that Bella wasn’t being entirely honest, it makes it sound like in the book, where we don’t know any better than what Bella tells us, she was implanting that reluctance on Jessica out of resentment. Maybe because Jessica’s prettier and more popular (Bella thinks she’s worthless, remember), or maybe Bella’s just jealous of someone who can get through the day without hallucinating her abusive ex-boyfriends.

I include this because it sums up the character perfectly in two words.

The Bad

In the name of all that’s holy, stop having Kristen Stewart read the artsy epigraph at the beginning of the movie. She can’t imbue them with any power, or maybe she can but she’s playing her character too well. You’ve still got time to save Breaking Dawn from this, Hollywood. Speaking of…

The movie’s even worse about the Shakesperian allusions than the book. Bella wakes up with a copy of Romeo and Juliet on her pillow, and Mike greets her at school with a “Wherefore art thou, Bella?” Which means they thought Meyer’s original writing was too subtle. Which makes me sad.

The Cullens don’t threaten Bella’s party attendance, but Alice goes through her stuff without asking. I want to like this character, but damn it, nobody’s making it easy on me. I don’t just dig through my friends’ shit unless it’s an emergency, and taking pictures of Bella’s birthday party with Bella’s own camera isn’t an emergency.

Kind of like the baseball game, the shirtless wolf-boys are something that’s even stupider with real people. At least it is to someone who’s not into bare-chested beefcakes. I mean, look at this…

This was kind of a double-edged sword, though. Seeing Edward getting his ass kicked by the Volturi was infinitely more enjoyable in live action.