Twilight: Romantic Love Story, or Only Half the Story?

I, like many others, read and loved the Twilight Saga. I was instantly taken in and very quickly became an advocate for Team Edward. The story engaged me to the point where all I did was read. It took me a day to read the first two books, Twilight and New Moon, and then to my immense displeasure, I had to take a break to actually go and buy the next two. A few days later, I was able to do so, and I started in on Eclipse right away. I read it in two days, and Breaking Dawn in three. I was devastated when it was over. I had thrown myself so completely into the series that I felt like a part of me was missing. I would talk for hours about the series to anyone who would listen, and especially loved talking about it to my friends who had also read and loved it. I even went as far as raving about it to the customers I checked out at Target, where I work as a cashier, as often as I could. Then the movie’s trailers started to show on TV.

Obviously, I was interested, as any Twilight fan would be that the movie was finally drawing near. In fact, it seems that to most people, the movie was the reason they decided to read the series. (This was not my reason, however – I had begun reading Twilight a few years back, but didn’t ever have time to really get into it, and then my friend persuaded me to finally go back to it.) Kristen Stewart was a nice choice for Bella, I thought, but I wasn’t so sure about Robert Pattinson. Although many others thought he was perfect – as we all saw on the news – I didn’t think he matched the Edward in my head – or even came close to matching him. Nonetheless, I gave him the benefit of the doubt, and I went to see the movie.

I was highly disappointed with what I saw.

Not only does Robert Pattinson not compare to the Edward Cullen in my own image of him, but the whole movie seemed so…botched. It had its own added scenes, and hardly any of the real ones that I loved so much in the book. And of course it was all so highly exaggerated and just plain wrong. I felt like it happened too fast. One moment, Bella doesn’t even know who this Edward Cullen is. Then all of a sudden, his vampire-ness is out, and they are in love. It skipped tons of scenes that should have happened in between that time, scenes that are very important in understanding and identifying with the concept of Edward and Bella’s love for each other. If you are a fan of the Twilight series, maybe you understand what I mean. But for those who haven’t, I don’t want to give anything away. But I would like to end this with this message: If you see the movie, and you like it…please, do read the books. I guarantee you will love it so much more. And if you haven’t seen the movie but have read the books…try to keep an open mind, because you will probably need it.