carole's corner

before starting the series about two months ago, i had only laughed at the twilight movies with my friends and cousin (who read the books when the series came out). the movies were just another example of an exaggerated teen rom-com to me (and to many others who watched them). but, after reading the series and rewatching all five movies, i look at them in a new light.

the books

firstly, i liked all the characters more in the books. obviously, like many book-to-movie adaptations, you lose a sense of the characters as a lot of their internal narration is lost. bella is at least somewhat more tolerable, although her pension for self-deprecation and severe attachment to edward is frustrating after reading thousands of pages of it.

i love seeing more into the characters surrounding the epic love of bella and edward. i know we get a hint of the cullens’ backgrounds in the movies, but they’re nowhere near as enlightening to their characters as the books. the entire native american tradition of the quileute tribe members, including the cultural significance of jacob’s branching off, is much richer in the books (i didn’t even know a third of breaking dawn is from jacob’s perspective until reading it).

stephenie meyer really makes the reader feel as connected as one possibly could to a cast of vampires and werewolves. obviously, there’s just some things you can’t relate to, like bella’s lack of significant reaction to the supernaturals around her, but her relationships with her human friends are very high school. personally, the jessica love-hate relationship was one of the most interesting side plots in the entire series because it just felt so much more real than a lot of the other dealings we were exposed to.

plus, the infamous “love triangle” isn’t really a part of the books, as bella is obviously older than and not romantically interested in jacob at all. in fact, jacob supports her as she reels in the absence of edward during new moon. their relationship was an admirable girl-boy friendship, much of which was lost to the couple of “romantic” exchanges that were hyped up in the movies.

alice and charlie

in my opinion, alice and charlie were the saving graces of this saga. charlie provided so much comic relief in the book (i’m thinking of the spaghetti jar/microwave incident here) and his and bella’s relationship was so much more tender than on screen. he was more of a smart-ass too, giving bella a hard time about jacob and reacting more realistically in terms of her fast relationship with edward.

alice was also a much bigger part of the books.in edward’s absence, alice was there. she’s bella’s best girl friend, for sure, and she’s more than just a superficial-minded character. she acts as the buffer between the two intense lovers and a liaison between the vampire and human worlds for bella. she proves to be so much more of a team-player than you truly see in the movies. her absence in breaking dawn is so much more dire, because the reader begins to depend on her almost as much as bella does.

the reason i even mention these two in their own section is the impact they had on my view of the saga as a whole. where twilight is wattpad-esque (this series was definitely the blueprint for most of the stories on that website), these two humanize the story more. bella is just a teenage girl who sneaks out from her loving, though slightly disconnected, father. alice is just her boyfriend’s well-meaning sister, who gives her brother a hard time to garner brownie points.

the movies

you have to admit the impact the twilight movies had on my generation. they’re bagged on (and i totally get why), but they never cease to entertain. while they pretty much take out all the content that isn’t directly edward-bella related, the movies do a good job informing non-readers of the story. plus, if you binge them all at once, the dramatic increase in quality with every new addition is even funnier to watch.

this post was a little short than i hoped, but i put it off for so long that i lost a lot of what i wanted to talk about. i didn’t want to forgo the post completely, because i did promise it to you all. if i decide to read another iconic series for the first time, i will be much more prompt! have a good day!