I thoroughly enjoyed the latest movie from the Twilight series, New Moon. If you know me at all, you know my deep and abiding love for both vampire stories and stories set in high schools, so this series forms a great combination. I’m not going to sit here and tell you why it isn’t lame for me to be into this stuff, though. If you’re not into the Twilight books and movies, catch up with me again tomorrow — I’ll still be slogging away at the keyboard for National Blog Posting Month!
OK then. Now that it’s just us fans left hanging around, I can tell you what I loved about the movie! Some spoilers ahead if you haven’t read the book. If you have read the book, nothing I tell you will surprise you, so feel free to proceed.
Edited to Add: Please move along if you have no interest in seeing the movie. Thanks.
I really was/am not a fan of Jacob in the books. The way he’s written, he just seems to me to be annoying and not even very cute. In the movies, on the other hand, I kind of love Jacob. Taylor Lautner made him much more likeable in the first movie, even with that annoying wig on. (Luckily in New Moon he goes to his own naturally short hair.) He just seems to be such an easy-wheeling kind of guy, and the scenes between Jacob and Bella had great chemistry.
JACOB: Wait, why am I wearing this shirt? BELLA: Good question.
The rest of the werewolf pack added their own certain something to the film, if you know what I am saying, Ladies, and I think that you do.
Oh, indeed. That is better.
As in Twilight, I also really enjoyed the other high-school characters when they were around. The awkward date with Mike and Jacob was done really well, and Jessica was hilarious in her scenes once again.
Subtle, guys. Subtle.
For me, the biggest improvement made in New Moon was the near absence of Bella’s voice-over narration. I hated that element in Twilight. It felt as if we had to sit and listen to Kristen Stewart read out the whole entire novel in all its silly prose. This time the filmmakers made the wise decision to limit that, and to give it some additional structural purpose above and beyond just voice-over narration (we hear Bella reading emails she has sent to Alice and see them being bounced back to her, unopened).
The makeup and special effects were also much better this time around. I think they had a bigger budget and it showed. The sparkling was more readable on screen and the vampires actually looked creepily supernatural as opposed to just weirdly pale like they did in Twilight (where paleness seemed to be the rule for all the characters anyway, making it not even really that weird).
My only problem with the movie was that this time around they opted to film in British Columbia instead of in Oregon — and while sure, most viewers can’t tell the difference, it means that I can’t anoyingly nudge people while watching the film and be all “HEY THAT’S IN OREGON YOU KNOW. I USED TO LIVE THERE. IT REALLY IS THAT PRETTY.”
While I’m thinking of things that could be described as “pretty,” here is a picture of Robert Pattinson.
Oh, who, me?
I realized I didn’t have one in this review and thought to myself, “TRAVESTY.” So there it is — no need to thank me!
I quite like the soundtrack, too. While I think they really missed an opportunity by not including Blitzen Trapper’s “Furr” (C’mon! It’s a Pacific Northwest band, singing a sad song about a were-dog looking for love. Seriously.), they did include a lot of great artists, such as Thom Yorke, Lykke Li, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Bon Iver, and more. It’s pretty all right.
Here’s the big single, Death Cab for Cutie’s “Meet Me on the Equinox.” The first time I heard this video it was on MTV’s morning show, where they actually play videos, called “AMTV.” I looked up from my breakfast at the first sounds of Ben Gibbard’s voice, and Reader, you had better believe I squeed like a 12-year-old girl when I saw that not only was it a new DCFC song but it was from the New Moon sountrack. That pretty much made my morning. Here you go:
[Sorry about the stupid ad you have to watch there. Also, the video is not available on YouTube due to copyright stuff, so if you’re outside the US and unable to see this MTV-based embed, um, I don’t know what to tell you! Sorry! ]
Raveling Out 
I am refraining from my typical rant on this subject to ask a few questions, just to satisfy my common-sense approach to all things supernatural. I really do hope you enjoyed the movie, even if you were surrounded by crazy popcorn eating people packed in like sardines.
1) I understand the need to be mostly naked when you’re about to turn into a werewolf or whatever, but shouldn’t you wear more forgiving pants for such a transformation? All those jean shorts and cargo shorts and chino shorts look like they’d hurt a young werewolf, especially in the personal areas, since (from the preview I curse at daily) they seem to burst forth from their trousers all Hulk-like. Not the personal areas, but just in general. I’m thinkin’ good old-fashioned sweatpants.
2) Shouldn’t a human transforming into a wolf or dog-like creature still retain some of his or her human qualities? I feel the werewolf looks too wolfy, the fur too fluffy and fraggle rock.
3) Why does Edward run around all bare-chested and pale? Someone who doesn’t have blood flowing in his veins as he is (un)DEAD should be wearing something more substantial, unless he’s about to partake in some hay-rolling. Which, being a vampire, he shouldn’t be able to do, from a physiological standpoint. Don’t get me started. And that’s another book anyway, right?
Ok. That’s all.
1) I believe I might twist your arm into going to see this with me again this weekend. If that wouldn’t be too torturous for you. Heh.
2) I need to buy that soundtrack, although I too bemoan the absence of “Furr.”
3) @rubyverbena: I appreciate your restraint knowing how you loathe this subject (hahaha, @luvinstu & I were ROLLING over the twitter convo between you two the other night about this.) If memory serves, the were-hotness-boys in the book often go off into the woods & strip before they change. Is this correct? Am I remembering right. I imagine it would break some decency laws to have those boys naked on the posters.
I have to say I thought the same thing about the appearance of the wolfboys, but they are EXTREMELY large, so that alone makes them different from plain old wolves. I don’t much care if they retain any of their human appearance. Also, this native american tribe is supposedly descended from actual wolves, not the supernatural creatures that ARE werewolves. That said, I’m not even sure they ever technically refer to themselves as werewolves, although everyone else does, of course.
And tres: Edward is generally clothed in the first film, although I can’t attest to the 2nd yet. I do know that his main action in the 2nd book was to expose himself in the sunlight to a huge crowd, thus the need for being unclothed, which perhaps this poster refers to.
Ahem, sorry to hijack your comments, Vague, but I… well, I did. Please to amend anything I forgot or wrongly assumed.
4) With all the hype over this movie, I am considering switching to Team Jacob myself, for the same reasons you list above.
Yeah, it’s all pretty much explained if you read the book and/or see the movie, so I wasn’t going to answer those questions. C, thanks for taking care of that for me! Oh, and I would definitely see it again.
Dr. Vague is mad at me.
Sorry, I can’t help that I don’t like it. It’s the same reaction I have to the Grateful Dead. It’s totally bizarre.
I am mostly concerned that Vampires have gone from being feared, malevolent creatures of darkness to major emo wimps. If I recall from what I’ve been told, this Edward Cullen person lives in the forest, doesn’t drink human blood, and sparkles rather than melts in the sunlight. To my mind, that makes him a Fairy rather than a Vampire. And that’s fine, I mean, you can be whatever kind of mythical creature you want, but if you’re going to call yourself Nosferatu you’d better drink some damned blood, kill/enslave some damsels, and the people you bite sure as hell better come back as the undead. If you’re all into stalking and pining and being all sad, well, go cut yourself, emokid.
Did no one read the first two paragraphs?
If you don’t like a book or movie that I like, don’t expect me to defend it to you and don’t be rude to me about it.