I’m definitely on the Twilight bandwagon, and ever since the Twilight movie came out, i’ve been wanting to see it. I thought i might get a chance to take my 12-year old cousin during the christmas break, since she told me at Thanksgiving that she wanted to see it. The group that ended up going was: me, my mom, my aunt, the 12 year old cousin, and a 19 year old male cousin. None of them had read the book. My mom may even have had a preexisting bias against the series, because she heard it described as Harry Potter for girls, and she is not a fan of Harry Potter.
My reactions and comments – Bella was cast perfectly. I wasn’t impressed with Edward until he smiled for the first time. Dr. Cullen was a hot hot hottie. I really enjoyed the interpretations of the rest of the Cullens as well; Alice was particularly well-done. I liked that the movie really downplayed the petty dramas with the students at the school. I loved that they really fleshed out the development of the relationship between Edward and Bella. I loved the baseball scene and the introduction of James, Victoria and Laurent. Overall, i just really enjoyed the movie. I sensed there might be some awkwardness in a few situations for viewers who hadn’t read the book, but none of the others mentioned it.
Everyone else’s reaction – they loved it! They liked that it had no curse words and that the characters can’t do anything other than kiss a little. My mom and my aunt were both asking about the series, how many books there were, the name of the next book. We may have some converts.
One thing that struck me during this movie is how extremely well-suited these books are to the big screen. There were quite a few things about New Moon and Eclipse that i didn’t care for, but i can see those two books being made into quite excellent movies. It may be, for me, one of the rare cases where i like the movies better than the books.