Movie Review!
It occurs to me that I actually did do one other thing when I was home for a long weekend recently: finally watched Breaking Dawn Part 1 with my Dad.
We get movies out of the local public library to watch so we're always way behind the times, haha. But I did watch it and it was fascinating to watch it with someone who had never read the book and knew nothing about it. My dad refused to bother reading it, he was like, no I am busy with Proust.
The thing is, after reading Breaking Dawn, I wondered how they would make this movie. Not because of the Alien-style birth and stuff. I mean you can put crazy shit in movies, or at least cut to black. But this book just has so much just...bizarre-ass shit. Like the scene during the wedding when Jacob freaks out because Bella tells him that she's planning to have sex with Edward before getting turned into a vampire, and he thinks Edward will break her in two with his superstrength. And I thought to myself, how could you have that line in a movie for thirteen-year-olds in what is intended as a fluffy romance? it's just...it would be so insane in the context of the fluffy happy dream wedding. Or the entire subplot where everyone wants to force Bella to have a vampire abortion, and Edward asks Jacob to negotiate with her, his plan is to...offer to let Bella have babies with Jacob as a substitute? Just...having that conversation in the movie. How would that happen.
As it turns out, it didn't. But the fascinating part is that they didn't rewrite it or anything. They left all those plotpoints the same...they just removed the problem dialogue. So the scene with Bella and Jacob at the wedding still happens just like in the book--they just make the conversation incredibly vague. I think Jacob taunts her about how her honey moon won't be a real honey moon and she's like 'it'll be real!' and Jacob goes 'you don't mean...ARGH WEREWOLF ARGH'. And my dad is like, what are they TALKING about? If you hadn't read the book, it was impossible to understand what was happening. It just seemed like this vague pointless conversation then FREAKOUTS. And that's what the whole movie is like. My dad's comment was that the movie could not be understood without an explanation by someone who had read the book. He spent most of it going 'what's going on? why are they doing this? what's happening?' because so much of it was low on dialogue, no exposition, just people reacting to events that are not shown or described at any point.
Even the bit where Edward accidentally covers Bella in bruises--you see the bruises, there's vague dialogue, but my dad was still like 'so what happened to her?' and then there's the entire montage after that where he's like 'why did it cut to this?' It is just not obvious what the problem is or what the characters are thinking.
It's in some ways a brilliant solution to the problem of all the weirdass shit in the book, because people who read the book will know what's happening. But it is really inaccessible for anyone else. Maybe they figured no one would see it without reading the book first. Still it's a bit lazy on the writers' parts.
I still want to see the second one, just because I find all of these movies hilarious. It's all the staring and the blank expressions. It just becomes comical.
I also watched the first hour or so of the Hunger Games, it was excruciatingly boring. Just...if you think Twilight has a lot of staring, Hunger Games takes this to the next level. Silent staring. It also has something of the same problem where very little is explained at all. For example, in the book an important plot point is that they can't get out into the forests around their town, or they aren't supposed to, because of the evil empire's soldiers. Well in the movie this is never really stated at all, and my dad finally says that the biggest plot hole is, why are they so poor when there is this bountiful forestland right there? Because the movie never makes it clear why they don't go out there! It seems like they just...don't want to.
I didn't watch most of the actual games part because I went up to bed, but apparently in the movie Katniss kills almost nobody and doesn't stalk after them either. So they did make her seem less sociopathic than in the book. Seriously the Hunger Games...just so bad in so many ways, the writing is so shitty, the movie was dull as fuck...and yet it is insanely popular. It isn't even funny like Twilight, it's just bad.
My bro loved the movie, of course. He loves all shitty action movies. At least the two of us can agree about Batman.
Although the third Batman movie had one serious plot point that I thought as a glaring missed opportunity. When they're in the prison pit, and nobody can make that last jump, my immediate thought was 'it would be easy to get out if you had a buddy to give you a boost on his shoulders'. Maybe I read too many shounen manga, I don't know, but it seemed just really obvious. The whole time I was expecting Batman to get out by teaming up with someone, but no, he just has to fear death or something.
Which was too bad because the rest of the movie focuses on all the characters teaming up, Catwoman learns to trust people, etc. It would have fit well. Plus it makes more sense out of Taliah's backstory--a child making the jump is somewhat implausible, but if Bane had boosted her up and then been injured when he fell back himself, that would make perfect sense.
So yeah! I rarely watch movies and when I do, it's ages after everyone else has already watched them. But I have OPINIONS about them. Unpopular opinions.
We get movies out of the local public library to watch so we're always way behind the times, haha. But I did watch it and it was fascinating to watch it with someone who had never read the book and knew nothing about it. My dad refused to bother reading it, he was like, no I am busy with Proust.
The thing is, after reading Breaking Dawn, I wondered how they would make this movie. Not because of the Alien-style birth and stuff. I mean you can put crazy shit in movies, or at least cut to black. But this book just has so much just...bizarre-ass shit. Like the scene during the wedding when Jacob freaks out because Bella tells him that she's planning to have sex with Edward before getting turned into a vampire, and he thinks Edward will break her in two with his superstrength. And I thought to myself, how could you have that line in a movie for thirteen-year-olds in what is intended as a fluffy romance? it's just...it would be so insane in the context of the fluffy happy dream wedding. Or the entire subplot where everyone wants to force Bella to have a vampire abortion, and Edward asks Jacob to negotiate with her, his plan is to...offer to let Bella have babies with Jacob as a substitute? Just...having that conversation in the movie. How would that happen.
As it turns out, it didn't. But the fascinating part is that they didn't rewrite it or anything. They left all those plotpoints the same...they just removed the problem dialogue. So the scene with Bella and Jacob at the wedding still happens just like in the book--they just make the conversation incredibly vague. I think Jacob taunts her about how her honey moon won't be a real honey moon and she's like 'it'll be real!' and Jacob goes 'you don't mean...ARGH WEREWOLF ARGH'. And my dad is like, what are they TALKING about? If you hadn't read the book, it was impossible to understand what was happening. It just seemed like this vague pointless conversation then FREAKOUTS. And that's what the whole movie is like. My dad's comment was that the movie could not be understood without an explanation by someone who had read the book. He spent most of it going 'what's going on? why are they doing this? what's happening?' because so much of it was low on dialogue, no exposition, just people reacting to events that are not shown or described at any point.
Even the bit where Edward accidentally covers Bella in bruises--you see the bruises, there's vague dialogue, but my dad was still like 'so what happened to her?' and then there's the entire montage after that where he's like 'why did it cut to this?' It is just not obvious what the problem is or what the characters are thinking.
It's in some ways a brilliant solution to the problem of all the weirdass shit in the book, because people who read the book will know what's happening. But it is really inaccessible for anyone else. Maybe they figured no one would see it without reading the book first. Still it's a bit lazy on the writers' parts.
I still want to see the second one, just because I find all of these movies hilarious. It's all the staring and the blank expressions. It just becomes comical.
I also watched the first hour or so of the Hunger Games, it was excruciatingly boring. Just...if you think Twilight has a lot of staring, Hunger Games takes this to the next level. Silent staring. It also has something of the same problem where very little is explained at all. For example, in the book an important plot point is that they can't get out into the forests around their town, or they aren't supposed to, because of the evil empire's soldiers. Well in the movie this is never really stated at all, and my dad finally says that the biggest plot hole is, why are they so poor when there is this bountiful forestland right there? Because the movie never makes it clear why they don't go out there! It seems like they just...don't want to.
I didn't watch most of the actual games part because I went up to bed, but apparently in the movie Katniss kills almost nobody and doesn't stalk after them either. So they did make her seem less sociopathic than in the book. Seriously the Hunger Games...just so bad in so many ways, the writing is so shitty, the movie was dull as fuck...and yet it is insanely popular. It isn't even funny like Twilight, it's just bad.
My bro loved the movie, of course. He loves all shitty action movies. At least the two of us can agree about Batman.
Although the third Batman movie had one serious plot point that I thought as a glaring missed opportunity. When they're in the prison pit, and nobody can make that last jump, my immediate thought was 'it would be easy to get out if you had a buddy to give you a boost on his shoulders'. Maybe I read too many shounen manga, I don't know, but it seemed just really obvious. The whole time I was expecting Batman to get out by teaming up with someone, but no, he just has to fear death or something.
Which was too bad because the rest of the movie focuses on all the characters teaming up, Catwoman learns to trust people, etc. It would have fit well. Plus it makes more sense out of Taliah's backstory--a child making the jump is somewhat implausible, but if Bane had boosted her up and then been injured when he fell back himself, that would make perfect sense.
So yeah! I rarely watch movies and when I do, it's ages after everyone else has already watched them. But I have OPINIONS about them. Unpopular opinions.