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In Defense of TWILIGHT & the oh so dreamy Edward...
Hey folks, Harry here... I recently read a piece over at CHUD.com titled 'Fuck This Face' and being all about the mania and increasing tsunami of estrogen aimed in the general direction of TWILIGHT, the upcoming film from Summit Entertainment based upon the first of the books by Stephenie Meyer.
Now - I haven't read the books, but they are in the room I'm writing to you from. My wife, Yoko, has read them - the first one, multiple times. 2 ex-girlfriends of mine love them and an additional... about 20 girls I know are also a part of the cult of TWILIGHT.
I remember where it all started for my wife. We were in TARGET, I was picking up a few BluRays I wanted, when - as we were passing the book section she says, loudly, "I want to check this out!"
Now, I know - she married me, she must be a hardcore geek, but she really isn't... not for this sort of thing. For the last two years she's been addicted to books on the Music Industry - regarding the business of the Music Industry - from way back, to the current state of affairs. It's her primary interest. She asked me what I thought about her reading the book, and I told her my honest feelings. "If you buy it, you're going to become an addict." She laughed at me, and became a Twilight Addict.
Now I know what you think, you think that I'm defending TWILIGHT because of YOKO, but frankly... she really has nothing to do with it. In fact, right now she's watching our Blu-Ray of Poltergeist and thinks I'm working on the DVD column.
No, I'm writing about this because I find it fascinating how threatening a segment of Male fan culture gets over something that they simply assign the term, "gay" or "tween".
Let's see if I can explain why this is so good for all of us.
Think of TWILIGHT as a "Gateway Geek Experience" for an audience that was previously, not necessarily devout geeks.
I witnessed this at a FANGORIA CONVENTION earlier this year with the series SUPERNATURAL - I've seen it before with BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, FIREFLY, BEAUTY & THE BEAST, THE BIONIC WOMAN, WONDER WOMAN, LORD OF THE RINGS and many more.
All of these phenoms led women to de-flower a geek. TWILIGHT will lead young ladies and their MILFS and Older Sisters not only to TWILIGHT, NEW MOON, ECLIPSE and the odd BREAKING DAWN... but perhaps to LOST BOYS, EVIL DEAD 2, DEAD ALIVE and on and on and on.
Fandom needs franchises and phenomenons like TWILIGHT, it brings people to the wider world of fandom. It leads them into FAN ORIENTATED STORES like Comic Shops, it takes them to the Action Figure aisles, into the video stores and... Maybe, just maybe, to you.
THEN THERE'S THIS...
TWILIGHT might be a whole helluvalot of fun. I trust Catherine Hardwicke, her first film THIRTEEN was an incredibly honest and vital work of cinema - and having a director that comes at film from a real and emotional honesty. Yes, this is less HORROR and more FANTASY ROMANCE, but show a girl that loves TWILIGHT, HELLBOY - and you might suddenly have a connection.
Acting like a jealous prick, just because of the "pretty boy" nature of it. Well, hope that keeps you warm at night.
How do I discuss TWILIGHT with my wife? Playfully. I bring up, "What if it sucks?" and she's completely prepared that there's no way it'll be as good as the book. And if I don't like the film, I'll give the book a read, just so I can see what it is that's missing between the two.
If you haven't read the book, you might want to give the film a chance. Sure, it looks like it is going to be crazy at the theaters, but I guarantee - good or bad, it'll be an experience worth experiencing.
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It was called "Interview with the Vampire". I can see why Harry Potter has crossover appeal - it's a melting pot of a bunch of stuff from fantasy genres (sure, some say it's ripped off point by point from Books of Magic but that's neither here nor there, just crackpots) so you can't readily see the influence. I see Twilight, I see Interview with the Vampire. With more emo haricuts. I'm sorry, but no way this'll be as big a Potter in crossover YA/geek fiction. Looks like a snore, quite frankly, and it's been done.
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Look how good that shit turned out to be. Shit. That's what it was. Gimmie my monster vampires. Hell, I wasn't the biggest fan of 30 Days of Night, but I at least kind of dug how the vampires didn't piss and moan and get all romantic. They just chomp, chomp, chomp.
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I have a problem with the blind devotion and hype and mania....
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Still don't understand why any guy would care...
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It teaches young women that it's okay to change who you are for a boy, and to want to die if your first relationship doesn't work out. This is what my girlfriend tells me, and I toe this line precisely.
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I say get rid of the fucking Wiccan Emos. My parents always told me to stop stepping on my bottom lip when I pouted. How in THE FUCK did a whole generation of these Marilyn Manson looking fucks get to have so much sad power?
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hilarious that a site run (and designed, apparently) by a basement full of perpetual teenage boys should rip on something because it's embraced by teenage girls...the pot calling the kettle a virgin.
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Oct 20, 2008 12:08:45 AM CDT
I don't like it because its Palinesque ABSTINENCE PROPAGANDA!!
by dannyglovers_dickblood
So FUCK THIS. And FUCK right-wing wacko fucks trying to tell people how to live. Fuck all you want kids...just double bag that...you don't know where that bitch has been.
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Twilight will not get nerds laid.
get over yourself. -
Oct 20, 2008 12:10:05 AM CDT
But the books suck ass, this movie has no chance of beng good
by mr. moe
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If its good, then defend it on the merits of it being good, if its shit, its shit. But this half assed idea that it needs to be put up with as some kind of way of mainstreaming "geek culture" is idiotic, and writing a whole article, not about the book, not about the movie, but about that idea is even dumber.
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Oct 20, 2008 12:13:48 AM CDT
I don't want a poser geek on my true geek cock
by dracula_wants_the_amulet
Gateway Mpppfff. Who needs them. Gateway Geeks be Gone! I don't need or want to know any hardcore Harry Potter fans. I have a niece and nephew who like the film's and I'm real sure they will not care much for them in 10 years time. Sorta like how I don't care for home alone, or the neverending story, but I liked it when I was a kid. These films they are throw away shit for a 5 minutes old already throw away society of people who are trapped in a land of wish it was back then when shit was cool, cause new shit today is only cool for a few minutes. We aint making new movies, we are remaking them. We are retreading explored subject and tossing in today sad collective pop culture winks into the mix. I'm tired of people thinking that todays equivelent of what was my era's Goosebumps and Afraid of the Dark type material will be legendary lik. It wont. I will do well for a few years, and die quietly when it audiance matures, becuase none of this shit takes the total whole of the material seriously. Princess Bride this is not!
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Oct 20, 2008 12:14:57 AM CDT
I hope this works for the young geeks as Harry predicts.
by stereotypical evil archer
I also think Harry Potter has broken some ground into the female demographic. I've bonded with women over Firefly and Serenity. The same with Rome and Battlestar.I work in a department store so most of my friends are young women and they're always eager to go to a movie, watch a DVD, or talk about cool genre stuff. So if Twilight does what Harry suspects it will then those you ten years younger than me may have a chance to be allowed into the world of women.Me? I'm not interested in Twilight but if a girl asks me to go, then I'm going.TallBoy66, vampire stories from the last 30 years helped create this whole "emo" thing, which is really just a stratification of what was once just called "goth." New caste systems are being developed all the time.
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...unless it's a Prequel, the Matrix sequels, Metal Gear Solid 4, any film, television and/or media property involving George Lucas or any television series past its second season, unless it's created by the great, unsung poet-laureates of our time: Joss Whedon, Parker & Stone or Gendy Tartakovsky.
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...but the film just looks like utter shit. That's not me irritated by all the screaming teen girls crying over these books, that's my honest film critique of a trailer that looks like a really awful made-for-TV sci-fi movie. That is why I'll be skipping this movie, not because of its subject matter.
Look, I'm always willing to give children's fantasy movies a chance. I have never read City of Ember but I LOVED the look of the trailer and still intend to see it, despite the reviews. I have fallen for the Harry Potter series (Have you read those books yet, Harry? - please do) and have seem multiple random children fantasies because they seem to be all the rage lately.
Twilight just looks. like. shit. Really, really bad shit. I have no intentions to see it unless it is phenomenally well critiqued because on a personal level, they have no sold me whatsoever. -
I see where you are coming from, and to be honest I haven't read the books, but was curious when the first trailer debuted, and honestly I assumed it would have to be somewhat decent due to so many of my own female friends being captivated by it.
But, after seeing that trailer, I gotta say it looks terrible. Im not attacking Twilight the novel, persay, but as a movie this thing looks very poorly crafted. Lets be honest, if this weren't tied to a successful line of books already, we would be writing this off as The Covenant/Blood and Chocolate.
I'm still up for giving Twilight the novel a go,and even if it weren't my thing, I'm not going to demonize it. My guess though, from the trailers, is that when this thing is actually released, it isnt going to be the grumpy male geek contingent out there tearing this thing a new one. It's going to be the diehard addict fans.
I hope I'm wrong. I hope Twilight actually turns out to be good, and that the novels are for a larger audience than the obvious one. Right now though, I honestly think it's the quality of the work(in this case the film) that is enflaming the urge to hate on it. If the work holds up, then some of this whining and moaning will dissipate. But as of right now, I see a probably lackluster product coming our way. And while Hardwicke did make Thirteen(a movie I ddint care for) she also made The Nativity Story which was nine different kinds of overblown and overwrought. And if someone can screw over The Dark is Rising, it's likely they can find a way to annihilate anything inherently interesting or good that might exist in the book. -
I had totally dismissed this film, Harry, but your piece did exactly as you intended it to - look at it in a different way. I'm not necessarily going to seek it out in theaters, but if somebody wants to show it to me on DVD, well, I'll sit back and give it a fair shot. I have yet to see Catherine Hardwicke's Thirteen, but I don't think Lords of Dogtown gets nearly enough love. She had a serious misstep with The Nativity Story, but all in all, I think her head's screwed on straight as a director and I trust that she's going to try to get the best out of this material.
Thanks again, Harry! -
I don't know anything about Twilight, but I was way into Anne Rice's Vampire series and her Mayfair Witches series back in the day and the summer before I turned 18 while working as a sleepaway camp counselor, an insanely hot girl with giant wonderful banana shaped tits saw me reading Anne Rice...we got to talking about the books and we ended up hooking up and fucking our brains out all summer long and even most of my freshman semester at college since she was within driving distance. Here's one of my keys to life to you younger guys -- finding hot girls into fantasy films/books is one of the greatest scores you'll ever make since they believe in the power of romance and they want to have sex just as bad as you do and are willing to do extremely naughty things in the heat of it all. I dated a lot of chicks like this. The kind of girl who you take to see Lynch's Mullholland Drive and will go down on you in the theater while Naomi Watts and the brunette chick get it on. You want girls to find geeky fantasy franchises to get into. It's a very good thing.
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It was shit.
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that you're saying that getting people into geek shit is worth it if it gets you laid. How about you saying that getting people into awesome shit because its fucking awesome is worth it? Why do you have to act like a fourteen year old with a permanent hard on?
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...I'd prefer a cool geek woman who recognizes this for the inferior strain of sci-fi/fantasy that it is and didn't need it as a "gateway."
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But I can understand it. My girlfriend's read them all. She didn't care for the last one and I doubt she'll want to see it in theaters. We both enjoyed Charlie Huston's vampire series WAY better. Joe Pitt is fucking awesome!
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and The Backstreet Boys, Boys To Men, Anothe rBad Creation, and Scott Biao. Where's that love now... This shit is the same fucking thing. It's Anne Rice Wannabe Tripe with some Teen Soap Opera Elements tossed in with tons of pop culture winks. It's going to have 15 minutes and then it will soon be forgotten and ignored like those other sensations. Girls don't support like we do. They go nuts over some dumb fucking shit too. I'm calling Kick-Ass the New Kids on The Block MArtin wannabe for us She-Man's. That film is based on a great idea that's was developed in a mind incapable of really doing it any sort of justice. Martin will always hold the candle on this subject matter of turning into something for no real goddamn reason.
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Vampires should be destroyed at all costs. The whole concept of "good" vampires just pisses me off. They aren't beautiful, lonely creatures who are just misunderstood, it suppose to SEEM that way to lure you in...but once you're a vampire, you're a demon..a monster...and I don't give a shit how sad you are...you gotta be stopped. You know what Twilight needs? BLADE! That's right...or even better...Peter Vincent! It's just the fact that my favorite monsters get nuetered and lose what the hell they're suppose to be about. I don't mind different takes on the genre, Near Dark, Coppolas Dracula, but for me...this whole Twilight thing is just a cheesy (and it looks really cheap) lame kind of cliche attempt at something that's been done a billion times before...and you know what's worse than an emo goth vampire? Fucking TEENAGE emo goth vampires...stake them all, squirt them with holy water, throw them in a tub full of garlic and lets get on with our lives huh?
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is a wildly UNEVEN director, her invovlement gives me no confidence. Thirteen was a good start she follows that up with Lords of Dogtown which was ok, then the Navity Story which was really uneven, and now this that looks from the trailers, only a couple of steps above TV movie of the week
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Would be like Salems Lot and Needful Things. A ugly fucking creepy old man buys an old victorian house in a small quiet town. He has trucks showing up for the next few weeks with tons of coffin sized boxes. And then one night everything fails the phones the the power the roads are blocked off by big fucking trucks and these ugly beasts, with rotting flesh and deformed hands and legs lay sieze to the town. then you go all The village and shit and it's several years later and the town is like nothing bad ever happened and all thos epeople we saw attcked look ok. Nothing explained. Some people come into the town lost looking for directions. They decide to spend the night at the local hotel- which is that house now. You all know what happens next the people in the town have food to eat. Somethign anything like that with none of this supermodel loathsome goth vampire bullshit.
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Oct 20, 2008 12:48:11 AM CDT
I have no interest in the book and just saw the trailer...
by spacker dave
...and that shit looks like it gargles my balls! Looks like "Charmed: The Movie".
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Harry, you're missing the point. All of those series and movies that you listed were followed by a relative equal amount of males and females. Even ones you didn't list, like Harry Potter, transcend gender to become something of truly credible and widely-praised genre work. The problem with Twilight is that unlike the Potter books, they got worse. The last book was arguably the worst-reviewed of the series. When something is so gender specific, ie. "all the girls are doing THIS" and "all the boys are watching THAT", it's a fucking FAD. it's something that will burn out and fade. I'm sure there are guys that like Twilight, but the fact is, it IS an estrogen powered locomotive, and CHUD was absolutely correct with their FUCK THIS FACE article. Look at the advertising for the film and tell me that those people are marketing to a wide-audience, honestly. Cause everything plays to the stupid little flutter of tween girls hearts. "oooooh i wish Edward were real." "Ooooh he's so sweet and dreamy and dark." Edward is a fucking VAMPIRE.
TRUE genre wants don't want their vampires neutered into brooding hunks in a love story, they want vampires tearing shit up, being VAMPIRES. -
Banana shaped tits? I've never heard that particular fruit used to describe tits, but I gotta say, it sounds not terribly attractive.
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And Harry's right, it is more fantasy romance than anything else. Not sure about the rest of the series, but the first book is basically a teen romance in geek's clothes...I was hoping it'd be more like Buffy--alas, no. Not sure how this material will translate on the screen...I found it pretty repetitive and plodding for most of the book. But, people love this series, and as Harry said, this will hopefully be a good gateway drug.
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if something like Twilight can get people who are not initially interested into fantasy stuff to be open minded about it and it gets them to the better fantasy material, then good! The "it's gonna get you laid" argument is kinda perverted tho, true or not. The thing is, I had never heard of Twilight before the movie started getting hype, and like many others just said, I think the trailers look like shit!
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I call those christmas tree tits. Cause they slope up and have a slight upwards point to them. Very rare tits, and that might why the terminology is fucking with you cause you haven't seen a pair like that yet.
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Oct 20, 2008 1:02:51 AM CDT
that his woman still lets him communicate with
by dracula_wants_the_amulet
Married man with x girlfriends still in his life. Really?
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It's just a desolate, itty bitty town. Those islands at La Push are beautiful, though.
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tween girls are going to be pissed when they find out all those other stories that ripped off Twilight don't make their vamps twinkle.
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They just might be my favorite kind of breasts. I love them bra-less, covered by a relatively loose (but not TOO loose) T-shirt. Maybe with some visible nipple poking, if I'm lucky.
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like, the shirt is tight enough so the nipples can poke depending on how it is hanging at the moment, but loose enough so you can see them sway under it....
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Yeah, Twilight, with Reese's young boobs, Paul Newman, Gene Hackman. Come on!!! And, plus, no vampires whatsoever. Am I right? Yeah.
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I don't know how this crap happens, but I guess all the twilight fans go to google everyday looking for twilight stuff. If you look at the chud link, you see they have already started attacking. This is only a matter of time.
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go team corey.
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or...er...typing time, trying to make a point. The TB's on this site have already made up their mind to hate this film. See it all the time here. Pretty sad actually.
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'nuff said!
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The people who are diehard fans of this book are more geeky than I (and probably most of us) will ever be. I say this because while the books or the movie might not be "bad", I can assure you...not good. Certainly not great. Certainly not worthy of the level of worship they have on the internets. If somebody somewhere talks shit about Fritz Lang or G.I. Joe, I don't care. Fuck that noise, that's what I say. I don't stalk message boards and attack people because they dared defame RAD.And if it wasn't this particularly tween-palatable take on "zomg i'm 14 and no one but my hunky vampire boyfriend understands me" then it would've been one of the 100 others out there just like it.
As for the "they might bang me" sentiment. There are thousands upon thousands of chicks out there that like genre flicks, anime, comic books, video games and assorted geek interests. I think I'll pass on those who think that derivative young adult selections from the Scholastic Book Club qualify as high art. -
Oct 20, 2008 2:05:22 AM CDT
OK this battle cry of "Jealousy" needs to fucking stop
by industrykiller!
I heard the same stupid bullshit about Shia Lebeouf in Indy 4 and it wasn't true then and it isn't true now. If someone doesn't like U2 do you call them "jealous" because Bono is a famous rock star who gets to sit with world leaders at a whim? Now for the record I love U2, but if someone makes a legitimate argument as to why the latter half of their career is a disappointment then I'm more than willing to listen and understand. It's not about being jealous, it's about the way mediocrity is sold to us as quality simply because they've suckered enough of the public into believing it. It's like arguing that McDonalds makes a great burger because it sells more than other burgers. It's available, it's easy, and it's always in your face. it stands to reason it would be popular. Now I've never read Twilight but I think I say say this definitively, the trailer looks cheap and cliche. Full of silly vampire novel dialogue and longing glances we've seen a MILLION times in other movies and the action looks akin to that of cheap demographic films like The Covenant, and ain't no one arguing that that is a great film. It's not that it just looks bad, it looks old and tired. So given that how am I jealous because I'm more than a bit cynical about the whole thing?
And as for that article in CHUD it was far less and indictment on the actor than it was about the advertisement being shoved down our throats and the cliche nature of the material. Harry, you constantly argue about the shit state or horror, well why shouldnt someone else be able to say that about the Vampire subgenre? Especially when films about kid vampires like Let the Right One In exist only to get remade immediately, probably into watered down crap?
And as for the distaste for anything considered "tween". Nothing could possibly be more justified. Tween isn't just for kids anymore, it's hit the mainstream and like it or not it's in your face more than any other kind of entertainment. Constantly The problem is that it's so banal, cynical, and coma inducing I fear for the entire generation that has to grown up with it. For instance High School Musical. Now a little background, I don't expect anything geared at that age range to be brilliant, but when something becomes a zeitgeist I expect it to at least be competent for it's genre. High School Musical, which I caught about 20 minutes of over a family members house (i swear, no really), showed me exactly how cynical and machiavellian the whole tween genre is. It was poorly constructed and cheap on every level. From the cheap look of the sets to the songs that literally sound like they were being constructed via improv by the actors on the spot. It didn't amaze me that kids like it, kids like anything, but the fact that it's a crossover hit is frightening and I weep for anyone over the age of 15 who enjoys it. I could see the studio heads who pay pennies on the dollar for this crap laughing at how stupid the public is. The tween genre is completely without basis as something of quality. Period. -
money and will put nearly every girl and teen girl asses in the seats when it hits cinema's. That doesn't mean it's good. I really wonder about female brains and how they say they develop to maturity before us males. When I see a Fad like this take root. I have my doubts.
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mortal girl falls madly over undead-fangy man with pale skin who can not tan or eat Garlic parmesan pizza.
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Away from the attitudes of the talkbackers on this site who would attack Twilight. Naming him as the supposed reason for this article is only good for making more inter-site drama. I wonder how he'll react?
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I wouldn't say latter half, but I was disappointed by everything after Pop. I felt like they took the album's "failure" too hard (especially since it was rushed and could've used more production) and just decided to give people what they thought they wanted by playing it safe.
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Why yes, Buffy and Angel have indeed covered this territory before. And they did it well. Mortal girl falls for 200 year old Vamp (hmmm, we'll leave the peadophilia stuff right out shall we), they have sex...Vamp loses soul, goes bad and treats girl like shit. Whedon really defined the virtues of virginity wholeheartedly, didn't he?
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Oct 20, 2008 2:21:34 AM CDT
A Rip-Off Of Buffy With Guys Who Look Like The Jonas Brothers
by media messiah
This film looks a sloppy mess from the trailers...a fact that I called months ago!!! Obviously the folks at the studio concurred as they immediately put more money into the film to make it look better once they realized that there was a big fan base interest on the internet, as they, the fans, largely young women BTW, began chiming in to talk about the movie on web sites like Perez Hilton, in reaction to that trailer. It was their collective eagerness as reflected in those very posts that got the studio more involved with the production in order to fix the largely under-funded film and install some quality controls that weren't previously present in the production!!! The film as it stands s now a patch job...performed after the fact in order to save this film from being a disappointment, and to turn this thing into an instant film franchise, something they didn't know they had on their hands initially, in terms of its potential thanks to audience recognition and anticipation!!! Still, it is a rip-off of Buffy. A shame when you think about it. Sarah Mchelle Gellar Prince could have been receiving all this hype over a movie version of Buffy years ago, but no, she had to go and abandon the good will of her fans and co-workers by opting out of any further Buffy projects???!!! What a short sighted and complete jerk???!!!
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Hmmm... why do I get the impression that the geeks at CHUD probably get exponentially more trim than the geeks at AICN.
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"2 ex-girlfriends of mine love them"
Seriously? I didn't realize the TWILIGHT books came out in Braille! -
Harlequin Romance + Interview with a Vampire - all the groty bloodsucking = Twilight?
Sure is easy to drench a pair of panties these days.... -
isn't everyone that writes for AICN married except for Vern? and he's from Seattle, so you know he gets laid BIG TIME.
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The movie "Walk Hard" is as funny as hell, and yet even though it is a mockumentary on the music business, it is actually the most honest portrayal of the music industry and its stars, to ever be put on film!!! I'm not kidding!!!! Most music industry films, or should I say, films about the music industry and its talent, tend to go out of their individual and collective way(s) to steer clear of the dirtier more ugly parts of the industry in a effort to make our heroes seem above reproach, but "Walk Hard" told the truth by using a fictional character, an amalgam of various music stars, to show people the real music industry. As I said before in a previous post this week, more truths are told in jest than anywhere else. BTW, "Walk Hard" has some truly great songs in it, especially during the end credits!!!PS: Also recommend "Jail House Rock" to Yoko, that movie tells on the music industry in a big, big way!!! That is Elvis' greatest film...truly brilliant, and something that anyone should see if they want to be in the music biz, as many of the subjects raised in the film, business wise, and via corruption therein, amazingly still apply even today!!!
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Seriously, I've not read it, but when I heard about it and saw the trailer I did about 5 mins of "research" (well, I read wikipedia) and it sounds like the most sloppy rubbish I've heard of in a long time. For example, dreamboat hunk vampire can read minds. Everybody except whatshernames and the reason given is "that she's a very private person". That is reason enough to hate it.
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Fucking hell Harry, you call yourself a geek, i bet you call mad max 2 road warrior.
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mythology- "Vegetarian Vampire", "Special Powers" especially when said special power is something to do with running away. Thanks but no thanks.
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This is a group of angry people who seem to fear losing thier junk just by expressing an interest in this movie.
The books are more about cultures and how to get along than about romance or about vampires. I can't say I really got into the books, I read the first two and they weren't bad. What's obious is the vast majority of the commentors read them and know nothing about them. Its just people trying to sound intelligent by slamming something as visciously as possible.
I have little hope for the movie, it overall just feels like they have tried to crank out a quick piece on fandom alone and are not going to worry about its quality; like they did with Eragon. But I'll give them a chance. -
Twilight recast Angel from Buffy as Clark Kent, handsome boy who hides a secret..but they get rid of the Superman mythos as seen in Smallville and replaced it with the vampire Romeo and Juliet inspired story which is the basis for Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Buffy's relationship with Angel. Further, Buffy is cast as Lana Lange and made just a regular girl who falls in love with the vampire, but of course she finds out he is different than the other boys and has super powers. Then the Meteor Freaks aka Buffy Big Bads show-up to terrify the town!!!This is a paint by the numbers rip-off of Buffy, which ripped of Romeo and Juliet, and then Buffy got ripped-off by Smallville, via its serialized, freak of the week/mystery investigation formate...complete with its own Willow, that being Chloe, and playing the angle of Buffy's mentor/the Librarian is Mr. Kent, Buffy's Mom becomes Mrs. Kent, Spike becomes Lex Luthor, Strip Buffy of her powers, she becomes Lana, and make Angel Clark Kent, and you've got your hero, Sunnydale becomes, Smallville, replace vampires, demons and ghouls with Meteor Freaks, etc and you've got your show Smallville!!! Everybody is a damn crook???!!! I can read archetypes easy...and recognize stollen ones as simple as snapping my fingers!!! Crooks!!!
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so he kills the motherfuckers.
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They made fun of people who saw the Dark Knight more than once (which is almost everyone). Fuck them.
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And, um, how old are most of the readers of this site? Are they 12? Because these are the only people who ought to be jealous of the pretty faces that make 12 year old girls scream. That link to Nick's blog was kinda disturbing. Why all the contempt for 12 year old girls, and the guys they swoon for? WTF is a grown man like Nick Nunziata doing even thinking about what makes a 12 year old girl's clit hurt (as he so eloquently expressed it).
And I'm not so sure Harry's take on this is that much better. Sure, Harry has no contempt for the tweens, but it's because he seems to see them as potential mates for geeks when the tweens get old enough. Now I don't know how much of AICN's audience are actually 12 year old boys (come to think of it, it's probably a very large percentage) but please, if you aren't a 12 year old boy, stop thinking about 12 year old girls. Please. Just Stop. If your taste hadn't graduated to 18 year olds by the time you hit 18, there is something seriously wrong. -
Guys have no use for Twilight due to the simple fact that it IS vampire romance for Tweens.Now, if you're personally INTO fiction geared towards girls wearing training bras, fine... someone should probably warn the kids in your neighborhood.But don't try to cover up your bizarre fetishes by accusing the rest of malekind of having some sort of repressed homoerotic hangups because WE don't get all giggly at the thought of reading the angsty tales of an immature teenage girl and her effeminate vampire boyfriend.
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Second-rate action sequences, unimaginative vampires, bland acting. Nothing on offer for genre fans here. Move along.
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They didn't make fun of everyone who saw the DK more than once, they just pointed out that there might be other things to do than see it SIX times in one weekend.
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Unless there is at lest several deaths via bloody gruesome murder its not a vampire films its a sob story.
Ps why is the douche walking in sunlight ? -
Not Interview With The Vampire. The ones that suck.
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he's meant to be something like 200 years old, right? This surely means he has a wealth of life experience and maturity. In that case, is it not creepy that he's perving after a young girl. Certainly scarier than EMO vampires with the power to hide.
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My younger sister loves these books and I know I'm going to wind up seeing this movie. Also, I like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and fully expect to reject the comparison of this movie to that show.
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I can see what harry is trying to get at, but why feel the need to bring it up with Twilight? There are a million other "hated" geek things that no one felt the need to make a post about to defend. Why not do one for Shia la boeuf, transformers etc?
Anyway, it's pointless trying to get guys to accept it, the books are written for girls, the main draw is the male vampire edward, pretty much every girl i know agrees that bella is an annoying shit, they only read it because edward gets them hot. It's pointless for guys to read it or even try and attack it. Girls find it hot, that's all they care about. -
Your Braille comment made me laugh like nobody's business.
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Yeah, sure, Harry...
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His wife is called yoko, we all know what happened to the last man to date a yoko.
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So there.
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I will watch "Let the right one in" instead yee haw!
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Heard over and over "You've GOT to read this! You will LOVE it." It was way too much teen-angst fluff for me. I have zero interest in the movie or in reading any other books in the series. I'd choose one of Nancy Collin's 'Sonja Blue' novels over this book any day!
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I can't see myself reading the books or seeing the movie anytime soon, there's already enough books on my "to read" list
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the Hellsing manga and OVAs pwn most of what's out there
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Is just that - mania. I work in one of the big chain bookstores and the little girls (along with grown women who are a wee bit too old to sill be Mousekateers) are going apeshit for this stuff. I really don't care as next year they'll be jumping on to the next hot thing, however being as I'm bit of a bastard, I had to fuck with some of my fellow employees who are madly in creepy love with Edward the protagonist. I pointed out that you've got a vampire that's a century old and therefore is mentally an adult with the 100 years of life experience. With all of that, this guy wants to hang out at a high school and bang teenagers? That, my friends, is what we call a pedophile. Boy oh boy, the emo girls didn't care for that one at all.
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Oct 20, 2008 6:20:32 AM CDT
I'm not going to watch a movie with Gay, Tween Vampires!!!
by geekyscifianimefreak
Nuff said, bitches. If any of you are interested in this movie, you are faggots!
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there's a new Twitch thread. Fuck this shit- it looks awful.
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...is this the most mature Op-Ed Harry's ever written? Kudos, big guy.
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I can honestly say that the chances of those books being a gateway to geekdom are about as high as the chances of Zima being a gateway to enjoying home-crafted dark ale. Sure, it COULD happen, but it probably won't.
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and maybe if it wasnt done alread in UNDERWORLD and BLOOD & CHOCOLATE, then it could have had a chance. but no. and its not becuase we're "jealous". thats rediculous.
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Damn it Harry, most of us have some stupid geek hero worship thing going on for you - all y'all that say you don't can suck it, you wouldn't be coming to this site lamenting it if you didn't - but you need an editor, really you do.
The sentence - "All of these phenoms led women to de-flower a geek." - should read - "All of these phenoms led women to their geek deflowering." The way it's written it makes it seem like that after experiencing the phenom they needed a geek's love gravy.
Back on topic though, I've read the books, I picked them up after I saw an attractive grad student reading "Breaking Dawn" while we were trying out for "Who Wants to be a Millionaire." I'm a 32 year old hetero male with a vampire fascination/fetish, always had it, probably always will. I'd compare the books to a pg-13 rated version of the "Anita Blake" series of books by Hamilton - I've only read one of those - lent to me while I was in the Air Force - by a male Airman - I didn't ask so I wouldn't get told, sex seemed like a crutch in them, not an actual plot mover. I'll go see the first movie, if nothing for the fact that it will be this year's costume movie like the Harry Potters, Star Wars and Rings movies of years past, and a large portion of the target demo of this film is going to be those MILFs, and college aged cuties you mentioned. I think it will be fun to see that "geek deflowering" occur, and besides who doesn't like the idea of all those beautiful women in vampire/goth outfits? -
oh God, I had forgotten about that movie
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i've never read the books but maybe they are good, who knows. but my issue isnt with all the girls wetting themselves over this. my problem is that regardless of your opinion of the books, the movie just looks bad. its looks really cheap, like some quick, low budget crappy affair. if i had read the books, while part of me would be hopeful that it might be good, i wouldnt be very optimistic and still think it looks bad. i'm not sure if its the lighting or the sparkly clean look of it all but it just looks so cheap and fake. if the movie is a huge hit then it is, i could care less. i just feel bad for the fans that this is what they'r getting. i dont like harry potter either but least they got some decent movies. this thing just looks like some DTV or SCI-FI channel movie. now i wont lie, i love vampire movies so i know i'll check it out once it hits tv but yeah, dont have high hopes.
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The first book is this pre-pube girl saying, and I quote: "gee, I think it would be so cool to be a vampire." This is the day AFTER she shows up to her new school (cus we've never read that before) where EVERYONE LOVES HER...because that's how it always is for new kids in highschool.
They're just wish-fulfillment books for some old bitch who's desperate for cunnilingus (ie: Anne Rice-syndrome). -
Harry, you're just so fucking wrong on this one. I know a bunch of girls who read these piles of shit and not one of them has used this as the gateway to real horror, nor will they ever. The reason? It is a FUCKING TWEEN novel you jackass! It isn't about vampires. It's about a horribly written romance and a sense of adventure and mystery these stupid chicks aren't getting from Lifetime. Having been forced to read the books by a female friend, I'm in a better position than you to say how horrid these books are and how little sense the above article made. And, even thinking about putting Supernatural and Twilight in the same grouping makes me want think you're blood sugar must be low or you've lost touch with reality.
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Bella wasn't pre-pubescent, or pre-pubic hair in any of the books. She was 17 years old, at 17 there's usually grass on the field. And not everyone loved her, there was one girl that really didn't like her at all until book 4. My biggest beef with the books is that books 1-3 are about building a love between 2 individuals that is supposed to last forever, since you know they're going to be immortal. Somehow book 4 becomes a battle against Catholicism - the author is Mormon, ala Orson Scott Card - including allusions to a Vampire Inquisition.
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But the movie just doesn't look any good. I'll probably just stick with True Blood for my vampire fix (GREAT SHOW!)
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"makes me think YOUR blood sugar" Okay, so 1 person didn't like her. Prof-Ender was still pretty safe in his/her generalization.
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I just thought that hasn't been mentioned enough. I'll repeat this over and over again: vampires used to be a manifestation of humanity's fear of the inevitable encroachment of death. The dead would rise from their graves, and feast on the life-blood of the innocent. The were dark and bloated with the blood of their victims and reeked of death. In short, THEY WERE EVIL. Why have we strayed so far from this basic premise? "Twilight" vampires aren't vampires at all; they're really strong super people covered in glitter.
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This review nails everything that's right with the Twilight books. http://stoney321.livejournal.com/317176.html
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Talk more about LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.When I was tweenish there was a book series called "The Vampire Diaries" written by L.J. Smith which I thought was amazing - and everything I've heard/read about TWILIGHT seems to suggest Stephanie Meyers did too. Anyone read her book "The Host"?
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Oct 20, 2008 8:39:53 AM CDT
There is nothing good about vampires that sparkle in the sunligh
by kurutteru yatsu
Nothing.
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I mean, a human falling in love with a good vampire who doesn't eat people?
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All of this hatred towards Twilight comes down to fear. That's right. That tired cliche fits this argument well: people fear what they don't understand. And there is no greater misunderstanding than between the geek world and the female race. All of you high-and-mighty film maker wannabes hear that all of these women, and gay men like myself, really enjoy these books. Because a different demographic takes on characteristics of our geek world you question them and their motives; much the same way we in the American culture question the traditions of other cultures. There are other folks in this world besides geeks, surely they have every right to become excited over a series of books or movies that you don't understand. There is also no reason for you to begin foaming at the mouth and calling people idiots because you don't understand the hype. How many of us have had to sit down with a co-worker, family member, or friend and defend our love for reading comic books or waiting in line at midnight to watch "The Dark Knight?" Is it fair of the geek world to question the motives of women and "tweens"? Please allow those of us that actually enjoy the series to enjoy it. I promise that I will not post another talkback about what a turd of a pile of shit "Superman Returns" was. Here's hoping geeks and women can one day coexist.
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Brilliant comment. Just what my Monday morning needed.
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That link made my morning! A perfect description indeed!
I'm a chick who has read all 4 Twilight books desperately wanting SOMETHING to actually happen besides endless descriptions of how beautiful the vampires are and how much the main character loves everything about her vampire boyfriend. The books read like they were written by a teenage girl - there is no quality there at all.
Also, I'm kind of offended that Harry needs to write an entire article about how women need some sort of gateway into genre stuff. Both men AND women who are inclined to liking horror movies or comics or sci-fi will naturally be drawn to it and they don't need crap like 'Twilight' to get them there. -
Oct 20, 2008 9:12:48 AM CDT
"And there is no greater misunderstanding than between the geek
by lost jarv
Oh do fuck off. Some of us have no problems with women and even manage to occasionally with attract them. And isn't that incredibly rude/ dismissive to the likes of Marva. AICN does have some women users you know.
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when people are using the argument that tweens enjoy it thus it sucks, but saying how awesome Harry Potter is. My 11-year-old nephew loves Harry Potter... using this "tween" logic doesn't that mean it would suck?
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I will give you that Superman Returns was a turd, though.
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...with such contrivance? absence of mirrored reflection aside, the image of forlorned creature of the night is laughable when i picture the meticulous application of hair gels, highlights, and whatnot in front of the bathroom mirror.
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Does everything have to do with getting laid? It's sort of funny that that was the point of your article since that is sort of against the basics of the books.
The books are great. Are they the best vampire fiction ever? No, but they are good. And I agree with part of Harry's post in that it will open the door to people who may not have been into this type of thing at first.
But this goes back to Harry never having watched a single episode of Buffy. It makes you look uninformed doing a compare to getting laid and what these books are about. Yes, they are do have a message of waiting for sex to them. That goes in line with the ideals that Edward, as a man from really another age hold dear and what becoming a vampire does to him. He wants something pure and right. He sees himself damming Bella because of the guilt and seeing himself as soulless.
The other side of this is that Meyer actually has a graps on how awkward sex is to a young teenage girl whose never had it. If you lotharios of the online world don't remember because of all your vast conquests over the years its not easy and its not a happy time.
The fact is the books are good, they are entertaining. Its dark fantasy and there are some truly disturbing parts throughout them (especially in the last book...which I think lost Meyer some of the readers that can't stomach the more gruesome aspects of vampire fiction...and to those people adios, we don't need you).
So Harry...you had a good point right up to you had to turn it into a bullshit fratboy mentality article about getting some.
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Is twilight even getting talked about here when the fact that Watchmen got a test screening isn't even mentioned. Seriously. What the fuck?
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I love vampire fiction and I have to say I think the book sucked, I had to force myself to finish it! I don’t see how it appeals to anyone over 15ish. There is barely any plot and the actions of the characters are completely unbelievable.
This girl Bella (who is completely spastic and uncoordinated) moves to a new school where everyone instantly loves her (yea right, that always happens when you move to a new school). Her father lets her do whatever she wants, she sees Edward the vampire and they instantly fall into this grand love based on...basically nothing....but looks and the way she smells?? Hmmm, those things are perhaps enough to justify a quick cheap fling, not a love affair to last all eternity!?
Why is a 100+ year old vamp going to high school anyway? Wouldn’t repeating Biology get old after oh, the first dozen times? And yes, as someone pointed out, even though he looks like a teen it’s kinda creepy for someone with his maturity level to be so infatuated in a 17 year old, except gee, the attraction is...the way she smells! So romantic.
I don’t see how the movie can be worse then the book, it really almost has to be better. Hopefully they take the last part that had some action and make that the whole movie.
And if you want to convert females over 15 to geekdom, try the Charlaine Harris series that the show TrueBlood is based on. It worked on my co-worker ;D Those books are excellent and parts are extremely romantic.
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The majority of the book involves her asking him questions and him smirking. Lots of smirking. There is tons of angst about whether he can control himself and not bite her and of course she is quickly ready to be made into a vampire, even though she has known him for about 5 minutes. At the very end there is actually some action when a bad vampire comes after her and she needs to be saved. But that is way waaaaaaaay near the end.
Why is a 100+ year old vamp going to high school anyway? Wouldn’t repeating Biology get old after oh, the first dozen times? And yes, as someone pointed out, even though he looks like a teen it’s kinda creepy for someone with his maturity level to be so infatuated in a 17 year old, except gee, the attraction is...the way she smells! So romantic.
I don’t see how the movie can be worse then the book, it really almost has to be better. Hopefully they take the last part that had some action and make that the whole movie.
And if you want to convert females over 15 to geekdom, try the Charlaine Harris series that the show TrueBlood is based on. It worked on my co-worker ;D Those books are excellent and parts are extremely romantic.
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At least that has boobies in it. (I haven't seen bannana shaped ones though)
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Is Harry still fat or what?
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I think I'm one of the few people who've managed to walk in two worlds, at least in reference to geekdom and tween fads. Hell, I can recite the history of Middle-Earth. I've also read all 4 Twilight books multiple times. And I can safely say this: Harry's thesis that Twilight could possibly be gateway geek material is pretty unrealistic.
The thing is, Twilight is nothing but your standard Tween romance plot. It's about a girl who falls in love with a guy, who happens to be a vampire--it's not about a vampire falling in love with a girl. The romance crap takes center stage; the supernatural elements are completely secondary--although they do permeate the novel.
As far as I'm concerned, the only benefit the Twilight series has for geeks is that it's a unique look into the female psyche. It's also a good conversation starter with girls who've read Twilight. Other than this, Twilight really has no benefit to the everyday geek. -
I'm just saying. The trailers make this seem nothing more than just another "Blood and Chocolate" and we all know how that went....
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As a longtime defender of people like Josh Hartnett, I don't buy into the whole "bash him because girls like him" mentality. But in terms of Twilight, which I haven't read, I've heard from a number of friends that it's just plain bad fiction.
Also, I was at the Comic-Con panel, and to me it played out like one of the early scenes in a tragedy. There is no way all this way-too-severe fan mania is not going to go to these young actors' heads.I think the Harry Potter actors have emerged relatively untroubled because their fans have always been fans of the story first -- whereas Twilight fans are first and foremost hopelessly in love with Edward.I really liked Robert Pattinson when I saw him in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire. Watching his aw-shucks smile as thousands of girls screamed at the top of their lungs for him, knowing he's probably forever changed by the experience already, seemed kind of sad. Maybe I'm looking too deeply into it, but that's just my two cents. -
Oct 20, 2008 10:13:47 AM CDT
yeah....really what is the point of this article?
by dannyglovers_dickblood
Why the fuck does Harry care if this piece of shit crashes and burns? Why try to get people to care about it?
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You go with your wife/girlfriend because she wants to fucking go see it, and she's sat through all of your retarded ass movies too.
Relationships require compromise and sacrifice to make them work, so quit bitching and take your girl to see Twilight. -
That is exactly how my husband and I work it out!
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I've gone with my wife to midnight book releases for the Harry Potter and Twilight series. She's gone with me to Metallica concerts and whatnot. I go with her to see PS I Love You, then we might go see Dark Kight or whatever next. We went to Dragon con together.. I stood in line with her for Tamorah Pierce (sp?) and Laurell K Hamilton autographs, and she stood in line with me for Battlestar Galactica panels and autographs. I watch Charmed with her, she watches BSG with me.... we both watch True Blood.
When you're married you just do that stuff... because if you don't, one of you is too selfish and the marriage eventually fails. -
...I'm not a complete fucking dick. But fortunately for me-- I wouldn't marry a woman ignorant enough to enjoy shit like this. She likes female oriented movies, but not this kinda horse shit.
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Couldn't agree more. Or if she wants to see something that I really can't stomach (The Devil Wears Prada was the last one) she goes with her friends and I'll go to the pub with mine.I have a question, Wenchy (great username)- are you going to make your husband go to this?
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You are a complete fucking dick.
Gee I guess my wife is just fucking ignorant then. But unlike your fantasy geek woman that doesn't get into this, my wife is real, and I don't judge her because she has the nerve to like something. Prick. -
Wenchy probably won't make him do anything, because as long as you're not a selfish asshole, you don't mind taking your wife out to see The Devil Wears Prada and Twilight.
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.....and no- I don't want a geek wife. I love films. I'm not into all the geek shit. I don't go to fucking conventions and buys toys or any of that shit. I'm into films. And I am not a dick for my previous statement. When I was dating before we were married, and if a female was seriously into this kind of shit I would really question being with her. I just have an absolute lack of respect for anyone interested in something so dull and formulaic. I'm sorry.
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...I have a serious issue with the cunt Author. I do not support the intolerant Mormon Agenda to spread Abstinence Only programs across America. Sorry-- I'm not gonna help finance that diseased way of thinking.
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I know some little girls who are crazy about TWILIGHT and seeing the enthusiasm with which they are anticipating the film's release makes me a little bit happy myself, even though I know that the books as well as the film are most likely crap. I also agree with Nick. In all his unfounded anger and in the midst of his quite exaggerated and immensly funny rambling he's making a point. This is an example for a situation I bet most of us find themselves in (TBs are a good indication for that) from time to time: There's a new phenomenon in popular culture and chances are it's not any good. Despite whom it is made for or how we should just ignore it we can't stop being annoyed by its very existence and the attraction it presents to people despite its (sometimes debateable, sometimes obvious) low quality. Now thanks to the internet we can publicly and with blind prejudice hate these pop-culture products. With all the "everything has its merit"-rationale and finding something worthwhile in every piece of trash-entertainment...sometimes you just need to abandon the relativization-aspect and let your dislike spill. That's what happened here.
I'm not sure if it's appropriate to interpret it as an example of geek-homophobia and anti-tweenism. Well...yeah the comment section to Nick's post was an entertaining and terrifying pool of blamed and affirmed geek/anti-geek clichées. I hate this kind of moral codex that is apparent in the geek-world. "If you do like this piece of shit you must be an overweight, lonely, asexual, autistic fucker who's sitting in his/her basement's cellar." - I've heard that these people exist but ...c'mon...I thought we had moved beyond this crap. And, yeah, some "geeks", whoever that is, may be homophobic and stupid, but what percentage is that? I can only think that adressing the homophobia and other stupid attitudes among geeks as well as using those concepts is part of the process of defining what "a geek" actually is/is not. We probably just have to accept all that stupid tussle as part of the cultural process of discrimination.
As far as Twilight is concerned: I don't know the books and have no interest whatsoever in reading them but somehow the film looked like something made for tv. I liked that. But I don't think I'll go see it. -
....Bratz, you know those little whore looking dolls? Yeah, those things sell like fucking crazy. And that film really delivered the box office punch, right? I have faith in America. I have faith Obama shall win the Presidency and this Mormon Propaganda will burn in flames.
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and it SUCKS! Hard! (no pun intended...) It's Harlequin romance (the worst ones) + Smallville/Buffy = cheesy to the max. Any person (man or woman) with a single mature brain cell can see that tweens are in love with Edward, not with the the story (that is the difference with Harry Potter). The author is in "love" with Edward and so are the fans. The characters are poor, the story is dull and I saw the trailer, what just confirms that the movie will be as poor as the books. Plain and simple. I am really surprised that AICN is endorsing this shit and I wonder if soon we will start seeing ads for it here, as well "special screenings sponsored by Summit". Sad but true. The "hype" is, for the most part, generated by the studio itself and the author, who does EVERYTHING to sell her fantasy world towards the tweens, who are making her a millionaire. I have no doubts it will make money, but what to expect from a tween generation that has Britney Spears and Hannah Montana as role models?
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"I wouldn't marry a woman ignorant enough to enjoy shit like this."
That's a dickhead statement. And I have an absolute lack of respect for someone who makes profound character judgments on a human being because of the films they like. Kind of superficial, petty, and childish. It's like something a person with very pour social skills would do. -
Oct 20, 2008 10:42:11 AM CDT
spire_walk -- actually its "POOR social skills"
by dannyglovers_dickblood
And perhaps I do have them.
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Danny's comment, although blunt, has a grain of truth to it- I married a woman with similar tastes to mine. There is no way in fuck that she would be into this. However, having said that, there are still some things that are beyond me. I would not even ask her to come to the pub to watch the football(for example), and she extends the same courtesy to me. If she asked, of course I go with her, but (and this is important) she wouldn't ask. She would mention it, but in the context of having already made arrangements. If I wanted to go, I could. Compromise is one thing, but consideration is another.
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Blu-ray is what you must all buy. Blu-ray. God loves Blu-ray, and so should you. Blu-ray. Blu-ray loves you. Blu-ray. Blu-ray.
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Thanks for the spell check. I have some paperwork I need to mail to you to correct as well.
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get off your high horse you sanctimonious cocksucker. Maybe "make" was a strong word, and I should have said "are you going to ask your husband if he would go to this with you", but it had more words and I'm lazy.
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I read the Twilight series. While it's so obviously aimed at the teenage girl demographic, there are some small parts of it that can be enjoyed by anybody, especially in the later books. Once the kickass werewolves are introduced, there's some cool stuff to read. There are also some interesting deviations to the vampire and werewolf mythos that have some interesting explanations behind them.
Having said that, I don't think the series will be as successful on screen. Given how indescribably perfect the vampires are in the books, there's no way to successfully show them in the movies. It's just not possible. No actor or actress is attractive enough to do them justice, based on how they're described in the book. That's one limitation. The other is how to get across how emotional Bella is. It's easier to describe in a book than to show in a movie without making her look like a little spoiled brat.
Now, with THAT said, I will be going to see this with my wife. Like spire ahs said, you just do things like this for them. Granted, there are SOME limitations in our shared movie experiences - she refuses to see horror movies (28 Days Later, The descent, stuff like that), and I despise period romances like the ones Jane Austin writes. So we each have our limits, but there are plenty of 'movie sacrifices' we make for for each other. -
Get off my high horse? Basically anyone who wants to spend time with their significant spouse is on a high horse? You're the high horse riding prick! Any woman who has the audacity to like this sort of fiction is flawed and imperfect, according to your ideology.
How about taking your wife to the pub some time? I guess I don't get it... If I go the bar, I invite my wife to go because I want to be around her.
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"Oh I love the books! It's full of romance, drama... Edward is hot! Bella is a girl like us Edward is hot! and she faces the same problems we face at our age... Edward is hot! AWWWW Edward is sooo hot, I want him to be mine!!! And the way Stephanie (they act as if the author was their friend... go figure...) describes the vampires, sparkling... Edward is so HOT! at day light, makes the vampires so different... the way Edward is SOOO hot, did you see his hair? And the romance... so beautiful... EDWARD IS SOOOOO HOT!!!!! and the angst DAMN EDWARD IS SO HOT!" See? How can we take shit like that serious? Gimme a break.
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I thought the Chud article was supposed to be funny? Sure seems that way to me...(It also seems calculated to increase their site's traffic. I think Nunziata is aware that even the smallest sarcastic volley is enough to draw an angry horde of Twilight fans to their site.)
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I loved them when I read them. With some distance I can see that they really aren't that great.
I agree with most of you though, the movie looks like total shit. I'll see it anyway, just like every other chick who read the books.
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"But I don't think of you."
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You are quite the idiot. Having faith in America and having faith in Obama is quite the oxymoron. This Mormon propaganda will burn? Didn't know we had resorted to facism you hitler supporting bigot.
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"....the movie looks like total shit. I'll see it anyway, just like every other chick who read the books. " Wow is all I can say. That is fucking pathetic. And people wonder why film quality is getting worse and worse with each passing year. Its because of this heard mentality. Seriously people...grow a fucking brain. If the film looks like shit-- here's what you do, don't go see it!! What a novel idea, right?
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...of all the responses at the bottom. How can any of those people be vehement "fans" of that actor when the only thing he's been in so far is the TRAILER?
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No- the point was you are being sanctimonious and holier than thou about it- what I said was that consideration of your other half's feelings and tastes is a compromise in itself. And the example I used- the important bit was "to watch the football" but good to see you missed the point completely. Dickhead.
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Oct 20, 2008 11:24:54 AM CDT
the only thing that would've been better is Shia as Edward.
by dannyglovers_dickblood
He's all manly with facial hair and shit now....nothing turns on the 13 year olds like Even Stevens kid with pubes growing out of his face.
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but so far reports are pretty bad. My girlfriend read it and said it's pretty redundantly written, especially concerning the way every character looks. Also, (I think Duke of New York touched on this) it sends the message to girls that they should change their very nature in order to subvert themselves to a guy with whom they would like to have a relationship. This is a big trouble sign. I can't officially hate it until I know more info, but it seems so far like manipulative pablum. FYI, I hold the trilogy His Dark Materials up as an example of good young adult fiction for girls. I have serious reservations concerning twilight.
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Finally a female with some fucking balls.... "
Everyone's had to have seen the propaganda coming out for the newly minted movie but how many of you actually managed to sit through the novel itself?
Yeah I'm talkin' about Twilight.
I picked up a copy at Goodwill for around $1 and didn't feel too bad about it since that's a pretty small sum of money to spend for a novel that thick. I figured I needed some easy summer reading to be counterproductive to all my thick war novels and classics.
Oh how I wish I could take it all back.
I read the entire thing in one sitting - not hard to do considering it's geared towards a younger audience and the writing itself flows like an angst-fueled Livejournal entry. I skipped large chunks that didn't immediately contribute to the plot and found myself starting to skim even important scenes because let me tell you...
..this book sucks.
Not only does the book suck... but so does the author. I never bothered with the other three books in the series and instead read short online synapses of them so that I could at least see where the author was trying to take her characters with all that sniveling bullshit she threw together in book one.
Let's be completely honest here. Stephenie Meyer is basically writing Anne Rice fanfiction. Really bad Anne Rice fanfiction. She probably saw the movies (only the first of which was good) and decided to take some creative liberties here and there and of course add in what I'm sure she thought was "original material" then added in some glitter (for SPARKLE) and called it her own.
I spent the majority of the book bewildered at what was going on... not because of clarity issues but because... it's just so stupid. I don't even know where to start tearing into this poo poo. You should really go to her website to get the full effect. Its like reading the myspace page of a bitchy, PMS-ing 14 year old girl. No self-respecting 30-year-old woman should be writing the kind of bullshit that she writes and more importantly no one as loving stupid as her should've procreated. I am disgusted that she has three children. Really? You felt the need to pass on your genetic predisposition to suck at everything onto three unsuspecting Womb Lice?! I hope those boys grow up outside of your influence and go on to have successful lives where they pay to have you put in a home because lady, you are deranged.
Really, I mean it, go visit her website: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/index.html
Be sure to go to each of the titles in the series and click and then go to the "Playlist" drop down. Because it wasn't bad enough that she wrote horribly but she listens to really bad music too; and shamefully includes some good bands on there that I hope feel violated that she's used them for "inspiration."
I bet she still cuts herself because its edgy and puts her intouch with her blood lusting characters. Also if you read her bio you will basically find where every single one of her characters comes from. Now don't get me wrong I have nothing against lifting certain situations and characterizations from life to put into your characters because lets face it - all good authors do that. You write what you know but at the same time you embellish certain other facts outside of the "life plagiarism" and build more originality out from there. I am guilty of this, you are guilty of this and I know drat well that successful authors are too. BUT! If you are a good writer you are not, I repeat not, mary-sueing an entire collection of novels.
I'm going to give you three guesses on who "Bella" (the lead female) is based off of. And the first two don't count.
Someone tried to throw out a convincing argument once that these were the next Harry Potter and I almost lost it laughing. Really? Funny because I think J.K. Rowling may have had something that Meyer doesn't... two things really...
1. Originality.
2. Creativity.
The books are overburdened with purple prose, banal characters and an over-affinity for "sparkles." I sympathize with those of you who read it after hearing all the hype. It isn't so much that I was disappointed, but more that I was enraged someone like this was getting published and getting credit for being a decent writer.
So basically I'm trying to incite others to come forward and bitch about this load of crap. Either the author, her books, the movie... whatever.
tl;dr: Stephenie Meyer is a stinkyhole. Go look at her website, get some laughs. Don't read her books, sympathize with me and call her names too." -
Disgusting....isn't there enough racism going on right now from Right Wingers? It seems Conservatives will not be happy until every person of color is destroyed. --------------------------------
The fundamental message of Meyer’s books, I believe, is that of selflessness and moral courage, at least in the first two books. I believe Meyer’s strong Mormon faith (she is a practicing Mormon and a graduate of Brigham Young University) influenced her writing in a good way here, in helping her to craft thoughtful storylines that dealt with complex moral/religious issues.
That said, there is an underlying racism to the books that deeply disturbs me. I believe this is also the influence of Meyer’s faith – a faith I saw in action when I had breakfast with her at the White House as part of the National Book Festival two years ago. (Meyer would not drink coffee, because her religion forbids the use of caffeine, for instance.)
Of primary concern for me is the treatment of Meyer’s main Native American character, Jacob Black. He is presented initially as a sweet, normal teen boy from the Paiute Reservation, but we soon learn that he is a werewolf, and that werewolves are the enemies of vampires. The vampires, at this point in the story, are shown to be European in origin, and as pale as pale can be – and friends to Bella, our human protagonist.
Jacob loves the irresistible Bella, just as Edward does, though he and his kind seem unable to resist their sinister nature the way the white vampires do. In the first two books, Bella is mildly drawn to Jacob (and even kisses him), particularly when Edward seems to lose interest in her. In the final book, Bella must choose between these two boys.
Naturally, she chooses the (white) vampire over the (brown) werewolf.
On the surface, this might seem insignificant. It might even seem to be enlightened for Meyer to include a Native American boy in her novels in the first place.
But you must consider that in the Book of Mormon 2, 5:23, God is said to have placed “the curse of black skin” upon the Lamanites, in orer to make them unattractive to the Nephites. The precise word used is “black,” the name Meyer chose to give her dark-skinned Native American character. The Laminites, meanwhile, are described in the Book of Mormon as being a wild, ferocious, plundering, robbing, and murdering people, and God punishes all Nephites who marry them by cursing their children with dark skin, too.
Among the leading Laminites mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon is…Jacob.
No author with the skill that Stephenie Meyer possesses does anything in her books by accident. Therefore, it is safe to assume that the deeply Mormon Meyer did not accidentally name her sinful, dark-skinned boy Jacob Black. Nor did she accidentally have him turn out to be the less desirable of the two monstrous boys vying for Bella’s attentions.
I have read much about these books in the media – about how they are the new Harry Potter, about how Meyer is a millionaire many times over because girls and their moms love vampires. Time and again, I have seen mothers quoted in articles about the series, speaking of their love for the books because they are "squeaky clean" - meaning there is no sex in them (or gay people, or minorities other than the Native American werewolves). Just in case you doubt there is a conservative religious message to these books, consider that the hapless human boy who also adores Bella (but doesn't stand a chance, being a total loser) is named Mike...Newton. As in science.
Also of significance: In the movie, as with the book, the most evil of the vampires (the ones who are enemies to the white Edward) is dark African Laurent, whose name is an anagram of the worst of the Laminites described in the Book of Mormon, Lautner. Unlike Edward and the white vampires, he is unable to resist hunting and draining humans.
Interestingly, in this final book, Bella not only ends up spurning the dark-skinned boy. She also ends up married and pregnant - at 18. Squeaky-clean, eh? God forbid Bella have, say, decided to hold off on boys, monstrous and otherwise, until she got, way, her chemical engineering degree. How fascinating that in the "good, clean" books of Stephenie Meyer, racism, teen pregnancy and teen marriage are celebrated, and not a single mainstream reviewer I have read seems to have taken notice.
I held out hope, until this last book, that the gifted Mrs. Meyer might actually do the truly moral thing, and make Native Jacob good, in order to take polite issue with a pathetically misguided Mormon teaching.
Sadly, she did not.
This is disappointing. And, to my mind, dangerous, given the extreme popularity of the books.
As Meyer is compared in every magazine and on every news program to JK Rowling (a writer I believe actually has excellent moral messages, though her books - surprise, surprise - are reviled by the very same parents who adore Meyer), and as we prepare for the first of her vampire novels to hit the big screen as a movie, we must ask ourselves whether we as a nation, and as parents, will continue to embrace an author who uses her formidable talent to present thinly-veiled racist teachings taken from her church. Should we be so quick to reward Meyer for her denigration of a significant portion of her audience by continuing to hail these books as mere "squeaky-clean" vampire stories?
I believe we should not. They are more than that. They are, like the most effective propaganda, wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Werewolves, in fact. -
I'll admit, I'm kind of at a loss for the ageless female adoration for this thing (my mom and my 17 year old sister love the book) But it's crap. Everybody likes some kind of crap at least once in their life. In junior high I would read retarded fantasy books from the library and yes, shit about handsome vampires flirting with human girls (something I'm sure has always existed) and my tastes matured, thankfully with age. I thought this movie looked like it was for younger girls, so get off its case? Let shit exist, and go back to focusing on Transformers 2 or whatever you want to talk about
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And anyone who read "A Horse and His Boy" or "The Last Battle" can be left in little doubt about CS Lewis's thoughts about brown people. Of course, it can go too far the other way. Rowling's PCness can be grating, but it's nothing compared to the "Hey, let's have gay sex in front of a boy" subversion of "His Dark Materials." As regards this, never read it, never will. I had my Anne Rice fill years ago. True Blood is about as far as I can go these days as regards the "tortured-romantic-vampire" genre (which, by the way, was inspired by Lord Byron, who was a psychopathic asshole.
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What the fuck are you talking about? The whole point of LOTR was that races should not be divided, in the end everyone must come together for the common good. C.S. Lewis was a fucking racist. It goes along with the whole Christian thing.
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The reason this backlash is happening is because the REAL vamp movies, the ones that aren't shooting for demographics that need the requisite, "how do we kill them" scene, are NOT being made. They need a franchise name or a young, hot hearthrob to gain any interest whatsoever. Even then, they tend to suck dick. I appreciate what you are saying about gateway geekdom, and giving the un-geeks a chance to feel comfortable and intrigued in a traditionally geeky frame. But, Harry, Twilight isn't for us. Not for the dudes and dudettes who hit your site up weekly or daily. We don't need the gateway harry, our gateways were Blade Runner, or Monster Squad, or Big Trouble in Little China, or any of the other countless films we hold in collective geek idolatry on this site. We don't need you to defend the youth-oriented, estrogen fueled, transparent reachy crap like Twilight just because your wife likes it. Now I know that is not what you are saying, and for all we know Twilight might rule ass. But this is one thing we don't need you to open our minds up to in advance. Let us know when you SEE the fuckin' thing, not when you get upset at the meanie talkbackers talking shit about a fave of Yoko. Don't get soft in your married state, Harry. Speaking on behalf of the geek community, you're far too cool for that shit.
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Keep following teachings of racism and hatred buddy. And remember-- vote PALIN-- 08!! Yeeeehah!
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Chicks into vampire novels will no doubt be into playful biting during sex and are only a stones throw away from recreational hair pulling and ass slapping if you happen to be into that kind of thing. They also like to wear lingerie.
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Yes except there are no decent looking females into this shit. This may make them a bit more playful, but if the chick looks like Meatloaf in the 80's....who fucking cares?
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Being unselfish and making the other person happy is the key to making a relationship good! I think the more you try to make your partner happy, the more they will try to make you happy.
I've sat through lots of submarine movies and gone to look at a lot of cars, test drive cars and talked about cars til I am blue in the face! I've also gone to lots of boring Mensa events (he's the Mensan, not I) where I am literally always the stupidest person in the room!!
And he's taken me to Journey and Blackmores Night concerts, occasional SCA stuff and even went to see the Sex and the City movie (though he said he was ready to stick a pencil in his eye if it didn't end soon) lol. I did go see the Devil Wears Prada with a gf though.
Fortunately we share lots of interests like Battlestar and Star Trek and liberal politics etc - it would be kinda hard if we had nothing in common!! -
just thought I'd let you know.
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whoops! ha.
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A) we definitely don't have a relationship where i would "force" him to do anything and
B)I thought the book was pretty lame (I wrote a post earlier "I thought the book totally sucked") and will not see this in theater, maybe when it's on tv i will try watching it -
are you going to ask him to take you?
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There are no evil white people in the Tolkien universe. All the evil men are either "Easterlings" (read: Asians) Southrons (read: black people) Barbary Corsairs (read: Arabs) or Hillmen (read: poor people). There are plenty of references to "purity of blood" and the blood of the (white) Numenorians mixing with "the blood of lesser men". And the purer and better you are, the whiter your skin. Elves are so pure their white skin glows.
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see above :)
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Ha! See- consideration, every bit as important as compromise. I feel vindicated.
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I've heard it before.
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will make many people do a lot of really stupid things/things they dont like: go see chick flicks, go to car shows, watch sports, write a big article on your website defending a vampire book you havent even read...
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Wow. Saruman is not an evil white guy? Get the fuck outta here with that bullshit. Oh right-- he's not a man....he's a Wizard. Wink wink. Stupid fucking theory.
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Oct 20, 2008 12:10:00 PM CDT
but whatever...even if you do believe Tolkien racist--
by dannyglovers_dickblood
LOTR has come on gone. What are you gonna do? That makes it okay to support this twat and her racist/right wing Agenda to rid the world of people of color and shove Abstinence only programs down everyone's throat? Fuck this. If you really must see this piece of shit-- please people, pay for The Punisher: War Zone and sneak in!
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This backlash will result in broken noses!!
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You! sure! do! use! a! lot! of! exclamation! points!!!!
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I can't help it!!!!!!!! too much coffee!!!!
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...so is every work of fiction produced by a Mormon considered 'propaganda?" Every author mixes their particular ideology into their works, whether they be Catholic, Mormon, Zulu tribesmen, atheists, fascists or whatever. This woman isn't an official representative of her church, and her views don't necessarily reflect those of other Mormons. If you want to bash the LDS church, how about reading up on their support of California's Prop 8? Stephanie Meyer is a terrible writer, full stop.
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Period. Damn shame to try to compare Tolkien books to Sthephanie Meyer's fanfiction shit!!! Heresia!
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posted in the Chud comments! Lol (Oh, I didn't capitalize his name because I don't wanted to snake his trademark and have... something or other.. brought down upon my head).
As for Twillight - never read it, don't plan to and don't plan to see the movie. But Jesus - live and let live already. Fandom Wars are such bullshit. -
I'm in Cali and I am in hardcore opposition to Prop 8. Fuck those sick intolerant motherfuckers.
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I think Mormons have the right to oppose Gay marriage on moral grounds, because the believe that marriage a holy rite. However, government cannot make decisions based on a person or group's religious ideology, so it would be unethical
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I think Mormons have the right to oppose Gay marriage on moral grounds, because the believe that marriage a holy rite. However, government cannot make decisions based on a person or group's religious ideology, so it would be unethical and unconstitutional to amend the constitution on religious grounds. If anything, the Mormon church should be working to limit or eliminate the State's right to perform what they believe is a religious ceremony.
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I have apparently developed short-term Parkinson's from the ridiculous amount of caffeine coursing through my veins right now.
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Oct 20, 2008 1:16:13 PM CDT
Fuck Mormons and fuck their so called morals....
by dannyglovers_dickblood
Morals based on hatred are not valid morals. Who the fuck are they to name themselves representatives of traditional marriage? Yet another prime example of religion doing its best to spread hatred and intolerance. And this coming from a group many devout Christians still consider a cult. Fuck all of them. Incinerate all these hateful motherfuckers.
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...My wife read the entire Twilight series after being pressured by my sister-in-law, and she would often read aloud the most absurd passages she came across. Stephanie Meyer is the queen of the cliche.
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...Speaking of hateful, your vitriolic rant is pretty ironic, DANNYGLOVERS. Very amusing. You're everything that's wrong with secularist society.
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While I personally 100% agree with your post about more examples of groups spreading hate and intolerance – ALL religions are cults you know, even “devout Christians”. :)
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I'm not pro religion in any way. At the moment I'm just particularly Anti-Mormon.
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This is the point in the conversation when the right-wing religious person says "wah! If you're so into 'tolerance' how come you can't tolerate my hatred of a group of people that can't help who they are?" The answer is in the question, dicknose. Stop acting like such a fucking victim every time a liberal calls you on your hate-filled bullshit. Oh, and by the way, Mormons are bugfuck crazy. I don't care if you own a whole state, if your religion forces you to wear secret underwear you can't talk about, you've joined a crazy religion. Or cult.
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Whether or not Twilight has any redeeming value, elevating such utter shit as Buffy is beyond absurd. Sara Michelle Gellar karate-chopping completely non-threatening vampires who disappear into bargain basement puffs of CGI smoke. A whole fucking town overrun by the undead, yet everyone other than a handful of high-schoolers is blissfully unaware of this fact (how quickly would the bodies pile up with that many vampires and werewolves to feed, by the way, and still nobody notices anything?). Godawful teen-angst dreck that shits all over the vampire genre. Twilight would have to be fairly godawful to be even less appealing than the overrated juvenile shitstain that was Buffy.
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I consider myself a secular humanist and a devout agnostic. I'm pretty sure I'm more left- than right-winged, too. I like religion, though, in its variety of forms, and believe that everyone has the right to practice what they believe, provided there are no egregious human or animal rights violations. What I oppose are foaming-at-the-mouth bigots who openly advocate discrimination and/or violence toward any group of people, whether they be members of a particular race, religion, political party or the like.
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until he became evil. Then he became Saruman the Many-Coloured.
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I also oppose depictions of vampires as sparkly superheroes with pointy teeth, brooding personalities and, most importantly, a sense of morality.
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Mormon theology teaches that that Cain and his descendants were placed under a curse, namely, black skin, a curse that prevented almost all of Cain's descendants from being allowed entry into the Mormon priesthood. Not until 1978,in a declaration entitled "Official Declaration 2", did the Mormon church finally relent, and allowed blacks into their priesthood.
Mormons believe the Cainites survived the Flood because Noah's son Ham married a Cainite (allegedly). Those who are descended for this couple are Cainites and are under the "curse" of black skin, according to Mormon theology. This doctrine has been the basis of the racist exclusion of blacks from the Mormon priesthood until as late as 1978.
So how do Mormons try to get out of this racist charge?
Well, they sometimes claim a descendant of Ham could technically be any skin color, not just black. However, the reference to dark skin in the LDS scriptures and leaders's speeches rules out this escape hatch. LDS apologists may also try to point to such ethnic groups as the aborigines of Australia, dark-skinned people who were never under the ban. However, this is simply irrelevant. Africans and African-Americans were considered inferior people up until 1978, and the Mormon church has to answer for it.
Now let's look at some of the details.
Racism in the Book of Mormon
1 Nephi 12:23
"And I beheld, after they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark and loathsome and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations."
1 Nephi 13:15
". . . and I beheld that they were white, and exceedingly fair and beautiful . . ."
2 Nephi 5:21
"And he had caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity. For behold, they had hardened their hearts against him, that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them."
2 Nephi 30:6
". . . a white and delightsome people."
This is the reading of Joseph Smith's original 1830 edition. Smith changed the wording "white" to "pure" in the 1840 printing, though until 1982 the word "white" was again in use.
3 Nephi 2:14-15
"And it came to pass that those Lamanites who had united with the Nephites were numbered among the Nephites; and their curse was taken from them, and their skin became white like unto the Nephites. And their young men and their daughters became exceeding fair.."
According to LDS theology, the Lamanites are the ancestors of the American Indians. In the verses above we see the unbelievable LDS teaching that the skin of the Lamanites would turn white upon conversion!
Jacob 3:8-9
"O my brethren, I fear that unless ye shall repent of your sins that their skins will be whiter than yours, when ye shall be brought with them before the throne of God. Wherefore, a commandment I give unto you, which is the word of God, that ye revile no more against them because of the darkness of their skins "
These racist verses persist to this day, though, as mentoned, the word "white" has been replaced with "pure".
As recently as 1960, we read Spencer W. Kimball, later 12th President of the Mormon church, commenting on the Native American Indians as folows:
"I saw a striking contrast in the progress of the Indian people today as against that of only fifteen years ago. Truly the scales of darkness aref allign from their eyes, and they are fast becoming a white and delightsome people....For years they have been growing delightsome, and they are now becoming white and delightsome, as they were promised..."(Spencer W. Kimball, Improvement Era, Dec. 1960, pp.922-3)
Racism is Book of Abraman and Book of Moses
The books of Moses and Abraham provide the "scriptural" basis for Mormonism's prohibition of the "priesthood" to blacks.
Moses 6:8
"For behold, the Lord shall curse the land with much heat, and the barrenness thereof shall go forth forever; and there was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people."
Abraham 1:24
. . . from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land.
Abraham 1:26
. . . cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood." (referring to Pharaoh)
Racism in the writings of Brigham Young (second Mormon Pesident)
"Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 10:110)
Lest anyone think Young was here merely giving us his "personal opinion" as some LDS apologists would like to maintain, he also says:
"I am here to give this people, called Latter-day Saints, counsel to direct them in the path of life...If there is any elder here, or any member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who can bring up the first idea, the first sentence that I have delivered to the people as counsel that is wrong, I really wish they would do it; but they cannot do it, for the simple reason that I have never given counsel that is wrong; this is the reason." (Brigham Young -Journal of Discourses, 16:161).
Elswhere, Young wrote:
"I have never yet preached a sermon and sent it out to the children of men, that they may not call Scripture" (Journal of Discourses (vol 13, page 95),1870)
Again, in 1854 he writes:
"When all the other children of Adam have had the privilege of receiving the Priesthood, and of coming into the kingdom of God, and of being redeemed from the four quarters of the earth, and have received their resurrection from the dead, then it will be time enough to remove the curse from Cain and his posterity" (Journal of Discourses 2:143).
Bill McKeever cites on his "Mormon Research Ministries" website:
"Joseph Fielding Smith stated, "Not only was Cain called upon to suffer, but because of his wickedness he became the father of an inferior race" (The Way to Perfection, p.101).
and again:
"The negroes are not equal with other races where the receipt of certain spiritual blessings are concerned, particularly the priesthood and the temple blessings that flow therefrom..." (Mormon Doctrine, p.527, 1966 ed.)
The Climbdown of 1978
In June 1978 the First Presidency announced that President Spencer W. Kimball had received a revelation regarding the ordaining of all worthy men to the priesthood. This "revelation," known as Official Declaration 2, can be found in printed form at the end of the Doctrine and Covenants.
In Declaration 2, Spencer Kimball stated that past prophets of the LDS Church had promised that at some time the ban would be lifted and that God, by revelation, had shown him that the day has come. The obvious question to sk is, how could the day have come if Brigham Young could say in (as well as others) Journal of Discourses 2:143 that the time would not come would not come until after the resurrection!
Conclusion
The history of racist doctrine in the Mormon religion continues to haunt this religion to this day. Racist texts in the "Book of Mormon" and other allegedly "sacred" works (Books of Abraham and Moses) continue to expose the racist beliefs of the early Mormon leaders.
The retraction of 1978, allowing colored people to the LDS "Priesthood," leaves untouched the underlying racist theology in Mormon theology. Not only this, but the climbdown contradicts earlier dogmatic statements by LDS president Brigham Young (and others). In any case, it is clear that the racist doctrine of the LDS religion, a religion which presents itself to the world as the "restored gospel of Jesus Christ," will continue to haunt the Mormon church for some time to come.
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I'm not surprised at all this bitch fills her shit with undertones of racism. And the Prop 8 thing makes sense too. Wow.....what a hate based cult they are.
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At least Buffy rarely took itself seriously. It was based on a parody vampire B-movie in the first place.
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The Twilight series is a thinly-veiled fundamentalist Christian abstinence tract, telling young girls and women that they should "save" themselves for the right "man" who should then completely take over their lives in the name of keeping them "safe." The Twilight books are exactly what Sarah Palin wants for the women of America: to be owned, to be kept down, to be told what to do (by herself and other men), to completely give up any autonomy all in the name of "love." It stinks. If Hardwicke sticks to the general propaganda of these books, then she'll be undermining herself as one of the few successful female directors in Hollywood. Twilight will not bring young women to fannish pursuits - it wants to keep them to itself and keep them on "message."
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No one else saves for a few of us seems to fucking get it. This is Right-Wing Propaganda. Sorry I'm not gonna invest in this horse shit. This bitch is probably funneling thousands of dollars into the McCain Campaign. Fuck this.
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...but you're still a hatemonger and a bigot. I don't really care to defend Mormonism; my point was simply that Stephanie Meyer doesn't officially represent her church. Even if she was an atheist she will still be a terrible writer. Anyway, why do you want to convince people that Mormonism in particular is evil and wrong? Why not attack a more mainstream religion, perhaps one that has less of a stigma attached to it? I'd like you to write a paper on the secret evils of either Episcopalians or Baptists. I want your final draft on my desk by Friday.
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My wife loves these books too, Ive read the first one. Just an example of badly written 'chick lit'. Not sure how theyre gonna make the movie interesting as nothing really happens except they talk about their feelings alot, then they throw in abit of action at the end. ...Mormonism brought us two good things "Big Love" & that South Park episode about mormons....hilarious.
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Personally I'm waiting for the NEW Next Big thing.
Emo Zombies!
They fall in love then fall to pieces. -
At least Angel had a *soul* to explain the non biting, and Buffy had the good sense to stab him in the gut and send him to Hell in a pinch. I agree with whoever brought up "Let the Right One In." It'll be in limited release soon, so why not nudge people toward a movie that actually does tween vamp romance right?
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I bought the book for my wife out of the blue and I'm quite excited that she's so addicted to it. She read all the books within 3 weeks and is in full-on geek mode about it. It's fucking rad.
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over on the Chud story, it's time for you to step forward, admit your inadequacy, and receive TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION.
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Lame. Seek them out, TFD.
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I'm just sayin...
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I tried the first book and I don't get the appeal to anyone but tween girls. Even then, I still don't get it. It's like a less skillfully written Tuck Everlasting. If they want a scary abstinence poster child, they should buy the movie Teeth. If they like horror and sexual tension, get 'em into Anita Blake (which is also kind of crap, particularly in the middle of the series when it became all sex all the time). Twilight? Meh.
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"isn't everyone that writes for AICN married except for Vern"
Kind of my point. Which is probably why Vern gets the most trim. That and being from Seattle. -
The show was an allegory for a young girl facing her fears of the adult world. Fear of adults (Monsters), one's sexual awakening and sexual experimentation (the blood drinking and vampires being the metaphor), the complications of sex, date rape, abusive relationships among teen couples, the forbidden fruit of May/December relationships...including statutory rape (Angel and Buffy), STDs (Vampirism as a sex born disease), Sex addiction (again a symptom of vampirism), drug addictions (Willow's addition to witch craft) the general hypocrisy of society...political, ethical and moral, religious, etc. Buffy is slaying her fears, largely against her will, as she is forced to grow-up and become an adult...as all of us must!!! The Big Bad is what comes to us in the form of whatever insurmountable troubles we may suddenly face in our daily lives, including paying the bills, keeping the family together, health issues, and mortality/death. I would recommend that you watch at least 3 episodes of Buffy back to back in sequence, in order to get to know the characters and much of the hidden political satire and subversive nature of the series. From time to time, the show had its awkward, or just plain bad episodes, Joss Whedon's free willing way of experimenting story wise, via often deconstructing the narrative in certain episodes and throwing caution to the wind. If you happened to see one of those episodes, or some of the more weaker or silly B and C story arcs, they can easily fool you into thinking the show is not very good, but if you stick with it, you will see something quite special in the majority of the episodes and the show, over all, the reason why so many people are ripping it off all of the time, lke the creator of Twilight. And when Joss' experiments worked, boy did they work big, episodes like "Hush", "The Body" and "Once More With Feeling"!!! They were transformative and brlliant, again, the reason why so many in the industry have stolen many of Joss' former writers and producers for their programs, from Alias to Lost, 24, Smallville, and Galactica, among others!!!
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Oops!!!
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Agree with that, filmcans. I can't take that CHUD article seriously, it looks like it was mainly written to co-opt that Twilight-net-traffic and it looks like it succeeded too (judging by the comments). Although it is kind of funny that it that AICN (rather than CHUD) gets to play the "We are reconstructed geeks who understand woman and what it means to be fully rounded adults" card for a change.I'm personally not a big fan of the way that vampire fiction has gone over the last twenty years and the realisation that there is more than two or three competing property with these tragic-hero vampire depresses the heck out of me. And I count Buffy/Angel as part of the problem, I'm sure that the same kind of fandom that sustains these Twilight/Tru Blood properties propelled Buffy past it's natural endpoint and kept Angel on-air past it's first season. Buffy was nicely allegorical when it first started but unfortunately at it went on it became less and less interested in the real world and more interested in it's tedious, self-contained vampire/demon universe (emphasis on vampire) to the extent that the vampires stopped being the cannon fodder that they should have been and started getting surrogate souls and extended flashbacks and so on. And yes, I realise that Angel was in Buffy from the first episode as a brooding love interest but I think that they could have turned away from the temptation to build his character up as much as they did. I think it all crystalised for me when I saw the poster up on my roommates wall, the words "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" written in a horrible goth-y font and Angel standing behind Buffy looking all broody and shit. I couldn't understand why the show would be playing up that angle I considered it far and away it's lamest aspect well, obviously, I had severely underestimated the extent to which Buffy/Angel fans were drawn in by all the grim Mills&Boon-style relationship elements. If Buffy had started in 2006 then it's fandom would have a 70-80% overlap with Twilight's.Harry's article is totally over the top but I can't blame him especially when you've got CHUD decrying AICN as a preserve of frustrated, misogynistic fanboys and then putting up something like this (and stickying it?) on their mainpage. This film looks like ass to me but I don't see why women and gay men can't get to fantasise about Robert Pattinson in peace in this little corner of geekdom that they inhabit. There are no sites where we can gather together and point and laugh about how most nerds like to cream their pants over one-dimesional ass-kicking heroic females dressed in hotpants or skintight PVC. Fuck Kate Beckinsale's face!
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you captured the movement so eloquently. The thing I was told when I said I hated the book to a girl friend was, "Please. You're just jealous 'cause Edward is so hot." Instead of what Harry actually wrote, he could've suggested better horror/scifi gateways. I'm not big into tween novels, but I'm sure they're not all this bad. Look at Harry Potter. Tween novels can have plots. Supernatural would be a much better gateway, though. Even if you have to say, "Dean is so hot!" to get them there, do it!
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Maybe for the audience of tween girls of whom we speak in context of Twilight the allegory was important. But I'm an early 30s guy and still loved Buffy when I discovered it a few years ago. Because it's solid storytelling. I agree that the allegory is there and that the series could be transcendent, but I think what's MORE important, and the big difference I see between the show and at least the first book of Twilight (since I didn't read any others) is that Buffy episodes are good storytelling. Twilight felt like pandering on every level. And it was just kind of blase writing. I felt the same way about Dan Brown's crappola. I actually think Twilight is better writing than Da Vinci Blowed. There were moments in Buffy Season 1 involving Angel where I thought they were pandering, I'll admit, but they were moments only. I think if someone finds fault with Buffy it's likely because they're some kind of purist. Either vampire purists or narrative purists. Like any show, Buffy has some bad eps. And some good episodes are marred by difficult elements. Pretty much any time Dawn starts in on her melodramatic pubescent screeching (and boy could Trachtenberg screech), I want to gouge out my eyes. But overall it's a great show.
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Because it has totally and utterly PUSSYFIED vampire lore. Vampires are about death. Plain and simple: Death. Vampires are about a creature that slinks in the night and shadows, sinks its terrible bone-white fangs into your jugular vein, drains you dry of life then humanity, and then turns you into one of it. Vampires are creatures of menace and evil, monsters that MAUL cattle for blood, sleep in coffins, and can be burned - that's right, F***ing BURNED -- by a crucifix or holy water, and that can only be killed by you, yes YOU, picking up a stake of ash and pounding it into their chests, rupturing their black hearts like cheese-grated party baloons. They are not your friends. They are not "boy toys." They are creatures of prey and evil doings in the night. They are not the New Fucking Kids on the Block, and they are NOT the male cast of 90210. Vampires are terrifying beasts full of evil, they are a viral cancer. They are NOT sympathetic sweet heartthrobs. And that's why WE, the vampire fans of the world, FUCKING FATE TWILIGHT WITH A GODDAMN PASSION.
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But the fun about Buffy was where the particular season's story arc would lead...and sometimes you could tell that Joss Whedon was extending a theme that could have been completed in 6 to 8 episodes, hence some elements of the any given story arc might seem haphazard, like that of Dawn. Much of her story was filler, designed to give Dawn some 3 Dimensionality while the real story unfolded without us even realizing it until the climax of the story itself. In martial arts terms it was largely "a Faint", or better yet in writing terms "the McGuffen". If we didn't have Dawn, we wouldn't have had the set up for what was to led to the great season ender, the last episode on the WB, which if UPN hadn't picked-up the series, would have marked the last episode of the series all together. Yes, Dawn was used to mislead the audience into one belief, while Whedon was forwarding another truth just outside of the view of the audience.Dawn was the magician's trick, his secret scheme of misdirection, while something else was happening elsewhere, the real drama, the real ground zero point of impact, known as the plot twist, and that came in the form of Buffy realizing what her greatest gift is, that being her death.
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But the fun about Buffy was where the particular season's story arc would lead...and sometimes you could tell that Joss Whedon was extending a theme that could have been completed in 6 to 8 episodes, hence some elements of any given story arc might seem haphazard, like that of Dawn. Much of her story was filler, designed to give Dawn some "3 Dimensionality" while the real story unfolded without us even realizing it until the climax of the story itself. In martial arts terms it was largely "a Faint", or better yet, in writing terms..."the McGuffen". If we didn't have Dawn, we wouldn't have had the hidden set-up for what was to lead us to the great season ender, the last episode on the WB, which if UPN hadn't picked-up the series, would have marked the last episode of the series all together. Yes, Dawn was used to mislead the audience into one belief, while Whedon was forwarding another truth just outside of the view of the audience, until the final episode of the season.
Dawn was the magician's trick, his secret scheme of misdirection, while something else was happening elsewhere, the real drama, the real ground zero point of impact, known as the plot twist, and that came in the form of Buffy as she came to realize what her greatest gift in life, is her own death. -
this movie is going to get more girls to go to sci-fi conventions, which is fine by me. I'm sick of being surrounded by guys in jedi and joker costumes every time I go.
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Then why don't most of the girls here seem to like it? Looks like mostly thumbs down on Twilight from us.
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Or in any case, I hate the trailer because I haven't read the book. Formulaic lonely girl meets sensitive boy shit. Let the 12 years enjoy the emo vampire teen soap. Its a natural law 12 year olds are into stupid stuff.
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I rest my case.
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They're pussifying EVERYTHING nowadays. PG-13 ' horror ', anyone ? Listen to Iron Maiden.
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Maybe they should also redo Infinity Gauntlet thing and make Thanos a hurt little teenage git with feelings. That should get them female young'uns at the cons.
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I actually based my opinion that this movie might be a giant piece of shit on the movie's theatrical trailer and poster campaign. And if I think Robert Pattinson doesn't have a future, that might be more because I can't think of a single male tween-star in the past ten or more years that has actually gone on to have any sort of career (with the exception of Zac Efron, maybe). Also, as a sidenote, I believe Twilight fans are going to go from the film to Evil Dead II like I believe I'm going to become a billionaire tomorrow.
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Now that you've lashed out against dannyglover, by following your logic, you should spend the rest of your days attacking everyone else speaking out about dogmatic racism and subversive movements. I guess I'm next in line.
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I know I'm late to this board, but sonnyfern...that was f'n funny as shit!
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