Why Twilght is Popular

[Eoraptor1]

You've all heard me b*tch about the progressive wussification of the movie vampire, so whe I stumbled over this video on YouTube, I knew I'd have to share it.

Go HERE: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K4uuGvmAxTI

I don't feel as negatively toward Stephanie Meyer's book as the narrator. It ruthlessly santizes the vampire myth, but Twilight was originally aimed at an audience of 11-12 year old girls, so I do understand why she did it. I think alot of my antipathy is due to my having been "leveraged" into seeing Twilight instead of Gran Torino at the multiplex.

JAMES

I had issues embedding, so I ended up posting a link.

[Eoraptor1]

Trying again.

K4uuGvmAxTI

JAMES

[TARPSBird]

The video is pretty accurate as for its description of who reads the Twilight series. :) Early-teen girls may have been Stephenie Meyer's original target audience, but at Barnes & Noble I also sell a lot of her books to women up to age 30 or so. Soccer moms, Goths, overweight women, quite a mixed bag. They like those sexy vampires. I prefer the hideous, terrifying type like Bram Stoker's Dracula.

[tigisfat]

That's pretty much the sad side of it. As much as I hate to admit, many men are subject to the same shallow entertainment too. I've seen quite a few intellectually challenged men who were easily stimulated by what I would call "bro" movies, where a certain culture of tough guy "bros" is displayed for all to see and emulate. The 'fast and furious' movie was a good example, and sadly, so was '300'. 'Greenstreet hooligans' springs to mind as another 'bro' movie.

[Quixoticish]

What's wrong with the guys voice on that video? I don't know if it's the fact that I haven't had a cup of tea yet this morning but it's so annoyingly grating.

[OBIO]

I hate wimpy vampires...and wimpy, gangsterized werewolves. Underworld....come on...you're a freaking vampire or werewolf...why are you using guns? Werewolves are not supposed to be super scientists working in a lab to invent a sun shine bullet to shoot vampires. And vampires are not supposed to be running around with Uzi's loaded with silver bullets. Fangs and claws...Fangs and Claws!!!!! Those are all the weapons good Vampires and Werewolves need.

Jack Palance...he should have been a werewolf! Adrian Brody...the big nosed guy in King Kong and that new movie Splice...he should be a vampire...he looks like a Nesparatu.

OBIO

[tigisfat]

I hate wimpy vampires...and wimpy, gangsterized werewolves. Underworld....come on...you're a freaking vampire or werewolf...why are you using guns? Werewolves are not supposed to be super scientists working in a lab to invent a sun shine bullet to shoot vampires. And vampires are not supposed to be running around with Uzi's loaded with silver bullets. Fangs and claws...Fangs and Claws!!!!! Those are all the weapons good Vampires and Werewolves need.

Jack Palance...he should have been a werewolf! Adrian Brody...the big nosed guy in King Kong and that new movie Splice...he should be a vampire...he looks like a Nesparatu.

OBIO
http://i595.photobucket.com/albums/tt32/walkeramerican/forum%20commentary%20pictures/thepostoftheday-1.gif

:icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol::icon_lol:

hahahah "the big nosed guy in King Kong" and "fangs and claws...FANGS AND CLAWS!!!"

You are the inaugaral winner of the coveted 'Tigisfat Post of the Day' award!

[safn1949]

What's funny is my girl (36) and her mom (69) watched 300 and all they did was drool over Gerald Butler.It was like watching a couple of 16 yr old girls.:d

[Eoraptor1]

The video is pretty accurate as for its description of who reads the Twilight series. :) Early-teen girls may have been Stephenie Meyer's original target audience, but at Barnes & Noble I also sell a lot of her books to women up to age 30 or so. Soccer moms, Goths, overweight women, quite a mixed bag. They like those sexy vampires. I prefer the hideous, terrifying type like Bram Stoker's Dracula.

I'm not sure here if you mean Bram Stoker's original novel or the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie. I'm a Coppola fan and liked Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I consider him partly to blame for the steady wussification of movie vampires. The first half of his Dracula was very much like the book, but it seemed to me that midway through he decided he wanted to do a remake of Cocteau's take on the Beauty and the Beast. In the Collector's Edition DVD in the Director's Commentary, he even admits it. C'mon now, would Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee have hesitated to bite Winona's lovely swan neck? NO!!! Those were proper vampires.

Dracula is one of those books everyone thinks they know, but a lot people have never actually read. For example, you can always tell who has and hasn't read the book by asking how Dracula is destroyed, like an SAT question.

Dracula is destroyed by:

A) Sunlight.

B) Van Helsing driving a wooden stake through his heart.

C) Immersion in running water.

D) He is stabbed by a real estate clerk with a "kukri" and a Texan wielding a James Bowie knife.

SOH is pretty clever, and can probably guess the answer, but a lot of people get this one dead wrong.


ATTN: OBIO

Jack Palance played Count Dracula in 1973. His portrayal was fairly close to the book. To my knowledge, he never portrayed a werewolf. Kim Newman, who writes the Anno Dracula series, says his ideal Dracula would have been a young Harvey Keitel.

JAMES

PS You watch Underworld to see Kate Beckinsale exert herself in the black leather (latex?) clothes she stole from Emma Peel's closet.

[TARPSBird]

I'm not sure here if you mean Bram Stoker's original novel or the 1992 Francis Ford Coppola movie. I'm a Coppola fan and liked Bram Stoker's Dracula, but I consider him partly to blame for the steady wussification of movie vampires.
I was referring to the original novel. It's been about 40 years since I read it but I recall one passage where Van Helsing and crew wedge consecrated Communion wafers into the door to the vampire's crypt so he can't return to his coffin, and the vampire goes wild with rage. Very scary - if that scene has been included in a movie I don't remember it. The 1992 flick had some good moments but I'm not a Keanu Reeves fan. :d

[Lewis-A2A]

Twilight and Glee,

-Twilight a new slightyly updated harry potter to keep the audience as they grow up.

-Glee a new slighty updated high school musical to keep the audience as they grow up.

Updates include,
Slightly longer words in book/script
Sex
Sex
Sex
Theme of being a 'grown up'
Sex
Sex

[Bjoern]

Updates include,
Slightly longer words in book/script
Sex
Sex
Sex
Theme of being a 'grown up'
Sex
Sex

And that's a bad thing? :icon_lol:

[tonybones2112]

The video is pretty accurate as for its description of who reads the Twilight series. :) Early-teen girls may have been Stephenie Meyer's original target audience, but at Barnes & Noble I also sell a lot of her books to women up to age 30 or so. Soccer moms, Goths, overweight women, quite a mixed bag. They like those sexy vampires. I prefer the hideous, terrifying type like Bram Stoker's Dracula.

We get our popular entertainment vampire legends mostly from Stoker, who assembled them from many different diverse sources. Vlad Tepes did exploit the Muslim.Arab terror of vampires as a psychological warfare weapon in his wars with the Turk invaders, and gave rise to the many outbreaks of "vampirism" in Europe during the Middle Ages.

I write of vampires in my horror fiction, I don't waste my time with teeny bopper fluff such as "Twilight". Each generation has to have it's icons and idols, in my teen years it was Rachel Welch, Clint Eastwood, Christopher Lee, Lara Parker, Jonathan Frid, etc., whose movies and posters generated a living for the producers/distributors of their wares. Same with "Twilight". I try with my fiction to maintain a realism, a contact with the real world. My vampires are not immortal, per se, they can be killed and they can be starved to death. They drink blood, they also eat human flesh. They are anatomically "correct"; they don't wear these teeth the size of bowling pins but make their exsanguinations by taking a big gouge out of you, more fitting reality. My stuff is not for teens either, no teen wants to read of the real theme of my work: grief, loss, loneliness, and how we gloss over these realities with fluff as veneer, like "Twilight". My vampires are not particularly pleased to be in the situation they are in.

Bones

[Eoraptor1]

I was referring to the original novel. It's been about 40 years since I read it but I recall one passage where Van Helsing and crew wedge consecrated Communion wafers into the door to the vampire's crypt so he can't return to his coffin, and the vampire goes wild with rage. Very scary - if that scene has been included in a movie I don't remember it. The 1992 flick had some good moments but I'm not a Keanu Reeves fan. :d

We park our cars in the same garage, TARPSBird. I thought Keanu was completely inappropriate as Jonathan Harker. He has a very good agent. Dracula is worth a re-visit. I have the version annotated by Leonard Wolf. I don't agree with all of his commentary, but he says some interesting things. Your local public library probably has it.

RE: The historical Dracula. I've actually gotten to know two people from Romania, but I kind of avoided the subject of Dracula. I keep seeing on the History Channel that many in Romania consider Dracula a national hero, and see Bram Stoker's book as libelous. At the same time, there's a burgeoning Dracula tourist industry. Never having found the time to get to Romania, I couldn't say for sure what's true.

JAMES