By The Bel: Stephenie Meyer's - "Twilight" Book vs. Film
Thanks to Divergent’s later Aussie release date I’ve had to scramble and slip in another movie for March. *pouty face* Boo to the pewpy release date. Boo!
The Book
There are so many fan-created book trailers out there, but I had trouble finding an official one. I also ‘read’ the audio book this time around, though I did read the entire series by Stephenie Meyer in paperback before the books were made into movies.
This version has the original artwork on the cover, is in MP3 format, and is on one disc. Yes, an entire unabridged book on one disc. It was lovely to just flick it over to my MP3 player and listen to Ilyana Kadushin do her thing. Considering the running time is 13 hours (yup, thirteen hours) you’re certainly going to be getting your money’s worth.
From what I can remember from reading the books, Bella in my head wasn’t anything like she was in the films, and apparently Ilyana felt the same when she was narrating the story for Bolinda Audio. She brings dimension, emotion, and drive to the story that you may not have had in your head, or found in the film.
For anyone who wouldn’t necessarily touch the series with a ten foot barge pole (VAMPIRES DON’T SPARKLE DAMN IT) give the Bolinda audio book a try. Who knows! Maybe you can like the books and just not tell anyone. *wink*
The Film
I saw this film twice in the cinemas in 2008 and I bought it on DVD for the sake of this series.
I’ll quickly mention the things I love about this film. The locations are breathtaking, most of which are around Washington, Oregon, and British Columbia. Silver Falls State Park in Oregon is magical.
The song Decode by the band Paramore never fails to give me goose bumps.
The giggle factor was the other thing I adored. Now I know this is supposed to be a totally serious film, but I cannot help but see the funny side of bad hair, one-dimensional acting and vampires that sparkle.
I have taken into account the lack of funding and that the director wasn’t as high profile as the person who took over the rest of the saga, so in that respect they did amazingly well to get it up to that standard.
So the verdict: If you haven’t seen, read or heard Twilight yet, go with the audio book first. Ilyana does this story justice and makes it extremely consumable. If and only IF you can view it as a totally separate entity should you watch the film; don’t take it seriously and walk in ready for all the characters to take themselves way too seriously. I dare you not to laugh.
