Finally, I saw the New Moon movie adaptation.
My thoughts? Comments? Reaction? Okay. Here goes.
I liked it.
Yes, I thought it was well done. Of course, I thought the Twilight adaptation was good under the circumstances. Adapting novels into feature-length motion pictures is alway a challenge because of the amount of story compression involved.
The thing that bothered me most about the Twilight movie was the absense of the meadow, the place where Edward reveals his skin's reaction to sunlight. Of course, Edward's skin sparkles in the sun, but this scene wasn't portrayed accurately in Hollywood's Twilight. I didn't understand why this scene was altered since it played a noticeable role in New Moon. Were I directing, the meadow certainly would have been included in Twilight.
This issue was resolved well in New Moon, and I liked the way it made up for the omission. As an adaptation, I found New Moon to be more accurate than Twilight, and I liked the pacing better. Still though, parts seemed rushed, and if I hadn't read the novel, I am not sure I could have kept up with what was going on.
Changing directors from Catherine Hardwicke to Chris Weitz seemed like a good move because Weitz seemed to include more core elements from Stephenie Meyers' original vision. Still, like Twilight, New Moon fails somewhat in that the inspiration for the title is omitted by adaptation. Twilight is the safest time for vampires. This isn't mentioned in the film version. And the dark sky and new moon isn't addressed when Edward leaves Bella in the second installment. I thought these elements should have been included. They lend to the stories' titles. They are significant.
Oh well. I am a stickler for detail. I appreciate authenticity. I look forward happily to Eclipse when it arrives in theaters for summer 2010.
