Twilight: The story of Vampires and Werewolves, but not really.

The other day I was riding with a friend who delivers flowers for Hy-Vee, and I noticed that one of his deliveries was to a girl named Stephanie Meyer. Now my first impulse was to grab those flowers and throw them out the window screaming some combination of obscene curse words , but of course destroying some poor girls flowers simply because she has a name that makes me fill with more rage than the giant green man himself wouldn't help my friend keep his job nor would it make the abomination that is the Twilight Saga go away any faster.

Today I'm going to discuss the many things that are wrong with Twilight, the obvious and the not so obvious. First off, on the outside it's a tale about a young girl who is torn between loving a vampire and a werewolf. Even at that you can interpret it as a teenager choosing between a creepy old man with serious emo issues and a really big dog. That in itself is already really screwed up. But I'm gonna go even deeper.

Through the years there have been many different interpretations of Vampire and Werewolf mythology. While all writers have their own take on it they at least respect the few guidelines that make these monsters as immortal in a literary sense as they are in the stories themselves.

Such guidelines are as follows: Vampires are demons in the bodies of humans that have passed. They have no souls, no reflections, and cannot go near any holy territory, be it a church, crucifix or even pure sunlight. Hell they can't even step foot in one's home without being invited in. You must invite the evil. Yet the so-called "Vampires" in Ms. Stephanie Meyer's books can go anywhere they please, walk in sunlight without any consequences other than turning into walking disco balls, and feel actual feelings and torment. I don't know what these things are supposed to be but they're clearly not vampires.

Now onto Werewolves. There are actually many interpretations of a werewolf's origin. Sometimes it's being bitten by one and left to live, other times it's part of being in a cursed bloodline and all it takes is a murder out of pure anger to awaken the beast. Origins aside, the actual creatures all share common traits. They turn on a full moon, cannot control the rage but have vague memories of their actions, and are vulnerable to pure steel. In Twilight, they can turn whenever they wish, be it in broad daylight or a normal night absent of a full moon, painlessly at that, and they can actually control the beast. If you can control it then what's the point of the curse? It doesn't sound like a curse at all but rather a gift. These so-called "Werewolves" actually sound a lot more like Skinwalkers, also supernatural beasts of Native American origin, but they can shape-shift from a human form to that of an animal, most commonly a wolf or a dog.

Also both the vampires and werewolves are apparently invulnerable to any of the weapons listed above because you don't see anyone shooting steel bullets or pulling a crucifix or wooden stake on them. In short, calling these creatures Vampires and Werewolves is about as logical as turning the character of Mickey Mouse into a dancing turkey who wears purple sunglasses and cowboy boots. While it would be interesting to see such a thing, you don't f*cking call it Mickey Mouse. And that ends my Twilight rant. Hope you enjoyed it and maybe even learned a thing or two.

I Am Number Four, and this is why I suck.

My first topic revolves around the recent movie, I Am Number Four. This is going to be more of a review than a rant, seeing how it's hard to get really in-depth without either spoiling the book, the movie, and in very rare cases, both at the same time.

When I first saw the preview months ago I immediately got the book and gave it a read. In short, I absolutely LOVED it. It had interesting characters that were easy to relate to, fun action scenes, and a slowly unraveling mythology of a world long gone that almost makes you believe such a thing could have happened at one time. It was so brilliantly handled. From the overall plot to the development and evolution of the characters. Even when they made a mistake you were rooting for them to see the wrong in their ways and fix it. You could relate to Number Four's dislike of always having to run and give up any chance for a normal life to protect a world he never even knew. But he didn't run from it. For better or worse he understood the importance of it all.



Now my question is why would you take such a great piece of storytelling and make it into a film if you're going to ignore all the things that made it great? Not even ignore, but CHANGE? Number Four, or John, in the movie is a selfish rebellious teen who wants nothing to do with his destiny, but somehow in the end still fights for it. They take his guardian, Henri, and turn him into an arrogant control freak that almost makes you not feel guilty about John rebelling, which I HATED. Even the love interest, Sarah, was so two-dimensional that you can't really tell where she's coming from even thought somehow John does.

The plot is so rushed, and many key moments of the book, while in the movie, are so watered down and minimized that they lose all desired effect. About 2/3 of the way through the movie I still wasn't rooting for John, because his character simply wasn't developed enough. It wasn't handled with enough care to create a hero figure that you truly wanted to see conquer, because he spent most of the movie ignoring what he's been told all along. None of the characters were developed well, and some not at all. The main love interest side-plot was so underdeveloped that by the time it happened I was like "What the hell? What just happened?" It simply wasn't believable. There are many moments like that, one in particular in the very end that I would have just walked out of the movie on if there wasn't two minutes left.

The film was just poorly handled, with no regard for the source material whatsoever. People walking in with no knowledge of the book won't even get certain things, like the small golden chest that Henri keeps hidden in the grandfather clock. A chest that has no purpose anyomore, because they decided they could handle things differently, but guess what? Now the chest is obselete. They missed their chance.

I'm so beyond pissed at this movie for the mere fact that it's obvious the people adapting the book didn't really "get it." If you're not going to respect the source material and handle it properly then simply stay away from it. And that concludes my review/rant of I Am Number Four.