"This Is About My Soul!" The Movie Club Discusses New Moon

The Twilight Saga: New Moon is the best Twilight movie I’ve ever seen. That’s not saying much. Having only seen the first and second movies in the series, perhaps I should reserve my judgment until I’ve witnessed the entire cinematic saga.

I really hope someone at the Twilight offices reads this post and uses my endorsement on the cover of some DVD/BluRay rerelease. Here are some other possible blubs they might like to use:

“New Moon is a movie with people in it, and they talk.” – Dan Bergstein

“I guess the jetpacks were invisible.” – D. B.

“I liked the part where she fell.” – Mr. Daniel Adam Bergstein

“Why don’t the Italians have Italian accents? Screw it. I don’t really care.” – Professor Dan Bergstein

“I named each of Jacob’s abs and collectively I call them Sebastian and the Five Bandits. I’m straight.” – Dan Boobs Bergstein, who is straight and likes boobs all the way.

“New Moon isn’t as bad as being killed by ducks, which I imagine would be quite horrible as it would take a long time.” – DJ Danny Brrrgstein

“The DVD has a menu screen and fits in most cabinets and cellars.” – Dan-tasy Island

New Moon is indeed better than the first movie, but this is like saying getting a sore throat is indeed better than shattering all the bones in your body via the sound waves of a very loud bell. To say I didn’t enjoy the movie would be an understatement, a statement so under that it has an Australian accent. This is not a good movie.

Where did it go wrong? Where did it go right? Let’s ask some discussion questions to find out. As always, my answers appear below each question, and you can answer in the comments.

1. Why is New Moon better than Twilight?
In the book, Jacob made the story bearable. In the movie, he’s not as wonderful as I hoped he'd be, but he’s still better than Edward. There's also more action in New Moon, which wasn’t in the book, but certainly helped shove the story along.

2. How does Book Jacob differ from Movie Jacob?
I spent a lot of the previous Twilight Movie Club critiquing the acting skills of Kristen Stewart and Cedric Diggory, so this time I’ll focus my critical laser on Taylor Lautner. T.L. does an adequate job here, but he’s not the Jacob I envisioned. Even when he becomes muscular and shirtless, there’s something too “pretty” about his face and voice. Book Jacob is rugged and dirty. Movie Jacob looks like he stepped off the set of a pretentious perfume commercial, and his voice isn’t that of a mountain man, but that of an adorable cartoon character from some poorly made Disney spinoff like "Beauty and the Beast: Chip’s First Day of School." He’s not the man I wanted to meet.

3. How did Chapter Ten look?
This was my favorite chapter of the books, in which the werewolves first rescue Bella from Laurent. I was looking forward to this, but when the scene arrived, I thought it was an ad for New Moon: The Video Game, and not the good version of the game, but the DS version. The wolves looked super fake. You could almost see the computer code in their fur.

4. What was it like to see Quil and Marcus for the first time?
Amazing. Every time they were on the screen, I laughed. Marcus even wore a pretty dress. He’s very powerful, you know.

5. Was there any way the filmmakers could have saved the movie from being a boring disaster?
They should have changed the ending. One of the many problems with the book and movie is the last act, where Bella races to save Edward. Nothing about this makes sense. There really isn’t a conclusion to the scene in Italy. And why was Dakota Fanning in this? And where was Emmett?

6. What was the worst part of the movie?
There are at least three scenes in the movie showing the passage of time. The first is by far the worst, and perhaps one of the most awful/hilarious scenes of any movie. It shows sad Bella sitting in her chair as the camera rotates around her and title cards show us that the months are passing. That’s bad enough, but the scene is accompanied by a truly horrible and manipulative sad song about possibility. I don’t even want to mention the song because the music will just get stuck in my head again. So bad.

Though it was very funny to watch Bella have night terrors.

7. What is your biggest nitpick?
Alice is driving around sunny Italy wearing nothing but a glamorous scarf over her head to shield her from the sun. She also rides on a plane in clear sunny skies. And there is a damn skylight in the Volturi’s throne room and yet none of the vampires sparkle or even twinkle. This egregious lack of story consistency would be like watching the Wicked Witch of the West run through a rainstorm or have a hot tub party.

8. Where are all the shirts?
I knew there would be many bare-chested men in this movie, but it was still funny to see how gratuitous the abdominal nudity was. The worst/funniest moment comes at the end, after Edward reveals his sickly pale belly and is reunited with Bella. He takes his shirt off to step into the sunlight, but once the Volturi intervene and escort him to Aro, the guards give him a revealing robe to wear. But where is his shirt? Why can’t he wear the shirt? He just took it off. It’s right there on the ground. Pick it up!? There’s no need for the sex robe! What happened to his shirt? Do the Volturi think nothing of litter bugs?

9. What can we expect from Eclipse and Breaking Dawn?
Pure joy. I cannot wait. Live-blogging and discussing these movies is more fun than a fun thing that's fun.

10. What should we watch for December?
Something holiday-themed would be good. I know a lot of people suggested Elf, but to be honest, that movie is great and funny and I’m not sure we can add to the joy. What about something sappy like It’s A Wonderful Life, or maybe instead of a movie we watch two or three Christmas specials? Or we watch every single movie version of A Christmas Carol? If we start now, we may finish by March!

We’re open to any and all ideas.

We’re also working on a way to, possibly, host a video live-blog for the Movie Club. Still working out the details. Stay tuned.

Related post: The SparkNotes Movie Club Loves Twilight (Sarcasm Hand)