New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Reagen Sulewski: While I never really fell for the Harry Potter phenomenon, I at least respected and understood it, and it had a reasonably well thought out arc story-wise. Twilight seems to me to be the inverse of that in every way, down to its themes, and the "bake your cake and have it too" conclusion. I do think we can go overboard in declaring that a culture's entertainment defines them and dooms them to mediocrity, because it's just movies, people, but you do wish they actually had something that was actually good to look back on when they discover nostalgia in five or six years. To me, that its own star hated the films more than anyone else speaks volumes.

Jim Van Nest: Maybe I'm just wanting some positive mail or something, but again, I find the Twilight phenomenon amazing. I haven't read the books and I saw the first two films. Didn't like 'em, didn't hate 'em. They just "were" for me. I still don't get the massive hate on this, especially from folks who've never read a book nor seen a film. The phenomenon itself is impressive. Again, not as widely targeted as something like Potter or Hunger Games, Twilight found and created what might be considered the most loyal audience of any franchise in history. When you look at the fact that the last numbers I could find had Potter outselling Twilight by a factor of four (sure, there are more Potter books...so, what, they still doubled?), the series finales aren't that far apart. That's an incredibly loyal fan base that proved it with their attendance and their money.

Max Braden: To twist a quote from PCU, it's like, if you're nice to them, young adult girls will bring you money. I think that's something that Hollywood keeps forgetting and then 'discovering' over and over. It worked for Elvis, it worked for Titanic, and it worked for Breaking Dawn and The Hunger Games (and, too, 50 Shades of Grey). Focusing too much on male-dominated movies centered around blood and guts (okay, there's vampire crossover there I guess), can just leave money sitting on the table. I think Twilight is also another example, after Harry Potter, of how significant the young adult book industry has become over the last 10 years. I don't think these movies would have done nearly as well in the '80s and '90s. Whether that will remain true for the next 10 to 20 years is hard to know, but I imagine those property sales are going strong now.

Kim Hollis: A long time ago, before anyone knew what it was, I read the first Twilight book. I thought it was overwrought but entertaining enough. (Oddly enough, there's a much better young adult vampire book called Sunshine that came out not long before Twilight hit shelves. It just didn't strike the same chord.) I never could get into the second book, and upon re-reading the first, I found it a little boring and whiny. I do see why girls (and women) enjoy it, but ultimately, it's too overwrought for me.

I've never seen any of the movies, other than about five minutes of the first one (the baseball scene, I think). I don't really feel the need to see them, either. I have a lot of friends who have been dedicated to the series, though, and I do think it's kind of nice that there's a franchise out there that women have embraced. It's not any worse than Sex and the City.

Continued:       1       2       3       4