As someone who hasn't read the books and has seen only the first two films and didn't enjoy them very much I wasn't confident of enjoying this one. But nevertheless I went to see the film with an open mind but was left predictably disappointed.
I promise that this will not be an attack on the films or the people that love them. I understand that everyone has their opinions and views and this is merely mine.
But I just have never connected with any of the characters. I've watched them over the course of three films and still feel as though I know nothing about them. As a consequence when the film was telling me I must care about the fate of a character/s I found myself not caring one bit.
Some people may have hated this next movie that I'm about to mention, but at the end of One Day I found myself quite emotional. I felt like I knew the characters and the big event as the film reached its climax struck an emotional chord with me.
How do you get to know the characters? Well, read any book on writing and you'll be told that one of the key ways in which to engage your readers with your characters is dialogue. But for me the dialogue was never there in Breaking Dawn. Everyone had a cutting, sarcastic and witty remark to make, but it told us nothing. Pretty much all style and no substance.
Plot wise I found it to be slow. A key point of plotting a novel is to punctuate with scenes of tension/action then give the reader a while of respite and then punctuate again with tension/action. This ensures the reader is kept hooked by the twists and turns. A good analogy is likening it to a rollercoaster ride, breaks in the action when you're slowly climbing, excitement when you're hurtling downwards.
I found that Breaking Dawn didn't have that again. It felt as if I was climbing for roughly 90 minutes and only after that did the rollercoaster start hurtling downwards. The last 30 minutes or so were rather good. But a reader having to read 400 pages to get to the final 50 exciting ones is going to be bored and frustrated and very likely to give up way before they get to 400.
But with that all said Stephenie Meyer has introduced millions of people to reading and that can only be seen as a good thing. So for that she must be commended. And who knows, maybe it's true what I've been reading; maybe the books are better than the movies. Maybe I will have to go in with open mind and read them one day.
Who knows, I might find myself pleasantly surprised. I hope so.
What do you guys think?
Hi, Damien, I ambled over from the AW forum to see your new blog. I agree that in many cases, a book is better than the movie that gets made from it. I've never seen Twilight, I tried very hard to read the book, it was so bad. So very bad, that I gave up. I am a voracious reader but I could not get through Twilight.
ReplyDeleteBut she and JK Rowling both have made readers in recent years out of two groups of people who didn't read a lot. So brava to them.
I like your idea of blogging your writing and publishing journey, good luck. I'll try to visit again.
KatieJ