Not Your Usual 'New Moon' Fan

I confess: I’m not a teenage girl, but I’ve seen New Moon twice.

I’m not a big movie go-er. I probably see only three movies a year in theaters. Special effects, on the big screen, are usually what pry my husband and me off our couch, but that’s not why I’ve seen New Moon twice.

When Twilight came out last year, I couldn’t wait to see it despite the sneering comments made by movie reviewers and media personalities. They painted Twilight with the same snobbish brush they used for Harry Potter dismissing it as a teenage chick flick. One woman on a talk show disparaged Twilight because “they didn’t even have sex!”

She missed the point. That was Twilight’s strength: the tension created by two teenagers in love trying to restrain their passion. There are plenty of movies and TV shows that glorify shallow teens having casual sex without love or any consequences, so many that it’s become cliché. Twilight is a refreshing exception.

So how did I become a fan? It started with Stephenie Meyer’s books. When my daughter brought Twilight home, it didn’t leave her hands until she’d read the last page. Then she read it again. She and her friends couldn’t put it down, or stop talking about it. Out of curiosity, I opened Twilight, not expecting much. After all, I had no special interest in vampires, and I’m many decades past being a teenager.

One chapter in, I was hooked. Twilight captured the awkwardness of being a teenager thrown into a new school. It also captured the blinding intensity of first love. Meyer sidestepped the usual teen stereotypes, and didn’t go for the predictable new-girl-is-bullied scenario. Twilight’s characters are richly developed. They struggle between instant-gratification and self-sacrifice to do what’s best for the one they love. It’s a battle for self-control. Yet, because Meyers uses vampires and werewolves who are wrestling for restraint, it doesn’t come across as just another preachy, politically correct lesson.

Both movies stayed true to the books. Kristen Stewart’s, Robert Pattinson’s and Taylor Lautner’s acting skills matured in New Moon, and a bigger budget made the special effects surpass my imagination. Of course, the dark grandeur of our Pacific Northwest forests is a special effect by itself.

The men I’ve talked to who’ve seen the movies were pleasantly surprised, and are actually looking forward to the next two installments. Impressed with the fur-flying, marble-crushing fight scenes and supernatural transformations, they appreciated that the male leads weren’t just leering, drunken idiots, or low testosterone buffoons.

I know that the Twilight series doesn’t reach Shakespearean levels despite its Romeo and Juliet theme, but, it’s a compelling, romantic story with complex, conflicted characters dealing with unique circumstances. The plot is tight, and unpredictable, keeping the reader/movie watcher wondering what’s going to happen next.

Stephenie Meyer is one heck of a story teller and judging by record breaking ticket sales and the rapt audience seated around me in theaters, I’d say that a lot more than “just teenage girls” agree.

Laura Keolanui Stark can be reached at lkstark@yahoo.com. (Originally published in The Herald, www.puyallupherald.com on 12/9/09. In the newspaper, the third to the last paragraph that starts, “The men I’ve talked to who’ve seen the movies. . .” was deleted.)