Twilight Takes It All

Last night Andy Samberg hosted the 2009 MTV Movie awards in Los Angeles, California. But the real story began in October of 2005, when the first book of the Twilight Saga was published. Ever since, teenage girls and a wide variety of other fans have driven the hopes and plans for the saga beyond the author, Stephanie Meyers, wildest dreams. After completing the fourth and final book, Breaking Dawn, Twilight the movie was released. The movie started off making nearly $70 million during the opening weekend and continued on to make nearly $200 million dollars domestically. Viewers continually have said that the movie was not well made and a bit tacky. Being a die hard Twilight fan I can attest to the lack of quality compared to the book but for the sake of Twilight’s story, I could watch the movie over and over again. Apparently fans feel similar because up against some of this year’s most amazing films: The Dark Knight, Slumdog Millionaire, Iron Man, and High School Musical 3: Senior Year, Twilight took the award for best film of the year.
Was the movie itself deserving or was the story provided by the best-selling saga responsible for the many awards received? Personally, I do not believe that the movie its self was a better made film compared to the others nominated. It was the vampire crazed fans, whose hearts were captured by the amazing talents of Stephanie Meyer, who drove the movie to its unbelievable success. The film was given a relatively small budget to begin with and therefore left the film without amazing special affects and somewhat tacky. As I watched the Twilight movie for the first time at the midnight theater appearance, I couldn’t help but feel a sense of awkwardness as I watched my favorite fictional characters diminished. I cannot say that the actors themselves lack talent; however the story is a complex one and the characters nearly impossible to accurately portray. The fictional characters, created by Stephanie Meyer, are the objects of a deep affection for millions of readers and it was the books success that could ultimately have caused the movie to lack excellence. Every reader may have perceived the characters a particular way and no one actor, in this case, Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, could accurately fit the previously constructed image of the characters.
At the MTV Movie Awards Twilight and its cast walked away with 5 awards: Kristen Stewart, the actress playing Bella Swan, took the award for Best Female Actress, Rob Pattinson, who played Edward Cullen, took the award for Breakthrough Performance Actor, and together the two actors walked away with the Best Kiss award. Also Rob Pattinson and Cam Gigandet received the award for Best Fight. Finally, the awards concluded with Twilight taking home the biggest prize of the night, Best Movie of the Year! Whether the film was deserving, or not, I cannot decide, Twilight (the book) deserved all of it and more.