The Twilight Saga has become one of the most well-known phenomenons among pre-teens since it’s big-screen premiere on November 21, 2008. Since then, it’s been difficult to go a day without hearing the names Edward Cullen, Bella Swan and Jacob Black. Yet, these people are insane to believe that Twilight is on the same level as one of the greatest book/movie adaptions of all time – Harry Potter.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was a very popular movie when it first came out. The critics proclaimed the film to be phenomenal and the audience agreed. Every movie and book since then has not been a disappointment. Recently though, Harry Potter has fallen into the shadow of a series that is nothing more than a high school teenage romance – Twilight. People are more obsessed with this horrific series than the magnificent Harry Potter for ALL THE WRONG REASONS!
When you open Harry Potter, you are enveloped in a world that you could only imagine in your wildest dreams. J.K. Rowling has a way of helping readers imagine a wizarding world where every detail is vividly displayed; every door design, every portrait, every wrinkle on Dumbledore’s face. Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight, on the other hand, only gives you insight on her limited writing skills. You can tell by the way she writes that she has a hard time explaining the images that readers are supposed to see in their heads.
Rowling’s Harry Potter also has a better plot. Harry goes through challenges that lead him to the final battle with Voldemort. In the seventh book, you see everything come together. The books begin with tragedy, progressed with rising action and lead to the climax – the final battle. When it’s all over, readers see the ending Harry deserves. This 17-year-old is risking his life to save the world. With The Twilight Saga, Bella’s whole life is wrong until she meets Edward, but, that’s all the story is. Bella is a helpless girl who is always falling and hurting herself. She is clumsy and weak while she was a human, but, once Edward is introduced to her and her entire world changes. Bella doesn’t accomplish anything in this story. All she does is get married and have a baby at 18. Not only is that a horrible message to send to a teen girl, the story has no real ending. You might as well read See Spot Run. Oh, wait, even that has more of a plot than Meyer’s Twilight.
The characters from Twilight are also completely one-dimensional. Bella is in love with Edward. Edward is in love with Bella. Jacob is stuck in the middle. That’s it. That gets pretty boring after awhile. In Harry Potter, the characters don’t just feel one emotion for the entire movie, or the entire series for that matter. They get upset, they get angry and they get cheered up. The character development in Harry Potter mimics the real life growth of a teenager.
Harry Potter has so much more depth. Harry loses his parents by the hands of the Dark Lord Voldemort at one year old. He is then forced to live with his snobby, uncaring aunt and uncle and their spoiled brat of a son. For 10 years, he has to put up with their abuse until a half-giant on a flying motorcycle tells him he’s a wizard and takes him to Hogwarts school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. He finds friends that care for him and, in a way, finds somewhere he can call home. As the years pass, he finds he is faced with the challenge of saving his world from the wizard who had done him wrong at his infancy.
Even after Twilight had time to gain popularity and get a bigger budget, the special effects still looked amature. First off, if vampires did sparkle, it wouldn’t be as horrible as this. It’s like Ke$ha threw up glitter all over the actors. Not good. Plus, the way Edward moved when he was using his “super-vampire speed” looked so fake. Harry Potter’s magic looks realistic. If I were to walk into a magic class and see some spells being cast, I would probably question my beliefs on what I thought was real in the world. The quality at which the elements of the movie were done were amazing – The Quidditch matches, the spells, the apparation, Fawkes the phoenix.
The way I see it, Twilight explores one basic concept: Twilight is amature.
The Harry Potter cast has performed well from the beginning. They have gotten to know each other over the years and are compatible on screen. On the other hand, Twilight’s cast is mediocre. The acting makes it clear that these actors have only one way of portraying ANY character… badly. The actress playing Bella can’t go a second without breathing out of her mouth!
It’s clear that the Twilight is one-dimensional. It is also unfortunately obvious to me that people are still lining up to watch these horrible movies and purchase these awful books. Apparently, no one can resist a vampire romance, no matter how bad the acting, special effects or plot seem to be. So, I’m forced to come to the conclusion that the world today is okay with one-dimensional stories that are poorly-developed and only scratch the surface of human emotion. And, if people are happy with a lack of depth, then perhaps, Twilight is the better choice for today’s generation, but Harry Potter will continue to be my favorite series. I prefer to experience something a little more developed.
