Harry Potter and Twilight

I finally manage to watch Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on DVD because I never had a chance to see it in theaters and I chose Drag Me To Hell (which is a good choice). Yet as a Harry Potter fan (for 8 years and counting), I was still happy with the adaptation of the sixth book. Knowing that there won't be a total faithful Potter book, at least the producers and filmmakers made the film series with great respect and dignity. It had me thinking about what is currently popular in both the literature and movie world, that is the Twilight series. I haven't heard about the book series until the first movie came out and by the looks of it, there is nothing really special about it. Yet it sparks a great amount of popularity and garnered many "teen choice" awards. Does the Twilight deserves all the praise and popularity it received? Some think so, but in returns it receives a huge amount of backlash and criticism. Right now even now there are debates and comparisons between the two juggernaut series. So for this article, I'm gonna put my honest insight and analysis in the two series, meaning I'm gonna type how I really feel and no-holds-barred. I'll be looking forward to your opinions and comments about this topic.

You know what? I'll start right now! Harry Potter is better and Twilight is shit. Its obvious. No competition. If I want to write an interesting article, I would compare between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. Harry Potter has the right to be compared with Lord of the Rings as both series offers not only few, but many topics and factors to debate on. It can bring a long and fair debate of which deems to be better, but not superior. For the Twilight series, it doesn't offer alot to compare with. And thats how sucky Twilight is. Twilight is just a one-way harlequin fan-service, written like a 14-year-old. So why compare Harry Potter with Twilight? Upon seeing Twilight, it was a sh*t movie. And it baffles me that of how its fan would enjoy this series. Friends who are fans of Twilight who tells me how great this series, but none of them gave me a real good reason why it so, other than the book is better than the movie. So I'm gonna show you, Twilight fans and non fans, what makes the Harry Potter a better series than Twilight. Between good and bad. Distinguishable in any form. Here to tell you what makes a good series and a bad series. If you think differ, give me good reasons. Though there isn't any.

*SPOILER ALERT*


Story

I remember that when me and my family went to see the first Harry Potter movie, my dad said it looks like a Star Wars ripoff with wizards. True, it already has the standard archetypes of good-vs-evil, calling-of-the-hero, the wise old mentor, the one dark force that threatens the entire world and the special mysterious power inhabiting within the hero. Considered the first book and movie as a beginner's entry level to the story, its all safe, harmless and kiddy while you get to know the main character, his friends, his bullies, his adult supervisors and the villains. But like the series Lost, you're first introduced to the series' main mysteries: what is the source of his scar and why did the greatest dark wizard fail to kill the hero when he was an infant. And as the series goes along, pieces of the answers surfaces from each book and it doesn't give you a typical and recycled answer. It is very much interesting and new. And as the series goes along, characters who we thought had no part suddenly becomes important to the story, the environment, even what they thought was safe, becomes far dangerous and the battle between good and evil becomes more intense where absolutely no one is safe. Many mythos and religious beliefs are also introduced with subtlety and cleverness, adding some zazz to the story. But what I praised most of the Harry Potter's series is while it has that good-vs-evil story, it is also about growing up, responsibility and trying to be like a normal kid in school.

Twilight... doesn't have much of a story, but sounds like it only to serve the millions of desperate teenage girls. We all love a love/romantic story and me being a guy, I like romance movies and shows. Like Harry Potter, Twilight brings an old concept where a girl falls in love with a vampire guy. Its fine, but the story doesn't evolve or develop anything new, sticking to the same "He loves me, he loves me not" territory. The story is just boring and badly-written with a maturity of a preteen. Fans say to me "its just fantasy/fiction" and I respond the same way: "So is Star Wars, Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, but they all have a good story. This one doesn't". And fantasy promise a story of wonder and magic, this one doesn't have any. Oh sure, it has badguys in it that come out of nowhere three-quarters into the film and suddenly declared themselves as the badguys. But then they don't give a good motive or mystery, making them such a lame and less threatening villains. There are no smooth advancement through the series and all we see are Edward being great at everything, Bella's full-on stare and admiration for Edward and Jacob standing there without a shirt. The storyline tend to be ripoff from any formula of any teen drama and do you know its filled with "how cool is.." or "that guy is hot" or "whatever!". Sorry, but who watches a 2 hour movie projecting just a vampire hunk wooing a girl with no real advancement or plotline whatsoever? Teenage girls and gay guys I reckon.


Mythos

You can tell that J.K Rowling did a lot of research of the wizard world she's basing her story on. Introducing to alot of mythical and magical creatures we heard of and never heard of like the trolls, elves, centaurs and giants. Some are completely invented, adding to the creativity of the author. And the great thing about Rowling is that she well knows what part of some mythos she should honors and have the freedom to interpret. And by doing these things, she is able to add to the series and not bring them down. She creates an entirely new and magical world with her own languages, laws and spell names, giving honor and making sense.

Twilight used the only two mythos: Vampires and Werewolves, setting in the world closer to home. Now its one thing to interpret these mythos if it makes sense. Had she honor the rules of these mythos, she would have made a dull story. Interpreting her version of these mythos and the results are either people will like it or people thinking it is the most gayest thing they have ever seen. Twilight already had an disadvantage of audience relying on the existing vampire/werewolves mythos and to see a vampire sparkle like freakin diamonds under sunlight just completely infuriates me in both character development and mythos factor. With this scene mentioned, fans mentioned its meant to portray vampires as beautiful creatures. First, I'm all for subtlety. Less is More, that's the way to go. Wanna make this character beautiful, make the character beautiful by action and personality. An image of Edward sparkling under sunlight deeming that he's a monster proves so unneeded and invokes insult to the audience's intelligence. And second as much you want to say that vampires are beautiful, they are not. They are ugly within. They can act beautiful and look beautiful, but overall they can't be beautiful. Within they are ugly and cursed. Otherwise they'll be human. And that is the thing: throughout the story, they address that vampires are cursed and led a dreadful life, but they sure don't show it. All they show about vampires that they are strong, fast, handsome and have no desire for the thrist of human blood. Hell they even have a civilized council for them. It interprets that humanity is so uncool and its cool to be vampires, proving that Meyers is just making up as she goes.

One example that was features in both series are the mythos of werewolves. Rowling takes a good amount of time to explain in great details the different classes of transformations: an animagus and a werewolves. Animagus are human wizards that can transform into any animal at their own wills with no conditions and it doesn't perceive as a curse. Werewolves doesn't have any control of its transformation and upon transformation, its mind becomes altered and goes on a murderous rampage, not knowing what it kills. Rowling includes the werewolf mythos and made it as an important part of the story while being faithful to it. Meyer's interpretation of a werewolf is not an actual werewolf. Like with vampires, it doesn't show the ugliness of the werewolf and describes itself as a cool thing to be. Its depiction shows as muscular shirtless men that just transforms into... just wolves. Not a hulking monsterous half-man/half-wolf, but just a wolf. And a lame CG animated wolf that is. If it just turned into that, then they shouldn't be called werewolves. I don't know if Meyers address this as a deception of a werewolf and if so, then she's a f*ckin moron. If not, the fans are the f*ckin morons.


Themes and Believability

Harry Potter has a great epic good vs. evil story, but again its biggest draw is the realistic approach on teenage/school life. Like Spiderman, Harry Potter was given at a young age such a burden of fame and danger, yet he has to deal with school, friends, bullies and girls. Reading the series during high school has it advantage because I felt I was like Harry Potter. The first installment was apologetic kiddy, but the great factor is that the story matures with each book, allowing the audience to grow with the books. Despite setting in a magical world of wizards and witches, all of the students of Hogwarts speak, think and act like regular human students. What Harry goes through and deals with relationship and teenage angst is nearly the same as we go through. It is a huge deal that a book series appeals towards a huge range of age groups from kids to adults. And the series subtlety and never shyly on a range of issues such as racial and social prejudice, wealth classes and government bureaucracy and corruption. The last book touched on some heavy and mature topics including death. Not death as a story element/device (which has been used alot in this installment), but death as an issue: as acceptance and inevitability. And it was my favorite part in the last book when Harry willingly to accept death from Voldemort. Knowing that death is a part of life and what we all will go through, he walks alone through the Forbidden Forest and stood bravely in front of Voldemort.

Twilight not only sticks to the target audience of tweens females, but most of the alternate age and gender groups passionately opposed the series, seeing the series as the cancer of literary. There are no real appeals other than which guy is hot and which girl is cool, its just so airheaded and baffling that it is what kids these days are into. The series isn't a big help for its audience especially girls as its giving the not one but many wrong messages . Not to crush on any girls dreams, but you'll never ever find a guy like Edward/Rob. For preteen girls, you'll learn when you grow up. But for girls who are much older, that is very very very very sad. From the looks of Edward, he doesn't look like a wholesome or likable guy. But it is not enough to tell the audience to look out for the wrong type of guy, but to be the wrong type of girl. Bella is the wrong female role model: weak, needy and shallow - what everyone calls her a Mary Sue. I mean why is it so hard to believe that on the first day of school Bella suddenly becomes every guy's crush? Hell I don't even understand why the Cullens would need to go to school for the next 90 years. And on top of that, the entire school doesn't suspect anything suspicious about them when they are not doing a good job blending in. Meyers, you clearly haven't thought this through.


Appeals and Audiences

Its mind-boggling that these two series recieves such popularity and star treatment, but one clearly deserves it and the other doesn't. If you think Twilight clearly deserves it, what is wrong with you. Both series still aimed toward kids. For Harry Potter, it honors the sense of childhood, of play and wonder. Remember when kids like me were into kids stuff like.. I don't know.. magic and imagination? Kids were given something new from a very old and traditional source and themes. It does the same for its adult readers, hawking back to their own childhood. For Twilight, while it also aims for kids, it force them to get into teenage stuff. Little a while ago, I checked the Disney channel and most of the cartoons and live-action shows were all teenage based. It might be the IN thing right now. But back when I was a kid, I had Ducktales and Chip N' Dale: Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck! Good old adventure shows that pleases the child's imagination. Kids these day are growing up too fast, especially girls. Hell I never thought of dating until I was like 17 and didn't start dating until 21. Still I rather spend my teenage years being a nerd and watch kung fu movies than to go out and be part of the IN thing like Souja Boy and Lady Gaga. I mean its fine to like a truely bad movie, but acknowledging that it is bad gives you self respect among others. I like Troll 2. I don't like it because its good. I like it because its so horrible its funny. So far I haven't found any of the Twilight fan who acknowledge it is a bad movie. It can be a guilty pleasure, but not an important film. And when kids and teens sees that as something important and dear to them, its makes me real worried.

You get it.. Harry Potter: good. Twilight: bad. Like a real movie lover, I'm always open for debate and argument. And if you're siding with Twilight, you'll be crushed. You'll think I have wasted my time writing all this, but if you read the last section of this blog, you'll understand.