I recently asked people in one of my status updates what
my next discussion blog should be about because the To Write Love On
Her Arms Day Blog was very fun to not only write but to
participate in afterwards, and it was pretty unanimous:
Harry Potter Vs. Twilight
So what does that even mean how do you even make two fictional
books fight? By what standards do you set them up against? How do you judge
them? Well I will be throughly looking at each series/franchise and examining
the ins and outs of why it is so intriguing to it's audience. I will be
examining the audience of each series. I'll then get into the sales/marketing
aspects and each series films.
I will not let my bias get in the way of
this blog I promise.
So lets start off
with Twilight shall we? If you don't know what Twilight is about by now then it
is pretty pointless to jump in the debate. Lets jump right in shall we?
Lets start off with the basic themes of Twilight which are choice, unrequited love,
unconditional
love, and well just basically love.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Lets take a look at the first
theme choice. We see choice displayed in Edward
not drinking Bella's blood, by choosing to leave her and then coming back, by
choosing to be with her. The choices we see in Bella kind of come out in numbers.
She chooses to peruse Edward, to chose Edward
or Jacob,
she choses to kiss Jacob which makes her realize she loves him
too.....bitch? Her choice to become a vampire or not and she choses not to get
an abortion.
Now we have the Cullens
(Who stole the last name of one of my best friends LAME) who make the ethical
an choice of drinking animal blood instead of human, they chose to deny their
own nature in order to be moral people.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Unconditional love, unrequited
love and love I'm going to throw in one theme sense the overall theme is love.
The theme of unrequited love is seen through Jacob and Bella. You also have the
theme of unconditional love/forbidden love or Edward and Bella *cough Romeo an
Juliet cough* Whoa what happened there...overall love is a huge theme of the
series if not the most important without it the plot would not continue and the
story would be even more lackluster I MEAN would be lackluster sorry. Fans are
drawn to the attraction between Bella and Edward and well Bella and Jacob in
the novel and now the movies I will not call them films because they do not
deserve to be called as such.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Speaking of the movie with its
release the franchise has seen a whole new breed of fans and a giant leap in
popularity and it's sad because it's not due to the literary works at all it's
all due to the two actors Robert Pattinson and
Taylor Lautner. Please do not say it isn't true because you know it is and fans
of the series before it got saturated
know it's true as well. Lets take a look at its fan base. Well honestly I don't
know the fan base because I don't care about VAMPIRES THAT
DON'T DIE IN SUNLIGHT or middle-aged mormon woman who have a wet
dreams in the middle of the night and decided to write a novel about it and
destroy the vampire genre.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
The one thing I do know is that the films are making tween girls realize they
have vaginas which are making parents happy because they don't have to have
"The Talk" so that's positive I guess?
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Even before the movies I remember my friend Jess
talking about the hottest guy ever and I asked her who and she said "This
guy in this book I'm reading he is pretty much the hottest guy ever." She
was obviously referring to Edward, what really caught me off guard was how into
him she was and how pissed I wasn't him I wasn't jealous I was just pissed that
a fictional character seemed to of had more of an emotional hold on her then I
had and I had known her longer :(. Basically what I'm saying is even before the
movies girls and boys alike were obsessing over Edward and Jacob and were being
equally elitist and annoying about it.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Alright onto the business and marketing aspect my favorite. Well this is really
easy if I haven't made it abundantly clear who studio heads are marketing to as
always impressionable teenaged girls and boys mostly girls, especially tweens
there is lots of money to be earned in those markets. Needless to say there is
going to be a lot of Twilight apparel under the XxX-Mas tree this year.
Actually it's pretty obvious who this series well the movies are directed
toward anyway. The books however you will find have a higher age range as you
see more 20ish year olds reading the books along with the tweenie-tots. Really
as much as I like talking about the marketing game plan there really isn't much
to talk about it's pretty self explanatory go to your local store and look at a
magazine it's all image.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Thank Baby Jesus almost done talking about this
poor excuse for a Vampire series. So lets chit-chat about the movies shall we?
Now I'll give the books their justice they sold a lot and and did their jobs as
books opened the imagination of the reader but the movies are just awful. The
production the directing the ACTING everything. They are coming from a studio
that has had a record
of horrible movies (with the exception of Fear and Loathing and Sex Drive) The
only reason the movies are doing so well are because the studio knew that the
readers (tweenies) got over zealous in the pants for Edward and Jacob in the
book so they made sure to cast people who will make the va-jay-jays go crazy
and just throw talent to the side. They capitalized on something they knew
would be a selling point and ran with it. Please do not tell me Twilight was a
good movie because watching it to even write this blog was a painful experience
not even because of my honest distain for the series just because the acting so
so daytime soapish and I'm not gay, if I was gay hey maybe I would have enjoyed
Robert a little more not going to lie the dude is good looking.
Vampires
don't sparkle in sunlight they DIE.
Overall Twilight yes is very popular has captured the imaginations of many
people hell has probably helped a lot of people I really wouldn't know. It has
become quite a phenomenon as of late as it has got people reading which is what
really matters even though they are only reading these books only then writing
poorly written fan
fiction but at least people are writing right? Imagination is
running wild. But that is about it. The Twilight series hasn't broken any
barriers that haven't been smashed already by J.K. Rowling and
the Harry Potter Series but that is where this and begin my next rant of sorts.
Harry Potter Kicks Fucking Ass.
If
you HADN'T ALREADY
NOTICED I love me some Harry Potter. I remember being in 4th grade
and reading Harry Potter And The Philosophers
Stone SHIT Sorcerers Stone damn Scholastic America and being
completely overwhelmed by the story and drawn into the world and in 4th grade I
had a pretty terrible imagination all I really cared about was Shawn Michaels and
puberty actually there is
a lot you can say about my adolescent sub-continence with that previous
sentence haha. Anyway at this time I wasn't a big reader and I still didn't
read after I read the book but I did keep up with the series as I was engulfed in it and I
noticed as the books came out the more I read and now I read all the time and I
honestly believe without the Harry Potter series I wouldn't have that. Dr.
Seuss aint got sheit on da Harry Potterz lulz! Now this isn't about my life and
Harry Potter it's just about Harry Potter.
Lets start off by going through the themes of the series. We have Good Vs. Evil, Love, Family and a bunch more that I really don't feel like talking about. Lets talk about family first shall we? Harry has always yearned for a family he has never really had one being an orphan. His adoptive aunt and uncle were douches and used him as a whipping boy. He finds something of a father figure in Sirius Black but well...Okay you get the picture onto love. Love is huge in the Potter universe without it our hero would not have survived his infant encounter with He Who Must Not Be Named. Love in the form of risking your life to help your friends (how hardcore, A Day To Remember must love this series).
Now onto the most obvious theme Good Vs. Evil. Harry Vs. You Know Who. It's really kind of pointless for me to even talk about it's so obvious I mean it's really the driving force of the plot. New year new way for Voldemort to fuck shit up.
So next topic lets goto the movies! Okay I can solely compare the acting of the first Harry Potter film which was comprised of all CHILDREN to the Twilight and New Moon movies and it would make Harry Potter look like an Academy Award Feature Film. That is the drastic change in talent that is seen in the movies, it's embarrassing to even compare them. Sure Daniel Radcliffe isn't the greatest actor in the world but his support is more then outstanding, and he isn't getting too bad himself either. I guess showing his wang live ups his acting?
Lets see Twilight has Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, Dakota Fanning....Reaching.....Peter Facinelli from Fastlane, Micheal Sheen. Really the only talent the Twilight franchise has is Robert and Dakota. Onto the beauty that is the cast of Harry Potter! Good old HP has Daniel Radcliffe, .., Rupert Grint, Alan Rickman!, Helena Bonham Carter!, Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Robbie Coltrane, Michael Gambon oh I could so go on with the talent but I think I made my point clear with Alan Rickman I can just end it with him and it's more talent then the whole Twilight series put together. The main trio of Potter can out act the shit of the main cast of the Twilight series hands down no questions asks, sure the the two Twilight actors might be better to look at but we are seeking talent here. Oh and Emma Watson is 1,000,000,000,000 times better looking then Kristen Stewart just saying.
Onto fan base. Now I can comment on the fan base of Harry Potter sense I am part of it, we write really bad Fan Fiction, and REALLY bad music. They cosplay at movie theaters for premiers. When a book was released that was the place to be there were literally parties at book stores, sense when does that happen? It was an event to get a book to read. I mean it is such a community there are so many Harry Potter events STILL going on like music events/conventions it's crazy not to mention the theme park at universal. Years after the last books release and the fan base is just as strong and just as stable with things like WizardRock and such fans have so much to keep in touch with. Rowling has really created her own universe for her fans so this is all possible it's all actually pretty remarkable. Hell she has even inspired Craig Owens.(Come on catch it, catch it.)
Alrighty onto the marketing and business aspect of the franchise. So initially I'm sure this series was directed as a children's/teenagers book but the book found an audience in really everyone and as did the movies I remember my mom and I going to see the movies and loving them. Really the books are for everyone which I'm sure was a shock to the publishers as much as the readers, I mean here you have this book about magic and say you are 50 and you are told to read it and fall in love with it like so many have it's amazing. When the movies are coming out though yeah it's all Hot Topic and yeah it can get pretty much like Twilight is now I can't really argue that.
So as of June 2008 the Harry Potter book series has sold over 400 million copies and the last four books have consecutively set the record for fastest selling book in history, yeah any version of the bible or Dan Brown book. Hell TIME magazine named J.K. Rowling runner-up Person Of The Year in 2007. Also don't forget that Dumbledore was gay, remember all the fuss that sprung up? Just because a fictional character who was epic was gay it was so ridiculous I could go for the pun but I will spare you...
The ground this series has broken is just amazing it has pretty much paved the way for series like Twilight, do you honestly think if Harry Potter never existed Twilight would have ever been published? And if it had it would have even sold as well as it did? You have to take into account the whole literary climate would have been drastically different if Potter never came out.
So yes the debate clearly goes to Harry Potter. It is more then obvious I shouldn't have even had to of typed this much to point it out. Hell without Harry Potter there would be no Robert Pattinson, Twilight owes it's existence to Harry Potter you can fight it and cry and say "No, No, No." all you want but you know it's true.
At least the witches rode brooms and the wizards used wands in Harry Potter.
Vampires don't freaking sparkle in sunlight they die!
HARRY POTTER FTW.
Love,
Steven