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My previous declaration still stands firm: it's a bad idea to watch a movie made from a favorite book.

I won't bore you with a full-blown Twilight review (mostly because my blog readers don't fit the fan demographic). I will say that the movie was about what I expected...shallow, rushed, and devoid of the rich character development that made the Stephenie Meyer novel (and its three sequels) such a captivating read.

Yes, the actors are pretty. Yes, the special effects and on-location shots are impressive. And I have to give the movie folks kudos for sticking, for the most part, to the plot and important details from the book. But it all just felt like skimming the surface. Most secondary characters (basically anyone who wasn't Bella or Edward) became caricatures of their book versions because they barely had speaking parts or screen time.

The real problem stems from the fact that they had to turn a gripping, teenage-angst-filled, unique-take-on-a-traditional-vampire-romance, 544-page book into a 100-page screenplay.

Tim noted that this is the root of the book-to-movie evil. He reminded me that one of most successful movies made from a book, Brokeback Mountain, actually was adapted from a short story. Annie Proulx's original work was only 64 pages long. Start that short, and there's not much more to cut out or dumb down for a two-hour flick.

Anyway, I left the theater yesterday eager to read the Twilight series over again. It's a sure cure to big-screen disappointment.

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