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New Moon Meets Fans Expectations

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   Being a Twilight-obsessed fan, it was imperative for me to see the anticipated movie, The Twilight Saga: New Moon the first second I could. So, at 12:01 AM on Friday, November 20, my best friend and I raced to the Brass Mill Center to watch the phenomenon before anyone else.
   After waiting two hours at the theatre before the movie started, the lights finally dimmed and a full moon popped on the screen, slowly phasing into nothing but the words “new moon” appearing. This was it. The movie I have been waiting for a year to see.
   My expectations for Twilight, the prequel, were sky high, but were not met. So going into New Moon, I learned my lesson and did not expect as much out of this movie. I figured I would be watching a shortened version of the book, missing my favorite parts, and the characters acting completely different than I imagined in my reading. However, this movie exceeded my standards.
   For those of you not familiar with the storyline, New Moon brings the favorite Twilight characters back, along with heartbreak, friendship, and devotion. After an “accident” with Jasper and Bella (I won’t spoil), Edward is convinced that if Bella and him continue to be together, her life will always be in danger. Unable to live with this fact, he leaves her. Bella slips into a devastating depression for months, going through tremendous misery, experiencing nightmares and feeling lost, alone, and abandoned.
   However, she starts hanging out with Jacob Black, the family friend we met in Twilight. Jacob is 16 and likes to fix cars and spend time with Bella, especially now that Edward isn’t in his way. Bella starts feeling “more alive” when she hangs out with Jacob, bringing the light back into her life.

   Jake goes through many transformations throughout New Moon. One is falling for Bella, and the other is turning into a werewolf. Yes, the monster, fairy-tale plot does not end when the vampires leave. Wolves the size of bears run the woods, and Jake’s Native American background gives him the gene to become one of them.
   The Twilight sequel followed the book very closely. What pleased me the most was the character representation. The book and movie went almost hand in hand when it came to their emotions and actions.
   Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart, cast as the famous Edward and Bella duo, were much better with their characters in this movie. Pattinson showed that Edward is not always conflicted and dark, but smiles and makes jokes. Stewart had a more challenging role in this movie, depicting a girl who was so hurt that describing her as heartbroken would be an understatement.
In the last movie, Stewart was monotone and I felt that I missed the point of Bella’s personality of being an average teenage girl, giddy and head over heels for her new vampire boyfriend. In New Moon, she had a lot more emotion and you could feel her need for Edward more. Both characters were happy together and showed the fans what intense love really is. Their chemistry on screen was on point, being able to connect with the characters and feel what they were feeling.
   Taylor Lautner, the actor playing Jacob Black, also had a bigger role. Going from a secondary character to a leading role was a huge jump, and he did a great job. He portrayed the warm, loyal, and happy best friend to Bella extremely well. He also had very serious roles where he had to be furious, protective, and downright mean. Jacob has many emotions and different areas of his personality to show, and Lautner did each one without a flaw. I definitely enjoyed watching him (and that six pack was not hard to look at either.)
   The director, Chris Weitz, and screenplay writer Melissa Rosenberg made this movie one to see over and over again. There were no weird camera angles or nonsense lines like “spider-monkey,” like we saw in Twilight. Those elements in the first movie only confused audiences and took away from the story.
   The conversations matched the book’s dialogue in many scenes, closely identical to the lines the readers loved. Weitz did his most important job with perfection- to give the fans a movie that is close to the books that the world fell in love with.
   The Twilight Saga: New Moon is definitely a movie to see if you are a fan of the books. If you never read the novels, I still recommend the movie, but it may not be as enjoyable. Being a huge fan of the series, I am very devoted to these books and my view of the movie was biased. If you enjoy fantasy, love stories, drama and some fight scenes, give the movie a chance because it has all of those components wrapped into one fantastic feature film.