New Moon... dang it

So yesterday i forced my sister to finally watch Twilight, and inexplicably i was noticing new things, probably because i was knitting and that just increases my awareness. Afterwards we watched the New Moon trailers; i am so excited, but we'll be in the Mediterranean when it premieres, so i'm going to have to wait a while to see it. One of the things that has bothered me about Twilight (in the parking lot accident) and New Moon (in the birthday party and Volturi scenes of the trailers) is the haphazard physicality that is going on. Edward wasn't meant to just stop the van with his hand, it was more involved than that in the book: he lifted the van, shifted Bella's legs out of the way so they wouldn't get pinned, etc. They so dropped the ball in the movie, even cutting out Bella's head injury (many of the things they changed in the movie made absolutely no sense whatsoever). Well it seems to be continuing in New Moon, unfortunately. First off, it's been a while since i read it, but i don't remember things coming to blows in the Volturi's inner sanctum. The more obviously glaring mistake is in the birthday scene, where Edward seems to be forcibly shoving Bella backwards (which is something he would never do, just as he would have never taken Bella to play baseball when there was a random vampire killing people in the area) and tackling Jasper. In the book, it's true that Edward knocks Bella over, but he's using himself as a shield, not destroying pianos with his brother. i guess TPTB felt they had to play the scene up, when in reality it's dramatic enough on its own, and the entire point of the scene is that the incident was not really a big deal in Bella's mind, so much as it was in Edward's.

i don't know who is making these choices on the film, but they need to get with it. Vampires are hyper aware and super strong and can make decisions faster than a normal human, and they don't go around haphazardly shoving people about because they've already come to blows several times in the blink of an eye. Taylor Lautner's physicality while jumping in Bella's window is the level they needed all of the movie's stunts to be at, and i don't know if that means stunt doubles, or cgi, or what, but what they are currently doing is not cutting it. The consumers of movies are now used to bullet time, you can't get buy with shoddy film making like this and just expect the consumer to ignore it. What are they going to do in Eclipse when the Cullens are teaching the wolf pack how vampires fight? i imagine they'll probably skip the scene entirely, because it's too expensive or impractical, but these movies are turning into the Harry Potter films, where they seem to randomly cut things out and rearrange plot lines and later realize... "what the heck are we supposed to do now, we royally botched this." Have these people read the books? Cuz it looks like they haven't, and most of their audience has.

Then there's the indecency of this screenshot (featured on Twilighter's Anonymous), where Mr. Pattinson's pants are practically falling off: his six pack looks air brushed on, and... did someone bite his left nipple? Every time i see the preview, i cannot help but think "wow, i did not want to just see his pubes" (was that from Wayne's World? i think it was).

i don't know, maybe i am assuming too much, maybe the average consumer isn't as aware of film making as i am, but i just expect better. i'm looking forward to seeing New Moon, but i already expect to be just as disappointed by it as i was by Twilight. The book is always better.

ETA: Is it just me, or is the Volvo black now??? Why?