Vampires vs. Werewolves

My flight from Minneapolis to Portland was delayed by 90 minutes, so I was very glad that I wandered all over Pittsburgh's South Side yesterday looking for the 2nd Twilight book, New Moon. I finished it somewhere over Utah (just guessing) and tried to get a little sleep. No luck. I finally was home and in pajamas around 2am PST / 5am EST.

I'd already planned to bail on work today, so I was able to sleep in and take the kids to school. The Star has a 8:25 zero period 4 days a week; Friday is her normal day when school starts at 9:35. I visited with Leah at Angst Gallery while her security system was installed.

The Artist went to see Twilight with me at the noon showing in a Living Room theater at Cinetopia, a high-end, all HD, over 21 theater with limited seating. It was about half full; all the evening shows for tonight were sold out.

I'm glad I read the book first--I always am; books are better than movies. But I thought they did a great job of capturing the essence of the story and were incredibly faithful to the Pacific Northwest. Except for one thing: the student population of the fictional Forks, Washington was multicultural. And I don't mean diversity like having vampires at the high school. In the movie the three main Forks High boys were a white kid, an Asian and an African American.

I grew up in a town in the mountains of central Oregon. My town had a population of about 17,000 in 1986 (Forks has around 3000) and there was only one African American kid in my school. I'm guessing that the real Forks is pretty damn white, too.

Of course there were discrepancies between the book and the movie. The kitchen cabinets weren't yellow. The Cullens' house looked very Pacific Northwest, but not like what was written. Minor details. The "twist at the end" that I read about in reviews was so minor you could have blinked and missed it. It was also totally appropriate.

So, about the vampires vs. werewolves...if I had a vast readership I'd take a poll to see if there is any correlation between older readers (Twilight Moms perhaps) being pro-Jacob/werewolf and teen/tween readers being on Team Edward/vampires. I think there might be a statistically significant difference. As I pressed myself against The Artist's warm back this morning, I thought how much better warm & fuzzy was compared to cold and stony. As the lover of a werewolf (in Stephenie Meyer's cannon) you get to have a family and your true love will eventually grow old with you. Vampires--not so much. Love a vampire and you either become a vampire or soon you'll be pretending to the world that you're his mother--and then grandmother. Ewww.

I'm not a fan-girl. I'm never going to buy a Forks t-shirt, stand in the rain to watch them film a movie or go to a Q&A session with the cast. I'm not going to get a Twilight tattoo. I'll be the first (not really) person to admit that Stephenie Meyer is not a great writer. But she writes a good story. And this is hopefully the last talk of vampires, werewolves and Edward Cullen on this site. Although I did buy book 3 this afternoon...