Showing posts with label Stephenie Meyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Stephenie Meyer. Show all posts
Difference Between the Novel "Eclipse" by Stephenie Meyer and the Film
Eclipse is the third novel in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series. Like every other book that has a film based on it, there are noticeable differences between the written version and the movie version. The first part of the last film -- Breaking Dawn -- is due out in November of 2011. With that in mind, remember that some of the things that are missing from this novel and others may appear in the final film. It is doubtful, but since the film has not been released, we do not want to make any assumptions. So, if there is something in this article that appears later, forgive me for my inability to read the future.
Warning: Book and Movie Spoilers Ahead
In Eclipse, Charlie ungrounds Bella, who was grounded at the end of the novel before it -- New Moon. In the book, this moment happens in the kitchen after Charlie attempts to cook dinner and fails. In the film, it happens in the living room after Bella walks into the house. In both, Bella is released from being grounded and Charlie asks her to spend time with more people than just the Cullens.
One of the major themes of the first half of Eclipse is Bella missing Jacob, but Edward forbidding her to see him. In the novel, this drama begins in the Swan kitchen. Edward tells her it is not safe. She later tries to leave the house and finds her truck is disabled. In the film, the conversation about her safety does not happen until after Edward disables her truck.
In the Eclipse film, Edward lets go of his weariness of Bella going to spend time with werewolves much faster. After she comes home from a visit with her mother, Jacob shows up at the school and Bella leaves with him. In the book, Bella does not leave with him at that time. In fact, she is even taken hostage, in a way, by Alice when Edward goes hunting so that she cannot go see Jacob. She eventually escapes when she sneaks off work to visit him. Jacob also shows up at the school later while Edward is hunting and Bella makes a run for it with him.
In Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer, Jacob calls the Swan residence repeatedly while Bella is in Florida. The reason is that he is not sure if Edward is off turning her into a vampire. In the film, Jacob finds out when he was at the school, not over the phone and there is no mention of the phone calls he was making to the house.
Part of Charlie's condition for Bella being ungrounded is that she spend time with her friends. She does this by offering to help Angela with her graduation invitations. This does not happen in the movie. The friendship between Angela and Bella is played down in the films, while her friendship with Jessica is played up.
In the book, Edward mentions to Charlie that Bella has tickets for them to go to Florida that expire soon. Edward mentioned it against Bella's wishes. It causes a fight between Charlie and Bella, but Edward gets his way and the two go to Florida. In the film, he mentions it to Charlie outside of the police station and there is some discontent, but no argument.
In the book, there is a conversation between Bella and Edward that takes place in Edward's room, on his bed, when he gets a night alone at his house with Bella. The conversation is split in two in the Eclipse movie. Half of it takes place on the bed; the other half takes place in the meadow at the very beginning of the film.
While Bella is being babysat by Alice in the Eclipse novel, Rosalie enters Edward's room and tells Bella about how she became a vampire. She tells Bella about Emmett's history as well, but that history is not in the film. In the film, this conversation takes place on a balcony at the Cullen home after Bella has her hand treated for a sprain. Another difference is that the sprain is a break in the book.
On graduation day in the book, Alice brings Bella an outfit for graduation because she knows Bella has nothing to wear. This does not happen in the movie. It is at that time that Bella figured out the army needed her scent because they were coming to get her. In the movie, this discovery is made later, at the party.
In the book, Eric is the valedictorian at the Forks High graduation. In the movie, it is Jessica Stanley. Another difference is that Eric is Angela's boyfriend in the movie, but her boyfriend is a boy named Ben in the book.
At the end of the book, Bella tells Alice she can plan the entire wedding. Alice reacts by showing her a wedding dress that she already purchased. This scene is not in the film. However, it may be in the next film, given that the movie stopped short of the end of the Eclipse novel.
Shelly Barclay
Plot Holes in Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
As one quick Google search will attest, Stephenie Meyer is notorious for her plot holes that could easily be explained away by magic, but which she chooses to explain with science, amateurishly. Of course, all of these "scientific" explanations come after her books publish, not in the books themselves, not that they are ever satisfying anyway. The first book in her series is not as bad as some of her later books, but it is not exempt from Meyers' plot faux pas. The following are a few of the major ones I personally spotted. Remember, these are just from the first book -- Twilight. I have left out plot holes that are later satisfactorily explained in the three subsequent books.
One of the first things that gave me pause in Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was the selective use of Bella's fainting fits brought on by blood. She faints in her biology class when they do blood typing because she can't stand the smell of blood -- yes, she can smell blood *sigh.* Earlier, she is in a car accident with a boy who winds up next to her in the hospital with "soiled" bandages on his head. There is no mention of nausea or fainting there. This selective use of Bella's weakness continues throughout the series. One can only presume that Stephenie wanted to add that Bella could smell blood and her fainting was the only way she could think of to do it, but it eventually became inconvenient.
One plot hole that I do not blame Stephenie Meyer for excluding is Bella's period -- and every other girl's period at Forks High School. Shouldn't that have had the vampires in a frenzy? Stephenie Meyer tried to explain this one away by calling menstrual blood "dead blood" or so I heard. She could have just said she found the subject distasteful, but she had to say something that makes absolutely no sense. From what I have learned of the subject, menstrual blood -- at least at the beginning of a period -- is not "dead" or "old" at all. It is just mixed with uterine tissue and eggs. It would still smell like blood to a vampire. Weak explanation is weak, Stephenie.
Speaking of blood, where the heck do the vampires store all of the blood they drink? Edward mentions he does not go to the bathroom. The only thing he mentions regurgitating is a bite of pizza. No mention is made of sweat and Myers' vampires are said to be unable to cry. I am seriously disappointed with this one. The vampires in this book should look like tick versions of Jabba the Hutt.
Okay, most people know by now that Stephenie Meyers' vampires light up like disco balls in sunlight. That is wonderful for fairy loving teens and I will not argue the silliness of that right now. What I will argue is their ability to come out in Forks because of the clouds. Mist, clouds and fog do not deter the sun's rays. You can get sunburn in a thunderstorm if it is daytime. Let us say that the UV rays are not the problem, but rather the bright light. Well, that would explain it, if the vampires did not hang out in a school cafeteria, which is presumably well lit, without any glowing effect whatsoever.
The last plot holes in the Twilight novel involve the same part of the story. There is a bit where a vampire intent on killing Bella calls her while she is at a hotel with two other vampires. The vampire that hands her the phone -- Alice -- does not notice the fact that Bella is speaking to said murderous vampire. This is odd given Stephenie Meyers' emphasis on the vampires' acute senses. Later, Bella runs away from two vampires that are protecting her to meet up with the aforementioned murderous vampire. The problem with this is that one of the vampires protecting Bella can see the future the moment someone makes a decision, but she did not stop Bella, despite presumed foreknowledge of Bella's escape.
There is no denying that Stephenie did indeed leave a lot open for scrutiny in her novels. However, these plot holes have not hurt her popularity or her wallet, so I doubt she feels the slightest twinge of regret.
Shelly Barclay
One of the first things that gave me pause in Twilight by Stephenie Meyer was the selective use of Bella's fainting fits brought on by blood. She faints in her biology class when they do blood typing because she can't stand the smell of blood -- yes, she can smell blood *sigh.* Earlier, she is in a car accident with a boy who winds up next to her in the hospital with "soiled" bandages on his head. There is no mention of nausea or fainting there. This selective use of Bella's weakness continues throughout the series. One can only presume that Stephenie wanted to add that Bella could smell blood and her fainting was the only way she could think of to do it, but it eventually became inconvenient.
One plot hole that I do not blame Stephenie Meyer for excluding is Bella's period -- and every other girl's period at Forks High School. Shouldn't that have had the vampires in a frenzy? Stephenie Meyer tried to explain this one away by calling menstrual blood "dead blood" or so I heard. She could have just said she found the subject distasteful, but she had to say something that makes absolutely no sense. From what I have learned of the subject, menstrual blood -- at least at the beginning of a period -- is not "dead" or "old" at all. It is just mixed with uterine tissue and eggs. It would still smell like blood to a vampire. Weak explanation is weak, Stephenie.
Speaking of blood, where the heck do the vampires store all of the blood they drink? Edward mentions he does not go to the bathroom. The only thing he mentions regurgitating is a bite of pizza. No mention is made of sweat and Myers' vampires are said to be unable to cry. I am seriously disappointed with this one. The vampires in this book should look like tick versions of Jabba the Hutt.
Okay, most people know by now that Stephenie Meyers' vampires light up like disco balls in sunlight. That is wonderful for fairy loving teens and I will not argue the silliness of that right now. What I will argue is their ability to come out in Forks because of the clouds. Mist, clouds and fog do not deter the sun's rays. You can get sunburn in a thunderstorm if it is daytime. Let us say that the UV rays are not the problem, but rather the bright light. Well, that would explain it, if the vampires did not hang out in a school cafeteria, which is presumably well lit, without any glowing effect whatsoever.
The last plot holes in the Twilight novel involve the same part of the story. There is a bit where a vampire intent on killing Bella calls her while she is at a hotel with two other vampires. The vampire that hands her the phone -- Alice -- does not notice the fact that Bella is speaking to said murderous vampire. This is odd given Stephenie Meyers' emphasis on the vampires' acute senses. Later, Bella runs away from two vampires that are protecting her to meet up with the aforementioned murderous vampire. The problem with this is that one of the vampires protecting Bella can see the future the moment someone makes a decision, but she did not stop Bella, despite presumed foreknowledge of Bella's escape.
There is no denying that Stephenie did indeed leave a lot open for scrutiny in her novels. However, these plot holes have not hurt her popularity or her wallet, so I doubt she feels the slightest twinge of regret.
Shelly Barclay
The Host by Stephenie Meyer
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The Host by There are bits of The Host by Stephenie Meyer that are reminiscent of more famous science fiction novels. There is an invasion of the body snatchers thing going on in The Host that brings to mind Stephen King, not to mention a host of moviemakers (no pun intended). However, Stephenie Meyer makes her body-snatching aliens very kind with few exceptions (kind of like the sparkly, vegetarian bloodsuckers of Twilight). The personalities that she gives her aliens and their motive for invading Earth is what makes The Host stand out from other body snatching science fiction.
Without giving away too much, The Host is essentially about one of these body snatchers who cannot drive the human from the body she has snatched. Therefore, she is forced to share that body. Over time, she becomes sympathetic to the human's plight and sees the error of her species' well-meant ways. What follows from there is an adventure that takes the alien (Wanderer) and her host (Melanie) from being hated by the humans to finding their place among the few who have survived the alien invasion. Stephenie Meyer has done a great job of seeing human emotion through the eyes of a gentle soul from outer space.
Of course, there are a few things about Stephenie Meyer's The Host that could use a little more detail. Given that this is her first science fiction novel, I think that we can forgive her for not giving us more information about the alien invasion on Earth and more. What makes science fiction novels like Dune, Fahrenheit 451 and The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy (to name a few) so popular is that background of the novels, in my opinion. Sci-fi readers want rich history and detail. I still enjoyed The Host by Stephenie Meyer, but I would be lying if I said it would ever be on par with those great classics.
If you have read The Host by Stephenie Meyer, let me know what you think about in the comments section. I would love to hear how others are receiving this book. Mind you, it is not new. It has just been horribly overshadowed by the Twilight series.
Shelly Barclay
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