I will be the first to say that when it comes to the Twilight saga by the remarkable Stephenie Meyer, I am totally and completely obsessed. I own all the books; I have posters hanging in my bedroom; I have Twilight clothing; I co-own a blog and website devoted to all that is Twilight. I am a Twilighter, the pet name for fans such as myself. But yesterday when I saw the highly-anticipated, over-hyped feature film based on the first of the four novels, unfortunately, I was somewhat disappointed. The movie failed to deliver some crucial details that made the book come to life, and added in some parts that could turn off someone who has not read the base of the film.

Some added elements made me want to stand up and ask for a refund, perhaps the most ridiculous of which was the steamiest romantic scene between leading characters Edward Cullen(Robert Pattinson, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and Bella Swan(Kristen Stewart, In the Land of Women, Speak). It really tore off from one of the biggest conflict of the books—here we have this incredibly charming, handsome, and most of all dangerous vampire, Edward, who falls in love with Bella, a frail human girl. Throughout the whole series, up to the final installment, Edward is fighting the intense passion he feels for her, but in this film scene he is practically eating Bella’s face off (pun intended) on her bed. I understand that maybe the filmmakers needed a romance scene to give the movie a little more substance; the books are from Bella’s point of view, and I see that having narration depicting the intensity of Edward’s deep, golden eyes might get a little gushy, but there were definitely other ways of making this a PG-13 movie.

Along with mixing in out-of-tune ideas, the movie also lacked some things that made the books seem a little more accurate, and not just another vampire romance novel. In the book, the distance between Edward and Bella’s first interaction and the start of their relationship is very delayed, however in the movie, while time is supposed to pass, it does not show the events in that gap; making it feel very rushed and awkward. The matter of special effects should be looked over again; vampires’ skin sparkles in sunlight, described as many-faceted -diamonds, but when Edward hops up into a sunlit spot, he looks more like the glitter-isle at Hobby Lobby exploded. The vampire-action-sequences were also, dare I say it, lame. Instead of inhuman speed, the vampires looked like they are flying, also an issue with the tree-jumping; it looked like if you gave the nomad vampire, James (Cam Gigandet, Never Back Down), a broomstick, he could belong in a Harry Potter film. Also, some of the more humorous aspects of the book were taken out; aspects that broke from the tense atmosphere.

By all means, go see Twilight, as I will tell anyone who asks me my opinion on the movie. It is a fantastic book series, which may be the source of my discord; my expectations were set too high. The hope that magic and beauty and love can exist anywhere is shown in the book, through the setting of a small, sleepy town in Washington, and the leading female character of the thought-to-be-unremarkable Bella, is something that would be quite a feat to capture on film as it was in print. The flick that was succeeded is quite spectacular, however, and will surely live up to its name in this pop-culture phenomenon, Twilight.