New Moon (2009)

Director: Chris Weitz
Writers: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay), Stephenie Meyer (based on her novel)
Composer: Alexandre Desplat

Returning Cast:
Bella Swan- Kristen Stewart
Edward Cullen- Robert Pattinson
Jacob Black- Taylor Lautner
Carlisle Cullen- Peter Facinelli
Chef Charlie Swan- Billy Burke
Billy Black- Gil Birmingham
Mike Newton- Michael Welch
Jessica Stanley- Anna Kendrick
Eric- Justin Chon
Angela Webber- Christian Serratos
Alice Cullen- Ashley Green
Jasper Cullen- Jackson Rathbone
Emmett Cullen- Kellen Lutz
Rosalie Cullen- Nikki Reed
Esme Cullen- Elizabeth Reaser
Victoria- Rachelle Lefevre
Laurent- Edi Gathegi
Newcomers:
Aro- Michael Sheen
Caius- Jamie Campbell Bowyer (who later played a younger Grindewald in Deathly Hollows part 1, Antony in Sweeney Todd, and Jace in the movie version of The Mortal Instruments... the guy was busy...)
Marcus- Christopher Heyerdahl
Jane- Dakota Fanning
Quill Atera- Tyson Houseman
Embry Call- Kiowa Gordon 
Sam Uley- Chaske Spencer
Harry Clearwater- Graham Greene
Emily- Tinsel Korey


Write-up:

Ok, less of a nerd this time around... I had to look up a bunch of these names for the new cast members. Kinda what Jacob says to Bella when he wants her to remember their conversation in the previous film... of course, the vampires are part of the story she remembers, and the vampires are the cast members I remember the most. But also the Cullens... the Volturi are another matter (aside from Jane and Caius cuz I'd seen them in other places).

Personal History

First things first... this is one of those rare occasions where the movie is a lot better than the book. "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" was a similiar story for me in that the book was so depressing to get through that it was nice to have the movie streamline all of that. Not to mention they didn't have Logan Lerman crying hilariously in every chapter of the movie like he did in the book. It also didn't help I was reading that book during a rough time in my life that lasted 2011-early 2014... and also like Bella at the end of New Moon, I block out that period like it never happened. Although I do take things away from it that made me smile. And with what work has been like over the past year where I've become more integral to another area of our department,.. it hasn't been easy, but it makes me feel like I'd really gotten past that old feeling of worthlessness I had during that time. And to be honest, I'm still not 100% happy in every part of my life... but I have more going for me that makes me feel valuable, which is rare. 
Ok, rant over... but there are more to come on other topics. That's the whole reason I didn't sleep in on the day we turned the clocks back like I enjoy doing. I couldn't sleep this morning cuz I had to get this up and finished so I can get past this part of the series.

I got New Moon and Eclipse for Christmas in 2008... I started reading New Moon and inevitably wound up devouring the book in two days. Not because I fell head over heels like I did with Twilight. But I just wanted to finish it because it made me so depressed. In retrospect, I guess I could have skipped to the end of the book (which I never do, no matter how many times I'd read it) or I could have at least read the book jacket for Eclipse to ease my pain. Both would have told me that Edward was coming back and I didn't have to spend the whole book mourning the fact he'd left. Both nights I read the book, I actually cried myself to sleep because I felt the same as Bella. How could he leave? What's this story going to become without him? And there was that whole feeling of just not being good enough for him... 
In truth, I think I've read this book all the way through 2-3 times ever. There was at least one other time since the first time, plus there was a time (don't remember what my motivation was for this) I read through it up to the point Edward leaves and I just stopped. Don't remember if I was planning to pick it back up or skip to the end or what... and over this past week, Monday to Saturday, I read it again for the first time in years. 
It was really hard to spend a week on it just cuz I didn't have the time to devour it in two days... not cuz it's difficult to read or I hate reading it... but Bella is a character where I put myself in her shoes (something I do when I write my own stories- I try to get inside the minds of my characters) and I feel everything she does... it's hard living with that degree of depression for such a long time. And she did for months and I barely managed a week. 

Unlike Twilight, where I'd read the book through so many times that I can feel the familiar quotes coming or I can picture myself in the story as it's going and I can take the book and movie seperate from each other and enjoy both for different things (cuz they certainly aren't identical)...
with New Moon, I was reading it and it felt like the first time since I'd seen the movie. Because I didn't realize how many quotes from the movie actually came from the book... Jacob commenting about Mike at the movies "what a marshmallow"... that got a real laugh in the theaters, but I forgot it was something Stephenie had written. There were others, but that's the one I immediately remember. 
And I'd actually seen the movie more times than I read the book... you can maybe guess why that might be. And of all the movies in the series, I was sure that this would be where Kristen Stewart would play Bella than in any other installment of the series. And I was right. She was pretty experienced with a lot of dramatic roles. Her first breakthrough role was "Speak," based on a book about a high school girl who becomes "a selective mute" after she's raped at a party. I saw the movie once, it was pretty rough, but she acts it out really well. This movie kinda goes into that territory and if it suffers in any parts, it's the script more than anything else. 

And there was actually one time where I watched this movie on 9/11... Robert Pattinson is in a movie where he dies at the end (he dies at the end of a lot of his movies... or in this case, he's already dead technically) in the attacks... and because "Remember Me" doesn't get shown on TV every year on 9/11 (as it should cuz it is a good movie up until the end), I thought the best option was to watch New Moon. Cuz at least he comes back at the end... there's just an hour or so of movie where he's completely MIA. Also, after seeing "Remember Me" in the theater, and I was a complete mess afterwards, I bought New Moon on DVD that same day as a way of coping/grieving. Not to say I wasn't planning on getting the movie at all, but I was delaying it.
So I do know this movie rather well... but it doesn't mean I enjoy breaking it out all the time. 

Bella's Depression

From seeing the movie in the theater, I remember my heart beating out of my chest when the title screen came on. The beginning of the movie where they showed Bella running through Volterra to find Edward, I think I had a dream that the movie would start with that scene to foreshadow. The dream where she sees her grandma and in the end becomes her, I didn't quite pick that up when I read the book so it was really well done. 
Of course I was dreading the break-up scene and seeing how Bella's four months of nothingness would be portrayed. Basically when Edward leaves, saying he doesn't want her anymore, she goes into a deep depression and has nightmares every night. In the book, I was wondering what we were going to do and how she was going to react. I was so disappointed when I found three blank pages with nothing but October, November and December written on them... I felt completely lost and I didn't know what was going on or what to make of it. The movie basically did a montage of her sitting in her room staring out the window as the seasons change. There's a constant narrative throughout the movie where she's talking to Alice, sending emails that never get delivered... as a movie device to pass time, it makes sense. But to me, I really didn't like it cuz the book had nothing about that. Of course, the book had NOTHING to work with for these months... and of course there are nightmares where she's screaming and it shows how Charlie used to check on her and after a while, he just stopped. There are some parts of this that the movie really did well and they got right and I was pleased with. How Billy Burke does the scene where he tells Bella he's sending her to Jacksonville because he thinks she'll get better there... it just reaffirmed how much I love him playing Charlie. He did the role so well that I can't imagine him in the book without him. He's very calm about the situation, but he tries to be sensitive and stern at the same time. In the book, he just yells at her to wake up and stop moping. I'm sure the book version would be a lot closer to what my dad would have done to me if I went through that same situation. To sum up the whole series, there is no way my dad would let me date anyone like Edward. Not cuz he's a vampire, but because of everything else. Charlie tried to deter her from being with him, but he eventually gave up. My dad would just put a restraining order against him...

But speaking more on the "zombie Bella" part of the story... there were some hints in the book of things that happened or things Bella did during that time... I wished the movie had addressed those rather than just giving us the montage treatment. There's a scene where Alice asks Charlie about what happened after they left and he says that she was catatonic for a week, threw a fit when he and her movie threatened to send her to Florida and she wound up crying... then after that, she returned to everyday life, but her eyes were lifeless and she'd only talk to people when they asked her questions. 
Heck, part of me wants to write to Stephenie and ask her if she'd ever written a novella or something about those movies, but from perspectives from everyone around Bella... that way, I could get a better picture. 

There's also a comment Charlie says to Alice- something like "she wasn't acting like someone left her, she was acting like somebody died"... 
I remembered this particular quote from the book really well because it completely summed up the situation. (Although I still wish for more to go on than "Bella was depressed and was a zombie for four months..." cuz in all honesty, that's where the criticism over her character comes from. That and the adrenaline junkie stuff... more on that later). 
But I am leading to one particular point... if it were me in that situation, I think I would have moved on after a point. I'd be depressed over it for a week, maybe a month at most. But eventually I'd say "screw him' and move on. Plus I'm so self-conscious about what people think of me that I'd move on so they don't judge me or think I'm weak for feeling that way.
I also had somewhat of an epiphany a few months ago that correlated this with something in my own life. What Bella went through, I was through something similar when Prince passed away in 2016. There was actually a part in the book where Bella is driving home from work and she pulls to the side of the road to catch her breath... there were a couple times where that almost happened to me. Except I didn't stop. After getting the news about him on April 21st, I actually forced myself to drive home. Whether it was concentrating on the songs on the radio playing for him or listening to the album in my car that day (funny enough it was one of his cuz I really wasn't listening to him for a while), it was a struggle, but I didn't want anyone thinking less of me if I had not left work right away or pulled to the side of the road to cry my eyes out... 1999 was the first song on the radio after the news fully sunk in and I vowed I would celebrate him rather than be sad about him suddenly passing away. That's been the story of my life when it came to him. Some people had trouble listening to him; I had no choice but to listen to him because I wanted to remember him for how he lived, not how he died. The only things I'd ever let myself really grieve about him... watching Purple Rain or listening to certain songs or albums. But there were a couple times where I listened to podcasts where they discussed his death or talked how he was someone people had to see live (which I never got to) where I almost got too emotional about. But I always kept driving cuz I saw no other choice. I just had to fight through it and eventually my mind would get preoccupied with something else.
And the whole New Moon concept where Bella felt like a satellite whose planet exploded... it was like that for me as well. Prince had become such a part of who am I as a person that losing him felt just like Edward leaving. And sometimes, I'd worry I'd forget about him or wonder if he existed at all. As if he was a mythical creature I imagined. When his music would come on again, I'd inhale like I'd forgotten how to breathe. But I found a way to keep his spirit alive and move on. Unlike Bella, I'd keep reminders of him around when I can so I don't forget him and I also fight to forget that he'd passed away cuz completely accepting he had is something I don't feel like I can survive even though I'd been aware of that fact since it happened... Bella simply tried to keep some sort of reminder of him, but never really moved on. Although with Jacob, I think she would have if more time had passed. 

Team Jacob

Now that THAT rant is over... here's another one... 
Stephenie talked about how Jacob became his own character over time. How he was merely a plot device that told Bella about the Cullens being vampires. But more material started coming up and he became integral to the story. 
I did start to really like Jacob as this book really started picking up post-Edward. He was fun to be around and Bella felt better with him. And some may argue the book became more bearable to read after that point... that is kinda true for me, but I'll just say the book was more fun to read, not decrying or being negative. 
It was kinda funny thinking how Taylor Lautner almost didn't get to reprise the role because he wasn't bulky enough. Dang did he work for it- and totally deserved to keep the role. Someone as important to the story as Jacob, you had to keep at least some continuity and as a general role, I HATE recasts. And the wig he wears in this movie suits him a lot better than the last one did, so I see him being "sort of beautiful"...
But for me, all hell breaks loose after he becomes a werewolf and he cuts his hair off. At least this time watching the movie again, I tried to see the same person in his eyes. Whereas every other time, he cuts his hair off and he's someone I really don't like. 

The whole story for me... I can easily be Team Jacob cuz he's a nice guy and I love wolves... but him hating on Edward and vampires completely negates it for me. Everytime he'd insult vampires or call him blood-suckers or whatever else, I just want to punch him or want nothing to do with him. In poltics, it's almost the same story for me... I can see both sides, but I cannot stand it where they're constantly insulting each other or saying people that swing their votes towards certain people must be idiots. You just cannot assume the worst of people just because of who they vote for. (Ok, maybe it's not quite the same thing, but close enough). 

And my history with Jacob... and it is very complicated... will continue on in the other movies/books 

Adrenaline Junkie

I highly doubt I'd ever get to the point where I'd do extreme sports just to experience hallucinations. I thought those scenes were really well done in the movie. They even added the benefit of Edward being on screen instead of Bella just hearing his voice. 
The scene with Jessica after the movies... they did it really well. Reading the book this time around really didn't do it justice just cuz I'm so used to Anna Kendrick ranting about why zombie movies are lame. And also her saying about the biker dudes "well, they look great, can we go now?"
But the whole cliff-diving thing... it's a bit much... and of course it doesn't look good no matter whose perspective you come from: Alice's visions or her relaying to this other people... I could never do that. And I can see it up to a point... up until Bella is drowning and she gives up fighting because it's a peaceful way to go. I just hate all the criticism over her, saying how she was suicidal or she wanted to kill herself because her boyfriend left her... Shailene Woodley who later played Tris in the Divergent series was one of those critics. And I think all those people are overgeneralizing the situation. 

I think the criticism that annoys me the most is that Bella is uninteresting because she's introverted and really doesn't have any hobbies aside from reading... why do all protagonists have to be extroverts? Introverts like me need some representation in fiction. Not to mention she's brunete with brown eyes and I am as well. Still think I should have auditioned for that role and I'd have done it better. But the script isn't always perfect.

Final Comments

In the movie, she tells Jacob she loves him, but "it's always been him" meaning Edward. SHE DOES NOT TELL HIM SHE LOVES HIM IN NEW MOON. In Eclipse, maybe... I'll have to read the book again. 
The whole break-up scene with Jacob where she says something about him breaking up with her... dude, YOU WERE NEVER TOGETHER... the script is just completely wrong for that scene. Sure, she doesn't want to lose his friendship, but everything that alludes to anything beyond that... there's nothing like that in this part of the story. 

This franchise also doesn't get a lot credit for being diverse. I mean, reading the book I never imagined Eric being Asian and Tyler being black. But they had a really diverse cast for the humans. As for the werewolves, because they're Quilette Indians in the books, Stephenie Meyer insisted all of the werewolf actors have Native American roots. More credit that's due, especially in a time where there's a lot of talk about adding diversity to the entertainment industry. 

I will say the Volturi were well cast. Michael Sheen was so good as Aro. Very enthusiastic, but equally sinster at the same time. Dakota Fanning is creepy as Jane, like she was born to play that role. 

I've always loved Alice, but I feel like she's really become my favorite character in these movies. I'd love to have her as my best friend. Even if she does a lot of things over to top... 
Bella complaining about turning 18, worrying about gray hairs, that was pretty funny. The book needed more light moments like that. And of course Jacob doesn't show up at her school on her birthday... but I get why they did it for the movie, to satisfy the fan base, and it does work really well in the context of the story. 
I guess it was kinda nice to give Harry Clearater more screen time in the movie because he does pass away and it'd be nice to get to know him so we can care that he dies. 
The rendering of the werewolves, it still makes my jaw drop seeing them on screen. If there were no vampires in this movie/series, I'd totally run with those werewolves :P 

I'm sure there are more things, but I'll add them later when I remember them. I just really wanted to finish this up before going to the movies again later today... 
And I didn't want to keep on going in this state of mind either... it doesn't feel good... again, not criticizing the material itself. But I just wanted to give it more of a chance than everyone else seems to. Like it or not, it is part of the story. And ultimately how Jacob fits into things... he does annoy me every now and then, but he has a lot of good qualities and moments to.

Funny thing is that Jacob is one of my favorite names. My first crush was named Jacob. So you'd think he'd totally be my guy in this franchise. Unfortunately, we all met Edward first. And as much as I think I might switch sides, especailly with the whole Christian Grey thing... that's something that's not going to chance. 

#TeamEdward4Life