MEGAN MISNER – Hoof Prints Staff

As everyone and their brother already know, “New Moon” made its premiere this past week. Its first showing was at midnight on Thursday, Nov. 19. It was a sold out in a matter of seconds. I finally went to see the movie Saturday night. I am not a Twilight fanatic, but I found the movie to be amazing.

I have read all of the books in the series, so I knew what to expect. “Twilight,” to me, wasn’t very good. It could have been a hundred times better. “New Moon,” on the other hand, was outstanding. So even if you were let down by “Twilight,” I recommend you watch “New Moon.”

“New Moon” is a love story. It is about Bella Swan, a normal teenage girl, who has fallen in love with a beautiful vampire named Edward Cullen. To vampires, Bella’s blood is nearly irresistible, but the Cullens are “vegetarians”; they do not feed on human blood. On Bella’s birthday she gets a paper cut which causes her to bleed. At the smell of her blood, the newest addition to the Cullen family jumps at her. She wasn’t harmed, but this encounter really worried Edward. In fact, he felt as if being around the Cullens was harmful to Bella. So Edward decides the best thing to do is to leave Bella so she could be out of harm’s way. This didn’t help anything though because Victoria had come back and was hunting Bella, so she was in harm’s way more than ever. Edward’s leaving really messes Bella up mentally. Eventually she begins spending time with her old friend Jacob Black. Throughout the movie, we see their relationship grow. Jacob shares a big secret with Bella about himself which makes their bond stronger.

In the movie, Bella becomes an adrenaline junkie. She does crazy things because when she does, she sees Edward’s face which brings her joy. One day she even jumps off of a cliff and hits her head on some rocks. Fortunately, Jacob saves her life. Alice, being a vampire, can see into the future. Alice sees Bella jump off of the cliff and believes she died so she comes back to Forks to help Charlie, Bella’s dad. There she finds Bella still alive. While she is gone, Rosalie, Alice’s sister, tells Edward that Bella has died. Edward, still in love with Bella, decides that he must die too because he cannot go on without her. Edward is about to execute his plan to die when Bella shows up. Edward ends up living, but the story still goes down-hill. Now, there is a big controversy between Jacob and Edward because of what is supposed to happen in the near future.

I don’t want to spoil the story for those of you who didn’t read the book, so I will just leave it at that. Even though the book is about vampires and werewolves, the plot is your basic love story. It’s a story of a girl torn between two guys. It just has a slight twist.

Like I said, “New Moon” is a lot better than “Twilight.” The change in directors made a big difference in my opinion. “Twilight” was directed by Catherine Hardwicke. “New Moon” was directed by Chris Weitz.

Aside from the better filming, I believe that “New Moon” was more detailed. “Twilight” was very vague and just skimmed over the surface of the book. Although it is impossible to film everything as it happened in the book, “New Moon” did a good job at including as much as possible.

The cast of the movie was good as well. The new cast members kept right up with the old ones. Every cast member seemed very experienced and played their roll well. The new member Dakota Fanning skillfully portrayed her character. Fanning played the sly, calm, yet menacing vampire, Jane, perfectly. She fit the role exactly as I pictured the character. Taylor Lautner also had a larger role in this movie. His acting had its time to shine, and it did. He played his smooth, charming, yet extremely manly (and not to mention good looking) character very well. He was exactly what I imagined. Old cast members Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson also did very well once again. They have always been good at portraying their characters. Stewart is good at being a clumsy, awkward girl while Pattinson is very good at being an almost stoic yet caring guy.

The special effects were very good as well. The only thing I do not like is how the vampires sparkle. To me, it looks a little too fake. I did think that the transformation from man to werewolf was extremely good though. They looked realistic. I figured they would look computerized, but luckily, I was wrong. The graphics were very good and the music went well with the movie.

All in all, I give “New Moon” a “yay.” I don’t think it could get much better.