Showing posts with label #Twilight Series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label #Twilight Series. Show all posts

Thursday, October 15, 2009

The Power of the Supernatural

This is in extension to the earlier post of "The Era of fantasy". Guess I never overcame the fixation with the paranormal, the supernatural. Why does it interest me so much?

I decided to ponder over it a bit and came up with recent supernatural stuff I have seen/read which kind of brought Goosebumps. Not that I loved it but I was fascinated by it. On the top of the list is the most recent one, so here we go:

1. The Twilight saga: A 4 book vampire series by Stephanie Meyer, followed by a movie of the same name staring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. The reason of my fixation? A nicely written first book that makes you go back to the romanticism of the teens and the movie which had some good looking characters to ogle upon. It actually triggered a series of Google/ wiki searches. So I ended up watching and reading 'interview with a vampire' which was okay, because it did not romanticize the gothic vampire character the way Twilight did. Then I read the short story "The Vampyre" by John Polidori, which was okay too. I remember having sleepless nights after watching Van Helsing, while atleast Twilight cured me of that.
Before I'm seen as a vampire-addicted fan girl, I will move on.

2. The Butterfly Effect: The Ashton Kutcher starrer movie, the idea was cool (I need to improve my vocabulary; I usually come up with "cool" when I need to describe something.) The subsequent sequels (sequels are subsequent rgt? ) were boring but the first movie was for a want of better word cool. The time travel and the ability to change the past and land up in alternate future lines was interesting. What the movie lacked was the typical Indian climax. But who's complaining?

3. Deja vu: Again, the movie. The whole set-up was outstanding. My favorite scene is when Washington points a light at the screen and the heroine in past time reacts. The idea was fascinating. Makes me remember another old movie based on time travel 'Back to future'. I thoroughly enjoyed all parts of the movie.

4. The Horror shows of yester year’s television: The 9.30 pm slot of Zee Horror show, the title music of the show which even today brings a sense of unease. Looking back, the show was gross. I did enjoy the ‘Aahat’ show on Sony though. The stories were a bit eerie but they were unbelievably believable, whatever that means. I still remember one episode where an unbelieving character is told by a fortune teller that he is going to die in a month after witnessing some signs which would guarantee his death, the signs were: 1. Blue roses, a man with three hands, Number seven and a Tiger which emits fire from his mouth. Well we all know that such things don’t exist, the plot progressed with the character seeing blue painted roses on a curtain, a man holding a sitting mannequin which looked like he had three hands (1 of the mannequin) and Navratra celebration where a performer is dressed in a tiger’s costume and giving out fire from his mouth. That sure was scary!

The fact that I still remember all of it proves that we get attracted to the unnatural. But the twist is that I have never come across a nice Indian movie based on supernatural like Butterfly Effect or Déjà vu or even Final Destination series(Not that I liked it). What we got in name of time travel was the unmentionable Love story 2050. Ditto with literature, Gothic literature is famous all over the world, but in India we still read how certain group of boys cleared their IIT exams or the usual emotional stuff. Where’s the element of fun? Is it because we are too practical or do we not believe in it enough when India is seen as a land of ghosts, ghost stories and mystic. I just don’t know.

Thinking of it, I am planning to pen a novella based on supernatural. I don’t know how much its going to be sneered at but I need the escape to fantasy to be able to deal with the mundane reality of my life where I spend nine hours analyzing material properties, MS, GCI, etc.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

The Era of Fantasy

A small exercise: Step 1: Open Google
Step 2: Type twilight in the search window.
The conclusion of the Exercise: 93,900,000 results.

Now for people who have just landed back on earth from mars/moon or were quarantined for a year, Twilight is a bestseller, a fantasy novel, a romantic fantasy, a romance fantasy between a girl and for lack of better sense- a vampire. But don’t write it off just yet .And I am saying this because I want people to buy the first novel of the series which is quite good- not great though. Good enough to make you buy the remaining three, but by the time you buy the last huge book in the series, named ‘Breaking dawn’ you feel like looking for the author to break her head.
And the publishers are smart people too, I received a pamphlet in the last book of the series with an advertisement of some other author carrying forward the legacy of vampires with her own 4 book collection of a concept called ‘vampire school’ wherein the protagonist supposedly gets trained to be a good vampire. Kind of like a finishing school. I bet the author did not finish hers.
Before I am labeled a hypocrite by my friends who have seen me obsessed with Edward mania (the vampire in Twilight) I liked the first book, it was romantic, lighter. I was immersed in the imaginary world and then that’s a good thing, right? Anything that makes you feel good is good (Exception to this rule is drugs maybe.) But people need to know when to stop. The way J.K Rowling did. (Did she?) Or Lewis Carroll did. (He did for sure).

The whole twilight experience made me Google the history of literature on vampires. There’s another book “Interview of Vampire” which was adapted into a movie years back staring tom cruise, Brad Pitt, Antonio Bandreas together. That’s a treat!
I fail to understand the fixation with unreal though. What is it that makes us believe in Ghosts, Werewolves, witches and super powers? Be it a young girl falling for a vampire or a seventeen year old wizard searching for horcruxes or hallows. It somehow attracts. I would like to analyze it psychologically though.
For me the experience of reading Harry Potter or the vampire series was like being lost in a different world which I thoroughly enjoyed.
But I still wish to know the reason for it. Another “I Don’t know Why”
Till then Enjoy this:

Bella: How old are you?
Edward: Seventeen
Bella: How long have you been 17?
Edward: A while
Bella: I know what you are. You're impossibly fast. And strong. Your skin ispale white, and ice cold. Your eyes change color and you never eat or come out into the sun.
Edward: Say it
Bella: Vampire.