On-screen Vampires: Twilight vs Vampire Diaries
So, I just watched a few trailers for "The Vampire Diaries" and I must say that I am intrigued.
I'm not usually a fan of stories set in high school, but the setting seems to provide the necessary staging and social network for this story to emerge, I think. And, well, Buffy was sort-of set in high school, too, and it was great. Harry Potter was also set in a school and its setting was part of its charm. So, I suppose the setting isn't too objectionable. There's a sense of repressed exhibitionism that seems to accompany this show, which ties into the high school sensibility and yet connects to a more mature audience of viewers, too. Who is watching who and who is aware of what seems to be part and parcel of how these characters discover the truths about themselves that we as an audience want to know. And scrutiny is part of adulthood, really. I doubt it would be as compelling if set in an office or a college. The large social network seems to serve as both a device that sets tension and a stage for character interaction.
The back-story itself is what caught my attention. Unlike the romance at the center of "Twilight," in which the only given reason for the attraction is some unexplained infatuation combined with some unexplained attraction between Bella and Edward which doesn't really seem to extend beyond the physical, the romance at the heart of "The Vampire Diaries" has some sense and logic driving it forward. If I have this right, two vampire brothers are battling it out over a mortal girl. This girl (Elena) is the reincarnation of a girl that they both were involved with some centuries ago. Her life ended as a result of this love triangle conflict and the three were somehow cursed. One of them will be falling in love with this girl in every incarnation (Stefan) and one will be fighting him for her in every incarnation (Damon) and both will be vampires while she is mortal. I might have some of the details wrong, but it will probably become clearer once the show airs. People fall in love for inexplicable reasons all the time, but in a "paranormal romance" the inexplicable mystery is often insufficient and some reason or logic is necessary for the audience to buy the premise and suspend disbelief.
Additionally, the main female character Elena seems to have plenty of things going for her. Unlike Bella, who is pretty much an empty shell (a clumsy, magnetic one) without Edward, Elena seems to have a sense of self-worth and confidence that is based in actual life. She doesn't seem to be chasing the hot vampire boy just to give her life meaning. She seems to be fairly accomplished and intelligent for a young woman. She also seems to be a person with a depth of feeling, having experienced both loss and trauma early in her life. Apparently, she was in a car accident with her parents and was the sole survivor of it. That's a lot for a teenager to go through and it seems to have made her pensive rather than whiny. It explains the appeal of undead things, too. So, Elena and the vampire boy Stefan seem to connect on an actual emotional level -- both have experienced some serious loss, both have witnessed death intimately, and both have been deeply marked by it. I'm not sure how the brother Damon fits into things yet, though. And I'm not sure how I feel about such an obvious duality of "good" and "evil" here. The trailers, though, don't give us much about Damon and his motivations. They don't give us anything of the connection between Elena and Damon and only a tiny bit about the backstory tying the brothers into the eternal love triangle.
As a writer and diarist myself, I rather enjoyed the fact that these characters formed some sort of emotional connection over the fact that both of them keep diaries. They both seem to value memories and the experience of sifting through life to discover meaning, using writing as a way to access the hidden. Stories about writers (any kind of writers) also interest me. I'd love to see a poet -- not a pseudogoth, emo, slam-spoken word speaker, but an actual poet -- as a central figure of a series, preferably one including supernatural elements. How very Mary-Sue-ish of me. A couple of diarists, of course, are just as great.
And, well, let's not forget the fact that the cast is made up for people who are all lovely to look at. Creepy, slightly unusual, but beautiful. Stefan seems to have an Angel (the character, not the celestial being) thing going on and Damon looks like he walked out of the film "The Craft". Everyone seems to be inhumanly hot, and that pretty much compensates for the cheeziness of the character names. Such obviousness is easier to forgive on the screen than on the page.
Looks like it will be part of CW's Fall schedule.
I've never read LJ Smith's "The Vampire Diaries". So, I don't know if LJ Smith is a better writer than S Meyer, but her characters seem to me more fleshed out with sensible back-stories and actions that are motivated by discernible desires rather than by arbitrary designations of plot and authorial direction. Of course, I like "True Blood" more than what I've read of the Sookie Stackhouse novels (which is only a handful of pages; mainly because the writing style really put me off), so I don't know that I actually will read the books. Depends on how well I like the show, I guess.
However, I'm looking forward to the series. I've always been a sucker for a good vampire story (pun intended) and I'm hoping not to be disappointed by this one.
I'm not usually a fan of stories set in high school, but the setting seems to provide the necessary staging and social network for this story to emerge, I think. And, well, Buffy was sort-of set in high school, too, and it was great. Harry Potter was also set in a school and its setting was part of its charm. So, I suppose the setting isn't too objectionable. There's a sense of repressed exhibitionism that seems to accompany this show, which ties into the high school sensibility and yet connects to a more mature audience of viewers, too. Who is watching who and who is aware of what seems to be part and parcel of how these characters discover the truths about themselves that we as an audience want to know. And scrutiny is part of adulthood, really. I doubt it would be as compelling if set in an office or a college. The large social network seems to serve as both a device that sets tension and a stage for character interaction.
The back-story itself is what caught my attention. Unlike the romance at the center of "Twilight," in which the only given reason for the attraction is some unexplained infatuation combined with some unexplained attraction between Bella and Edward which doesn't really seem to extend beyond the physical, the romance at the heart of "The Vampire Diaries" has some sense and logic driving it forward. If I have this right, two vampire brothers are battling it out over a mortal girl. This girl (Elena) is the reincarnation of a girl that they both were involved with some centuries ago. Her life ended as a result of this love triangle conflict and the three were somehow cursed. One of them will be falling in love with this girl in every incarnation (Stefan) and one will be fighting him for her in every incarnation (Damon) and both will be vampires while she is mortal. I might have some of the details wrong, but it will probably become clearer once the show airs. People fall in love for inexplicable reasons all the time, but in a "paranormal romance" the inexplicable mystery is often insufficient and some reason or logic is necessary for the audience to buy the premise and suspend disbelief.
Additionally, the main female character Elena seems to have plenty of things going for her. Unlike Bella, who is pretty much an empty shell (a clumsy, magnetic one) without Edward, Elena seems to have a sense of self-worth and confidence that is based in actual life. She doesn't seem to be chasing the hot vampire boy just to give her life meaning. She seems to be fairly accomplished and intelligent for a young woman. She also seems to be a person with a depth of feeling, having experienced both loss and trauma early in her life. Apparently, she was in a car accident with her parents and was the sole survivor of it. That's a lot for a teenager to go through and it seems to have made her pensive rather than whiny. It explains the appeal of undead things, too. So, Elena and the vampire boy Stefan seem to connect on an actual emotional level -- both have experienced some serious loss, both have witnessed death intimately, and both have been deeply marked by it. I'm not sure how the brother Damon fits into things yet, though. And I'm not sure how I feel about such an obvious duality of "good" and "evil" here. The trailers, though, don't give us much about Damon and his motivations. They don't give us anything of the connection between Elena and Damon and only a tiny bit about the backstory tying the brothers into the eternal love triangle.
As a writer and diarist myself, I rather enjoyed the fact that these characters formed some sort of emotional connection over the fact that both of them keep diaries. They both seem to value memories and the experience of sifting through life to discover meaning, using writing as a way to access the hidden. Stories about writers (any kind of writers) also interest me. I'd love to see a poet -- not a pseudogoth, emo, slam-spoken word speaker, but an actual poet -- as a central figure of a series, preferably one including supernatural elements. How very Mary-Sue-ish of me. A couple of diarists, of course, are just as great.
And, well, let's not forget the fact that the cast is made up for people who are all lovely to look at. Creepy, slightly unusual, but beautiful. Stefan seems to have an Angel (the character, not the celestial being) thing going on and Damon looks like he walked out of the film "The Craft". Everyone seems to be inhumanly hot, and that pretty much compensates for the cheeziness of the character names. Such obviousness is easier to forgive on the screen than on the page.
Looks like it will be part of CW's Fall schedule.
I've never read LJ Smith's "The Vampire Diaries". So, I don't know if LJ Smith is a better writer than S Meyer, but her characters seem to me more fleshed out with sensible back-stories and actions that are motivated by discernible desires rather than by arbitrary designations of plot and authorial direction. Of course, I like "True Blood" more than what I've read of the Sookie Stackhouse novels (which is only a handful of pages; mainly because the writing style really put me off), so I don't know that I actually will read the books. Depends on how well I like the show, I guess.
However, I'm looking forward to the series. I've always been a sucker for a good vampire story (pun intended) and I'm hoping not to be disappointed by this one.