Monday, March 12, 2012

Conundrums of "Twilight"

I visited Forks, Washington the summer I was sixteen, and adored it - I'd wanted to go to Olympic National Park ever since I knew it existed. It's soo beautiful. A few years later, I decided to read Twilight before I knew much more than the setting, just because I had loved the forest so much. (I found the book disappointing.) I lived in the Olympic Peninsula area for a summer a few years later, so I know a lot about the geography and what the place is like. We ate pizza in the diner in the exact same booth Bella and her dad do in the movie, without even knowing it. . . not sure how I feel about that. :P

Anyhow, I know lots of details in Twilight that are pretty ridiculous, and this one is my favorite.

In the book, as Edward drives Bella home from Port Angeles, he goes way over the speed limit, insanely fast, and says that he can do that because of his superhuman reflexes. (Let's try to ignore the fact that she went there because she wanted books. I mean, come on. UPS delivers in Forks! And the library's pretty decent, actually. They have books about local Native American myths and everything. I know, I know, I'm being too picky.)

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Highway 101 between Port Angeles and Forks snakes along the shore of Lake Crescent in tight curves. It's narrow, has blind curves and crazy drivers from Seattle, and it's wet and slippery in the winter. There is no way at all any car, not even one driven by the Stig, could go 110 mph around those curves. Cars are heavy and affected by physics. The only way Edward could manage it is if he had a magical car. A special vampire car. One that can go intangible whenever it meets a normal car, so it doesn't crash. If that's actually what it was, that would be cool, but it's just a Volvo!

If Edward tried, he would end up in the lake. He might not mind, but Bella probably would. :P

It's no wonder they didn't try to put that in the movie, because special effects/computer animation would definitely be required. :D

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