"New Moon" is better than "Twilight"... not that that's a ringing endorsement

(full disclosure:  I have read all the Twilight books and really enjoyed them, though they're not as addictive as, say, the Harry Potter books or the Ender's Game series)

Last year's Twilight was more or less a debacle.  The casting was strong top to bottom, the music was effective, and the production design was fine (though a bit over the top for my tastes), but the rest of it was a disaster.

With that as a baseline, New Moon marks a significant improvement in the series - the cinematography, editing, special effects, and design are all very good, and the music and casting continue to be good (though as a bit of an audiophile, I couldn't help but notice some major missed opportunities in the sound design, particularly with respect to the use of surround.... but that's another story).  Suffice to say, the quality of the filmmaking craft is markedly improved.  Whether that should be attributed to the crew overall (virtually all the crew heads changed, including the director), the bigger budget, the fact that it's a sequel and everyone has a better idea what they're doing now, or some combination thereof is difficult to say.

Though the first film had many failings, it was clear that the single biggest problem was the screenplay, and many of the other problems stemmed from that (okay, not the effects, but a lot of the other stuff).  So what's absolutely bizarre is that the one major crew position that WASN'T replaced was the screenwriter... and unsurprisingly the script was the element that dragged down New Moon despite the improvements made in other areas.

I can sort-of forgive the jumpiness and the fact that it assumes you're intimately familiar with the books and will fill in all the plot and character holes that are left out; the target audience for this has read the books - probably multiple times - and may be happy just to see their favorite scenes projected onscreen, even if I personally think a movie should be able to be enjoyed on its own.  But even aside from that, there are some major flaws in the structure, characterization, dialogue, etc.  And, of course, the screenplay is the foundation for any movie, meaning when that's not working it's really difficult to make a good movie out of it.

Certainly the producers and directors of the first two films bear some responsibility for making sure the script gets up to the level it needs to be, and both Hardwicke and Weitz dropped the ball here.  And the screenwriter herself deserves no small share of the blame, as do the producers who wanted to rush New Moon into production perhaps without adequate time for rewrites on the script.  What surprises me is that Stephanie Meyer has let her books be treated like this.  Being a novice to the movie biz prior to the first film, it's no surprise that she was happy just to get the chance to have her work made into a feature film, and was willing to trust the "professionals" to do it right.  But after it was clear that they didn't know how to translate her work into a screenplay, I don't understand why she didn't use her power as the ultimate authority of "the Twilight Saga" to demand a better script.  Maybe she hasn't worked as a screenwriter, but she has demonstrated she understands character and plot - why not let her take a stab at the adaptation?  She would be hard-pressed to do worse.

I'm big on medium-specificity, and so I'm not saying that the movie should be exactly like the book or that they should be afraid to change anything:  the two forms of media have different strengths and weaknesses and should exploit those.  The Lord of the Rings series is a good example - the filmmakers took the general plot of the book and altered story, characters, etc. as needed to make a good movie, recognizing that an exact translation of the books would not necessarily work for a film.  Adapting a book requires realizing what to keep, what to change, and what to discard.  Let's hope the Twilight franchise can do better in all three of these for the final two books.

I should note a couple positives.  Taylor Lautner gives a very strong performance, and is worth looking out for in future roles (as well as in the rest of this series).  I think Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson may be good actors - I've liked them in the limited other things I've seen them in - and I think they do what they can with the material they're given.  But neither is given much to do here, nor much range of emotion to express.  And for those who haven't seen it already in the trailer, there's at least one really amazing shot, which is of Jacob's midair transformation as he leaps over Bella - indeed, the effects throughout are convincing, head-and-shoulders above what we got in the first film.

I realize these films are essentially criticism-proof, as Weitz has acknowledged, and they'll make money regardless of their quality.  But for such a profitable franchise, couldn't they spend a few bucks on a decent writer?  And shouldn't Meyer be more protective of her characters and insist on a decent script?  Too many Twilight fanatics are happy to see anything with Bella, Jacob, and Edward in it, as the box office grosses for New Moon illustrate.  That's not looking down on them - I consider myself a fan.  I just wish more of them would demand that Summit make movies worthy of the books instead  of letting themselves be exploited by paying to see second-rate adaptations over and over....