TRUEBLOOD V. TWILIGHT: THE THROW DOWN OF THE CENTURY

Since Vampire's are getting more popular then ever, and I just because finished watching the entire TrueBlood series as well as started reading the books the series spawned from, I decided to give the people what they want: sexy vampires.

TWILIGHT:

A bad movie based on an even worse book. Brought to you by that abomination of a writer Stephanie Meyer, who pretty much became a slayer of the English language when she came out with her poorly crafted, grammatically incorrect novel. This woman dedicated her last book to Muse and sites Linkin Park as one of her main inspirations. Who is this woman and why did she write? Oh, to bring screaming hoards of emo fangirls with no fashion sense and braces to swoon over the possibility of meeting a real life Edward. Keep on dreamin' girls, he's just around the corner waiting for you.

TrueBlood:

A HBO series loosely based on the novels of Charlaine Harris about a bar girl who falls for a vampire. Harris also wrote a series of novels that have about the same merit as Meyer's, but are far less obnoxious in the sense that they were written for an older audience and thus have much less emo fan girls crushing on a Southern vampy named Bill. Because honestly the name Edward is a far better vampire name, and Bills supposed to be like thirty, and omg that is just like way totally to old. Like I said, less obnoxious Twilight-ers makes me like it more, although her book is at the same writing level as Meyers, so I can't play it up too much.

THE THROW DOWN

Literary Merit:

Twilight: A story about your normal teenage girl who moves into this nowhere town in Washington and ends up dating the most coveted guy in school who also happens to be a vampire. Shocker. Not much of a plot in the sense that there really isn't one other then "omg omg he's so hot", and it kind of blows that in the first book Meyer sort of threw in a problem with other vampires because she had half the book written and realized all that she had done was talk about how hot Edward was. Ergo, she threw in some bad guys. Did ya cover foreshadowing in school honey? 

Dead Until Dark: This one automatically wins in the vampire genre for having a plot. That being, scientists have figured out a way to make synthetic blood, meaning that vampires can stop living their secret lives and 'come out of the coffin' (har-har). Meaning that some of them are adapting to local society, and like Americans - people intolerably freak out. Thus spawning a long winded set of murders through the town somehow related to vampires, and our little set of heros has got to figure it out before someone is wrongly accused. Hey, she had a plot. I'm happy. Although I must admit I did have a bad habit of skipping ahead to the interesting stuff.

On the Screen:

Twilight: Horrible acting on parts of everyone in the movie. But for some reason I still think its better then the book. Maybe its because we get to see Alice break someone's neck at the end, or the fact that the director worked in some foreshadowing. But mainly I think its because the 300+ pages of "omg i love you omg this isn't going to work because I'm a vampire omg he's so hot" were cut out. Although I must admit I was partial to the baseball scene, just because it had Supermassive Black Hole by Muse in it, so good work on the soundtrack.

TrueBlood: First off, I must say that its indie-creative opening song scene really makes me love this show all by itself. After that, there is much more character development and foreshadowing in the show then in the books. Sam and Jason and Tara (who isn't even in the first book) are actually full existing characters rather then just flat ones and you can follow there own little stories rather then just staying in Sookie's head - which is nice because first person perspective often bores me. It also really conveys the prejudice that 'out of the coffin' vampires face, which is something the book doesn't cover at all really. I have a feeling the series is going to start heading away from the book, because at the season finale there was this new teen chick vampire, who wasn't in the book. Which is fine because I think Bill and Sookie break up in the book, and I don't like sorrow in my mindless time-fillers. Although the downside is that, just like with the books, I found myself skipping ahead to the interesting stuff often.

Leading Ladies:

Bella Swan: In the book, a lot of Bella's internal dialogue is obnoxious and could easily be cut out. I could go without the ten pages about how hot Edward is every chapter. In the movie, whoever plays her can't really act, and thats okay because no one else in the movie can either. She doesn't really do too well with exclamation or anything like that at all, although my favorite part was probably towards the end while they're in the hospital and he's talking about leaving her, and her only response is some incoherent babble of words. Priceless. I usually pull for my leading ladies when they're brunette, just because I harbor resentment to all those 50s and 60s movies where the "bad girl" is always a brunette and the sweet leading lady is a blond. Somehow though, this one doesn't make me like her any more. Although I did like the mittens she wore.

Sookie Stackhouse: I'm just going to start by saying that Sookie is probably the first female character in a while that hasn't just annoyed the shit out of me. That being said, she's kind of obnoxious in the book. The series however makes up for that one pretty well. Although she can get obnoxiously dramatic at times and kick poor vampy Bill out when he needs to get laid (and thats just plain mean), I like the fact that she can live her life away from him and doesn't use him like an oxygen take like poor Bella constantly does in both the book and the movie. Did I mention the actress that plays her is award-winning? Well she is, and she is a damn good one. When she laughs, I laugh. When she cries, I probably do to. See, simply amazing.

Vampy-boys:

Edward Cullen: Although being somewhat of a turn on in the book, he always did get rather obnoxious with the whole "I think it would be best if you left me because I am dangerous and etc.", but hell he was still entertaining. And good mental eye candy. The movie kind of ruined that. The dude who plays Edward (who most of you will remember as the dude-who-died-but-still-couldn't-act in Harry Potter 4) cannot act. Simple. Another down is that for some disgusting reason, production of Twilight thought it was okay to put so much makeup on him that his neck and his face had different colors entirely, and they didn't bother to do away with his five-o-clock-shadow. He's also the owner of some pretty great lines, such as the infamous "skin of a killer". You tell her Edward. You tell her what a big bad killer you are, that's a special boy.

Bill Compton: Automatic props for the bangin' last name. Okay, so the dude has a freaky taste in music, so I'm gonna take those last name props away. Anyways, in the book he is almost obnoxious. And then he gets a little sex-crazed which kinda ruins the whole Southern Gentleman thing (although there is a particularly interesting quote about how the thought women's under-things during the civil war was sexy, freak). But he improves dramatically in the show, not really ruining that gentlemanly thing so badly. He also looks like a vampire, in the sense that he's kinda dark and twisted and not just some teenager running around. And he doesn't have this whole "I don't wanna kill people" thing, he's very realistic - I like that about him. Plus, he's got a really nice ass. 

Ooh thats Steamy...:

Lets jump to the fourth book: Where Edward and Bella get married, have apparently a lot of hot steamy sex that is never talked about but only slightly referenced to, and then pop out some kind of freaky demon child with a stupid name. I know I can be hard on Twilight and I have a bias against it, but what the fuck? No. Absolutely not. You lose, Meyer. The only thing this did was become a giant reason to remember your birth control.

Every book, and every episode: If you like graphic sex, don't read the books. Harris describes the sex vaguely and its kind of random when it does happen. But if you do like watching something that is almost porn but not as perverted, feel free to watch TrueBlood. Every episode. Hell, if its not her brother getting some or Tara, all you have to do is wait six episodes for Sookie to finally loose her V-card to the big V himself (aw man, horrible joke). And if their first scene isn't steamy enough for you, the do it in a graveyard later which at least had "WTF?" points in my mind.

My final verdict: 

TrueBlood wins by a landslide. Its like Obama in the 2008 elections. 

NOTE: I probably should have titled this post "REASONS WHY TRUEBLOOD KICKS TWILIGHT'S ASS", but maybe next time.