Why was Twilight so disappointing?

Rating: 7/10 (14 April 2009)

My teenage daughter raved about this book. We both saw the movie—I enjoyed the film, whereas my daughter was disappointed. She encouraged me to read the book but I hadn't read any novel in fifteen or so years. After watching the movie twice, I decided to read the book.
The book explains many of the small details the movie failed to leave out, and these were important details. In the beginning of the novel Bella is very unhappy in Forks, the movie failed to portray this. She pretended to like Forks while she hated everything about it. Bella had many male admirers at school. Bella did not like Edward but was fascinated by him. Edward didn't come to school that entire week and when he returned he chose to skip class, which was an important part. In class they were blood-typing and this is where Bella had became very ill at the smell of blood. The movie failed to show the gradual affection growing for each other; the movie just threw them together.
The beach scene happened quite early in the novel. This is where Jacob told Bella in great detail about the Quileutes legend and she walks away knowing Edward is a vampire. When she questions him he admits the legend is true. In the movie, she comes to her own conclusion of what he is then asks him about it in the nearby woods. The scene wasn't right.
The forest scene is where the two of them began to have feelings for each other. The movie didn't quite show the depth of their chemistry in this scene for they confessed their love to each other. In the novel, the two hiked early in the morning for hours to get to Edward's favorite spot. They spent the entire day talking and experimenting with touching each other slowly. When dusk came, Edward showed her how he sometimes traveled—he ran through the trees with her on his back. It's a real shame this entire scene was not included in the movie because it was the turning point in their relationship. This is when I fell in love with the idea of Bella and Edward. You could see the feelings they had for each other whereas in the movie it was just a scene of him showing her his favorite site.
The movie scene where Edward brings Bella home should have been left as it was in the book. In the novel, he took her to his home where she saw a piano and discovered Edward played. He wrote a musical piece, which Bella had inspired him—it was the same song he hummed her to sleep the night before. During the visit they talked about music and asked each other questions about mortality and immortality. It was during this time (in the novel) that you could see the personality of both of them. They were playful and both wanted to be in control. The movie portrays Bella as an assertive fragile girl but on the contrary she is quite feisty.
At the near ending of the movie, the baseball scene, the black vampire who appears first leads you to believe that he is the leader of that clan. The book tells us it is the white male (tracker) who is the leader. Once he smells the scent of Bella's blood he wants her and thats comes clearly across in the movie, however the movie makes us believe he thirsts for her blood. This is far from the truth--when the tracker meets the Cullens he recognizes Alice who was once his victim but Carlisle had taken her away. He wanted Bella since he couldn't have Alice—trade one for another and he wanted Edward to avenge Bella's death. None of these details were included in the movie which is very disappointing. It would have explained the trackers motive.
The movie was good but not great. The novel was fantastic. If the movie had all of the small details that were in the novel, the movie would have been outstanding. The director should have anticipated a 3-4 hour movie instead of the normal 2 hours. I do believe if the movie had been longer, the entire movie would have been able to fit in those small but important details. The actors were phenomenal with the material they had to work with. Unfortunately, Bella and Edward were thrown together so fast in the movie they couldn't develop that on-screen portrayal of romance.