The three comments below were the first customer reviews I found on iTunes regarding the 2008 release of Twilight. If these were reviews for a restaurant and we read them, we would probably never consider going there. But as we all know, unless we have been sleeping under a rock, the second movie of the Twilight franchise, “New Moon”, has just reached all-time box office record history. A movie costing a mere $50 million to produce took in $200 million on its opening night.

Twilight…hmm…

So, I was watching this movie with my friends at a theatre, and having been previously reading the books; I was expecting a lot from the film. The sad truth is that the movie wasn’t that great. In fact, it was horrible. I have to give credit to whoever picked the filming location because the scenery is/was beautiful. When it came to the acting, I wasn’t drawn in at all; and there was no chemistry between the actors. (Robert Pattison is not that hot, by the way, he’s okay). The graphics and visual effects were bad, directing was terrible, too (thank goodness they’re hiring a new director for the next movie.) I think this movie could have been better, and the acting could have been better. The only reason why I think this movie is so popular is because of those Twihards; it wasn’t that great, though the books are a must-read.

In the middle

I’ve heard that there is no in-between with regard to this movie. Girls are either wallpapering photos of Robert Pattison to the bedroom walls or viciously attacking the actors on a “Twilighters” website. Today, I speak for those of us smack in the middle of those two extremes. Was Twilight so terrible that I sent hate mail to the director? Um, no? What is so good that I saw the movie six times in two days and vowed to marry Robert Pattison or no other? Definitely not. So what was it? A movie targeted at teenage girls with the intention of making money sorry.

Yes, I might be biased and was never a fan of the books or the attitude that if I can’t be with him, what is the point of living? Last time I checked, that was called separation anxiety, not true love. Anyway, I digress. The movie is a movie; stick to books if you can’t stand to have your vision shattered. Rent it, and then buy something worthy of debate.

Terrible by all standards

It’s not enough to get actors who look like the characters from the book; they have to know how to act too. I don’t know what Catherine Hardwicke was thinking, but she can do way better than this. The story fell flat, rushed. The acting was terrible. My God, I didn’t know Kristen Stewart could sink so low in acting standards, and the camera work was awful. Anyone who said this was way better than Harry Potter in B.O. terms is really, really, really dumb and immature. The screenplay needed way more work because the relationship between these two characters was horrible. Chemistry? What chemistry? Sorry, Twilight fans… this movie is an epic fail by all standards.

How Come?

So how can something with some of the worst movie ratings and customer reviews find its way into the top Twitter trending topic for the last two weeks and have a picture or mention of some kind in everybody’s Facebook Stream?

I even asked my teenage daughter and some of her friends what they thought about the original movie, and they confirmed three things.

1. They thought the original movie was bad

2. They would most definitely see “New Moon.”

3. That the promise of seeing Taylor Lautner with his shirt off was good enough

So here I sit wondering, what can we learn from this as a culture? Is there some insight we can glean?

First sex still sells, and we should all go and find a hunk of a guy to promote our product, but if that fails, we may have to look a little deeper.

Perhaps the next one of the things that we can say is if it didn’t go quite right the first time, we certainly have the opportunity to do it again and come at it with a new vision and new expectations. I am not saying that the first movie was a complete and utter disaster, although some reviews I read might affirm that. I’m just saying that a foundation was built for something significant to grow from. And I think this is an important life lesson that we should never forget. An experience, good or bad, should always be a learning experience.

Also, the Twilight franchise confirms that social media has an incredible female demographic; I know this movie skews into the lower age bracket, but the stats prove it.

Fastest Growing Demographic on Facebook: Women Over 55

In the World of Social Media, Women Rule

So take this knowledge if you use social media to promote a product or service, as you could not ask for a better-narrowed audience.

Movies are pretty culturally different from many other things; as I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, if you are a resturant, a business, or even promoting your reputation, a few bad reviews and you could be out of consumer popularity if you are not aware of what is happening.

But with movies we can throw a new director or producer at it, and it seems you can turn the whole perception around; the new “Star Trek” is a fine example. However, If you changed the writer of the books and suddenly got rid of Stephenie Meyer, it would be most interesting to see what happened then.

We often see a new CEO arrive in a company or a new Chef at our favourite restaurant, and as a shareholder, we hope that things will get better or hopefully not affect how things taste. However, we still wait tentatively and do not accept the change that well.

So do you accept change, give something a second try, read reviews and take them as gold, or do you make up your mind and spread the word?