How The Twilight Movie Fixed The Book’s Confusing Preface Details
The Twilight movies fixed a couple of mistakes and confusing moments from the books, such as the first novel’s preface, making it a lot clearer.
The Twilight Saga omitted various details, scenes, and characters from Stephenie Meyer’s books series, but it also fixed a couple of issues, such as the first book’s confusing preface. Meyer’s Twilight book series became a worldwide phenomenon and made vampires popular again (though a unique version of them), so it’s not surprising that it didn’t take long for Hollywood to set eyes on the novels and bring them to the big screen, thus expanding the series’ already extensive fanbase.
The Twilight Saga did its best to tell the story of the controversial romance between mortal Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) from the moment they met Bella’s transformation into a vampire, and while it featured the most important moments of their story, many others were left aside and created more confusion. However, the Twilight Saga also fixed a couple of mistakes and confusing moments from the books, such as Twilight’s preface, which caused a lot of confusion due to its setting and antagonist, but the movie avoids this problem.
When Is Twilight’s Preface Set (& Why It Was So Confusing)
The Twilight movie and the book start differently, with the latter confusing readers so much that Stephenie Meyer had to address this on her official website. The Twilight novel begins in an undisclosed setting, with the narrator (who is later revealed to be Bella) talking about what they believe are their last moments before they were killed by an unnamed hunter. The novel then jumps to the beginning of Bella’s story, and the preface isn’t referenced again, which was confusing to many as they were left without knowing who was the killer, who was the victim, and where the scene was set.
The preface is set near the end of Twilight, in the dance studio scene where James is alone with Bella, ready to kill her as Edward and his family are seemingly far away. On her website, Meyer shares the exact part in the Twilight novel where the preface would go, but even after putting both parts together, the scene has a couple of inconsistencies. What makes the preface even more confusing is that the hunter isn’t mentioned again, but it’s actually James, who is later called “tracker”. The Twilight movie fixed this by telling Bella’s story in chronological order, and instead of starting with James attacking her, it opens with a shot of a deer in the forest, with a voiceover narration by Bella, which is taken from the book’s preface.
Why Twilight Refers To James As Hunter & Tracker
James being called both hunter and tracker in Twilight isn’t really a mistake, as his role in the saga is actually both. James was the leader of his coven, partner of Victoria, and friend of Laurent, and he was sadistic and ruthless. James and his coven were vampires who feed on humans, so their eyes were red when they were fed and black when they needed to eat. James’ power was tracking, through which he could sense his prey’s moves in advance and track them down, which made him a great leader for his coven. James, then, was both a hunter and a tracker, with both coming together to make him one of the most dangerous villains in the Twilight series.
