Let the Analysis In

[zephonate]

I'll start by saying Let the Right One In is my favorite movie of all time. Period.

That being said, I loved Let Me In. There were enough subtle differences about it to make it feel like a different movie to me, it was extremely faithful to the source material and masterfully well put together. I like to look at it like a fantastic cover of one of your all-time favorite songs. Of course in reality they don't compare and the original will always be the best, but the cover is a perfectly legitimate version with its own nuances you might even prefer (in part) to the original.

This was a day one purchase for me (actually bought the Blu-ray and DVD). I've since watched it thrice –once as is, once with picture-in-picture, the third with commentary. The more I watch, the more I love. And I feel -speaking as a die hard fan of the original- I have to put this out there.

Even before reading the novel, I have NEVER bought the Oskar/Owen being next in line to be a blood gatherer plot interpretation. It simply doesn't work and isn't practical. Eli/Abby show multiple times in all versions of the story that he/she/it is capable of getting blood perfectly fine on her own, albeit more messily. That probably means if she didn't have someone gathering blood she'd have to move around more often, but it seems like she's already accepted a life of that anyway. Not to mention the one gatherer we're ever shown is pretty abysmal at it. There's no possible way Owen or Oskar –arguably fragile twelve-year-old boys- would be suitable for gathering blood in an efficient manner. To me, the desire for Abby/Eli to keep Oskar/Owen around has ALWAYS been one of love and nothing less. I believe that's utterly proven in the original film when after killing Jocke, Eli collapses on his body sobbing. She doesn't WANT to kill, she hates doing it. I've always been fairly confident that's why she ever kept Hakan around. Not because she needed someone to get her blood, but because she hated having to end lives with her own hands. Unfortunately, that's one scene I was really disappointed that didn't make it into Let Me In.

I feel I also need to start some discussion on the finer points of the Abby/Thomas plotline. When I saw the film, and upon further analysis, I have far less of a problem with it than I originally thought I would. Why? Because we are never given any explicit evidence in the film that there were other blood gatherers BEFORE Thomas. All we are shown is that they knew each other since he was a child, not even that they had a romantic relationship. For all we know they could've been very close friends. We never see them kiss, never hear them trade sweet nothings, never do anything really that would be unrealistic for two very good friends who aren't shy about physical contact to do.

For those of you who might think I'm putting my head in the sand so I don't have to acknowledge the possibility they were once romantically involved, I'll play devil's advocate. Suppose they were. How still does that concretely confirm there were others before him? We never see any others, never hear of them, and for the reasons I've stated above, it is unrealistic that Abby would need to keep blood gatherers around. If we are to look at their relationship as loving (or at least one that once was), to me it makes her and Owen's relationship even more profound in some ways. Perhaps a lot of the subtext in the movie lies in her not wanting to make the same mistakes with Owen that she made with Thomas, thus the reason why she allowed herself to get close to him.

Matt Reeves does not confirm or deny the existence of previous "Fathers". All he gives us via the commentary are what-ifs and maybes. Though he does explicitly say Abby is not a manipulative and evil self-serving character. Because of all these reasons, I believe a happily ever after for Owen and Abby is just as possible as it was for Eli and Oskar in LTROI.

Any of what I'm saying make sense? Anyone agree? Let's get some analysis going here.

[PeteMork]

First, if they were only friends, why would Thomas care so much whether or not Abby hung out with Owen? Second, if Thomas had been her boyfriend when he was Owen's age (even if he was the only one), I don't like the fact that Abby was falling for Owen while Thomas was still in her life. Sounds like cheating to me. IMO, only if Thomas had the same relationship with Abby that Eli had with Hakan, could her love for Owen be "untarnished," so to speak. This is one of the major problems I have with LMI -- and it's really a deal-breaker to me. It keeps their relationship from ever being as "pure' a love as depicted in LTROI (and we haven't even brought up the fact that Eli was a boy and Abby...wasn't; an even greater obstacle for love to overcome.)

To sum it up, Abby may not be manipulative by pursuing Owen, but she certainly isn't ethical.

[ColBlair]

First, if they were only friends, why would Thomas care so much whether or not Abby hung out with Owen? Second, if Thomas had been her boyfriend when he was Owen's age (even if he was the only one), I don't like the fact that Abby was falling for Owen while Thomas was still in her life. Sounds like cheating to me. IMO, only if Thomas had the same relationship with Abby that Eli had with Hakan, could her love for Owen be "untarnished," so to speak. This is one of the major problems I have with LMI -- and it's really a deal-breaker to me. It keeps their relationship from ever being as "pure' a love as depicted in LTROI (and we haven't even brought up the fact that Eli was a boy and Abby...wasn't; an even greater obstacle for love to overcome.)

To sum it up, Abby may not be manipulative by pursuing Owen, but she certainly isn't ethical.

Or maybe Thomas wasn't Abby's boyfriend, just a best friend she had. That's how I'm starting to look at it now. Though you also have to look at this way, Abby needed someone her own age and it's a possibility that maybe Thomas chose not to be a vampire. We really don't know what really happened and it's possible also that Thomas chose to take care of Abby.

[ColBlair]

I'll start by saying Let the Right One In is my favorite movie of all time. Period.

That being said, I loved Let Me In. There were enough subtle differences about it to make it feel like a different movie to me, it was extremely faithful to the source material and masterfully well put together. I like to look at it like a fantastic cover of one of your all-time favorite songs. Of course in reality they don't compare and the original will always be the best, but the cover is a perfectly legitimate version with its own nuances you might even prefer (in part) to the original.

This was a day one purchase for me (actually bought the Blu-ray and DVD). I've since watched it thrice –once as is, once with picture-in-picture, the third with commentary. The more I watch, the more I love. And I feel -speaking as a die hard fan of the original- I have to put this out there.

Even before reading the novel, I have NEVER bought the Oskar/Owen being next in line to be a blood gatherer plot interpretation. It simply doesn't work and isn't practical. Eli/Abby show multiple times in all versions of the story that he/she/it is capable of getting blood perfectly fine on her own, albeit more messily. That probably means if she didn't have someone gathering blood she'd have to move around more often, but it seems like she's already accepted a life of that anyway. Not to mention the one gatherer we're ever shown is pretty abysmal at it. There's no possible way Owen or Oskar –arguably fragile twelve-year-old boys- would be suitable for gathering blood in an efficient manner. To me, the desire for Abby/Eli to keep Oskar/Owen around has ALWAYS been one of love and nothing less. I believe that's utterly proven in the original film when after killing Jocke, Eli collapses on his body sobbing. She doesn't WANT to kill, she hates doing it. I've always been fairly confident that's why she ever kept Hakan around. Not because she needed someone to get her blood, but because she hated having to end lives with her own hands. Unfortunately, that's one scene I was really disappointed that didn't make it into Let Me In.

I feel I also need to start some discussion on the finer points of the Abby/Thomas plotline. When I saw the film, and upon further analysis, I have far less of a problem with it than I originally thought I would. Why? Because we are never given any explicit evidence in the film that there were other blood gatherers BEFORE Thomas. All we are shown is that they knew each other since he was a child, not even that they had a romantic relationship. For all we know they could've been very close friends. We never see them kiss, never hear them trade sweet nothings, never do anything really that would be unrealistic for two very good friends who aren't shy about physical contact to do.

For those of you who might think I'm putting my head in the sand so I don't have to acknowledge the possibility they were once romantically involved, I'll play devil's advocate. Suppose they were. How still does that concretely confirm there were others before him? We never see any others, never hear of them, and for the reasons I've stated above, it is unrealistic that Abby would need to keep blood gatherers around. If we are to look at their relationship as loving (or at least one that once was), to me it makes her and Owen's relationship even more profound in some ways. Perhaps a lot of the subtext in the movie lies in her not wanting to make the same mistakes with Owen that she made with Thomas, thus the reason why she allowed herself to get close to him.

Matt Reeves does not confirm or deny the existence of previous "Fathers". All he gives us via the commentary are what-ifs and maybes. Though he does explicitly say Abby is not a manipulative and evil self-serving character. Because of all these reasons, I believe a happily ever after for Owen and Abby is just as possible as it was for Eli and Oskar in LTROI.

Any of what I'm saying make sense? Anyone agree? Let's get some analysis going here.

Well said there dude! I have to agree, from the looks of it Thomas and Abby were just friends and friends only. The scene where Owen wants Abby to be his girlfriend, it was almost as if she didn't want to be his girlfriend at the time, but she thought maybe to give it a chance for a while until she moved away herself and found another caretaker. I do agree, Matt gave us a lot of what-ifs and a lot of questions for us to ask as well. That is what I found interesting about LMI. I also think that had the bullies not tried to kill Owen and left him alone, chances are that Abby and Owen would have been in Los Allamos and she would of been able to stay around for a while. I think too that Owen chose to go with Abby cause they understood one another more. I do believe that Abby cared about Thomas as much she cared about Owen. My theory about Abby's relationships is that Thomas would of been the only friend that stayed with her as he got older.

[sauvin]

That being said, I loved Let Me In. There were enough subtle differences about it to make it feel like a different movie to me, it was extremely faithful to the source material and masterfully well put together. I like to look at it like a fantastic cover of one of your all-time favorite songs. Of course in reality they don't compare and the original will always be the best, but the cover is a perfectly legitimate version with its own nuances you might even prefer (in part) to the original.

In earlier posts, when LMI was still either playing or just imminent, I made a plea to board members to view it in precisely this vein: it's a different work of art, a different interpretation. Reeves took a few liberties with the source material, yes, and that's partly why I asked the indulgence, but I'll further venture that these liberties went mostly to support an alternative interpretation that does not preclude meaningful comparison with LTROI.

Even before reading the novel, I have NEVER bought the Oskar/Owen being next in line to be a blood gatherer plot interpretation. It simply doesn't work and isn't practical. Eli/Abby show multiple times in all versions of the story that he/she/it is capable of getting blood perfectly fine on her own, albeit more messily. That probably means if she didn't have someone gathering blood she'd have to move around more often, but it seems like she's already accepted a life of that anyway.

The novel has Eli saying something about undergoing something that sounds like hibernation, and when she emerges from it, she's "small again", and that's when she really needs help. She also says that people help her because she's small - and for "different reasons" (followed by a grimace). It's not made clear what "being small again" means, physically, mentally or emotionally - or maybe that whatever preternatural constraints attach to her existence might affect her chances of survival adversely.

We've speculated that there are a number of advantages to having a minder in addition to her post-hibernation diminution. One advantage to having an adult ally around, of course, concerns things like licenses, leases and so on. Another is in being around somebody who's more in touch with the times and the languages (imagine you're a vampire who fell asleep in 1969 and just now woke up - if you say "groovy" just once too often, people WILL think you're pretty strange). Since she also obviously has a need to keep as much of her existence hidden as possible, a procuring minder is also a disposable cut-out - one more barrier between herself and the authorities or the neighbours with torches and pitchforks, hopefully to give her time to gather her stuff and get the [deleted] out of Dodge when folks start to discover or suspect that something dark has moved in.

Not to mention the one gatherer we're ever shown is pretty abysmal at it. There's no possible way Owen or Oskar –arguably fragile twelve-year-old boys- would be suitable for gathering blood in an efficient manner.

Movie Hakan was chilling enough, yes. I could never imagine myself doing the things he does, especially in the way he does them, without overpowering motivation. Even so, though, movie Hakan was a clown. Thomas, not so much so. THIS dude WAS scary - cold, silent and efficient. Even as he was getting old and tired, a 50something Thomas isn't somebody I'd want spotting me in a dark ally; Hakan stood a better than even chance of himself becoming worm food in such a case, but I'm pretty sure Thomas would have had me out of it within milliseconds. Hakan, it seems, didn't have a lot of practise (I admit this is blatant extrapolation from the novel), but Thomas apparently has a lifetime's experience.

To me, the desire for Abby/Eli to keep Oskar/Owen around has ALWAYS been one of love and nothing less. I believe that's utterly proven in the original film when after killing Jocke, Eli collapses on his body sobbing. She doesn't WANT to kill, she hates doing it. I've always been fairly confident that's why she ever kept Hakan around. Not because she needed someone to get her blood, but because she hated having to end lives with her own hands. Unfortunately, that's one scene I was really disappointed that didn't make it into Let Me In.

Eli isn't Abby, and Abby isn't Eli. We don't know precisely why Eli sobbed over Jocke's body, and we could go 'round and 'round in circles for years on this point without ever "definitively proving" a d%#n thing. Abby never evinced anything after killing the American version of Jocke; she twisted his neck and fled immediately. No emotion whatsoever in this scene, we're just shown a vampire having a meal.

I feel I also need to start some discussion on the finer points of the Abby/Thomas plotline. When I saw the film, and upon further analysis, I have far less of a problem with it than I originally thought I would. Why? Because we are never given any explicit evidence in the film that there were other blood gatherers BEFORE Thomas. All we are shown is that they knew each other since he was a child, not even that they had a romantic relationship. For all we know they could've been very close friends. We never see them kiss, never hear them trade sweet nothings, never do anything really that would be unrealistic for two very good friends who aren't shy about physical contact to do.

Never given any explicit evidence? It's rather strongly hinted, I think. If we assume Abby is about as old as Eli is, and if we accept that the boy in the picture is indeed a preteen Thomas, then we have to accept that Thomas went into Abby's service one way or another. If this is so, then we also have to accept that where there was one, there very well may have been others.

As for the nature of the relationship Abby may have had with Thomas over the decades, you are correct, we can guess, speculate and argue. I don't remember anything in the movie that might promise any kind of proof one way or another. There are hints, though, vague or ambiguous as they might be, that while Abby most certainly can wear the pants in their family, there's still a strong element of tenderness between them. If Eli's and Abby's lives are as nomadic as we believe, then we can also believe that Abby and Thomas spent much more of their time together alone than would almost any other couple over the decades, and it could be very easily argued that this closeness probably would have included something resembling romance. They certainly are not about expressing affection physically.

For those of you who might think I'm putting my head in the sand so I don't have to acknowledge the possibility they were once romantically involved, I'll play devil's advocate. Suppose they were. How still does that concretely confirm there were others before him? We never see any others, never hear of them, and for the reasons I've stated above, it is unrealistic that Abby would need to keep blood gatherers around. If we are to look at their relationship as loving (or at least one that once was), to me it makes her and Owen's relationship even more profound in some ways. Perhaps a lot of the subtext in the movie lies in her not wanting to make the same mistakes with Owen that she made with Thomas, thus the reason why she allowed herself to get close to him.

Did she make mistakes? She is a child, after all. Furthermore, the conditions of her existence brings to bear enormous pressures on her and on anybody who spents long periods of time with her. I've argued before that Abby didn't necessarily set about to recruit a minder, but that these pressures tended to push him into it. See my "Oskar at 40" in the fanfic for an illustration of this argument. Abby is a lonely young lady, and loneliness, deadly enough to most people, seems most devastating to young girls. Maybe Eli didn't see any opportunity to escape this loneliness (or maybe, if the interchange between herself and Hakan as they barter is any indication, Eli could just as easily have been singing "I want to know what life is/I want you to show me"), but Abby seems comfortable enough with "when you see your chance, take it/to find romance". She drifts into friendships which develop into something much stronger; if this is a trend, then she knows what's likely to happen, but is either unable to care in the face of inhuman loneliness, or is unable to find some way to shield her companions from the corrosion her monstrosity brings.

Abby says, with bitter resignation, "I told you we can't be friends" as Owen leaves her apartment after having spotted the photos of her and (presumably) Thomas. We don't know precisely what she knows, but we know very d%#n well she knows something.

As for it being "unrealistic" for Abby to keep minders around, erm, how the [deleted] would we know?

Matt Reeves does not confirm or deny the existence of previous "Fathers". All he gives us via the commentary are what-ifs and maybes. Though he does explicitly say Abby is not a manipulative and evil self-serving character. Because of all these reasons, I believe a happily ever after for Owen and Abby is just as possible as it was for Eli and Oskar in LTROI.

Reeves tried to say one thing; maybe what we hear is something else. Do Oskar and Eli have a "happily ever after"? We don't know what happens after the train ride out of Blackeberg, but we can't see anything really plausible. Both Oskar and Owen seem doomed.

Any of what I'm saying make sense? Anyone agree? Let's get some analysis going here.

I think we can pretty much guarantee "analysis" will be going on in the coming months.

Edit: 5 Novembre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

Edit: 5 Novembre 2011, replaced a "bad word" with [deleted] to comply with renewed restrictions on language.

[ColBlair]

I have to say Sauvin, you really make some good points. I don't know if I want to read your Oskar at 40 cause I'm not the one for very dark stories. Though reading your response, I have to say it is interesting where you are coming from. I'm assuming though you based your story off the book too, correct?

Anyway, I'm going to talk about why I felt that Thomas was growing older and Abby chose not to turn him. One theory is that maybe Thomas didn't want to be infected. As for Eli, in the film, it seems that she found the guy. It's left up in the air as if the guy would of been a friend of Eli's or someone that she found off the street that she hired or something. That's what confused me cause it was never answered and it should have been in the first place, even though I seen LMI first. So I'm going to guess that in the film, it was just a guy she found off the street. If that was true, then maybe she was just wanting to survive and only that. While it was the same in the book, in my mind, Eli was making the wrong choices when she recruited Hakan, but still had a the urge to survive. As for LMI, it seems that Abby was more alone and that she wanted someone, but most of her companions were just friends or people she ran into off the street.

Another theory with Abby is that she really didn't know if she could bare having Thomas being a vampire cause she doesn't know how it could affect him at the time. Actually, we don't know how being turned into a vampire would do to a person. From the time Virginia was bit in LMI, the only thing that happened to her in LMI was she was sucking her own blood. In the LTROI movie, Virginia seemed to be only frightened of the fact that she was turning into something that was less than human. In the novel, Virginia, I thought, made her curious, but she couldn't live knowing that she was a vampire. (Oh, I did like the part when she started to notice she was a vampire. Loved that part of the story and it was well done by the author!)

Now would Abby and Eli have to turn Owen and Oskar into a vampire? I would say yes, this would break that cycle and they won't be alone, but still face the dark road ahead.

Once again, great theory Sauvin!

[zephonate]

The novel has Eli saying something about undergoing something that sounds like hibernation, and when she emerges from it, she's "small again", and that's when she really needs help. She also says that people help her because she's small - and for "different reasons" (followed by a grimace). It's not made clear what "being small again" means, physically, mentally or emotionally - or maybe that whatever preternatural constraints attach to her existence might affect her chances of survival adversely.

We've speculated that there are a number of advantages to having a minder in addition to her post-hibernation diminution. One advantage to having an adult ally around, of course, concerns things like licenses, leases and so on. Another is in being around somebody who's more in touch with the times and the languages (imagine you're a vampire who fell asleep in 1969 and just now woke up - if you say "groovy" just once too often, people WILL think you're pretty strange). Since she also obviously has a need to keep as much of her existence hidden as possible, a procuring minder is also a disposable cut-out - one more barrier between herself and the authorities or the neighbours with torches and pitchforks, hopefully to give her time to gather her stuff and get the hell out of Dodge when folks start to discover or suspect that something dark has moved in.

Admittedly, I did forget about the whole hibernation scenario. As well, you bring up good points regarding the potential benefits of a guardian.

Movie Hakan was chilling enough, yes. I could never imagine myself doing the things he does, especially in the way he does them, without overpowering motivation. Even so, though, movie Hakan was a clown. Thomas, not so much so. THIS dude WAS scary - cold, silent and efficient. Even as he was getting old and tired, a 50something Thomas isn't somebody I'd want spotting me in a dark ally; Hakan stood a better than even chance of himself becoming worm food in such a case, but I'm pretty sure Thomas would have had me out of it within milliseconds. Hakan, it seems, didn't have a lot of practise (I admit this is blatant extrapolation from the novel), but Thomas apparently has a lifetime's experience.

Almost goes without saying, haha.

Eli isn't Abby, and Abby isn't Eli. We don't know precisely why Eli sobbed over Jocke's body, and we could go 'round and 'round in circles for years on this point without ever "definitively proving" a damn thing. Abby never evinced anything after killing the American version of Jocke; she twisted his neck and fled immediately. No emotion whatsoever in this scene, we're just shown a vampire having a meal.

True as this may be, they both have the same character basis, different as their eventual interpretations may be, thus there is a fair amount of overlap. Just because Chlöe went a different way in playing her version of the character doesn't mean certain nuances aren't there. You just have to look for them in different places.

One thing I really dug about Moretz's performance was a subtle difference in the scene where she met Owen. Keep in mind, this is all my interpretation, but in the original I felt Eli's demeanor to be cautionary when telling Oskar they couldn't be friends. At the time, she was saying it for his own good, knowing people get hurt around her, seeing herself as not much better than poison. She does what she has to in order to survive, yet hates it, thus she tried to warn the boy.

Chlöe on the other hand, goes another way...

When we first see Abby, her jaw is a little slack. Her eyes a little too wide. There's a distant tone to her voice. Abby never struck me as trying to caution or spare Owen by telling him they couldn't be friends. Her demeanor in this scene communicates to me that she feel dead inside. Some people complain that there's no feeling in her delivery during this scene. I took this as being deliberate. She's showing that the decades upon decades of killing have essentially hollowed her out. There's very little person there anymore, which could partly be to blame for the way she treats Thomas and has grown apart from him (whatever their relationship may be). To me, this makes her eventual fall for Owen that much more meaningful. He hasn't just taken her out of her abyss of loneliness and shown her there's still good in the world –he reminded her what it's like to be human again.

Never given any explicit evidence? It's rather strongly hinted, I think. If we assume Abby is about as old as Eli is, and if we accept that the boy in the picture is indeed a preteen Thomas, then we have to accept that Thomas went into Abby's service one way or another. If this is so, then we also have to accept that where there was one, there very well may have been others.

That still doesn't make sense to me. Why does the presence of one confirm the presence of others? I'm not denying –given the openness of the material– that it's certainly a possibility, but when Abby is portrayed as a sympathetic character who is not merely collecting Owen for her dark purposes, I don't see how exactly we're led to believe then that she's had a legion of loyal followers over the years.

As for the nature of the relationship Abby may have had with Thomas over the decades, you are correct, we can guess, speculate and argue. I don't remember anything in the movie that might promise any kind of proof one way or another. There are hints, though, vague or ambiguous as they might be, that while Abby most certainly can wear the pants in their family, there's still a strong element of tenderness between them. If Eli's and Abby's lives are as nomadic as we believe, then we can also believe that Abby and Thomas spent much more of their time together alone than would almost any other couple over the decades, and it could be very easily argued that this closeness probably would have included something resembling romance. They certainly are not about expressing affection physically.

I'll give this to you. Again, not arguing that they didn't have a romantic relationship necessarily; I'm just positing to those that were instantly turned off to the reinterpretation by this possibility that it's not one set in stone.

Abby says, with bitter resignation, "I told you we can't be friends" as Owen leaves her apartment after having spotted the photos of her and (presumably) Thomas. We don't know precisely what she knows, but we know very damn well she knows something.

True enough, though I took something entirely different from this scene. I interpreted Abby's repeating of them not being able to be friends as not reminding him or bitterly reinforcing it. They've gotten too close by this point and invested too much in each other to still be limited by that initial statement. Frankly, they know they can be together, they just don't know if they can overcome the obstacles yet.

To me, this scene felt as if it were Abby reminding herself of what she told Owen, believing him right to judge her the way he did in this scene and for both their sakes she should let it be. But of course she doesn't, otherwise the story wouldn't be what it is.

Reeves tried to say one thing; maybe what we hear is something else. Do Oskar and Eli have a "happily ever after"? We don't know what happens after the train ride out of Blackeberg, but we can't see anything really plausible. Both Oskar and Owen seem doomed.

I know this is just my interpretation, but I've never looked at either of the boys being "doomed". In my mind there are just as many possibilities for things working out with them after the ending as not. Yes, even Reeves admits the two endings have very different tones; LTROI's ending is almost unarguably more upbeat, whereas LMI's is more mysterious, slightly sadder. It communicates more of the fact Owen is leaving many things behind and walking into a very big and uncertain future in order to be with Abby. This better than anything crystallizes an opinion I have on the film which to me sets it apart entirely from LTROI. Don't misunderstand me, I do not feel this makes it better, just different in an interesting way.

Let Me In has more savage bullies. In the beginning, Abby is colder. Thomas is a more hardened killer with decades of experience. Owen tries to stand up for himself (albeit briefly) towards the end. I could go on, but most importantly, the future seems cloudier in the end of Let Me In. For these reasons and many more, the film feels more...real to me. It's darker, grittier. Truer to life. In LMI, there's less of a hopeful, whimsical air about the story. It doesn't retain the dark fairytale quality of the original (which, don't get me wrong, I love). It's a difference in interpretation of the source material that I think ultimately serves this film much better, as well as setting it apart from the original and keeping it from being a straight-up remake.

First, if they were only friends, why would Thomas care so much whether or not Abby hung out with Owen? Second, if Thomas had been her boyfriend when he was Owen's age (even if he was the only one), I don't like the fact that Abby was falling for Owen while Thomas was still in her life. Sounds like cheating to me. IMO, only if Thomas had the same relationship with Abby that Eli had with Hakan, could her love for Owen be "untarnished," so to speak. This is one of the major problems I have with LMI -- and it's really a deal-breaker to me. It keeps their relationship from ever being as "pure' a love as depicted in LTROI (and we haven't even brought up the fact that Eli was a boy and Abby...wasn't; an even greater obstacle for love to overcome.)

To sum it up, Abby may not be manipulative by pursuing Owen, but she certainly isn't ethical.

Is it morally wrong for Abby to essentially cheat on Thomas with Owen? Of course it is. But that's life. That kind of thing happens all the time. People make mistakes and often pay dearly for them. And I think you can see her regret and her shame in her last goodbye with Thomas. She feels horrible for mistreating him, and it certainly seems like his final act is one of forgiveness towards her. Not one to shy away from forgiveness when so little is ever given to her, I believe this is in part what cements her feelings for Owen. She's being given another chance at happiness, and this time she is the one who needs to be careful, cautious, and not make the same mistakes again. If we look at the story in this light and interpret that if she did have previous gatherers, none were romantic, I believe it makes both love stories (Owen and Thomas') more heartbreaking, profound, and in the end meaningful.

[sauvin]

I have to say Sauvin, you really make some good points. I don't know if I want to read your Oskar at 40 cause I'm not the one for very dark stories. Though reading your response, I have to say it is interesting where you are coming from. I'm assuming though you based your story off the book too, correct?

I can't remember who said this, but some famous author or writer said something like "if you want to be a really good writer, write what you know. Don't write anything but what you know". I don't know that "Oskar at 40" is "dark" so much as godd%#n grim. It's based on what I perceive of human nature and how it would be deformed, circumscribed and compressed by living with Eli's condition over the course of decades. Even though I'm no writer by any stretch of the imagination, I'm finding that writing fan fiction can be useful because the writer can be excused for writing with his heart (or his gut) rather than subjecting his thoughts to the rigours of derivation, proof and the other superstructural rigours of academic thought.

I had something to say when I wrote "Oskar at 40", and part of that something was "some of the fan fiction accumulating in this place almost completely ignores the horror of what Eli is", and the disconnect with reality (!) was beginning to irritate me. Another thing I wanted to say was "Oskar's life with Eli ain't gonna be a springtime stroll through a flowery meadowland". I'm one of the curmudgeonly old greybeards who just can't see a "happily ever after" for Oskar - or Eli, for that matter, if he really was her first real relationship in two centuries.

I was shocked, dismayed and sickened that Thomas seems to resemble Oskar at 40 so closely. I'd hoped that my Oskar at 40 would generally be seen as unlikely, and that my head was just in a strange place the night I wrote it.

Anyway, I'm going to talk about why I felt that Thomas was growing older and Abby chose not to turn him. One theory is that maybe Thomas didn't want to be infected. As for Eli, in the film, it seems that she found the guy. It's left up in the air as if the guy would of been a friend of Eli's or someone that she found off the street that she hired or something. That's what confused me cause it was never answered and it should have been in the first place, even though I seen LMI first. So I'm going to guess that in the film, it was just a guy she found off the street. If that was true, then maybe she was just wanting to survive and only that. While it was the same in the book, in my mind, Eli was making the wrong choices when she recruited Hakan, but still had a the urge to survive. As for LMI, it seems that Abby was more alone and that she wanted someone, but most of her companions were just friends or people she ran into off the street.

I saw LTROI before I read the book, but I read the book twice in order to understand the movie better, and for at least three months, I never saw the DVD itself because it never left the DVDROM in my primary laptop, and I'd spin it up often twice or even three times a night. If you've never read the novel, or if you have but don't count the LTROI movie as being an Oskar- and Eli-centric distillation of the novel, then you could be forgiven for not regarding Hakan as hired help, but I think most of the board members consider him to be precisely this: hired help. He was recruited and stays in her employ because no other employer would offer better benefits.

Another theory with Abby is that she really didn't know if she could bare having Thomas being a vampire cause she doesn't know how it could affect him at the time. Actually, we don't know how being turned into a vampire would do to a person. From the time Virginia was bit in LMI, the only thing that happened to her in LMI was she was sucking her own blood. In the LTROI movie, Virginia seemed to be only frightened of the fact that she was turning into something that was less than human. In the novel, Virginia, I thought, made her curious, but she couldn't live knowing that she was a vampire. (Oh, I did like the part when she started to notice she was a vampire. Loved that part of the story and it was well done by the author!)

In the novel, Eli asked Oskar if he wanted to be like her. Oskar said something like "No. I want to be with you, but not like you". I'm still not 100% convinced of Eli's motivation for making this offer, but my feeling is that Oskar's response to this offer was the best thing he could have said. There's the implicit rejection of the beast that Eli carries within, and the explicit statement that he finds Eli herself very much worth spending time with.

I can't remember if it was in the novel or in one of the fanfics, but Eli is quoted some d%#n where as having pondered "Who could want to be like.... this?" She certainly had little enough trouble accepting Oskar's answer.

I haven't seen LMI often enough yet to get a feel for where Abby might be with respect to this, but since LMI is supposed to be a re-interpretation of the existing LTROI, it's easily enough conceivable that Abby feels the same way, and would have similar respect for her Thomases. I don't get that Eli or Abby ever shows the slightest shred of evidence that they enjoy being a vampire.

Novel Virginia certainly wasn't very cool with the idea; neither, we gather, was movie Virginia. When novel Virginia realised she was thinking of family and friends as food sources, she cashed out. The only vampire we know of outside the vampire lord's castle that Eli ever ran across told her that most vampires can't handle the guilt and wind up doing exactly what LTROI novel and movie Virginia did. As for LMI Virginia, well... (could I get away with excusing her by suggesting that she was, after all, just an American?)

Now would Abby and Eli have to turn Owen and Oskar into a vampire? I would say yes, this would break that cycle and they won't be alone, but still face the dark road ahead.

We speculate that turning Oskar would change the dynamic between the two kids, and that Eli realises this. It may even destroy it entirely. Oskar and Eli fought to build what they had when they left Blackeberg together - they fought with their adults, they fought their bullies, they fought eachother and they fought between themselves, and there've been times where Eli had to've been scared half out of her wits she's going to lose something precious.

I don't get that the dynamic between Abby and Owen is quite so exquisitely balanced or as delicate, but there probably are niceties she'll need to observe if she wants to keep her friend, and I suspect not turning Owen into another monster is one such nicety. I don't see much "fighting" with Abby and Owen; mostly, Abby seemed simply to accept that a new relationship was coming her way - boy, she sure seemed glad enough for it - and I just get that Owen drifted her way because he was going to drift in any event, and her direction seemed the least threatening or most promising. In a sense, then, the relationship these two kids share may well be more rugged - neither holds the other on any kind of pedestal and so won't be as disappointed if/when he says or does something that fails to meet idealised expectations. I think these two kids each understand that even when they're together, they're alone and on their own.

"Eat some now, save some for later", isn't that what Owen is singing almost unconsciously as he's riding the train away from home with his new girlfriend in a footlocker at his feet?

[PeteMork]

First, if they were only friends, why would Thomas care so much whether or not Abby hung out with Owen? Second, if Thomas had been her boyfriend when he was Owen's age (even if he was the only one), I don't like the fact that Abby was falling for Owen while Thomas was still in her life. Sounds like cheating to me. IMO, only if Thomas had the same relationship with Abby that Eli had with Hakan, could her love for Owen be "untarnished," so to speak. This is one of the major problems I have with LMI -- and it's really a deal-breaker to me. It keeps their relationship from ever being as "pure' a love as depicted in LTROI (and we haven't even brought up the fact that Eli was a boy and Abby...wasn't; an even greater obstacle for love to overcome.)

To sum it up, Abby may not be manipulative by pursuing Owen, but she certainly isn't ethical.

Is it morally wrong for Abby to essentially cheat on Thomas with Owen? Of course it is. But that's life. That kind of thing happens all the time. People make mistakes and often pay dearly for them. And I think you can see her regret and her shame in her last goodbye with Thomas. She feels horrible for mistreating him, and it certainly seems like his final act is one of forgiveness towards her. Not one to shy away from forgiveness when so little is ever given to her, I believe this is in part what cements her feelings for Owen. She's being given another chance at happiness, and this time she is the one who needs to be careful, cautious, and not make the same mistakes again. If we look at the story in this light and interpret that if she did have previous gatherers, none were romantic, I believe it makes both love stories (Owen and Thomas') more heartbreaking, profound, and in the end meaningful.

Yes, I think you have a good point here; one I hadn't considered. The relationship between Thomas and Abby was definitely one of the signature differences between the two films and indeed I felt strongly that Abby DID love Thomas. The last goodby scene was very moving to me, much different than in LTROI; in fact IMO, most of the scenes between Abby and Thomas were more poignant than in LTROI, but I think it was because MR wanted us to know that Thomas had grown up with Abby. First as her boyfriend, then perhaps as her big brother, then finally as her father figure. Abby was lonely again and found Owen. And, to her credit, I feel it was a chance encounter, not a planned one. And she's only 12 years old, so the ethics of it may be a bit fuzzier.

When the chips are down, I don't really dislike LMI unless I get caught up in a direct comparison with LTROI; I just think the emphasis has changed. I consider the acting by Richard Jenkins, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Chloe Moretz to be excellent. And the character motivations selected by Reeves hold together nicely and are definitely ambiguous enough to keep this thread going.

[ColBlair]

Yes, I think you have a good point here; one I hadn't considered. The relationship between Thomas and Abby was definitely one of the signature differences between the two films and indeed I felt strongly that Abby DID love Thomas. The last goodby scene was very moving to me, much different than in LTROI; in fact IMO, most of the scenes between Abby and Thomas were more poignant than in LTROI, but I think it was because MR wanted us to know that Thomas had grown up with Abby. First as her boyfriend, then perhaps as her big brother, then finally as her father figure. Abby was lonely again and found Owen. And, to her credit, I feel it was a chance encounter, not a planned one. And she's only 12 years old, so the ethics of it may be a bit fuzzier.

When the chips are down, I don't really dislike LMI unless I get caught up in a direct comparison with LTROI; I just think the emphasis has changed. I consider the acting by Richard Jenkins, Kodi Smit-McPhee, and Chloe Moretz to be excellent. And the character motivations selected by Reeves hold together nicely and are definitely ambiguous enough to keep this thread going.

I, myself, found the hospital scene in LMI very moving. You can see in Abby's eyes that she was sad that she was going to lose her friend. She even grabs his hand and puts it to her face as well. i also noticed that Thomas had his hand on her shoulder as well as if to say goodbye. To me, this is a hint that Owen will not be a caretaker to Abby at all. One thing that I started to think a while back is that maybe Owen brought back that spark into Abby and Thomas. I also thought that Thomas may have stayed with Abby cause he cared about her, but not enough to be with her forever. Maybe he was getting tired of doing all the killing as he got older as well. I also think that Abby didn't like the fact that he was getting older, while she was still the same age. That could explain why they were often fighting one another during the beginning.

I do like your observation though about Thomas being the boyfriend, the brother, and the father. By the way, in the comic, Thomas acts like a father figure. There is a scene where Thomas didn't want her to be with Jon.