A Nerdy Throwdown

Leading up to tonight's premiere of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, it looked for a while like it was going to be all Twilight, all the time here at NewsFeed. But then a savior appeared on the horizon: the trailer for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, which would premiere before the film! A hubbub arose: Would Potter fans flood the Twilight theaters, perhaps starting a nerd rumble? (No, because that would be stupid. Also, because you can watch the trailer online.)
However, the fortuitous timing has inspired NewsFeed to take a side in the blood feud that has run for generations between Twi-hards and Potter-maniacs. Presenting: the five reasons Harry Potter is better than Twilight.

1. A Better Universe
Like George Lucas, J.K. Rowling is so great at creating worlds that it more than makes up for whatever flaws her writing suffers from. Think about all the wonderful things we know about Rowling's wizarding world: where they shop, what they eat, what kind of prejudices their society has. Consider all the side characters she stacks the stories with: Neville Longbottom, Arthur Weasley, even Lee Jordan, the Quidditch announcer. We know them.

By contrast, what do we know about the world of Twilight? Three things: Good vampires don't bite people. Vampires and werewolves don't like each other. Vampires like baseball. That is all.

2. Better Acting
Let us examine the state of both franchises' werewolves. The werewolf in Twilight is played by human action figure Taylor Lautner. He is undoubtedly a nice boy, but no one would disagree with the assertion that he is more famous for his workout regimen than anything he's done onscreen.

The werewolf in Harry Potter is played by acclaimed British thespian David Thewlis. Have you even seen Thewlis' gripping performance in Mike Leigh's Naked, Twi-hards? No, of course, you haven't.

3. Better Villains
It might not be fair to compare Harry Potter and Twilight on this issue; after all, Lord Voldemort is one of the greatest villains in recent pop-culture history. (He made it into the Final Four in Techland's super-scientific March Madness villains bracket.) Voldemort is a genocidal dictator who scares people so much, they won't even say his name. He wants immortality and will do anything (even drink unicorn blood!) to get it. He killed Harry's parents -- and tried to kill Harry -- when our hero was just a defenseless baby. Shoot, just writing this is making NewsFeed glad he's not real.
But even without being compared to Voldemort, the bad guys in Twilight are weak. A villain played by Cam Gigandet (what is this, The O.C.?), Michael Sheen (oh no, it's Tony Blair!) or Bryce Dallas Howard (come off it, I saw Lady in the Water) just isn't scary enough for me. You could make the case that Bella's inevitable aging is the real villain of Twilight, but come on! This isn't Star Trek -- invisible, intangible villains aren't going to cut it.

4. It's Lasted Longer
The members of NewsFeed's generation have grown up with Harry Potter. We got Sorcerer's Stone from the library in elementary school, waited in line for Order of the Phoenix in high school and dressed up for the Goblet of Fire movie with our freshman dorm in college. The years-long gap between films and movies filled us with anticipation. Each new release -- as numerous trend pieces show -- is an event.
Twilight is much more ephemeral. The books have been out only since 2005 (which, if you're counting, is when the second-to-last Potter book was released). The films, rushed into production in case the trend should dissipate, are even worse: the first movie came out barely a year and a half ago. There's no waiting around, but there's also no growing old with the characters. Twilight is undoubtedly a commercial enterprise -- more than $1 billion internationally for just the first two films -- but it's simply not a lasting cultural one.