I know what went wrong with the Vampire Academy movie

So just because it was there and I love Vampire movies, I gave a watch to the movie Vampire Academy, and good lord is it bad. Actually, no, it wasn't that the movie was bad, it's that the director and screen writer took what was made for girls/women and written but a woman, and put it all throug the male gaze. That and the screenwriter did a HORRIBLE job and adapting a long novel into a 104 minute movie.

The entire downfall of the movie begins in the first ten minutes. The first ten minutes of the movie we are introduced to the main characters, we are given multiple back stories, find out there is a monolouge, and also learn that the jump cuts with no context are to be the norm. The first ten minutes of the movie sets you up to be confused and dissapointed for the entire rest of the film. But that is what you get when the screenplay was written by a man and not a woman. Like I said a second ago, when you take a story about women, written for women, written by a woman, and then you have a man try to translate it to the silver screen, you get crap. There are so many good woman directors and screenwriters who could have done such a better job at this movie, but given that it's a Weinstien film, I understand why there weren't many women involved in the actual production of this movie outside the cast. In fact, when it come to the people in charge of the movie (outside the general crew), there appears to be only ONE woman involved in the making of Vampire Academy.

If you've ever heard of Checkovs Gun, you know the theory that anything introduced into the story, should then later come back up and be used in the story. Well, apparently the writer and the director both have either never heard of that, or just plain didn't care. In what I am sure was attempts at suspense and misdirection, the movie instead just seems to line up the clues for you to figure out what is going on, and then at the end tell you that pretty much everything you thought was going on wasn't, and what was actually going on doesn't fit what did happen at all.

Now, from here on out I am sure there are going to be plenty of spoilers about the movie. So, if you haven't seen the movie and want to, now would be the point where you quit reading, watch the movie, then come back and see if you agree with me. I'll even make sure you can find where you left off.

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There, now you can see what you left off, and know that from here on there will be spoilers for the movie. 

I am not even sure where to begin on just how awful this movie was, and it wasn't because of the cast. I was actually okay with the entire cast, once I forced myself to watch it a second time through, and do some wikipedia research on the books themselves. Once you know the actual backstories of the characters you are watching, you see that non of the acting was really that bad. I wouldn't say it was amazing acting, Joely Richardson for sure phoned in her parts in the movie, and as far as I can tell, her scenes were all filmed in a single day. However, the main cast all did a pretty good job, and would have done even better if the director and writer had any kind of a fememine outlook to the movie.

I can't tell if I hated the choppy scenes that don't seem to flow together, the inability to give meaningful clues about what's actually happening in any moment, or the horrible way different charactors and such are introduced into the movie, the most. Honestly though, I think my least favorite part of the movie is just how often different ideas and clues and charactors and such are brought up, and then just either never again addressed or are found out to have nothing to do with the main story.

Think the one that got me the most is why in the hell was The Headmistress going to give Rose a shot to knock her unconscious, but instead Rose grabs it and sticks her in her butt with the needle. Later Rose and Dimitri are in the headmistresses office talking about what all had happened, and the shot is never brought up. Why was Rose to be given a shot? Why didn't Rose get in trouble for stabbing Headmistress with it instead? Why would the Headmistress even have a needle like that to do something of that nature in her office? I am sure there is a better explanation in the books but the movie brings it up, makes two jokes out of it, and then never adresses it again.

Or how about the fact that the whole time that the friend Natalie is actually one of the main badguys the whole time even though she is constantly helping them look for who did the pranks.

Oh, and to make the ending of Mia's part of the story be just one big giant slut shame really got to me. Now I know, her character did trade sex for pulling pranks, but why did the final scene with her have to make her look so absolutly pathetic? She used her female power to get herself pleasure and make men do her bidding, wether you agree with her doing that or not, you have to admit that is a fantastic amount of power she has, and I don't mean the magic kind. Again, I am sure it is handled much better in the books, but the movie just made her seem so much more pathetic than she needed to be.

Why was there NO actual backstory on Karp? Can someone answer me this? Was it really THAT out of the blue in the books when they both start complaining and asking where Karp is and why she's not in the room with them? 

Okay, so maybe I need to read the books for these answers, but that's my point here. Why should I HAVE to read the books first to watch and enjoy this movie? Cuz in reality, this is one of those movies where you are better off watching the movie first and then reading the books, it will make the books that much better. However, if you have read the books, and are going to watch the movie, beware, you will either enjoy it for what it is, or hate it for what it's not. There is NO inbetween available.

So, what went wrong with the movie? It was produced by a company run by a sexual predator who saw women as objects, Directed by a man who can only see the world through the male mind, screen written by a man who apparently lost his ability to write women in the 80's, and didn't have the actual novelist involved in the movie. They made a movie for women, about women, based on a series written by a woman, and ignored the women's view in the movie. 

But hey, maybe that's just the bloodwine talking...............