The Host Movie Poster Reaction

I just bought my movie ticket this morning to see Breaking Dawn Friday morning, but I think I'm actually more excited to see the trailer for The Host before the movie starts (note: I plan on doing a quick pre-Breaking Dawn post later this week). As a little teaser for that, the movie poster for The Host has been released--you can view it at the Twilight Lexicon.

Whew. Now I find myself fangirling over The Host. I'm just insanely curious how this movie will turn out, and the poster is a taste of the final product. Here are the things I noticed, hopefully in the order I noticed them in. While the cast is a bit younger than the novel pictures, they at least do have a bit of age ambiguity--they don't give out "high school drama," at least. There is a very sci-fi tone to the angles the three characters stand at, the colors (the contrast of the neon blue with the earthy, brown tones), and exoticness of the rocks in the background.

Which brings me to another point. Those rocks. They're not going to be the movie's version of Picachu Peak, are they? Because this is where my concern (well, part of it) about this movie is. New Mexico (where some of it was filmed) looks similar to Arizona, but very different to an Arizona native. And when you're dealing with a specific landmark like Picachu Peak, how do you deal with filming in a different state? Did they choose a different peak in New Mexico, or will they be superimposing Picachu Peak onto the New Mexico landscape?

But one of the exciting things about the poster is how remarkably Saoirse Ronan looks like Melanie/Wanderer. When she was cast, my reaction was, "she doesn't fit Melanie's physical description at all." But that's Melanie standing right there in the middle of the poster.

Thoughts On The Host After Watching Hanna

When the announcement first came that Saoirse Ronan had been cast as Melanie/Wanderer in The Host, I was confused or disappointed or some such thing. Melanie has a rather detailed physical description, and Saoirse doesn't really fit it; she is also rather younger. Considering that The Host has marked differences from Twilight, but that the media would see greater similarities, I wasn't thrilled about this age difference. None of it really seemed to make sense.

But here are my thoughts now. A Vogue spread (in December, I believe) showed that Saoirse Ronan is one of those people who can look different ages--so, in theory, even if she is younger than Melanie, she should be able to look Melanie's age. Further, it may be useful to have a younger actress: she will easily be able to play Melanie in the flashback scenes and, if a certain amount of time elapses before the second and third movies are made, she will still be young enough to return to the role (assuming that the second and third books will still involve Melanie and that she will still be around the same age).

Last night, I also watched Saoirse in Hanna. Any spy-related film isn't something I'm likely to watch, but I was intrigued by the similarities between Hanna and Melanie/Wanderer. The survival instinct is there, of course. Then in a couple of shots of Hanna walking through the desert, I was giggling at the fact that these could almost be shots of Wanderer. So I've grown convinced that, even if she doesn't look entirely like Melanie, Saoirse can still play her. Considering the way that Hanna doesn't have an exorbitant amount of lines in this movie, yet her face still expresses much, Saoirse will probably also be adept at showing outwardly the internal dialogues of Melanie and Wanderer.

I can never decide if I'm excited to watch The Host or not. I have quite a soft spot for it simply because it takes place in Arizona . . . and it's difficult to see other people's perspectives on something you have that kind of affection for. But we'll see.