We must agree to disagree. You thought the second one was better than the first?! :O I was amazed that director Catherine Hardwicke managed to do anything mildly respectable and I walked out of the first Twilight movie going "Wow, that wasn't the disaster I was expecting." Given the material, I thought the direction and adaption were great. It was sort of a moody, weird little piece rather than being a teeny bopper gush-a-palooza. And Bella always seems a lot stronger in the movies than the books, but maybe that's because we don't have to hear her inner monologue. The biggest fail of the first movie was the sparkles scene and its dialogue, and well Stephanie Mayer insisted it stay in there. The second one I watched downloaded and I watched about 10 minutes of it. A ladyboner from Robert Pattinson is not enough to sit through that turd. Given, the second book is pretty pathetic in general with the lack of sexual tension (only reason to read the books) and Bella's cutting-herself-danger attempts and comatose losery. There is a lot to critique in books. Ever notice that Edward's eyes are described as 'unfathomable' like 18 times? But what I like most about the movies is they do their best to stray away from Bella's weakness. Bella basically has no identity outside 1) clumsy 2) Edward.

Edit: Oh yeah, and they fired the director Catherine Hardwicke because when they saw it made money they wanted to squeeze as much money as fast as they could. Hardwicke wanted to take more time with it and actually try to do it right, so they chucked her out. I think that's half the reason the quality plummeted but also in general the story, I mean most people admit Breaking Dawn sucked. I skimmed it in case there was a sex scene--nope. It was like the Harry Potter epilogue but 400 pages and without 7 awesome books preceding it anyways.