Twilight was hugely popular when I was in high school. Even at the local Christian schools, you couldn't go very far without seeing Team Edward/Team Jacob references or hear mad fangirls fangirling about it with their fellow fangirls.
Two things saved me:
1. My mom didn't think it was a good idea for influential teenagers to be reading romance novels about humans and vampires hooking up.
2. It was all a bit too sappy for me, anyway.
How would I know if I didn't like sappy romances if I'd never read Twilight? I didn't have to. All I had to do was read A Gown of Spanish Lace, Elsie Dinsmore, and watch the Love Comes Softly movies to figure out that sappy romances weren't for me.
At my pre-wedding movie night, I'll probably be watching Lord of the Rings.
Anyway, more often than not, I found myself to be the only person in a room who hadn't seen Twilight at that point. And usually, when people found out I wasn't a Twilight fanatic like "everyone else", they would literally freak out as if I'd just told them I was responsible for blowing up the World Trade Center, as if the very act of not liking Twilight was, in and of itself, an act of terrorism. If any of them had been undercover Volturi, they would have ripped my head off right on the spot. But after dealing with this same reaction from Harry Potter fans for 11 years up to that point (books and movies combined), I quickly just learned to roll my eyes and go with it whenever Twilight came up.
Years went by, my mother passed away (may she rest in peace), and Summit Entertainment spat out four more Twilight movies. I was now a film student at an art school, and it suddenly occurred to me that now that I was older and more mature it would probably be safe for me to watch Twilight. Not for the sake of watching it and getting the fangirls off my back, but simply as a filmmaker and critic.
As luck would have it, my brother's friend happened to loan him the box set with all five movies, and since my brother wasn't particularly excited about watching them, he let me borrow his friend's box set. Six weeks later, I finally got through all five movies, so all the fangirls of the world (if any do, in fact, remain) can calm down.
So here, for the very first time, are my not-entirely-humble thoughts and opinions on The Twilight Saga.
Movie #1: Twilight
Kinda typical love story.
Girl meets boy. Boy likes girl. Girl likes boy. Girl and boy make out. Other boys are jealous.
The only difference is that the boy in our story is an undead vampire who has been 17 years old since 1918-ish. Bella, who is an actual not-undead human doesn't really seem to care that he's a vampire who has to struggle not to suck her blood everytime he's around her. Love conquers all, I guess...
All mushy romance and creepy vampire stuff aside, this movie is an embarrassment to all things good and glorious about filmmaking. Dialogue was really terrible, with Bella starring as Captain Obvious for the majority of the story.
And don't tell me they didn't have the technology to make it better. Fellowship of the Ring came out seven years earlier, and the production quality on that movie was ten times better than on Twilight.
In summary, I came away from the movie disappointed.
Movie #2: New Moon
Things seem to be going well for Bella and her undead soulmate. Until an ill-fated paper cut leads to familiar troubles and Edward breaks off the relationship in the name of saving Bella from further vampire trouble.
But Bella is a clingy, lovesick teenager who can't bear the separation, and starts to do these incredibly stupid and dangerous things because when she does she imagines that she can see Edward.
A third corner in the world's most forced love triangle appears when another boy, Jacob, enters the picture and tries (without luck) to get Bella to fall for him. It is, however, later revealed that Jacob is a werewolf, which is a trait passed down through certain members of the local Native American tribe...? Anyway, this is part of the reason the vampires and the local Natives don't get along since vamps and werewolves are mortal enemies.
Regardless, after Bella almost dies in an act of stupidity, Edward's kinda-sister, Alice (who possesses the ability to see the future), tells Edward Bella has committed suicide, and since Edward is just about as clingy and lovesick as Bella, he can't imagine living without her...even though he's already dead...and travels to Italy to beg the vampire elite, known as the Volturi, to kill him by ripping his head off.
Finding out that Edward intends to get himself killed because he thinks that Bella is dead, Bella then travels to Italy to stop him, and the Volturi laugh because the whole thing is rather hysterical. Then they say, "Well, since you brought a snack, we might as well dig in." (this is a paraphrase) But Alice (who came with Bella to Italy) tells them that she's seen Bella turn into a vampire in the future. So the Volturi says, "Okay, sounds good! Safe travels home!" and let them go.
While the overall quality of the movie was much better than the first one, I found the ending to be a huge letdown. Who seriously lets a tasty morsel go on the claim of an emotionally attached vampire who says the aforementioned tasty morsel will become a vampire someday? It makes no sense!
Someone fix this ending!
Movie #3: Eclipse
I am of the not-entirely-humble opinion that this movie exists for the sole purpose of advancing the love triangle forced briefly eluded to in the previous movie.
Okay, yeah, so a bad vampire from the first movie comes back and tries to eat Bella, but this subplot could have easily been touched on without the sickeningly forced and mushy tension between Edward and Jacob.
Save me!
Movie #4: Breaking Dawn Part 1
We've suffered through the last three movies to get here, and Bella and Edward's beautiful and surprisingly human wedding makes the journey worth it. But their honeymoon turns upside down when Bella gets pregnant with a half-undead child...which shouldn't be possible, but we'll let that one slide for now.
This half-undead baby practically kills Bella, but Edward saves her by turning her into a vampire (and thus the predictions of Alice come true!). The werewolves aren't happy about this for some reason and plan to attack the vampire's residence, but Jacob enlists the help of several other werewolves to help in defending Edward's family. And if this whole franchise isn't creepy enough, Jacob discovers that he is destined to marry Bella and Edward's baby...
...whereby he claims some ancient werewolf wright that states that no werewolf can harm another werewolf's mate...even if that future mate is a half-undead kinda-vampire who was born five minutes earlier. Again, this makes no sense, but whatever.
As an aside, this is the first franchise to casually redefine "book adaptation" by splitting one book into two movies. This will later be imitated by Harry Potter and the Deadly Hallows and eventually lead to the Hobbit trilogy (three movies from one book). Thank you, Breaking Dawn. You've revolutionized the definition of a movie adaptation. Where would we be without you? One Harry Potter and two Hobbit movies short, to be sure.
Movie #5: Breaking Dawn Part 2
Hey, guess what? Bella's a vampire now!
But the real problem comes when the Volturi over in Italy find out about Edward and Bella's kid...because apparently it's a crime to turn a child into a vampire in the vampire world...?
Well, whatever, they spend the majority of the movie gathering a vampire army to fight the Volturi in an epic battle that is actually really cool...but which never actually happens...?
Anyway, Bella and Edward end up living happily ever after with their kid, who will later grow up and marry Jacob, thus creating the first every half-undead/werewolf relationship in undead history!
Which leaves me with questions like:
~Will Jacob live forever too?
~Will Renesme try to turn Jacob into a vampire?
~If so, what would happen to Jacob?
~Will their whole relationship be really weird for Edward and Bella since they went to high school with Jacob?
BTW, this is probably the best of the 5 movies in terms of production quality.
Movie #6: 50 Shades of Grey
To date, this is the only Twilight movie I haven't seen. Nor do I really want to see it...
...oh wait. Wrong franchise. My bad.
Well, not entirely since it was originally an erotic Twilight fanfiction series.
Sadly, there's literally an erotic fanfiction piece for almost every popular book series and movie franchise, including The Hobbit, Divergent, and Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events. I know this only because I've spent some considerable time perusing fanfiction websites and it can be hard not to accidentally stumble upon these rather disturbing pieces of fanfiction.
The only difference here is that E. L. James was the only one (I know of) who actually got hers published.
So, next time you read the FSOG books or see the movie, think of Bella and Edward.
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