Losing My Mind with: Twilight

I was nine years old in 2008. Everything was going swimmingly in life. I went to Disneyland and met my heroes. I spent my evenings reading my Horrid Henry collection over and over again. In terms of film; I got to see my first 12A rated films with my dad and brother in our local Omniplex. We saw The Dark Knight and Hellboy II: The Golden Army in the same week! 2008 was the year I became the film fanatic that I am today. Yet, the other kids weren’t reading Horrid Henry and watching superhero films with their Dad. Some young adult series called Twilight had captured the minds of the youth in a way that hadn’t been seen since Harry Potter began its dominance in the nineties. Whenever I talk to my friends about it now, they are all still passionate about the series over ten years later. It made me begin to question where the hell was I during all of this? The series released five movies in five years and I’ve only seen one of them (I’ll get to it don’t worry). I’ve clearly missed out on a pivotal moment of my early adolescence. I wasted my time with superheroes when I should’ve become a vampire fan. I decided that it was time to make amends. At twenty-one years old I watched the Twilight series for the first time. It was time to make things right.

Twilight (2008)

"What a sick, masochistic lion."

After years of hearing Twilight slander from every film fan I’ve ever met, watching the first film for the first time made me realise how flat out wrong they are. Twilight is bonkers. This is a film for teenagers that opens with the line “I’ve never given much thought into how I would die.”. It takes guts to open your movie with a line that would make mothers wonder what the hell their children have become obsessed with. Bella (Kristen Stewart) is seventeen years old in this film. The gloom and constant misery that Bella carries on her shoulders gave me flashbacks to my own teen angst. Just like Bella, I thought that my darkness was beautifully artistic when in reality I needed some help. Once Edward (Robert Pattinson) entered the picture something awoken in me. Suddenly I was part of a team. A team that rooted for Edward. A “Team Edward” if you will. Edward is the perfect guy. He can drive, he plays piano and he’s proud of his family. Sure, he’s a vampire that has been a teenager for over a hundred years, but we all have our problems.

Stewart and Pattinson are perfect together. They’re both in need of vitamin C, overdramatic about everything, and fall madly in love within five minutes of knowing each other. They’re every high school relationship! I found myself fully invested in their forbidden love. Twilight also has a solid supporting cast.  Taylor Lautner’s Jacob plays a small role but sports an atrocious haircut. Bella’s friend group includes a young Anna Kendrick who deserves way more screentime. The Cullen’s to the normal eye, are your average incestuous family. If anyone paid attention, they would witness a glorious high-speed baseball match that truly needs to be seen to be believed. The one aspect where the film suffers is in the villain department. Director Catherine Hardwicke didn’t make the villainous hunk James (Cam Gigandet) a threat until the final thirty minutes, leaving no time to be worried about him. James is joined by his fellow evil and poorly named vampires Laurent (Edi Gathegi) and Victoria (Rachelle Lefevre). The final battle is the Cullen’s burning James alive while Edward sucks vampire poison out of Bella, don’t read too much into it. On a whole Twilight is a good time that has the feel of a CW pilot. It’s camp, ridiculous, and never takes itself too seriously. You know this marathon might not be too bad! 

New Moon (2009)

"Dating an older woman? Hot."

The high I felt after watching Twilight was immediately crushed by New Moon. A film that's so atrocious that I’ve decided that it's the worst sequel I’ve ever seen. Imagine spending two hours becoming invested in Edward and Bella’s relationship just for the sequel to ship him off to Italy and do the same movie again, but with werewolves. Bella enters a deep state of depression following Edward’s move to Italy. Bella spends three months sitting in a chair staring out of her window in a trance, she also can’t go a single night without screaming in her sleep. Granted I’ve never been dumped by a sexy British vampire, but it’s all a bit much. I can’t help but wonder what her father Charlie (Billy Burke) was doing during all of this. Was he sitting downstairs watching the game with a beer waiting for it to blow over? Bella’s ordeal is brought to a swift end when Jacob enters the film. Gone is the long hair and jumpers. Jacobs back with less hair and more abs than ever before.

 Replacing Robert Pattinson with Taylor Lautner is like deciding that you’re going to use sandpaper instead of bread. In Lautner’s defense, he was only seventeen at the time, but man is Jacob the worst. Despite knowing that Bella is going through a tough time and is extremely fragile, Jacob decides that this is the perfect opportunity to make her fall in love with him. Jacob sees the girl crash her dirt bike after speeding away from him and is like “Who cares if she needs help? I want to smooch her.”. Everything about Bella’s time with Jacob is identical to her time with Edward. Swap the word “vampire” with “werewolf” and there’s your movie. Edward was suave and charming. Jacob is whiny and in a huff all the time. If you were genuinely on team Jacob growing up, shame on you.

Eventually, Bella learns that Edward thinks that she’s dead and has decided to kill himself, let it be known that earlier in the film he revealed he was jealous of Romeo’s fate. Bella races to Italy with Alice (Ashley Green), Edward’s fellow vampire, and the person who deserves Bella the most, to save Edward before he kills himself. I forgot to mention that vampires are super shiny in daylight. Edward plans to go naked in front of humans for them to see him for what he really is; a naked shiny vampire. Once they see Edward naked the Volturi, a fancy vampire group led by Martin Sheen will have no choice but to kill him. It’s a seamless plan. Bella stops Edward stripping in the nick of time and our beloved couple reunite in the only nice bit of a depressing movie. The Volturi are cool with Bella as long as she becomes a vampire. The film ends with Edward promising to turn her into a vampire once they get married. There’s not much to say about New Moon outside of how boring it is. In no world, this should be 130-minutes long. Bella is sad. Bella hangs out with Jacob. Bella goes to Italy. Bella and Edward reunite. That’s the whole movie for you in four sentences. The only thing noteworthy about New Moon is that it’s directed by Chris Weitz. Why is that crazy I hear you ask? This is the man who made American Pie. Once again, this is a series for the youth.

Eclipse (2010)

"Maybe we can get a break from Jake's obsessive inner monologue."

I swear to god if I have to hear that damn Twilight piano theme one more damn time. I’m going to lose my mind. These movies are beginning to break me both physically and emotionally. Eclipse is better than New Moon. That’s pretty much all it has going for it. Saying that a steaming pile of shit would be better than New Moon, every victory counts as this stage. Following on from Bella’s decision to become a vampire I was ready for the series to move on from the whole being a vampire sucks charade. Eclipse doubles down on Bella and Edward’s disagreement of her becoming a vampire after they had already decided to do it at the end of the last film. Bella is forced to decide between her relationship with Edward and her friendship with Jacob for the second film in a row. Let’s weigh up Bella’s options, shall we? On one hand, she can choose Edward the charming vampire who is patient and always understanding. Or she can choose Jacob who is a sleazy scumbag who forces himself on Bella twice in this movie. Fuck Jacob Black. There, I finally said it. Lautner brings three things to the character. He shouts 90% of his dialogue, he pouts, and he has rock hard abs. Jacob has single handily ruined my experience in the last two movies. He didn’t even have the decency to keep his funny wig past the first film.

Putting my beef with Jacob aside for the moment, Director David Slade does a good job of making Twilight entertaining again. The threat of the murderous army of vampires led by Victoria (now played by Bryce Dallas Howard in a role that’s beneath her) is compelling.  The wolf pack and the Cullens teaming up to take on a vampire army is the type of content that I live for. Slade also brings a gothic flair to the flashback sequences that explain how some of the Cullens are vampires. Up until now, Edward’s incestuous but not too incestuous siblings had no character. Learning that one of them was a soldier in the civil war opens up endless possibilities for future Twilight lore. In many ways, the flashbacks are more interesting than the story at hand. The final battle of the film is the first battle of the series that features decent action. The battle that makes Eclipse worth watching is the verbal jousting between Edward and Jacob. Jacob straight up cuddles Edward’s girl in front of him, makes eye contact, and says “I’m hotter.”. Jacob may be hotter, but at the end of the movie, Bella chooses Edward, leaving Jacob in the dust. It’s what he deserves.

Breaking Dawn – Part 1 (2011)

"You bit a pillow? Why?"

This is straight-up the horniest movie I have ever seen. The film opens with Lautner tearing his shirt off to express his anger that Edward and Bella are getting married. This PG-13 film revolves around Bella and Edward's quest to have sex on their honeymoon. The sad reality is that isn’t a joke. That’s straight up the plot of the first half of the movie. A movie that shouldn’t exist. Everything that happens in this two-hour movie could be in a montage that opens one final Twilight movie. I’m pretty sure that there are only three sets used in the film. There’s the wedding venue, the honeymoon island, and the Cullens house. Every single thing is dragged out in this painstakingly slow movie. Edward and Bella after multiple attempts finally get down, resulting in an unexpected pregnancy. Once Bella becomes pregnant the film turns into a horror movie. The pregnancy leaves Bella looking like a zombie. The poor girl can’t catch a break. After wanting to have sex for the last three movies she gets pregnant after her first time. Breaking Dawn – Part 1 should be played in sex education classes across the world because if there’s one thing I learned from this film it’s that sex is terrifying.

Outside of the scary sex and pregnancy, two things creeped me out in this film. Once baby Renesmee is brought into the world you can’t help but notice something's off. No, it’s not her atrocious name. For some reason unknown to me the baby has a fully CGI face. It’s nightmare fuel. The second and even more disturbing thing about this film is what Jacob does. Jacob needs a reason to stay in these films following having his ass thrown to the curb by Bella. Instead of introducing a new vampire that Jacob could fall in love with, he falls in love with the baby. Jacob who I hated from minute one falls in love with a baby. Never before has my instinct been this spot on.  I don’t have much to say about this one. It’s one of those movies that feel like an eternity. The one thing I must applaud the series on a whole for is the casting of Pattinson and Stewart. These two talented actors make this soap opera love affair somewhat worthwhile. Even if Jacob is the worst character to exist. 

Breaking Dawn – Part 2 (2012)

"YOU NICKNAMED MY DAUGHTER AFTER THE LOCH NESS MONSTER?"

At long last, after weeks of forcing myself to watch these films I have finally finished my journey. Let the record know that I saw this film when it came out. I was thirteen at the time, me and my friends decided that the best way to make girls like you is by having an abundance of Twilight knowledge.  We sat down and spent the entire film trying to figure out what the hell was going on. Our mission was a failure from the start as we were all too nervous to talk to girls in the first place. Eight years later and this film is more fun than I remember. The Volturi are travelling from Italy to murder Renesme (Mackenzie Foy) as they think she’s evil. Between Jacob imprinting on her, and evil fancy vampires the kid has a lot on her plate. Bella is finally a vampire and spends the early portion of the movie getting used to her powers and lust for blood. What I like about this film is that it brings positivity back to the series. Bella is finally happy for the first time!

To prepare for their confrontation with the Volturi, the gang recruit vampires from all over the world for their battle.  What’s annoying is that many of the new vampires we meet are more interesting for the ones we were stuck with for four movies before this. Rami Malek shows up as a vampire who has elemental powers. There’s even a group of Irish vampires with stereotypical accents. It’s the most fun I’ve has since the first one. When that final battle comes around it’s good until it stops. Normally that’s a compliment, but for some reason halfway into the fight Martin Sheen, the leader of the Volturi gets his head ripped off only for it to be revealed as a vision Alice shows him. Martin Sheen doesn’t want to die so he and his fancy mates leave. The final battle of the series doesn’t happen. What a waste of time. I’d understand if we knew anything about the Volturi outside that they’re posh. We spent the entire film building up to nothing. Edward and Bella live happily ever after, the vampire community is at peace and Jacob leaves with a child. If they stuck the landing this would have been the only genuinely good film outside of the first one. Finishing your series with a whimper rather than a bang is a big middle finger to the fans who have been with you since day one. Maybe I’m just a bitter 21-year-old who is way past the target demographic. Whatever the hell that is. 

Conclusion

I hate him.

You may have noticed that I haven’t posted in over a month. I was struggling with some personal stuff and my life went a bit weird for a period. My life going off course strangely coincided with my Twilight marathon. I also watched Vampire Sucked but I’m not going to spend any more of my life thinking about that atrocity. Honestly, getting mad at a young adult franchise was exactly what I needed. I get the hype even though I didn’t like all bar one of the films. Not many teenage series’ go in such a dark direction. As a former emo teenager, I’m disgusted at myself for never giving the series a try. They all have banging soundtracks that I’m going to spend the rest of Quarantine listening to. I believe that if the first film’s director Catherine Hardwicke stayed for the entire series then this could have hit unprecedented heights for the young adult genre. If you’ve learned anything from this post that took me a month to make, please let it be that Jacob Black is the worst.

Update: I’m in the middle of editing this and Stephanie Meyer just announced another book. It never ends.