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Nov. 17th, 2013
So.
What have we learned from watching the Twilight Saga?
Ultimately, the five Twilight films add up to nine hours of emo mumbling and every romance cliché you can possibly think of, and 90 minutes of actual vampire-werewolf movie, most of it in the final film. Indeed, if you took the last reel of the first three movies and edited them into about two-thirds of Breaking Dawn Part 2, you could probably assemble a halfway decent vampire-werewolf movie. It would still be cheesy, and the ending would suck, but it would at least be more watchable.
As they stand, most of the films are a very hard slog for anyone not there for the romance angle. But even if you are, the films are pretty average as big-budget franchise films go in terms of mise-en-scène, craftsmanship, CGI usage, etc. I will say that of the four directors, Bill Condon (who did Breaking Dawn) does the best job of giving the franchise some kind of distinctive personality. But it’s too little too late by then.
Now, it’s worth reiterating that I am not the core demographic for either the books or the films. They were written for boy-crazy high-school girls who wish that high school was way more interesting than it really is, and that they had a gorgeous boyfriend.
And that’s what the Twilight Saga essentially breaks down to – a teenage girl who is the center of attention for the entire story, where two really cute boys vie for her hand in marriage, and their extended families all love her (barring a few token holdouts who eventually come to love her), and she makes friends in school easily, and she basically becomes the center of everyone’s collective love and affection, and despite the struggles involved, no one dies in the end (at least no one you like). It’s wish-fulfillment on an epic scale, with gratuitous vampires and werewolves thrown in.
The story is realistic in at least one sense: Bella constantly makes really bad decisions despite being obviously in over her head – as many characters, Edward included, point out to her repeatedly. Humans don’t integrate into the vampire world for a very good reason (i.e. the food chain) and it’s dangerous to even try. But Bella just ignores all this because LOVEY DOVEY. And she wouldn’t be the first high school student to make really bad decisions at that age for that reason. (To be fair, plenty of grown-ups do the same thing.) But the fact that it all works out in the end is tantamount to telling teenagers, “When yr in love, stick by yr decisions, and don’t let anyone tell you how stupid yr acting because love will never steer you wrong, so what do they know?”
There was a quote circulating the social webs (often misattributed to Stephen King) awhile back comparing Twilight to the Harry Potter series in terms of the overall core message the story arc sends to its young-adult audience:
That’s a little simplistic, but close enough.
It’s all over now,
This is dF
What have we learned from watching the Twilight Saga?
Ultimately, the five Twilight films add up to nine hours of emo mumbling and every romance cliché you can possibly think of, and 90 minutes of actual vampire-werewolf movie, most of it in the final film. Indeed, if you took the last reel of the first three movies and edited them into about two-thirds of Breaking Dawn Part 2, you could probably assemble a halfway decent vampire-werewolf movie. It would still be cheesy, and the ending would suck, but it would at least be more watchable.
As they stand, most of the films are a very hard slog for anyone not there for the romance angle. But even if you are, the films are pretty average as big-budget franchise films go in terms of mise-en-scène, craftsmanship, CGI usage, etc. I will say that of the four directors, Bill Condon (who did Breaking Dawn) does the best job of giving the franchise some kind of distinctive personality. But it’s too little too late by then.
Now, it’s worth reiterating that I am not the core demographic for either the books or the films. They were written for boy-crazy high-school girls who wish that high school was way more interesting than it really is, and that they had a gorgeous boyfriend.
And that’s what the Twilight Saga essentially breaks down to – a teenage girl who is the center of attention for the entire story, where two really cute boys vie for her hand in marriage, and their extended families all love her (barring a few token holdouts who eventually come to love her), and she makes friends in school easily, and she basically becomes the center of everyone’s collective love and affection, and despite the struggles involved, no one dies in the end (at least no one you like). It’s wish-fulfillment on an epic scale, with gratuitous vampires and werewolves thrown in.
The story is realistic in at least one sense: Bella constantly makes really bad decisions despite being obviously in over her head – as many characters, Edward included, point out to her repeatedly. Humans don’t integrate into the vampire world for a very good reason (i.e. the food chain) and it’s dangerous to even try. But Bella just ignores all this because LOVEY DOVEY. And she wouldn’t be the first high school student to make really bad decisions at that age for that reason. (To be fair, plenty of grown-ups do the same thing.) But the fact that it all works out in the end is tantamount to telling teenagers, “When yr in love, stick by yr decisions, and don’t let anyone tell you how stupid yr acting because love will never steer you wrong, so what do they know?”
There was a quote circulating the social webs (often misattributed to Stephen King) awhile back comparing Twilight to the Harry Potter series in terms of the overall core message the story arc sends to its young-adult audience:
“Harry Potter is about confronting fears, finding inner strength and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”
That’s a little simplistic, but close enough.
It’s all over now,
This is dF
