Part 2 of this Halloween blog post will be up a little bit later; After all these years, I finally saw the first movie in the Twilight saga. Cutting through all that has been said about the movie, is it any good? Well, you'll have to find out later.
 |
| Same bat time, Same bat channel! |
Well, it's that time. Last week, Riordan (of Riordan Rants) finally caved. I don't know what caused it; perhaps it was his intellectual curiosity? maybe he wished to examine it as an aspiring film maker? or maybe I joked about it one too many times. One way or the other, he picked up the entire Twilight Saga on DVD, and I am contractually obligated to watch them with him. Our original plan for the halloween special this year was our first collaborative review of the first Twilight movie.
 |
| Sadly plans changed |
Unfortunately Riordan's Mac went out of commission shortly after uploading last week's video, and I am currently at my parent's house, away from my good microphone, so the video reviews had to be postponed. Here are my thoughts during the first Twilight movie.
 |
| Pictured: Edward Cullen (Left), Bella Swan (Right) |
The movie Twilight (2008) is an adaptation of a 2005 novel of the same name, authored by Stephenie Meyer. It told the story of Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), a new girl in town who falls in love with a young man named Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who turns out to be a vampire. She strives to be with Edward despite his resistance, but the threats of being involved with a vampire goes deeper than she knows. For reference, I have not read any of the novels, and as such I will be judging the movies in their own right, not as how close they stick to the original material.
 |
| Is it just me, or does Bella look like she's about to sneeze? |
One thing that's immediately noticeable about the movie is its colour palette, it's very subdued. There are varieties of colours, most notably in the school scenes and the Cullen household, but the movie always looks rather lifeless throughout. This was almost definitely done on purpose and I can think of a couple reasons for this decision.
 |
| Madness? This is Twilight! |
Perhaps it was to contrast with the intensity of Bella's love for Edward; Bella is the protagonist of our story, and almost everything we see is through her eyes, so perhaps the dull world around her reflects her lack of interest. Another reason could be to reflect the focus on what the love interest is; he is a vampire, a cold, undead creature of pain visage. Perhaps the movie's muted appearance is an attempt to compliment this. That said, taking this angle gives the movie a rather cheap look and it would need some stellar writing, acting or intrigue in the world to make up for the lack of visual flare.
 |
| Our "colourful" cast |
The other thing that is instantly apparent when watching this movie is the dialogue; I want to be kind here, but it's pretty darned poor. I'm not sure which is generally to blame more: the script, acting or direction. As I said, I've not read the book so I can't clarify, but a lot of the characters, especially the teenagers, don't talk like people really talk; It felt like the script writer was trying to second guess how teenagers talk without any investigation. The best way I can describe it would be "fan-ficky"; like a person who hasn't had much social interaction with trying to guess how they speak.
 |
| The whitest cast since Saved by the Bell? |
Another weird thing I noticed during the opening scenes is how everybody who met our protagonist already knew her name and that she was the "new girl". This happens multiple times, and it is distracting. Whenever they get a new student at Forks High School, is it the hottest news and they are suddenly the most popular person in school, or is this a growing case of a Mary-Sue?
 |
| Eric: [shows up from behind Bella] You're Isabella Swan, the new girl. Hi, I'm Eric, the eyes and ears of this place. Um, anything you need? Tourguide? Lunch date? Shoulder to cry on? |
As of right now, I have no idea of which of the high school friends will be returning in later films, but I will say I can't honestly remember any of them aside from Eric here, mostly because of this incredibly creepy and weird introductory line, and his constant use of faux high school slang. Oh, and a girl (whom the internet informs me is called Jessica), in response to having Edward pointed out to her, calls him gorgeous. At this point the DVD was paused as my house-mates and I all needed a few minutes to stop laughing.
 |
| Jessica: That's Edward Cullen. He's totally gorgeous, obviously. But apparently nobody here's good enough forhim. Like I care, you know, uh. So...yeah. Seriously right, don't waste your time. |
Not going to judge for different tastes or anything, but gorgeous? Not the word I would use. Anyway, the two get paired up together in science class, Edward pinching his nose most of the time. They have a bit of "banter" over their studies of flatworms, whom I will give props to, they gave the most believable performance in the movie *ba-dum-tish*
 |
| I'm bring vampire back! You other vampires don't know how to angst! |
Later on, Bella is seen on the phone to her mother Renee; Bella just moved in with her father, and at this point in the movie we don't really know why Bella left. Out of all the characters, I do like how Renee is characterized; While we only get hints at what she's like over the phone here, she seems to genuinely care a lot for her daughter's wellbeing, and is shown to have difficulty with technology, and it all comes through naturally.
 |
| "There was this guy named Eric, major creep! He knew my name before I ever saw him and asked me out right away!" How it should have gone. |
The next day we see Edward's first display of meta-human ability. An out of control van (that was nicely foreshadowed by Bella slipping on ice in a previous scene) comes towards Bella, about to crush her against another car. Edward zooms between the van and Bella, stopping the van and crunching in part of the van.
 |
| Superhuman speed and strength? Robert Pattinson is Spiderman! |
While this is a decently impressive moment, and I'm sure it looked wonderful to Bella, when we look at the scene itself (picture below), we see that the school is pretty populated, and we see from the image above, Edward traveled quite a distance in such a short time with all those people around; I thought it was supposed to be somewhat hidden that he's a vampire!
 |
| There are even other people between where they were! |
To the movie's credit, there is a following scene where Rosalie (another vampire) chastises Edward for using his powers in public, where he asks "What was I supposed to do, let her die?". At this point, I flashed back to a similar scene in Man of Steel where a young Clarke Kent saved a school bus of his peers from drowning, and his surrogate father says "Maybe". This has little to do with Twilight, and now I'm trying to quantify which is the better movie. Pretty difficult.
For reference, I'm skipping the less important scenes; I don't want to be here all night.
At a beach called "La Push", Bella gets to bonding with Jacob, a long haired young man whom I hear becomes more important in the following movies. He gives an explanation to Bella about his ancient ancestors who were wolf people and the Cullens were a rival faction. This is compounded by some of the funniest costumes I've ever seen in a movie, it looked like they wandered off a set of Power Rangers. I wish I could find a picture, but when I googled the clan name, all I find are pictures of shirtless men, so have one of those.
.jpg)
This scene also plants the seed that Edward is a vampire. If nothing else, this movie definitely seems familiar with the concept of set-up-pay-off, unlike a certain other modern vampire movie.
Bella purchases a book on the Wolf-tribe and during her walk home she gets ambushed by 3 men. Then out of nowhere, her knight in shining armour (or Volvo, if you prefer) shows up to defend her. They drive off, and Edward instantly says he should have stayed and decapitated them. Back away Bella, back away! Also, how did he know where she was?! Were you stalking her Edward? Does every man in this movie creep over Bella?
 |
| If your partner drives a Volvo, he is probably a blood sucking creature of the night! |
Later on, Edward and Bella meet up at a restaurant, and Edward refuses to eat anything, because that's not suspicious at all. Also, we are treated to one of the weirdest pieces of dialogue I've ever seen in any media.
Bella: You're really not gonna eat?
Edward: No, I'm on a special diet.
Bella: You gotta give me some answers.
Edward: Yes. No. To get to the other side...uh, 1.77245...
Bella: I don't want to know what the square root of pi is.
Edward: You knew that?
Bella: How did you know where I was?
Edward: I didn't.
 |
| Baffling |
Afterwards Bella meets up with her father, a police officer, in the middle of an emotional state. An old friend of his has been found dead with wounds that look like animal bites; a similar case happened earlier in the movie too. He gives his daughter some pepper spray, just in case. A nice moment; Both Bella's parents are shown to care a lot for her throughout the movie.
After some research online, Bella meets up with Edward in a misty forest for what's probably the most famous scene in the movie. Bella asks Edward how old he is (17), and then how long he's been 17 (a while). This scene up until this point was restrained and well shot, to then be ruined by a hilarious camera shot that circles both characters rather quickly, then returning to its previous position. It looks like they couldn't get a good take with the actors...I can't describe it, here's a clip, enjoy. Sadly the scene devolves into silly camera angles and overly dramatic line deliveries.
And then we have the most reviled part of the movie by general consensus. The infamous scene where Edward steps into the sunlight and he...sparkles a bit. Honestly, I don't think this bothers me all that much as a concept, vampire lore has changed a lot between authors, and it's a clever way of changing the "We can't stay in sunlight" trope. That being said, Edward has been out during the day time multiple times during this move already and he did not sparkle. I think they try to explain it as it needs to be direct sunlight, unaffected by clouds, but that makes zero sense; if the clouds let no sunlight through, then no light would get through whenever the weather would be cloudy.
 |
| Twilight Sparkle is best pony |
Edward talks about how he's the world's most deadly predator, and how his camouflage makes him irresistible to his pray, because you know, shiny things attract idiots.
Edward: I'm designed to kill.
Bella: I don't care.
Edward: I've killed people before.
Bella: It doesn't matter.
Edward: I wanted to kill you. I've never wanted a human's blood so much in my life.
Bella: I trust you.
Oh boy, this is going to be important later.
Edward reveals that his family are different, they only hurt animals. I really hoped this would turn out to be a sequel to The Little Vampire, but no such luck.
Edward: You don't know how long I've waited for you.
And so the lion fell in love with the lamb.
Bella: What a stupid lamb.
Edward: What a sick, masochistic lion.
...Which one is which in this metaphor?
I can't believe this has become this long, gonna have to end it here. Come back tomorrow for Part 2 of the Twilight review, where we finish off the movie and analyse just what is going on here.
