The Problem With Twilight

[Legion]

Interesting points but I cannot say they were prevalent in my critical thoughts of the series. I was more concerned about the complete lack of character development and the fact that the 4 books all have more or less the same plot:

- Bad guys wants Bella dead, Good guys will protect her.
- They think bad guys attack, but it's a false alarm x 5.
- Bad guys finally attack, good guys win.

Throw in some insults between vampires and shape-shifters for good measure, as well as a sprinkling of poor decisions and love triangles and there we go.

 

[soapyshooter]

Man! The amount of fangirl rage moviebob would get if they read this. High pitched voices squeaking "you don't get it, its about love"...just imagine a thousand pre-teens saying that at the same time *shudders*

 

[Irridium]

Man! The amount of fangirl rage moviebob would get if they read this. High pitched voices squeaking "you don't get it, its about love"...just imagine a thousand pre-teens saying that at the same time *shudders*

Is it wrong if I would find that funny as hell?

 

[shadowstriker86]

its funny, my aunt commented on facebook saying how much she loves the twilight series and praises it for having "good writing" (good writing and twilight do not ever belong in the same sentence unless denouncing it) so i post up the MovieBob review of eclipse. Then she says that the opinion is wrong and that she's happy to take her daughters to see the movie series. I can see why Bob fears the series so much in that perspective.

 

[Booze Zombie]

I can't disagree with you at all, Bob.
I'm not even one of those people who sits around going "Twilight is evil", I just think it's boring.

Though, a bad message certainly helps make it even more boring...

 

[Sovvolf]

I once wrote a comic book (A very poorly written comic book... I was a kid) about Vampires who where pretty close to those in Twilight as far as powers go. Though the differences where that in Sunlight, they'd be much weaker and wouldn't have access to most of their powers. Also drinking fresh human blood would make them extremely powerful but cause them to go lose their minds overtime, while also being extremely addictive. The constant drinking of fresh human blood would eventually start to change their appearance and give them major weaknesses during the day... Like being burnt into ash . I liked those Vampires... Yeah doesn't keep to the myth but they were pretty cool. I had my main character a Gangster/Blood dealer, a bit of a thug with a deep enough personality to be interested in without being a whiny git. Trust me, my main character wasn't whiny or overly emotional... He was just a dick.

What's my point in saying all that do you ask? My point is that you could make an interesting Vampire out of what twilight as. Change a few thing here and there and you've got a new twist on Vampires without having them boring. Twilight however... Doesn't. They waste a lot of potential with their vampires because they are making a love story with as relies on idiocy. As pointed out by Bob... There's no disadvantage to being a vampire... So why wont he turn her?... Because he's a creepy fuck who prefers humans. Not to mention a 100+ creepy fuck who prefers young school girl humans... Yet this is acceptable.

Why hasn't Belle had him put on some sort of register with a restraining order while going into protection?. Because she's an idiot, she's a submissive tool. The type of women who's probably into bondage given that she doesn't seem to have a problem with people arguing about her as if she their property.

See we have a movie saga where the main plot is a love triangle between an submissive idiot, a creepy stalker and the only seemingly sane one out of them Jacob (Yeah, this guy is the sanest and possibly the most believable out of them all... Yet this is the character who claims a child as his).

We could have had so much more out of this. We have social rivalry going on between werewolf (well shapeshifters) and Vampires. They both want to rip each other apart... Why can't we focus on this?. Hand to hand brawling warfare between Werewolf and Vampires, all out war. Like Underworld without all the leather and guns. We have sinister organisations which run the Vampires versus the native American, live of the land, all for honour code that's running the Werewolf's. This would be cool, you have the makings of a deep and interesting book and movie here. Just take away this love triangle between Pilock, Stalker and Wolf.

B'ah, I'm probably talking shit, way too much Coffee today. I'd just like to see a movie like this, even with the sparkle vampires versus the shape-shifters.

 

[Arkhangelsk]

What's with the link to Dead Rising?

OT: Pretty much on point.

It's a video of The Escapist Show, which included MovieBob's review. The Escapist Show usually has more than one parts involved, the Dead Rising part was just the main thing on that episode.

 

[Karlaxx]

Bob, I wholly agree with you- and it disturbs me even more that my sister is into Twilight. -.- (Not rabidly, and she's smart, so I don't expect anything negative to happen- but if we saw everything coming, it wouldn't be a problem, would it?)

 

[ultimateownage]

Straight-male geeks, be honest: Invert the genders, and a scene like this in "genre" fiction would've been an important part of your adolescence, too.

Not really, I would notice it is shit and then go watch some porn.

 

[soapyshooter]

Man! The amount of fangirl rage moviebob would get if they read this. High pitched voices squeaking "you don't get it, its about love"...just imagine a thousand pre-teens saying that at the same time *shudders*

Is it wrong if I would find that funny as hell?

No, it just means your ears can endure insane amounts of annoyance and pain. Mine would start bleeding within a few seconds. xD

 

[MrCollins]

What's with the link to Dead Rising?

OT: Pretty much on point.

Further on in the video there is a review of the first film.

 

[Kojiro ftt]

I still say this is a big double standard and overreaction. Women read all kinds of shitty romantic stuff. So what if one of them happens to have vampires and abstinence allegory? Get over it. It wasn't written for you.

This is like a woman complaining that porn is sending the wrong message.

 

[flirl21187]

Amen...just amen. I've read all the books and seen all the movies thus far, but because I'm actually an intelligent, literate person I have always been able to take a step back and see them for what they really are.

Very, very poor writing (I mean, have you seen some of the grammar mistakes she's made in these books?) mixed with archaic, detrimental ideals.

I giggled the whole way through this last movie, not because it was actually funny, but because it was just so, so cheesy. I don't regret my $5.50 at all.

 

[camazotz]

I've enjoyed both the video review of the movie and this commentary...I usually avoid the Moviebob column (at least until I've had a chance to see a given film for myself) but this was one case where I knew I wouldn't be seeing the movie and wanted to see what you're take was on it.

The only concern I can see over the views you are presenting, and specifically over the suggestion that this movie might define or influence behavior in young women, is that it seems to be the same error that conventional critics and the media in general makes constantly toward the movies and games so prevalent in our gamer/nerd culture. Suggesting that the women who enjoy Twilight will be inclined to develop anti-feminist, submissive and/or powerless roles against stalker/domineering males sounds very close (in my mind) the popular assertion that if I love to play Modern Warfare 2 then I must either be a gun nut, prone to violence in real life, or otherwise am easily influenced in some way for the worse. We know the people who make such assertions about our gamer culture are full of it, because we know that we, as people, are not so shallow, desperate for guidance and malleable that playing a violent game or watching a violent movie will otherwise change our very nature as people....so why are we assuming that the average Twilight fan is so gullible?

Rather, I would suggest the nore realistic reversal: Twilight is popular because it speaks to an audience that is already gripped with a mixture of interest and feelings regarding the topic it addresses, which may or may not be the same as the allegations in this article, but which are most certainly present. Not having seen the movies, I can't really be certain that the underlying themes are, in fact, quite as the article describes, or perhaps some variant: if a woman feels like she is powerless in our society, or that she is expected to embody a hapless woman trapped between honor (werewolves) and the desire for an unattainable sexual freedom (vanpires) in the real world (which might be expectations of the woman as a home maker in a traditional family vs. a liberated career seeker for an alternate analogy) then this movie takes these concepts and embodies them as something more exciting, with the extra perk of hot men and sexual tension, as well as the manifestation of need interposed. Both men need the protagonist, and will fight over her. She is needed, and therefore made important. I don't think this movie is teaching them how to behave or feel this way; I think a lot of women already do.

Anecdotally, I don't know any teens or tweens so I can only assume that they are the teeming rabble that makes this series popular. However, within the office where I work, all of the women I work work (who range from 27 to 40+ years of age) group up and have hit the premiere showing of this show. In fact, according to my office manager (she's 28) she was surprised to see that almost the entire audience on opening night was of women she characterized as "50+" years of age who tittered and giggled during the emotional "sex" scenes like they were all tweens. She described the entire experience as "creepy" while then going on to assert to me that the newest movie rocked.

I talked to her (my boss) a bit about the content of this article....she thinks we're a bunch of over-analytic nerdragers. Sigh....

 

[Danpascooch]

so Bella slices open her arm betting that the scent of fresh blood will distract the bad guy

Wow, just wow.

Hit the nail on the head, you also seemed to cover all your bases (my movie review was not biased, authors religion irrelevant, ect.) Well done.

 

[Flying Dagger]

Hmm the people I know like it because "OMG but the guys so hot"

Maybe some of the same reason a lot of guys like transformers...

Sounds like it could be endemic.

 

[shogunblade]

I once wrote a comic book (A very poorly written comic book... I was a kid) about Vampires who where pretty close to those in Twilight as far as powers go. Though the differences where that in Sunlight, they'd be much weaker and wouldn't have access to most of their powers. Also drinking fresh human blood would make them extremely powerful but cause them to go lose their minds overtime, while also being extremely addictive. The constant drinking of fresh human blood would eventually start to change their appearance and give them major weaknesses during the day... Like being burnt into ash . I liked those Vampires... Yeah doesn't keep to the myth but they were pretty cool. I had my main character a Gangster/Blood dealer, a bit of a thug with a deep enough personality to be interested in without being a whiny git. Trust me, my main character wasn't whiny or overly emotional... He was just a dick.

What's my point in saying all that do you ask? My point is that you could make an interesting Vampire out of what twilight as. Change a few thing here and there and you've got a new twist on Vampires without having them boring. Twilight however... Doesn't. They waste a lot of potential with their vampires because they are making a love story with as relies on idiocy. As pointed out by Bob... There's no disadvantage to being a vampire... So why wont he turn her?... Because he's a creepy fuck who prefers humans. Not to mention a 100+ creepy fuck who prefers young school girl humans... Yet this is acceptable.

Why hasn't Belle had him put on some sort of register with a restraining order while going into protection?. Because she's an idiot, she's a submissive tool. The type of women who's probably into bondage given that she doesn't seem to have a problem with people arguing about her as if she their property.

See we have a movie saga where the main plot is a love triangle between an submissive idiot, a creepy stalker and the only seemingly sane one out of them Jacob (Yeah, this guy is the sanest and possibly the most believable out of them all... Yet this is the character who claims a child as his).

We could have had so much more out of this. We have social rivalry going on between werewolf (well shapeshifters) and Vampires. They both want to rip each other apart... Why can't we focus on this?. Hand to hand brawling warfare between Werewolf and Vampires, all out war. Like Underworld without all the leather and guns. We have sinister organisations which run the Vampires versus the native American, live of the land, all for honour code that's running the Werewolf's. This would be cool, you have the makings of a deep and interesting book and movie here. Just take away this love triangle between Pilock, Stalker and Wolf.

B'ah, I'm probably talking shit, way too much Coffee today. I'd just like to see a movie like this, even with the sparkle vampires versus the shape-shifters.

I very much have to agree with you on that idea. The amazing thing about anything, be it books, movies, video games, comic books, and even soundtracks (Just look at something like Pink Floyd's The Wall) is that it can be turned into something good, you just have to make it work.

The whole idea of Twilight is that it could legitimately have present time connotation with the current war we are in, having something to with the Werewolves and Vampires, or a struggle between a daughter and father with Bella and her dad in association with the last recent political figure we had in office, SOMETHING.

But it has been said time and again that it is a romance between three very unlikable characters, which, like most of anything, can work, but it's the writers inability to create interesting characters that makes everything about the series be so boring. It's an overly long soap opera that will hopefully end shortly.