A man sparkling in the sunlight, a woman biting her lip as she slowly tucks loose strands of her messy auburn hair behind her ear: so reads a famous scene from “Twilight,” the so-called trendsetter for the romantasy genre. The entire saga supposedly falls under the Young Adult (YA) genre, yet it covers mature, graphic scenes with scarce subtlety. “Twilight” fails to provide audiences with quality media, presents poorly written characters, and, to its detriment, attempts to address the taboo of intimacy and age gaps with the grace of a bull in a China shop.
“Twilight” as a whole is just a mess; they try to be dramatic, but it just ends up being silly. Honestly, the production was just bad. What were they even thinking? Like, sometimes it feels like they ran out of ideas and just grabbed whatever they could find. I hated it,” junior Jasmine-Joy Kihara said.
After the release of the first film in 2008, critics and audiences alike shared sentiments of the laughably awful production and awkward, mature scenes between main character Bella Swan and her vampire love interest, Edward Cullen, played by Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, respectively. With a tomatometer score of 47% and an IMDb score of 5.3/10, the ratings further express the lackluster quality of production. A mountain of critics point out the horrifying use of Computer-Generated Imagery (CGI). Specifically, in the second film, “The Twilight Saga: New Moon,” Renesmee, Swan’s daughter, appeared in the film as CGI pasted atop a puppet. The baby ended up with an eerie and inhuman look that left fans wondering how the movie hit the theater screen. On top of poorly developed CGI, fans claim the script felt forced and poorly paced compared to that of the books.
Besides the lackluster production and scary special effects, the films contained multiple questionably graphic sex scenes and canon plot points that held absolutely zero logical foundation. For example, the fact that vampires feature marble skin and create a hollow glass sound when hit holds no relevance to the plot and only serves as a distraction. Plus the fact that Cullen quite literally glittered in the sunlight, or that he originated in the 20th century. Over and over again, the audiences glimpse odd and cringeworthy intimate scenes and parts of the script. Cringe-worthy moments include the ever-quotable “Bella, where the hell have you been loca?” and “Hold on, spider monkey,” or, the cherry on top, “You imprinted on my daughter?” While a majority of audiences, fans and critics alike know of these quotes, no one mentions the absolutely wild idea of the last quote. Swan’s second love interest, Jacob Black, a werewolf played by Taylor Lautner, imprinted on Swan’s infant daughter. Essentially, he claimed a baby, a minor, a child physically incapable of surviving outside of the womb, in a type of sexually intimate, soul-tie-esque bond. So, pedophilia finds a home within the fandom. Also, the issue of sex scenes arises in the second film of the saga, as parents’ outrage at the sight of bare skin. In “Twilight: Breaking Dawn,” the film faced pushback from producers and critics due to the “headboard-breaking” scene.
“I think ‘Twilight’ shows obsession, like, it’s almost like a warning to beware of toxic relationships. Yeah, I know it was super weird and cringe, but that’s like the whole point of the series. But the thing I really liked was how it taught people what certain toxic traits look like, and I think it helps teenage girls avoid that,” freshman Janice Morales said.
However, dedicated fans love to hold fast to the idea that “Twilight” provides important lessons to young fans. The time at which “Twilight” was released coincided with the rise of boy bands and fads that stuck for years to come. Certain fans claim “Twilight” opened the door for looser censorship and normalized obsessive fandoms. However, the cons of the movie outweigh the cultural benefits the film provides.
The film presents racist ideas and incestuous undertones. Black, the werewolf love interest, and his entire Native American family or pack consistently appeared on-screen as disheveled and rugged. This canon decision only fuels the racist stereotype that Native Americans appear savage and unsophisticated by showing their pack as a tribe of dumb wolves who only know how to mate and hunt. On top of the concerning representation of Native American culture, the author, Stephenie Meyer, named the werewolf love interest Jacob after her own brother. This creates an almost sickening link to Meyer and her work, as the idea that her brother came to mind when creating the overly steamy and sensual character appears nearly incestuous.
Ultimately, “Twilight” provides a sickening excuse for a movie saga and only serves to waste the audience’s time. From its awful taboo to the cringeworthy script, “Twilight” exemplifies the lowest of the low as far as media consumption. Quite literally any other movie, show, series or video will provide a lovelier source of entertainment than this sorry excuse for cinema. “Twilight” holds no place in the world and actively reduces audience standards. Listening to nails on a chalkboard provides a pleasant way to spend time in comparison to the mess that “Twilight” brought to the cinema.
