Between them, the first four Twilight movies have made over $2,500,000,000 – a number with so many zeroes, we can’t even figure out how you’d say it. What it does mean, however, is that that’s a WHOLE lot of cinema tickets. And, in the last 24 hours, that figure will have rocketed even further as Twihards far and wide sink their fangs into the latest instalment of the movie franchise, celebrating and mourning the end of the biggest thing in teen fiction for years.
For all its success, the Twilight Saga is a cinematic phenomenon which divides the public. On one side you’ve got the mega fans who can’t get enough of it (like, er, me), and on the other, there’s the haters (aka Harry Potter fans) who find the whole thing a bit ridiculous.
Twilight fan Lindsay Cochrane rounds up the reasons to rate and hate the Twilight Saga to end the debate once and for all…
RATE IT!
1. It’s a classic love story
Boy loves girl. Girl loves boy. The two can’t be together – it’s all predictable Romeo and Juliet stuff. Only, in this case, it’s not that their dads don’t want them to be together – Edward’s a vampire and Bella’s a human. Recipe for disaster, queue five films of trying to make it work – it’s the fantasy equivalent of Chantelle and Alex Reid. It’s a story we all know like the back of our hand that verges on the predictable, but the supernatural twist makes things that little bit more interesting.
2. The boys
There’s so much that’s wrong about Edward Cullen, the overbearing vampire played by Robert Pattinson, but a million other things that are oh-so right. There’s something about his crazy eyes and sexy accent, that old life-or-death-or-afterlife-for-Bella dilemma and just how much he LOVES that miserable-looking fool no matter what (more on that in a minute) that makes me go a bit weak at the knees. Oh, and he’s a total babe too.
And then there’s Jacob. Sometimes, Taylor Lautner, who plays the teen wolf, takes his shirt off. When I saw New Moon in the cinema and he stripped off his t-shirt for some vaguely relevant reason, the audience literally squealed. Enough said.
3. The speculation
The absolute best bit about the Saga is the real life relationship between R-Patz and K-Stew. For years, we speculated. Are they? Aren’t they? And then – boom! Affair scandal, relationship finally confirmed, relationship over and, er, now back on again, depending on which tabloid your read. All that sizzling chemistry on-screen is the real deal, guys! And while we get a bit jel over Kristen getting to go home to Rob every night, us Twihards also love knowing that our favourite movie brought them together. Awwwh.
4. It’s really beautifully-shot
My insane movie star obsessions aside, the four Twilight movies are, visually, pretty impressive. If you’re a movie snob who doesn’t buy into films designed specifically for teenagers obsessed with romance, you still have to admit that the Twilight movies look great. Each of the films’ directors have done a stunning job with the material. The overcast backdrop, the fight scenes, even the haunting soundtrack all come together to create a pretty impressive cinematic experience.
HATE IT!
1. Hi Bella – did feminism ever happen?
Bella Swan’s behaviour has hardcore girl power fans smacking their heads off their nearest Spice Girls poster. The message of these films is simple – Bella can’t cope without her man and she’s willing to give up her actual LIFE for him. Er, what? On what planet is that normal? Donkies ago, a bunch of women campaigned to get women equal rights to men. Bella totally lets Edward have the upper hand and she’s cool with that.
She’s also really boring. She has no personality, she smiles about twice in the whole series and she actually thinks that her Edward obsession is perfectly normal and indeed healthy. Chances of you wanting to be her pal if you met her at Freshers’ Week? Zero.
2. Edward Cullen = possessive crazy person
If he wasn’t such a babe, I’d probably hate Edward Cullen. Why? Because he’s ok with Bella going into a deep depression when she can’t be with him, he just appears in her room to check what she’s up to and he lets her stroll into his incredibly dangerous vampire world. This guy is not the kind of guy you want to get involved with. Possessive – bad. Teen girls take note.
3. Sparkly vampires
Now, I know my vampires. I watched Buffy the Vampire Slayer for YEARS. I’ve read Dracula. And vampires do not sparkle in the sunlight. The burst into flames actually, and they also don’t like garlic or wooden stakes, but that’s another story. In the Twilight Saga, our undead friends can go out in the sun but their skin sparkles like a branch of Claire’s Accessories. Sorry Stephenie Meyer – while we’ll let you away with the OTT romance, we cannot forgive changing the rules of vampiredom. The proper vampires – those who aren’t ‘vegetarian’ like the Cullens – are slightly more menacing, but then you remember that if the clouds shifted, they’d light up like a disco ball.
4. It really is a saga
Last night, movie chains across the country gave Twilight fans something to scream about by showing all five movies back to back. That’s over 600 minutes of vampires, werewolves, sexual tension, wobbly-chinned serious looks from K-Stew and very numb bums and possible DVT from audience members. It’s never ending. Breaking Dawn was conveniently sliced into two films to rake in more money from fans do the full story justice, but could we have squished a lot of the content into a couple of films rather than five? Probably. Sometimes, there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. And Twilight is teetering in that territory.
The verdict…
Ok, so there’s a lot wrong with it – but if you look beyond the unhealthy relationships, two-dimensional characters and just how long it takes to just bloomin’ well finish, it’s a lot of fun too. Perfect escapism for anyone who’s ever dreamt of a Big Romance of Ross and Rachel/Posh and Becks/Her Maj and Prince Phillip proportions.
And guys, if you take your girlfriend to see this this weekend? She’ll fancy you approximately seven times more than she did before the opening credits. Fact.
