The Twilight Saga: Eclipse - Discussion and Grading

Agreed. Same cannot be said about this Meyer drivel.

 

"Discussing the finer points of Twilight on our modern culture and discourse with Treker4747"

Well, I guess I can scratch that one off the ol' "Things I Never Thought I'd Be Doing" list...

 

I've not much to say about this movie right now, I'll likely go see it out of curiosity tomorrow night, but the franchise as a whole has yet to impress me. Granted, though, it's hardly being geared to impress a 30-year-old man.

 

Well, about Vampires walking in daylight: Dracula could do this too. He just didn't sparkle.

 

It's often been my interpetation that vampires could walk around in daylight they just couldn't be in direct sunlight. In "Twilight" they live in Washington which, it seems, is in perpetual overcast.

But "classic" vampires to me, it seems, that they can be up in the daytime but direct sunlight kills them. I guess, um, the clouds scatter the sunbeams enough to not effect the vampires.

 

Three things:
1)
As a fan of the series, I have to say that I'm really looking forward to seeing Eclipse, particularly because I'm interested in seeing how David Slade - who did an amazing job with 30 Days of Night - applied his sensibilities to Meyer's melodramatic material and Melissa Rosenberg's adaptation of said material.

2) The Twilight Saga is one of the only book/movie franchises that I can think of that is 100% 'niche', but has nevertheless become overwhelmingly successful. The books are not for everyone, and while Meyer might not be the most gifted of writers, she has nonetheless managed to create a story that is captivating and interesting to many.

3) Regarding what 'social' or 'moral' impact the novels might or might not have on future generations of young women, I personally think that such concerns are extremely misguided and, ultimately, baseless and unfounded. Yes, there are certain negative conotations that one could derive from the behavior of the characters - male and female alike - throughout the series, but practically anything can be skewed to be negative if one is so inclined.

 

I just have to say this: as a long time Trekkie, I do not expect my fellow Trekkies on a Trek board to have such condescending attitudes toward the fans and the mytharc of Twilight. Have we forgotten how WE are treated by society on the whole?

I know I haven't forgotten.

I'll say this though: two fellow Trekkies on this very board (Dennis and Trekker) got me to watching the first movie early this year by recommending it as a pretty good popcorn -- yes, popcorn -- flick and I'm grateful for that. I had avoided it before that as a teen flick. I watched it and loved it -- flaws and all. I treat Twilight as entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. And it entertains me greatly.

As for vampires. Please. I grew up in India, and the vampiric lores there are just as varied and as "preposterous" as anything you can find in Stephenie Meyer's badly written tomes. Point: it's all FICTION. Sure, these dudes sparkle. Why not? What's wrong with it? Who's gonna prove it wrong? You? Me? Who? It's not like any of us have actually met one

Finally, as a woman, I'm just way happy that a "girlie" franchise is finally making so much g-d money. Seriously, guys, can't you just be happy for us? 'Cos, ya know, if we're happy, you're happy... right?

 

Hermione, sure. Ron, maybe. But Harry? Can barely be arsed to read a book to save his life. He's noble, yes, in that he fights evil and all, but is hardly a role model.

 

I thought David Slade did a wonderful job. Eclipse flowed better and the action was much better shot than the first two movies. Catherine Hardwicke and Chris Weitz did okay with the first two movies, but it's obvious that they weren't that experienced making the fights exciting. It almost made me wish Slade was directing the entire series.

 

Yeah, it'd have been interesting to see his take on all of them. Though, I can't deny that Catherine Hardwicke's take on the first film is a guilty pleasure of mine. I've re-watched it many times, flaws and all. She did a great job with what little money she had. And she imbued the movie with something "non-real" and beautifully juxtaposed the real/mundane world of the high school with the sinister/magical world of the vampires. None of that was the case with New Moon.

Anyway, I'm at a loss about M. Night though. WTF is he doing? I really thought he'd give Airbender an honest try.... but the reviews are horrific. 9% on the RT meter? What gives? We were supposed to go see it tonight but we're re-thinking the plan.

 

I'm not quite sure what happened in terms of New Moon, but I do know that Chris Weitz was fully invested in NM, as evidenced by the number of times he talked about the project and the letter that he sent out to the fans just after he signed on to direct the film. The film does have a very different stylistic tone than Twilight, and doesn't feel quite as 'intimate', but I don't think it's because of anything that Weitz did or didn't do in terms of directing the film or in terms of the investment he put into the material.

On an unrelated side note, I also know from interviews that Shaymalan considered himself a fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender, so I can't really explain how/why that film is getting the scathing reviews that it is.

BTW, I thought NM was better than Twilight, but not to the degree that it ultimately probably could've been.

 

I just watched the first two films on DVD in the last two evenings, and I'd have to agree with your assessment. New Moon was slightly more enjoyable.

Probably my biggest complaints about the first two films... other than the "sparkly" skin of the vampires... would be the lack of threatening opposition (the Volturi were kind of imposing in New Moon, but Victoria was barely there!), and also Bella's ignorance. Seriously, how thick-skulled do you have to be to think up scenarios where your boyfriend is either Spider-Man or Superman, but not one where he is a vampire? And how many hints did Jacob have to toss her way before finally surprising her with his transformation into a werewolf? For someone so dense, she's lucky to have survived THIS long.

Other than that, it's been decent escapist fun thus far, even if the stories weren't geared towards my gender or age range.

 

When will the vampires figure out they can't "read" Bella's mind because there's nothing there to read?

 

Well I saw it wednesday and thought it was............EPIC!!!!!!!!! TEAM EDWARD FTW!!!!!!!!!

 

Hey Charles. I don't run into you much anymore online, so it's cool to see you post here.

Regarding Bella's behavior, a lot of it has to do with the nature of the story that Meyer is trying to tell, which is much more surreal than its 'real-world' setting might suggest; as a series, Twilight is very much a supernatural romance (somewhat like Dark Shadows) and doesn't really try to pretend to be anything more. Yes, it's somewhat grounded in reality, but for the most part Meyer doesn't pay attention to what would really be plausible or 100% believable for a person really in the situation(s) that Bella finds herself in throughout the course of the 4 novels. Whether or not that is a negative aspect of the story is up to personal interpretation, but it does further contribute to what I said about the saga being very 'niche'.

 

I saw Eclipse. I'm surprised but Eclipse did not suck. This was the first Twilight film I really watched. I only watched a few minutes of New Moon, but I liked the trailer for Eclipse so I decided to check it out. Also, the Eclipse director did 30 Days of Night so I was curious to see if what he would do with a Twilight film.

Okay, here's what I liked:
-Newborn army of vamps.
-Victoria.
-Riley.
-Volturri.
-Volturri and some other vamps having red eyes. Nice effect. Better than the gold eyes or whatever Team Edward had.
-Blond actress in Edward's clan. She had a brief scene telling how she became a vamp, but she conveyed more emotion and acting in 5 minutes than Bella did the whole movie. She should've been the lead actress.
-Flashback scenes in general.
-At times the movie nicely built up the tension and the anticipation for the big climatic battle.
-Some of the final action scenes.

Here's what didn't work for me:
-Bella, what a cold fish. It took her like an hour and a half to smile and the movie was just over 2 hours. For the most part she was mopey or crabby. Yeah, she's nice looking, but I totally don't get what makes her special and why anyone would fight over her.
-Jacob. Though I would be on Team Jacob and by the whoops from the majority teenage girl audience I watched the film with, they also are on Team Jacob. They applauded when he first showed up and then every time after when he had his shirt off, which was more than necessary. But the guy can't act. He tried, but just no dice.
-Male werewolves going shirtless. That just wasn't right especially when the female werewolves didn't go shirtless. A bunch of werewolf dudes hanging out without shirts on and wearing shorts. It just wasn't my type of party. Plus I didn't get what happened to their clothes when they morphed? With True Blood we see shifters taking off their clothes, but it seems with Twilight the clothes magically disappear and then reappear.
-Didn't show the newborns enough and they didn't develop Victoria enough either.
-The movie dragged in spots but sometimes they would cut to the newborns which got my attention again.
-Bella's father. One of the lamest dads in cinematic history. He's supposed to be a sheriff or something but he can't lay down the law in his own house. He was way too cool about stuff IMO.

 

The Twilight Saga: Eclipse

Rated: PG-13 for dopey, angsty, teenage melodramatic bullshit and some blood. ... Oh, and shirtless dudes, lots and lots of shirtless dudes.

My Grade: (Generous): C+

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Let me get this out now:

BELLA IS AN IDIOT!!!!!

I wanted to yell this out during the entire time in the theater. She is an idiot! She's like every stereotype of a teenaged girl rolled into one character and her stupid teenage girl characteristics are encouraged by the way this series' plot will unfold and be carried out. Her vampire power must be making bad decisions despite being given warning signs from everyone around her that she's making the wrong choice. But I'm getting waaaayyyyy ahead of myself.

By one or two movies, in fact.

Now, to be fair, I'm not the right audience for these movies. I'm twice the average age of this movie goers and I have a Y-Chromosome. But if I'm going to hate on this series I need to be fair and watch it (but I'm not reading the books!) so I can at least bash on them in a somewhat informed manner. So as I sat in the theater this evening I realized how out of my element I was. It was a theater practically full of teenagers on their smart-phones updating their Twitter pages or whatever, girls who "whooed" whenever a shirtless boy appeared on the screen (which happens like never in this movie) and he who swarmed to the front of the theater to get an autograph from a visiting celebrity. (The actor who plays Jacob's father made an appearance at my showing.) I've gotten old and this movie-viewing made me realize that. Fine whatever.

So what's the movie about? Bella being all angsty and up in her shit about bullshit, what else? She still wants to become an undead, unholy, abomination of nature, she's still stringing Jacob the "werewolf" boy along like the lost puppy he is but this time around there's a nice infusion of action as a rouge band of "new blood" vampires on trying to hunt her down. (New blood vampires are more untamed and have more thirst than their "older" brethren.) It's all melodramatic nonsense that leads up to a decent action scene although the action scenes look like they were filmed by Michael Bay having a stroke while on a caffeine rush. The plot is just bullshit because I was just sitting there the whole time wanting to yell out what an idiot Bella is. In the more interesting moments of the movie she talks with two of her "vampire" friends about "life" as a vampire and they pretty much tell her through flashback "It sucks, don't do it." She pretty much ignores them. And I'm not even entirely sure why the Venturi Illuminati Breakaway Coven of vampires are after her, or encouraging the rouge vampires. Bah, I'm sure it'll become clear in the next one. Oh, and as more evidence that this movie series is encouraging stupid-behavior in teenagers the valedictorian at Bella's graduation gives one of those speeches that says, "We're young and graduated! Do whatever you want and make mistakes! Figure it out later!" Which makes the teenagers in the audience woo and say. "Right on!" and makes the adults say, "Ummm... the fuck?!"

Also like the other movies all of the secondary characters are vastly more interesting than our two romantic leads. Jacob is more interesting (the only main character who is), Bella's father is more interesting, Jasper (Edward's "vampire family" civil-war era soldier), cute pixie vampire girl, doctor vampire dude, douchey emo vampire dude, "werewolf" leader old guy visiting a random theater in Kansas dude, Bella's 'stached father, blonde Victorian era vampire girl, all of them.

All of the secondary characters are a lot more interesting and people I'd rather see in a movie. Jasper tells a tale of how he became a vampire and his story is far more interesting a 10-minutes than three movies worth of Bella's angsty teenage bullshit. And that's my problem.

Bella is a stupid, angsty, teenager. Now, sure, all teenagers are like that but is this film series supposed to be a tragedy? When what happens to her at the end of this movie series occurs are we supposed to weep for her and everything she gives up just so she can crush on some sparkly creepy guy for eternity?

And why is there even a "Team Jacob" or a "Team Edward" when what happens in this books should be known to anyone who has read all of them? What's the point of rooting for one side of things when the outcome is known? I don't get it, I've way too much testosterone for any of it to make sense or motivate me.

Entertaining movie, decent action scenes, probably the "best" of the movie series to this point, which isn't saying much. But the Edward/Bella bullshit weighs it down. The Edward/Jacob and Bella/Jacob sides of the triangle works pretty well -even if it wasn't obvious how much of a bitch Bella is toward Jacob- but the Bella/Edward stuff? Ugggggghhhhhhh. Just kill me. Really? They're supposed to be a couple I'm to root for? Or is this really a tragedy and I should be rooting for Bella to make the "right" choice even though I know the outcome? I don't get it.

I'm too old for this shit.

 

The Volturi's biggest law is that humans must not know about the existence of the Vampries. If a human knows they have to be killed or eventually turned into a Vampire. They let Bella go at the end of New Moon because Alice promised that she would change her. Alice was lying obviously.

In the book and movie, it's implied that the Volturi didn't do anything about the vampire army because they wanted the rogue vamps to kill off some the Cullen family. In the book it's explained better.

 

Yeah, that's kind of what I gleamed from the movies but it still wasn't very clear to me. Granted, the first two movies I watched with Rifftrax, so...



I did like how in this movie the "vampires" and the "werewolves" came to a "truce" to fight the the n00b vampires. That was kind-of nifty.

 

Trekker, how is choosing immortality and superhuman strength and some sort of superpower AND a hot dude to sleep with through it a "bad thing" lol? Wouldn't you do it if it was a hot chick?

I'd rather choose that option than choose a guy who has a short leash on his temper and a tendency to scratch people's faces off