I watched the Rifftrax of 'Twilight' last night, and while I could review the film itself, I think I know my reading audience well enough to be reasonably sure that you've all formed your opinions of the film/book/franchise already, and they're not good. (The only thing I think is directly worth mentioning is the lighting in the film. They chose a tonal palette of muted, wintery blue and green lighting that made the whole thing even more of an ordeal than it would have been already. I felt like I was watching the world's first movie shot entirely underwater.) But it did occur to me that the movie could actually have been very intense and intelligent if they'd made one small change...
It would have been actually pretty decent if Bella hadn't loved Edward.
I mean, I'm not telling anyone anything they don't already know when I say that Edward comes off as a creepy, domineering, borderline abusive stalker. He threatens her, he breaks into her room, he veers between wildly overprotective and actually endangering, he constantly talks about how he loves her so much that he wants to kill her...it's a non-stop Disturbing Behavior Festival, and you spend the whole movie wishing Bella would come to her senses and get a restraining order.
But what if that's exactly what she did? What if she really did recognize that Edward was downright dangerous, that his obsessive attraction to her was a threat to her life and safety, and that he really was a bloodthirsty monster whose tenuous self-control was the only thing that stood between her and a brutal death with an eternal unlife hungering for the blood of the living if she was "lucky"? What if, on realizing it, she then realized that there wasn't a whole hell of a lot she could do because getting someone involved was just signing their death warrant, and her only hope involved establishing an emotional connection with the Cullen family so they saw her as more than just a meal? You've already got the tension of "abusive boyfriend and girl who knows that nobody can help her", might as well make deliberate use of it instead of fighting it for your entire franchise.
A four-book series about a teenage girl trying desperately to stay on the good side of a group of barely-sane vampires, knowing that there's no hope for her if they take a mind to kill her, but needing to use them to keep her away from the even crazier vampires because apparently her super-power is being yummy? That might be readable.
If, y'know, someone else wrote it.
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7 comments:
Someone has already made this more or less: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM
You'll probably like this then
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZwM3GvaTRM&list=FLUHTZiPZ_JLk&index=149
Also the t-shirt which reads
...and then Edward met Buffy.
The End
Yeah, my friends and I went to see the first two movies (have there been more? Haven't been paying attention.) I actually enjoyed them, but that was because we were all constantly making fun of it. The experience as a whole was just a lot of good natured MST3K-esque fun.
I mean, the climax of the second movie is Edward taking his shirt off... and sparkling. Comedy GOLD!
That said, Robert Pattinson makes me want to fill my ears with candle wax. Saw an interview of him with Jon Stewart. He was just too boring.
You're right--that would have made it a lot better. But I think to make it something I would actually like, Bella would have had to be a lot more interesting. I've only seen the first Twilight movie, but I really had a hard time getting into it because both of the main characters were just so...dull.
Ideally, both of them would be interesting. Imagine if, even while Bella is fearing for her life and desperately trying to find a way out, she still finds something compelling about Edward. Not enough to fall in love, of course, but enough to make her pause, to find herself waking up from the occasional dream about him only to realize she's still in the living hell where he's a monster out for her blood. Now that would be a good story.
It would work if Edward was still as wooden as he is, too, but it would be a little bit of a different story.
While the Buffy v Edward clips are cute, they kind of miss the point.
Bella isn't a Slayer. She doesn't have the ability to fight vampires. Any attempt on her part to dust Edward would only result in a quick death.
No, what makes the scenario that John proposes so much more interesting is that lacking access to effective "hard power" his version of Bella would be forced to use "soft power" to stay alive.
In other words, she'd have to live by her wits, outhinking and outmaneuvering the horrible undead monstrosities that surround her to stay alive until she can find some kind of escape.
And then the werewolves show up.
Wouldn't that basically make Twilight into the first season of True Blood only with sparkly vampires instead of nudity? I mean it's still an improvement, I'm just not sure how deep down the Twilight rabbit hole it's safe for anyone to go.
You know, I am not Twilight fan (I'm not exactly in the target demographic), but I do find it odd that you want to advise how it could have been better. Stephanie Meyer has made something like $125 million after taxes off of Twilight. She clearly tapped into something that millions of members of the reading public wanted very badly.
If you think your version of the story is better, change enough details to avoid a lawsuit and write it. It's not like publishers aren't looking for Twilight clones. You could probably find someone who would publish it pretty easily. What are you waiting for?
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