Now, y’all probably don’t know this, but I have a film background. One of my bachelor’s is in motion pictures. That being said, even before I started to get into movies, boy did the entire Twilight movie franchise piss me off. You know, film wise. I’m not even talking about the shitty plot. No, I’m talking about how it was filmed.

First, like. . . .WHY IS EVERYTHING SO DAMN BLUE.

(It’s so blue. I don’t understand. It’s so blue!)

Seriously. The ENTIRE movie franchise is SO. DAMN. BLUE. Why? Why was this an aesthetic choice? Why blue? 

If I was the director, blue would not be the color I’d choose. Like at all. Forks is supposed to be like this really green place. In the books, Bella is always complaining about how green it is. That being said. . .WHY THE FUCK BLUE. I can not say that enough. I would not pick blue. Instead of blue, I’d like over saturated the colors. Make that green pop. Make Forks look like some damn Wonderland place, really play on the whole it’s too green thing. If you really wanted to be creative with the color scheme, that’s what I’d do. 

Or, I’d warm up the colors, make the people look normal. But then, I’d make the Cullens a different color. When they are on screen, maybe they are blue (you know since they’re dead) or maybe their colors are muted. Or maybe they have a red tint to them since you know, they drink blood to survive. 

That is what I would do, personally. 

Or you know what, keep the colors normal. 

Here’s a clip that someone did from Twilight with the colors being almost normal. They still need to warmed up but it’s better than the blue.

Twilight is the worst contender for the horrible blue tint. In the later movies, they scrap that and keep the colors normal. It’s a bit jarring at first, when you watch New Moon and expect it to be all blue and you’re like, oh thank god.

As I stated before, Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had to work with what they had. Now for people who play love interests, they have NO chemistry. (But that is another blog post where we’ll discuss the love interests on screen with zero chemistry. Trust me. There are a lot. Dakota Johnson and Jamie Dornan from Fifty Shades for example. No. Chemistry.) 

Both Stewart and Pattinson come off as. . .awkward. And not in a good way. Stewart makes weird expressions that don’t really match with what she’s saying as Bella. It’s funny. I used to think she had no facial expressions and was all blank face. But when I rewatched the movies as an adult and with newer, film eyes, I realized it’s awkward because she has too many expressions.

(Haha, that’s true. Oh that’s sad. She put all her range into a rangeless character. Oof.)

It’s like. . .she’s overacting. Like she’s a caricature. LIke her face can’t decide what it wants to do. It does not work. At all. 

Pattinson, who was absolutely charming and adorable as Cedric Diggory in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, is awkward. He comes off as creepy and awkward (shit, I said that I need a new word). Which I mean, I guess is in character since Eddie is a creeper stalker dude. But he’s also supposed to be charming and all sauve and shit but that doesn’t come off? I mean if I met the Edward in the movie, I’d grab my pepper spray. (I mean, I’d grab my pepper spray for Eddie in the book too, though.) No one hates Twilight as much as Pattinson hates Twilight. I read a story once when he was somewhere and everyone was screaming “EDWARD!” and this one person was like “CEDRIC!” Pattinson went to that person and gave them an autograph.

I love that story.

Right? It’s so cute.

I feel bad for Pattinson and Stewart because due to the atrocity called Twilight, they are seen as terrible actors. They aren’t.

Thankfully, I think that’s finally starting to turn around. I’ll talk about it a bit more in mine.

Do you know how I get through the Twilight movies? The side characters. Like Jessica who is played by the wonderful Anna Kendrick.

Woot woot!

Seriously, the next time (though I don’t know why you’d willingly watch Twilight. . .) just pay attention to her. I feel like they didn’t give Anna Kendrick a script. They told her to just talk. It’s great. 

Also, Charlie. Since the books are written in Bella’s POV (*gag*) you don’t really get to see what everyone else is doing. She’s not a reliable narrator and she’s all like “Ohmygod, Eddie!” (Said in like an obnoxious anime girl voice.) But with the movies, you get to know Charlie better. Charlie is great. I love him. He SO deserves better. (More on Charlie in part seven.) 

They broke up the last book, Breaking Dawn, into two parts. Which, I mean, I guess? Whatever.

$$$

The movies are just as bad as the books. They are boring and dull. The acting is terrible, which again is not the actors’ faults, the writing is to blame. I’m trying to think of something good to say about the movies besides Jessica and Charlie but like, there’s nothing good to say. I will say that I like that we kind of know more about James and his gang before you meet them at the baseball field. That’s interesting. Breaks up the boredom.

OH. I know. 

The soundtracks. The soundtracks are pretty awesome. The soundtracks deserve better than the Twilight movies but they are awesome. They did not have to go that hard but they did.

Here’s a playlist that I found on Spotify.

https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/2ruxBdlFrwLmtgIShhTfe5

We got songs like “Decode” and “I Caught Myself” by Paramore. “Eyes on Fire” by Blue Foundation. “Supermassive Black Hole” by Muse. “Leave Out All the Rest” by Linkin Park. 

The one part that I will say I liked was in Breaking Dawn Part 2. They’re all facing off against the Volturi (shit, does that need to be a separate part too, Angela?).

Oh, I could think of some shit to say, sure.

They’re all against the Volturi and they’re fighting. Carlisle loses his head. Seth dies. Jasper dies. Then Aro is killed by Bella and Edward. And you’re like “Whoa, whoa, whoa. WHAT?” Because that wasn’t a part of the book at all. It definitely throws you off. I was like, “DAMN!” I didn’t know what they were doing with it but I liked it.

. . . .then it came back to the present and you realized it was a vision by Alice. Which brings me into another rant.

(Enraged snoring, somehow.)

In Eclipse (I think it was Eclipse?) it was established that Alice can’t see the shapeshifters. New Moon, maybe? Since that whole “Bella jumped off a cliff and never resurfaced” thing happened? But then in Breaking Dawn Part 2. . .she can? Meyer, you broke your own lore. What the fuck. Don’t break your own lore. Like, what the hell. I can’t even. (Is that also my catch phrase?)

I can’t even talk about the monstrosity that was that baby. I feel like CGI would’ve been better. That thing was horrific. *shudders* 

Okay, so as previously mentioned, everything is blue and it doesn’t make sense and it is mind-boggling and frustrating. But the WORST thing in Twilight. Not the source material (iffy), the acting/directing choices (oof), the writing (yikes). It’s. The make-up.

(My 12 year old brother could do better make-up than that disaster.)

OH MY GOD.

IT’S SO BAD.

AND I CANNOT HANDLE IT.

I’m not much of a make-up person, but I was in theater in eighth grade and so I know the bare fucking minimum about stage make-up. I know about blending. All you have to do is make sure there’s not a line as pronounced as the fucking coastline showing that this is not your actual skin color. And since the vampires were supposed to be walking jars of mayonnaise, make sure their fucking neck is white, too.

HOW DID THE MAKE-UP DEPARTMENT (was there a make-up department? This seems like the kind of job that they just pulled a random person off the street and said, “Hey, you want 5 bucks?” If that’s the case, at least this would make sense and be… not forgivable, but understandable.) FUCK THIS UP SO HARD.

You can clearly see where they were like “this is the corpse part of Edward’s body” and then “this is where we gave up.”

(Let’s not even comment on his “glittering skin” that was something they totally bought from Bath and Body Works. . .That was terrible and just what?)

Oh my god, the sparkles. Okay. When I saw the movies, I had already read the books so I knew to expect sparkles. I honestly expected it to look like when middle-schoolers got a hold of body glitter (don’t judge, it’s easier than make-up. It’s not better, but it’s easier and sometimes that’s what matters. – Don’t listen to me, especially since this is seventh-grade me giving advice.). But what we got was worse than that. I didn’t think his skin was sparkling, I thought his skin was boiling. My boyfriend at the time (poor fucking guy watching this movie) thought Edward looked like a fish. He had scales.

And whose bright idea was it to give Bella (human) the same skin tone as the walking corpses? I know the books said she was pale, but nowhere in the books did it say she already looked dead.

(I fucking snorted.)

They did get better in the later movies (they gave up entirely in the later movies, but it was still an improvement). But before we could get that reprieve, they did Carlisle dirty. I’ve seen photos of the actor just out being normal, and yeah, he’s attractive. But as Carlisle? They painted his face white and dyed his hair blond (and slicked it back! Why???) and the first time I saw him on screen (every time I see him on screen in that movie) all I could think was “naked mole rat.” I don’t know why, but every time Carlisle Cullen walks into the hospital, I’m reminded of Rufus from Kim Possible.

Now here’s the actor, Peter Facinelli. We had no idea he was a good looking guy.

See? If they had put him on screen, I would have paid a lot more attention.

(Heelllllooooo, Daddy. Ahem. Sorry.)

I had no idea he was actually attractive, I had to go and look it up. I had wondered “why did they cast an unattractive man to play an attractive man?” They didn’t. They cast an attractive man and made him unattractive. The choices this movie made. 

The chick who played Rosalie, Nikki Reed (who is funny enough married to the guy who plays Damon Salvatore aka Ian Somerhalder) ruined her hair for these movies. Like fucking fried her hair. Also, it wasn’t even a good dye job! Her hair was so yellow and it definitely needed some damn toner. Seriously, purple shampoo would have made that less brassy and actually a pretty blonde. As someone who dyes her hair at home, I could’ve done a better job than those professionals. What the fuck, ya’ll.

Oh my god the wigs. Jacob’s wig. Jacob’s fucking wig. I can’t. Remember how I said that I forgave Jake for being awful because of Taylor Lautner? That didn’t happen until Movie #2 when they cut his hair.

(OH. I forgot his wig. I like deleted it from my brain. Why did you remind me?) 

Just. The choices this movie made.

Don’t worry. We have more content to come. Angela and I are having a lot of fun with this. What should we discuss next? Tell us in the comments!

-K