It's really not that bad

Hello people of the internet! Every time period has someone or something that defines it: The sixties had the civil rights movement, the eighties had shoulder pads and neon colors, and the mid two thousands had Twilight.


For the scant few who have never heard of this series the books tell the story of Bella Swan and her relationship, and mind aching annoying, love triangle with the Vampire Edward Cullen  and the wolf shape-shifter Jacob Black. Created in 2005 by American author, Stephanie Myers, the series became extremely popular with teenage girls-and creepily their middle aged mothers-and was the cause of making vampires popular in modern times. Or disgraced their image and mythology depending on your opinion.
Like with all popular things Hollywood decided to turn it into a movie and in the most basic terms they sucked. Like with most films instead of trying to  tell a story in a different medium while keeping it entertaining and true to the book's message the filmmakers made it their personal goal to make as much money s possible by glorifying stalking and showing off Taylor Lautner's abs.

Though they are impressive

Though I hold no love for the films I have to raise a hand in defense of the books since I don't believe the first three are that bad. Though they won't reach the ranks of Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings they aren't so horrible that they deserve the hate that they are given. In fact I found myself relating to the character Bella Swan. Her shyness and not wanting to be in the spotlight is a literary parallel to my high school days.
The reason why I believe that she and the books gets thrown so much shade is that because: 1. The filmmakers and actors did a horrible job of bringing the story to the silver screen. And 2. Twilight in general should have never been made into a movie.

On the first note: It seemed to me that the actors who played Bella, Edward, and Jacob-Christen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, and Taylor Lautner-took the biggest aspect of their character's personality and only showed that. Bella was shy and clumsy so Christen played her like a bad animatronic. Edward was tortured and deeply in love with Bella so Robert acted like a growling, creepy, stalker. Jacob was a furious boy who was also deeply in love with Bella so Taylor looked like he wanted to tear Robert's heart out in every scene they are in. The other characters are likable but unfortunately-or maybe fortunately-don't get enough screen time to connect with the audience.

On the second note: I have a theory that a way to tell if a story is good is if you could take away one element or aspect and what was left over is still entertaining. For instance in Tim Burton's Big Fish if you took out the amzaing stories and tall tales you would still have a father and son trying to reconnect with each other as the father is dying. If you took out the magic in Harry Potter you would have the tale of a young abused boy who while going to school learns how wonderful and heartbreaking the world can be and how to overcome the obstacles put in his way as well as to treasure his friends. If you took out the vampires and other mythical elements in Twilight you would have the story of a girl who moves to a new town and gets caught up in a-potentially dangerous-love triangle, which is not too bad. Plots like that are popular and good in TV's and books but this is because they can be as long as the creators wants. If Twilight had been made into a TV series, like the Vampire Dairies, it would have had a whole season to establish and develop their characters and buff out the annoying traits. Whereas in a movie the creators only had, at the most, two hours to do this but if they had actually cared about the story they would have succeeded.

Another thing that made Twilight so bad is that the movies and books left it's readers with the horrible lesson of: If you do nothing, sacrifice nothing, and loose nothing you can get whatever you want! I'm not saying that Meyer had to go all Game of Thrones and kill off all of her characters but it would have helped if she had showed Bella a little tortured by her decision. Yeah becoming a vampire would mean that she gets to stay with the man she loves for the rest of eternity but it would also mean that she would be forced to watch her family, friends, and other loved ones age and die. This should be a heartbreaking experiences but we are shown none of that. Personally I don't think Meyer's didn't get this but, like the movies, she stopped wanting to tell the story and wanted tell whatever would get her the most money and to see Bella walk off happily into the sunset with her husband and vampire human hybrid baby-which I will talk about in another post-is what did it.

I hear that they are going to remake the series in a TV show or play but whatever they do I hope they put some actual effort into it because when you really look at it the Twilight Saga really isn't that bad.

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