Here I begin the critical task of reviewing a five movie series based on a four book series of novels that I have never read, nor that I plan on reading. I have watched three of the four movies that have been released, and plan on watching the fourth and fifth, but not if I actually have to forfeit any of my hard earned money to view this abomination. The premise of the series alone is enough to make me puke, and now I will explain why.
The Twilight Saga.
I first learned about the novels when I was flying to Michigan to visit my in-laws. Sky Magazine printed an interview with the author that actually piqued my interest in the books for about as long as it took me read the interview. My wife and I read the article together, discussed our opinions on how the books may read, and decided that a Mormon woman imposing Mormon morals in writing about a vampire love story may be scary. My wife, much braver than I, read the entire series in less time than it took her to read the last Harry Potter novel. It was settled, we would watch the movies as they came available on DVD.
The comedy for me began just about as quickly as all of the characters were introduced in the first movie. My feelings from the interview in Sky Magazine were amplified and I began to laugh as the serious nature of the relationship between the feminist nightmare of a teenage victim, Bella, and the panty moistening girl-dream of an immortal, sparkling, day-walking, faux vampire named Edward materialized. I began to understand. This was a comedy.
First of all, since when can a vampire walk in sunlight? Really? Sparkling golden pasty skinned honkey vampires who can cruise at top speed through forests and leap over giant redwoods in a single bound? I know I’m bringing too much of the literal world into play here, but UV rays are not entirely filtered out by the clouds, and therefore, those little sparkles would be present under any UV A or UV B lighting. Clouds included.
Second, having lived in the Pacific Northwest for the better part of a decade, I can state with conviction that the amount of sunlight is greatly underrated. There may be an unusually high number of days with clouds, but not enough for a sun-scared sparkly bloodsucker to make it school enough days to maintain a grade point average high enough not to get booted into the alternative school, or kicked out altogether.
This is just scraping the tip of the iceberg of my disgust with the treatment of honest vampires in literature throughout the ages. Shall I start a list? You bet!
Vampires cannot walk in daylight, clouds or no.
Vampires are not sparkly, pretty creatures. Though they may be good looking and permanently youthful, their power comes from persuasion, not from being all athletic, sparkly and hot.
Vampires are pasty, white, vein ridden night dwellers who manipulate the living. They are cold because they are dead.
Vampires kill people for food. They require blood from humans to survive because, as I said before, they’re dead.
Vampires have superhuman strength. Maybe someone could take an artistic license and give them super fast speed powers, or jumping powers, but in my time, vampires turned into bats.
Let me repeat that fact: Vampires turn into bats. Creepy, scary bats. They don’t just materialize in your bedroom to have some hot, teenage make-out session while waiting for marriage for the sex part; they fly into your room as a bat to suck your blood and kill you, virgin or not. Just saying.
Vampires do not have morals. They kill. They do not, and I repeat again, DO NOT wait for marriage to have sex. Vampires have sex with other vampires, if they have sex at all.
This brings us to the most tragic aspect of the entire series: birth. Let’s just review this one simple fact, the fact that vampires are dead. The only way to create a new vampire is to feed from the living and then feed the victim vampire blood. No amount of dead vampire semen can produce spawn. Period.
Coupled with this fact is the fact that vampires do not age. How then, could a vampire baby grow? Even if the vampire was able to cause a mortal woman to conceive, how would the half-breed grow if half of its genetics were flawed to the point of death? Remember the part where vampires are dead? Maybe this is explained in the fourth movie that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m sure the explanation, if there is one, is far from adequate.
Okay, I could go on about this for a while longer, but instead, I will change topics and talk about Bella, and how her pining for the dead is a disgrace to women of all ages. Let’s start with the “Oh Edward, I can’t live without you,” statement. You are correct, Bella, he will kill you. When you become a vampire, you will be the living dead.
Then let’s give the old “But I love you more” statement an overview. Why are you mackin’ on a werewolf, slut? Do you want to be dog food or undead food? Decide. I’d pick the dog if I were you; dogs are warm and loyal, vampires are cold, dead killers. Stay away. You are taking a large stride backwards in the equality movement by playing the indecisive victim of love.
This is all moot, really. I didn’t touch nearly as deeply as I had wished on the Bella/feminist issue, but this review is becoming a lot longer than I had intended. My biggest problem is with the abuse of artistic license by inflicting morals on a literary icon as deeply ingrained in our culture as the vampire.
I’ll give the series to date a rating of ½ stars out of five, though the camp value is worth at least four to me.
The Twilight Saga.
I first learned about the novels when I was flying to Michigan to visit my in-laws. Sky Magazine printed an interview with the author that actually piqued my interest in the books for about as long as it took me read the interview. My wife and I read the article together, discussed our opinions on how the books may read, and decided that a Mormon woman imposing Mormon morals in writing about a vampire love story may be scary. My wife, much braver than I, read the entire series in less time than it took her to read the last Harry Potter novel. It was settled, we would watch the movies as they came available on DVD.
The comedy for me began just about as quickly as all of the characters were introduced in the first movie. My feelings from the interview in Sky Magazine were amplified and I began to laugh as the serious nature of the relationship between the feminist nightmare of a teenage victim, Bella, and the panty moistening girl-dream of an immortal, sparkling, day-walking, faux vampire named Edward materialized. I began to understand. This was a comedy.
First of all, since when can a vampire walk in sunlight? Really? Sparkling golden pasty skinned honkey vampires who can cruise at top speed through forests and leap over giant redwoods in a single bound? I know I’m bringing too much of the literal world into play here, but UV rays are not entirely filtered out by the clouds, and therefore, those little sparkles would be present under any UV A or UV B lighting. Clouds included.
Second, having lived in the Pacific Northwest for the better part of a decade, I can state with conviction that the amount of sunlight is greatly underrated. There may be an unusually high number of days with clouds, but not enough for a sun-scared sparkly bloodsucker to make it school enough days to maintain a grade point average high enough not to get booted into the alternative school, or kicked out altogether.
This is just scraping the tip of the iceberg of my disgust with the treatment of honest vampires in literature throughout the ages. Shall I start a list? You bet!
Vampires cannot walk in daylight, clouds or no.
Vampires are not sparkly, pretty creatures. Though they may be good looking and permanently youthful, their power comes from persuasion, not from being all athletic, sparkly and hot.
Vampires are pasty, white, vein ridden night dwellers who manipulate the living. They are cold because they are dead.
Vampires kill people for food. They require blood from humans to survive because, as I said before, they’re dead.
Vampires have superhuman strength. Maybe someone could take an artistic license and give them super fast speed powers, or jumping powers, but in my time, vampires turned into bats.
Let me repeat that fact: Vampires turn into bats. Creepy, scary bats. They don’t just materialize in your bedroom to have some hot, teenage make-out session while waiting for marriage for the sex part; they fly into your room as a bat to suck your blood and kill you, virgin or not. Just saying.
Vampires do not have morals. They kill. They do not, and I repeat again, DO NOT wait for marriage to have sex. Vampires have sex with other vampires, if they have sex at all.
This brings us to the most tragic aspect of the entire series: birth. Let’s just review this one simple fact, the fact that vampires are dead. The only way to create a new vampire is to feed from the living and then feed the victim vampire blood. No amount of dead vampire semen can produce spawn. Period.
Coupled with this fact is the fact that vampires do not age. How then, could a vampire baby grow? Even if the vampire was able to cause a mortal woman to conceive, how would the half-breed grow if half of its genetics were flawed to the point of death? Remember the part where vampires are dead? Maybe this is explained in the fourth movie that I haven’t seen yet, but I’m sure the explanation, if there is one, is far from adequate.
Okay, I could go on about this for a while longer, but instead, I will change topics and talk about Bella, and how her pining for the dead is a disgrace to women of all ages. Let’s start with the “Oh Edward, I can’t live without you,” statement. You are correct, Bella, he will kill you. When you become a vampire, you will be the living dead.
Then let’s give the old “But I love you more” statement an overview. Why are you mackin’ on a werewolf, slut? Do you want to be dog food or undead food? Decide. I’d pick the dog if I were you; dogs are warm and loyal, vampires are cold, dead killers. Stay away. You are taking a large stride backwards in the equality movement by playing the indecisive victim of love.
This is all moot, really. I didn’t touch nearly as deeply as I had wished on the Bella/feminist issue, but this review is becoming a lot longer than I had intended. My biggest problem is with the abuse of artistic license by inflicting morals on a literary icon as deeply ingrained in our culture as the vampire.
I’ll give the series to date a rating of ½ stars out of five, though the camp value is worth at least four to me.
RSS Feed