I watched all of the Twilight movies in one weekend. I watched them because I wanted to write this article about all the weird choices that went into one of the most profitable franchises from the last 20 years. I wanted to understand why so many people felt invested in a bloodless, sexless supernatural love triangle. I did all the research, I dug into the old fan forums. I sifted through old promo videos, box office records, and interviews. I tried to make this article a listicle, I tried to make it meta, but nothing was ever right.
This franchise is undefinable.
The First Twilight Movie: A Flawed Yet Profitable Start
Having watched all five movies, I can confidently say that the first movie is the best movie of the franchise. I did not like the first movie. I did not like how green it was, I did not like the way the camera framed everything at a dutch angle. I did not like how Edward the glittery vampire (Robert Pattinson) looked at Bella the high school student (Kristen Stewart). Is he farting? I thought, or is he cumming?? The special effects look incredibly cheap for a film based on an incredibly successful book series (in 2008, all three books were among the top 50-selling novels of the last 15 years).
Summit Entertainment’s Risky Bet on Twilight
This was Summit Entertainment’s first foray into a big franchise production, and they were not confident that the Twilight fanbase would make them money. “This could just be 400 girls in Salt Lake City blogging about it,” said one executive, according to director Catherine Hardwicke. She told the Daily Beast, “they said, OK, Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants was a very popular book for girls, and it made $39 million. That’s it. We don’t know if this could ever make us any more than that, so we don’t really want to spend more than that.” Hardwicke made her movie for $37 million, and Twilight pulled in $69 (nice) million on opening weekend. Hardwicke was not invited back to direct the sequels.
Twilight Sequels: Bigger Budgets, Worse Effects
The next four movies, which barely have a plot, continued to print money for Summit. New Moon made back its budget plus $22 million in profit in days, and Eclipse made even more – the $68 million movie broke even from Wednesday night ticket sales alone. The special effects continue to be mind-bogglingly bad. Sometimes the vampires have white faces, but their necks and ears have human skin tones.
Jacob’s Problematic Portrayal and Lackluster Romance
And I don’t like Jacob at all. I don’t like that the studio cast a white actor to play an indigenous character, and his abs never make up for his shitty attitude. Both Jacob and Edward are awful to Bella, in fact, everyone in this story is so patronizing and controlling. Where is the sexual tension? I keep thinking. Where is the romance?
Breaking Dawn’s Shocking Turn and Controversial Themes
Breaking Dawn Part 1 takes a wild turn in the final 20 minutes. There is actual violence and gore! There’s blood in this movie! Some characters justify some wild choices in very problematic ways (if you know, you know), and there is a baby with a nightmare CGI face. There’s an abstinence arc, an anti-abortion arc, and in Part 2, there’s a massive fight scene that doesn’t look half bad. Everything ends with Bella and Edward lying together in the sun, happily ever after (though they forgot to add the sparkling diamond skin effect).
Twilight’s Cultural Flaws: From Appropriation to Abuse
There is so much to hate about this franchise. The appropriation of indigenous culture, the anti-choice conservative messaging, and the abusive relationships that are branded as loving and romantic. The very bad special effects! Even the stigma of Twilight supposedly being for ‘silly’ teen girls couldn’t stop the Twi-hards tying their identities to these movies (“are you Team Edward or Team Jacob?”).
The Robsten Phenomenon: Blurring Fact and Fiction
When Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson started dating on the first movie set, their on-again, off-again relationship blurred fact and fiction, sending the fan base into a frenzy. In 2016, long after both actors had moved on, Stewart spoke candidly about that time in a profile for The New York Times Style Magazine. “People wanted me and Rob to be together so badly that our relationship was made into a product.”
Toxic Fandom: The Dark Side of Robsten Obsession
Some fans continued to believe the two were a couple as late as 2020. I dipped my toe into the Robsten (Robert-Kristen) conspiracy blogs, where people believe the two are actually secretly married with multiple children. Any mention of Stewart’s subsequent female partners is dismissed as a misrepresentation of female friendship, and any woman who dares to date Pattison gets met with a barrage of online harassment.
F.K.A Twigs and the Racist Backlash
No one got it worse than singer F.K.A Twigs, who dated him in 2014. “Whatever I did at that time, people would find pictures of monkeys and have me doing the same things as the monkeys,” she told Louis Theroux on his Grounded podcast. She even started to view herself from their racist lens whenever she saw pictures of herself, thinking that she needed to “hide this monkey-ness that I have, because otherwise people are gonna come for me about it.” In one ‘popular’ Robsten blog, they go so far as to refer to Twigs as “IT.” I tried to understand the source of the nickname, but honestly, I had an easier time understanding Qanon lore, and I didn’t need any more brain damage.
Twilight’s Failure to Embrace the Female Gaze
The biggest problem with these movies that isn’t tied to the original books, is that they fail to embrace or celebrate the female gaze. Bella is intentionally bland and vague because she’s a stand-in for the reader, which is fine. It is an easy way for audiences to insert themselves into a romantic fantasy where two buff dudes fight for her affection. But the men who made these movies, aside from the first one, seem ashamed of its subject matter as if a story for girls holds any less value than a boy with a magic wand.
Missed Opportunities in Visual Storytelling
There is no focus on eyes or touch, and the camera barely lingers on the male body, even though the werewolves all spend A LOT of time shirtless (no bare butts in sight, though). It’s all very safe, very PG, even though the men constantly talk about their ability and desire to harm Bella physically.
The Paradox of Twilight: A Billion Dollar Legacy
This is the paradox of Twilight. It’s a fantasy full of darkness that never quite manifests, safe for people who don’t think they can have a dark fantasy of their own. Vampires glitter in the sunlight, and werewolves never shed any blood – abuse isn’t actually abuse; it’s love. Twilight is the first half of Mulholland Drive before everything flips and the filth lurking behind the dumpster bursts to the surface. It’s a cheap Hollywood lie, selling bland passivity as desire and romance.
But none of these things matter, because no matter how ridiculous, harmful or cheap this franchise is, The Twilight Saga has made over 3.3 billion dollars since 2008. I don’t know what else to say.