Review
'Twilight' extended edition: Same vampires, more make out scenes
March 28, 2018
I’d like to extend my hand to the "Twilight" extended edition... and slap it.
Here is a fact that has been reiterated to the Student Voice staff multiple times this year: I watch the movie "Twilight," like, a lot. Not a lot as in every day of the year, but a lot as in multiple times a year. More than five. This is due to a variety of factors such as:
1. It’s an easily accessible movie for me.
2. All of my writing professors like to mock the low hanging fruit that is "Twilight."
3. I am aware that the movie is bad and for some reason find it to be the height of comedic evolution.
Stephenie Meyer is not the Davinci of books and she is not the DiCaprio of books; she’s more of the Dijon of books. This woman identified what a large part of the population enjoys, such as weird mustard and paranormal romance, and she sold it. She sold it, and she ignores those who do not enjoy her controversial mustard of a creation.
So the movie artfully does the same thing.
Disclaimer: I watched the extended edition on accident. This is important because I have a very limited amount of movie-watching time, and the longer the movie takes the later my reviews show up. Also, most of you haven’t seen the extended edition. There’s not much difference - just more music video moments and a longer makeout scene. I was okay with this.
Enter Bella Swan.
Bella Swan is a pale 16-something from Phoenix, Arizona. She has a personality, but it is buried under pages of script. Her personality is evident through the fact that she is holding a cactus in one hand and a spade in the other in the style of American Gothic. Cactus indicate good personalities.
Bella is holding this cactus and shovel because she is moving from Arizona, a land of the sun, to Washington, a land of legal marijuana and apparently vampires. Bella is very sad about this, but does not tell anyone. Bella may be depressed.
Bella is going to Forks, Washington, to stay with her dad, who is both a police chief and divorced. Her dad is like her, but better; they’re both socially awkward, but Charlie has friends and a mild personality. Charlie is played by a really cool dude who was in this one show on the sci fi channel. Charlie also looks like he smells of justice, but this is all you need to know about Charlie.
Charlie takes home his sad daughter, she is sad. He makes her happy, however, with his magical gift of a car from his best friend. His best friend is Billy Black; Billy Black is a Pretty Cool Dude ™. Billy Black also has a son named Jacob, and Jacob wants some of Bella. Everyone in this town wants some of Bella.
Bella uses the crappy car to drive to school, where she basically has to say, “Oi, bunch off mate,” to everyone. Mike Newton, Eric whatever, Tyler hitspeoplewithcars. All three boys in the school. Bella has lunch with her new mates and is all, “What a nice school, I hope I live a nice normal life with me mates and stuff.”
Enter the Cullens.
Who are hot.
Bella’s life is not normal.
The Cullens have the type of family tree that has no branches and are all paired up accordingly. Except one, the mega hot, mega brooding Edward. We know he is hot because he looks like he stuck his head out of a sunroof.
Jessica is all like, “That’s Edward, don’t waste your time.”
And Bella responds, “Wasn’t planning on it.”
But she totally was planning on it.
During biology Bella has to sit next to Edward, who is super not about her. This is okay though, because Edward has some super unsubtle angel imagery going on with a taxidermied owl in the background, no bueno.
Also, he stares at her in a way that makes parts of you clench.
Bella’s mum calls and is all like, “Are there any good looking hunks at your hunkschool—I mean high school.”
And Bella is like, “Mum there are so many and they all watch my butt.” Only instead she just mumbles something unintelligible that hints at her dismay with the Edward situation.
"Eyes On Fire" plays,. It's a good song. Edward Cullen is gone; it’s a good day.
Charlie is like, “Did you know there’s apparently a murdering murder beast in murder forest?”And Bella does not care, because Edward is gone and death would be a release.
Also, if you’ve watched the other movies, there is always a murdering beast in the woods.
Edward finally shows up and talks to her. Robert Pattinson had to put on an American accent for this movie, and it shows.
Bella informs Edward she hates cold and wet things. This upsets Edward, as he is all of the above.
The next day a big old murder van decides to big old murder Bella, but before Bella can experience death’s sweet release, Edward totally takes the bus for her and saves her. Despite this she still has to go to the hospital even though the other dude looks way worse. It’s okay, though, because at the hospital they drop some straight plot information conveniently within Bella’s hearing range. This is likely because she probably should have died from shock.
Less than forty-eight hours after her traumatic experience, she goes to the beach where a mystical Indian of bad writing legends waits to reveal the essential world building information to her. In the book she has to kind of flirt with him, but in the movie Jacob is desperate for attention.
Some makeout and sleep watching happens. It is a long makeout scene. Very long. Like I walked away because it felt long in an inappropriate way.
She learns Edward is a vampire through that and a few other moments, but no one really cared. She goes to the house of vampires and seems to be okay with it.
But then she goes out into the murder woods to play murder baseball and a gang of murderous murderers appear. One of these is James; James correctly realizes that Bella is a snack. She looks and smells like the snack of the day.
James is all like, “Girl are you a KitKat? Because I’m about to break you in half and let you linger a little too long on my teeth.” Which is a totally real line from this movie that was totally not added here for comedic effect. Totally.
Edward is upset that James realizes the crunch of this girl and is like, “We gotta take her away.” So they straight up hide her in Arizona. The place where she is from. Where everything about her is indicated to be from. Where, like, a random person on the streets of Forks would say she is from before saying her name. James finds her.
He straight up crunches her spine. And starts rag-dolling her.
Edward is #upset and shows up, immediately shoving her. I put on my glasses to see if the fight scene was extended. Also because I like fighting. It was not. The extended version of this movie is worse.
Bella recovers and the movie shows her in the hospital, which I think is the main difference between these movies. She spends like a hot minute there before Edward decides she has to go to the prom and kidnaps her for the event.
Also, her leg is broke.
In a moment that defined my childhood notions of romance, Bella and Edward dance together alone in a gazebo; she hobbles helplessly as he leads. Looking back on it, she is either hopelessly fogged from pain pills at this moment or in immense agony, but I’m not a doctor.
As I watch them sway back and forth and discuss how much they love each other, I almost turn off the movie, but then this super fine lady comes on screen.
She is Victoria, who was James’s official girlfriend. She looks irritated. She didn’t have enough screen time for you to really know, but she is evil and very mad. She stands there in her delicate dress, watching others enjoying life; much like me at my high school proms.
The credits roll.
The extended version is about 40 minutes longer than the normal, and if I had to guess, twenty of those went to straight makeout scenes. This would normally make a movie great except, you know, I’m an adult woman who came for fighting.
So why is this movie the greatest movie ever? Why do I keep coming back? It is a gem.
Every single moment of awkward dialog, every second of fake American accents; this is the love of my life.
I think the extended edition is more comedic than the original, but not intentionally.
I give it a five minutes of fighting out of two hours and two minutes of movie… or a 7/10.