In 2005, pop culture changed forever when Stephenie Meyer published Twilight.
Since then, The Twilight Saga has given us 5 movies, totalling over 10 hours of runtime.
We’re here to show signature events that happened in each film.
This goes without saying, perhaps, but massive spoilers ahead!
Since the release of the final film in the Twilight Saga, Kristen Stewart and Robert
Pattinson have each gone on to have celebrated careers, and they're not the only ones!
Stewart has transformed into an LGBTQ+ icon, and was most recently cast as the late Princess
Diana in Spencer.
Pattinson has been cast as Batman, one of the biggest roles in all of film.
In addition, each Twilight film contains at least one secondary cast member whose name
we definitely know today.
2008's Twilight was only the fifth credit for Anna Kendrick, who played Jessica Stanley
in all but the final film in the series.
Kendrick would go on to land starring roles in movies like Pitch Perfect, and Trolls.
Meanw hile, the arrival of the Volturi in New Moon brought the castings of Michael Sheen
as Aro, and Dakota Fanning as Jane, two celebrated performers whose careers stretched before,
and after the Twilight franchise.
When the villainous Victoria was recast in Eclipse, the part went to Bryce Dallas Howard
of Jurassic World fame.
The Breaking Dawn films brought in Mackenzie Foy as Renesmee, shortly before her award-winning
performance in Interstellar, and her starring role in The Nutcracker and the Four Realms.
Finally, Rami Malek was brought Robot, and an Academy Award for playing Freddie Mercury
in Bohemian Rhapsody.
Stephenie Meyer breaks from traditional vampire mythology in a major way when it comes to
her portrayal of supernatural powers.
While traditional vampires have a generally accepted set of extraordinary abilities, several
of Meyer's vampires have their own unique powers, most of which are beyond even the
most fevered dreams of Dracula.
"Say it!”
“Vampire"
Telepathy, emotion control, illusions, instant infliction of pain, supernatural luck, and
manipulation of the elements are all vampiric powers in Twilight.
And no power is more useful than the one Alice Cullen possesses: the ability to see into
the future.
Alice's visions drive the plot of the Twilight movies more directly than any romance, and
it's clear in every single film in the franchise.
Every Twilight narrative relies heavily on Alice's powers.
She sees Bella's old ballet studio in a vision in the first film, where Bella ultimately
confronts James.
In New Moon, she mistakes her vision of Bella's attempt at cliff-diving as her taking her
own life, which leads to Edward and Bella getting back together.
Her prediction to the Volturi that Bella will someday be a vampire is the only reason they
get out of Italy alive.
Alice spends pretty much all of Eclipse providing intelligence on Victoria's movements alongside
her army of newborn vampires.
Finally, the overarching plot of the Breaking Dawn films are entirely resolved thanks to
Alice's visions.
Everything comes to a head when she shares her vision with the Volturi leader, Aro, proving
why attacking the Cullens would end in his own destruction.
Remember that epic fight scene at the end of Breaking Dawn Part 2?
It's not a scene that occurs in the book.
Or at least, it doesn't go down on the page.
Breaking Dawn ends pretty calmly, actually.
The Cullens and their allies meet the Volturi on the field of battle, only for Alice to
show Aro a vision of the future in which the Cullens win the upcoming fight.
This leads to everyone deciding not to fight after all.
The movie actually shows Alice's vision to the viewer, but many believe this choice makes
the eventual reveal even more infuriating.
This is a trend in the Twilight films, putting fight scenes on screen that Meyer wasn't interested
in describing.
Remember Edward's battle with James in the ballet studio in the first movie?
In the book, the other Cullens defeat James offscreen.
Edward fighting the Volturi warrior Felix at the end of New Moon?
That never happens on the page.
Eclipse's climactic combat between the Cullens and Victoria's vampire army?
Book readers hear about it after the fact.
And the long-awaited clash between the Cullen vampires and the werewolves?
Definitely not in the books.
One of the coolest things about the Twilight movies upping their action content is the
increased screen time for the actors playing Jacob's pack of werewolves.
This is also noteworthy, because Twilight is one of the few popular sci-fi-fantasy franchises
to feature Indigenous people as major characters.
What’s more, it actually cast Indigenous actors who traditionally don't get a ton of
work in those roles.
Gil Birmingham appears as Jacob's father Billy in the first four films.
Tyson Houseman, Kiowa Gordon, Chaske Spencer, Alex Meraz, and Bronson Pelletier come in
as the first group of werewolves in New Moon.
Eclipse adds Julia Jones and Booboo Stewart as the Clearwater siblings.
Eclipse also includes a cameo from Byron Chief-Moon, an Aboriginal Canadian actor and dancer.
In fact, the only werewolf played by a non-Indigenous actor is Jacob, played by Taylor Lautner.
He claims he has some Indigenous ancestry somewhere in his family tree.
Make no mistake though, there are numerous legitimate criticisms to be made of Twilight
on the grounds of race.
Meyer's appropriation of the real-life Quileute tribe's culture, and her refusal to allow
original Twilight director, Catherine Hardwicke, to cast actors of color as the Cullens, are
just a few examples.
However, the films do deserve credit for not only featuring Indigenous characters, but
for following through and paying Indigenous people to play them in every single Twilight
movie.
The Twilight series has never been shy about Bella's characterization as an awkward young
woman.
But Bella has an even more defining trait that comes up in every film and it's established
in the first lines of the first film.
"I'd never given much thought to how I would die…But dying in the place of someone I
love seems like a good way to go."
This willingness to sacrifice herself usually on behalf of a loved one, is a running theme
in the movies.
That line in particular refers to Bella making the choice, in the first film, to ditch her
vampire protectors, and meet up with the vicious vampire James in order to save her mother.
In New Moon, her motives for risking her own life are less noble, as she's turned to dangerous
thrill-seeking, after being dumped by Edward.
But Bella’s back to putting others first by Eclipse, which sees her use her own blood
to draw the attention of vampires, Victoria and Riley, so that Edward can defeat them.
The Breaking Dawn films continue the theme, first when she chooses to carry her child
to term despite the havoc pregnancy wreaks on her body, and then when she prepares, alongside
the rest of her family, to face down the Volturi.
There's a reason, after all, that once Bella becomes a vampire, she gains the ability to
shield others from supernatural powers.
There's one thing that absolutely everybody knows about Twilight: The vampires sparkle.
Specifically, in Stephenie Meyer's universe, vampires avoid sunlight not because it will
burn or destroy them, but because it will reveal that they are actually glittering creatures.
It is one of Meyer's most original ideas, and one of the most distinctive elements of
Twilight's take on vampires.
So you'd think that the film adaptations would feature a decent number of shots in which
the vampires do, in fact, sparkle, right?
Wrong.
Edward reveals his true sparkly nature to Bella in the first film by stepping into the
sunlight, and lighting up like a Christmas tree.
After that, though, you'd be hard pressed to list the scenes in which this unique element
of Meyer's lore shows up.
Yup, not much sparkling, even when the characters are traveling by day in Italy, or standing
outdoors, in a shot that's certainly lit as though it takes place in direct sunlight.
Nothing.
Most noticeably is the second scene of Eclipse, in which Bella and Edward are relaxing in
a sunny meadow.
Keyword: Sunny.
With nobody around to see him, Edward's face sparkles with every move until, suddenly,
it stops almost as though the filmmakers forgot about it mid-scene.
Lack of sparkles aside, the Twilight films are actually pretty good at remaining faithful
to their source material.
Unfortunately, this means that the films pretty much directly import the romantic relationships
between the major characters, which are toxic at best and abusive at worst.
Edward being inappropriately possessive of Bella as well as downright cruel to her are
features of the first movie just like they are in the first book.
Even Meyer herself seems to realize this misstep.
Her 2020 Twilight companion novel, Midnight Sun, spends an excessive amount of time recontextualizing
Edward's behavior in the first book, in an attempt to make it not seem so problematic.
In New Moon, Edward leaves Bella dramatically, before getting her back via an even more dramatic
suicide attempt, only to become still more possessive in Eclipse.
Fortunately, by the time Breaking Dawn comes around, Edward has grown somewhat, and stops
behaving like a weird stalker.
But that gives Jacob Black enough time to step up and fill the creeper role.
He proceeds to obsess over Bella, to emotionally manipulate her, to forcibly kiss her, and
try to sabotage her relationship with Edward despite their marriage and her pregnancy.
In Breaking Dawn Part 2, Jacob finally gets over Bella, but only because he magically
falls in love with her newborn baby.
If that's not an unhealthy relationship, we don't know what is.
"It was Nessy who wanted me there.
Nessy?
You nicknamed my daughter after the Loch Ness Monster?"
The wigs used by the actors in these movies are both famously uncomfortable, and famously
noticeable.
Making fun of them is a favorite pastime of the fan base, and there is no Twilight film
that escapes their itchy, poorly blended tyranny.
Some instances of wig-related violence are higher profile than others.
Watch the films in order, and you'll see Jasper and Alice's hair undergo several sweeping
changes.
Jackson Rathbone wore wigs in both New Moon and Eclipse with radically diverse results.
Ashley Greene wore a different wig in every film until she got to keep the last one for
both parts of Breaking Dawn.
Robert Pattinson, in contrast, won the battle against wig-wearing until the final reshoots
of Breaking Dawn Part 2 when he was forced to wear something he called "Frankenstein's
Monster."
Kristen Stewart had surrendered to the wigs a couple movies earlier necessarily wearing
a wig for Eclipse after cutting her hair short to play Joan Jett in The Runaways.
Most notoriously, Taylor Lautner's artificially long hair in Twilight and New Moon was so
awful, both for him and for viewers, that the crew reportedly gave a standing ovation
when Lautner was finally okayed for short hair.
Here's the thing about the Twilight movies: They're not top notch cinema.
While Catherine Hardwicke's original film is at least trying to do something interesting
with colors and camerawork, it misses the mark for so many.
The rest of the movies are less ambitious, yet still manage about the same level of quality.
Are they film classics?
No.
But if there's one thing that's consistently good about the Twilight films, it's their
soundtracks, which introduced indie rock to a brand new generation.
The greatest artifact in this stellar history is the soundtrack to the 2008 movie, which
went double platinum and featured songs by Paramore, Iron & Wine, and, most famously,
Muse.
"It's time"
Their 2006 hit "Supermassive Black Hole" accompanies Twilight's legendary baseball scene, which
is one of the absolute best moments of the series.
Muse went on to contribute to New Moon and Eclipse leading to a strong association between
that band and the franchise.
The New Moon soundtrack also went platinum and features an even broader spread of artists
including Death Cab for Cutie, The Killers and Thom Yorke.The Eclipse soundtrack, which
went gold includes Florence The Machine, The Black Keys, and Vampire Weekend.
Hate on Twilight if you want, but do yourself a favor and listen to the soundtracks while
you're doing it.
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