S01E07 — Twilight
SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for The Twilight Saga, including all four books, all five movies, and Stephenie Meyer’s supplementary books Midnight Sun and Life and Death.
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Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.
Our family all hate-watches The Twilight Saga every year, but even we must admit that it offers *something* to the world of entertainment. We discuss the most prominent differences from the first book, Twilight, to the titular film.
Listen closely, and you’ll also get to hear several Easter eggs about what happened during the movie’s filming as well as our apologies (sort of) to Stephenie Meyer for how much we pick on her work.
Don’ t miss our other episodes from The Twilight Saga!
Oh, and we wanted to give a nod to Lindsay Ellis and her thought-provoking take on why the early 2000s was unnecessarily harsh to Stephenie Meyer. We all watched this video and highly recommend you take a look, too.
Final Verdicts
If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)
Twilight is a film often hated for its amateurish direction and editing, and honestly… we have to agree. It’s not like the book is all that top-notch, either, but in general, we thought the story was more enjoyable in book form than the movie with its many issues.
Tim: The film is better (but only because it’s over faster)
Donna: The book is better
Rebekah: The book is better
Josiah: The book is better
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Full Episode Transcript
Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.
[00:00:00] Donna: I have died every day waiting for you. Edward, please bite me now so I can bore you for a thousand years. And bore you for a thousand more.
[00:00:25] Rebekah: I like how good it sounds.
[00:00:26] Josiah: Mother is crying, mother is tearing up.
[00:00:30] Rebekah: Mom, you can’t cry. Those aren’t the real lyrics. That’s not the point of what we’re doing. It’s supposed to be funny. Why are you crying?
[00:00:37] Donna: I’m not, I’m doing really well.
[00:00:57] Rebekah: Welcome to The Book is Better. We are a clean podcast where a family of four reviews book to film adaptations. And today, we are covering Twilight. So this episode is going to have spoilers. Spoiler alert, there will be spoilers for the entire Twilight series, including Midnight Sun, all of the other Twilight books, all of the movies, and maybe a little bit of life and death as well.
If you know what I’m talking about, we’ll get into that a little later to warn you or not warn you. I don’t know. We’re not gonna be just hating on Bella or Stephanie Meyer or Twilight the whole time. Although Josiah’s perspective on his team is a little interesting, but I think we’ll have a good time with it anyway.
So as we introduce ourselves today, my name is Rebekah and we’re gonna share fun facts about ourselves. Today’s fun fact is, what is a book Or book series that you wish had been adapted to film or maybe, good TV, but has not been yet. So I had a couple of answers for this, and I really hope that I’m not stealing anyone else’s, but I am currently listening to the Heart Striker series.
But you’re re listening. I am re listening for like the fourth time. So the first book in the series is Nice Dragons Finish Last. The author is Rachel Aaron and it is one of those book series that I think would be hard to adapt. You’d have to change a lot about some magic systems that they use and stuff like that.
But I think it would be such a fun, probably TV series, I don’t know if a movie series would be the best, but. That is mine, that I, it’s like something I want to see adapted. Probably
[00:02:34] Tim: mine would be the Memory Man series by David Baldacci. It’s about a man who has an accident initially when he’s in high school as a quarterback, and he dies, and as a consequence of this, he he remembers things.
He has a, an extremely good memory and he can’t get away from it, and he eventually, he becomes a police officer, and eventually a detective, but it’s a really interesting series. The dynamic because he, at one point, is accused of killing his wife and daughter whom he loved very much in his first case is to find out who it actually was.
And
[00:03:17] Rebekah: What is
[00:03:18] Tim: your name? Oh, sorry. My name is Tim. I’m the dad of these two wonderful people and the husband of Donna. Aww.
[00:03:30] Rebekah: I should probably mention that I am the daughter slash sister of the family. Sorry, I forgot that too. Man, we’re just killing it today. We’re so good at this. We are experienced podcasters.
[00:03:42] Donna: I’m Mom, Donna, and my pick would be Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir. He wrote The Martian, and this is another work of his that’s also science fiction. He works in a lot of techie facts, if you like that kind of writing. But he does it in a way that you don’t get lost. You don’t feel stupid. But the storyline about the guy who ends up on this project to save the earth I won’t go into more detail because I don’t want to spoil it.
But Andy Weir is masterful in this storyline. If you liked The Martian, I think you’ll love this. It reads along with the same the same tempo, the same kind of feel of the
[00:04:40] Rebekah: book. It’s so good. It is genuinely one of the standalone books that I have could not put down. I got through Part of chapter one, and we were literally on vacation and I was listening to the audio book.
I literally had a headphone in at dinner with our family at one point because I could not stop the story. It was so good.
[00:04:58] Donna: It’s got those pieces where you’re laughing, you’re concerned, and then there’s parts where you’re just weeping and it’s a good thing. Like it’s a good experience. Yeah. That would be
[00:05:15] Josiah: mine.
I am Josiah, the hermano slash eho of the family. And I, goodness gracious, I should read more, but if I had to say which book or book series we wish has been adapted to film, I could make a joke. That I wish that the Game of Thrones books were adapted to film, but better. I could also make a joke that I wish that the heirs of history were adapted to film, which is my recently published book series.
Not at all self serving. Not at all self shameless plug or anything like
[00:05:59] Donna: that. It is a shameless plug. It’s amazing.
[00:06:04] Josiah: Did you know that Catcher in the Rye does not have a book, or a movie adaptation. Dang. One of the most famous books ever. But I think that some of the… It’s so nerdy of me, but I think some Thrones supplementary material that isn’t already being covered in the prequel, House of the Dragon.
Would make for some good content, but who knows? I think that Hollywood has a stranglehold over the common folks imaginations that if a movie adaptation is made out of it, then it’s a great book, then it’s legit, then it’s it has legitimacy, but… Some things just want to be books. I don’t know.
[00:06:49] Rebekah: Sure. I also had a backup answer that was really my other real answer, but I thought that one of you would use it. Red Rising. I’m so sick of waiting for the Red Rising movie slash television show. It is literally. OK, I was thinking
[00:07:03] Josiah: of saying that, but I haven’t actually read them yet. I’ve just heard about you.
[00:07:07] Rebekah: OK, dear listener, I’m going to give you some. You’re listening to my podcast. Obviously, you want to hear my advice. Listen to the Red Rising series and listen to it on Audible. Like the reader is so good. Like this is one that I would, you can buy the physical books, but I’m saying even if you read physical books, listen to the audio book, it is such a good experience.
And the first trilogy is. Excellent. And also, they’ve been talking about making it into a television show for a long time. Okay. But I have an update. Project Hail Mary is being made into a movie starring Ryan
[00:07:43] Josiah: Gosling. Oh, you’re so excited. Mom Donna does not look as excited or is she so excited she’s about to
[00:07:52] Donna: cry?
I’m trying not to cry.
[00:07:57] Josiah: Oh my. I see.
It’s
[00:07:58] Rebekah: in development, but there was a, it’s been in development since 2020, but there’s an update in 2023 that they talked about it and it is still happening,
[00:08:06] Josiah: what could have slowed down development in 2020?
[00:08:08] Rebekah: I don’t know, nothing of interest happened, I don’t think that would have affected anything.
All right. So what are we doing
[00:08:15] Josiah: today? Twilight and Midnight Sun? We
[00:08:17] Rebekah: are. So this one’s obviously a little weird because Twilight was the original book that was adapted into a film. Midnight Sun was not an adaptation. It was written after I think the film came out, but it wasn’t, obviously it wasn’t used for the film.
But let’s talk about Twilight. So I’m going to give us a quick. plot rundown, and then we’ll talk about the differences between book and movie and just dive right in. Story of Twilight is about Bella Swan. She’s a bookish, quiet high school junior, moves from Phoenix, Arizona to Forks, Washington.
In the rainiest city in the United States, Bella quickly develops an eye for Edward Cullen, a gorgeous, pale boy who’s a member of a freakishly beautiful family in town. She makes many friends, settles into life with her father, Charlie, and her childhood friend, Jacob. Bella cannot stop fixating on Edward, and who can blame her because He is hot stuff, and he’s very mysterious, and also he acted like he was gonna murder her the first time they met, which, of course, is totally normal and makes you want to love somebody.
So the two fall in love during a series of traumatic events. No,
[00:09:21] Josiah: he was gonna vomit the first time they met.
[00:09:24] Rebekah: Yeah, that’s true. The two fall in love during a series of traumatic events during which Bella discovers that Edward and his family are vampires. They are sparkly vampires, in fact. As the pair finally begin to feel comfortable together, the Cullens and Bella encounter a trio of nomadic vampires and their leader, James, ends up trying to hunt Bella down and kill her.
Which is like the climax of the story. He does end up biting her and breaking at least one limb. Edward and his family are able to save Bella and not let her turn into a vampire. But their story concludes at the prom. Bella makes it clear to Edward that she wants to become a vampire, even though he’s really against the idea.
And the book ends. And in the film, there’s also this side plot going on throughout that. There are like people dying in the area because as you find out that trio of vampires they met had been like feeding in their local area. So that’s movie only, but let’s talk about differences.
[00:10:27] Josiah: Oh goodness. As you’ll know, that’s probably the shortest plot summary we’ve had in the entire podcast
[00:10:34] Rebekah: series so far.
I rewrote it four times.
[00:10:38] Josiah: I’m just thinking about how gossamer thin the plot is already, which was not really rectified too much between book and movie. But I do think the movie made a couple improvements to the story, including foreshadowing James and Victoria throughout the beginning, throughout the middle of the film with animal attacks and.
The poor guy, what’s his name? Waylon? Waylon, yeah. Waylon. The Santa Claus guy. Him, he, him dying to James and Victoria and police chief Charlie thinking it’s like a bear or a wolf or something. So
[00:11:18] Rebekah: I would agree that was like a good change. It foreshadowed better that there were like other vampires in the area and stuff like that.
My one problem is going
[00:11:26] Josiah: to be the climax
[00:11:27] Rebekah: of the story. Yeah, for sure. But my one problem with foreshadowing it in that way specifically is that’s also a subplot in literally the second and third stories that like suddenly there are mysterious killings that are just like not mysterious because it’s vampires.
And it is a little weak that like they used the same thing. I think it could have been done a little bit differently, I, it was a much better introduction to that part.
[00:11:54] Josiah: I think of the Harry Potter books where every book has this unique, engaging mystery. And then the solution to the mystery is some twist at the end with a villain or someone you thought was a villain, but it’s a good guy.
I Feel like maybe I’ve been spoiled. We’ve been spoiled by Harry Potter’s better writing in the books. Fair. To see, oh yeah, we can have a different mystery every book. And Stephanie Meyer did not. That’s, I think that honestly she didn’t care about that. She wanted to tell the story about Edward and Bella and the other parts of the story seemed very second or third rate of importance to her.
[00:12:38] Donna: If I can throw some trivia in to the differences, she had a specific classic novel in mind for each of the Twilight books. Oh yeah, I didn’t know this before. Which I thought was interesting. It doesn’t follow just one trope or one writing.
It’s uh, Romeo and Juliet.
[00:13:01] Tim: The first book was based, or was inspired by Pride and Prejudice. So sorry. By Jane Austen.
[00:13:08] Donna: I got them out of order.
[00:13:09] Josiah: Oh, the one
[00:13:10] Donna: by Jane Austen. Pride and Prejudice was Twilight. New Moon was Romeo and Juliet. Eclipse was Wuthering Heights. And if our friend Travis happens to listen to this, he may throw his phone at that because he hates Wuthering Heights.
And I’ve actually never read it. And he lets everyone know it. And he lets everyone know
[00:13:32] Rebekah: it. He also hates Twilight,
[00:13:34] Donna: oh, that’s true. He may not have a problem. And then Breaking Dawn was based on The Merchant of Venice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. And she said they just came to her and that’s what she wanted to do and, yeah, took off
[00:13:53] Josiah: with it.
I’m failing to, this is not about Twilight, this is about Breaking Dawn, but I’m failing to remember in Midsummer Night’s Dream and March into Venice. Where a teenage werewolf falls in love with a baby.
[00:14:05] Rebekah: Wow, we’ll get into that in the third episode of this series, of this like mini series on the podcast for sure.
Oh goodness gracious. Speaking of the werewolf though, let’s talk about Jacob’s differences in the first film. Cause He appears
[00:14:18] Josiah: more in the film, doesn’t he, than in the book? Yeah, I think so.
[00:14:20] Rebekah: Taylor Lautner was like a part of the whole craze at the beginning when they were casting everyone. And so I think that they worked him into the script earlier, partly you said foreshadowing stuff is helpful because he just he comes in much later in the book, but in the movie, there’s a scene near the beginning. It’s like literally in the first six minutes. I wrote this down where Jacob and his dad, Billy are like meeting Charlie Bella’s father. At their house and they show her the truck that Charlie bought, et cetera, et cetera.
And so in the book, Jacob is not actually in until the group of teenagers visit La Push. And that’s where the Bella first. Yeah, the beach. And so that’s where Bella first has like discovers the vampire thing.
[00:15:10] Josiah: And in the book, Jacob says, does he say vampire? He but in the movie, he
[00:15:15] Rebekah: doesn’t know. He calls them blood drinkers.
And then he says the word vampire. In the book, I think he does say the word vampire after saying blood drinkers. But in the movie, he doesn’t use the word vampire. They also,
[00:15:27] Donna: and he uses like cold ones when he’s talking about their histories and their, the myths, he thinks at least in the first book.
I thought it was a cool thing to go the long hair and then later on in, in subsequent books when he changes, we go the short hair. I thought there were a lot of visual things they did.
[00:15:51] Rebekah: I think that what you’re pointing out is one of the differences that I noticed reading back. Was that number one?
Jacob is supposed to be really tall when she first meets him and he continues to get really much taller So I did think it was interesting that they chose Taylor Lautner who is not tall he’s barely taller than Bella and there were a couple of other characters that Stephanie Meyer describes in the books as being Very different stature, so like Jessica and Alice are both supposed to be incredibly short women as well, so I thought that was interesting because if you look at the movies everybody’s pretty much the same height except Edward and Emma and Jasper are notably taller, which I thought was just a fascinating choice.
[00:16:35] Josiah: There’s something similar to the Hunger Games books that we were talking about is that when you make a Hollywood movie, everyone has to be an attractive Hollywood actor. And so you’re not going to get. Oh, yeah, Bella’s so much prettier than everyone else. No actually, I guess a better example is that, honestly, Oh, that’s another good example.
I was gonna say, honestly, take any of Bella’s guy friends from high school, put them in different makeup, I think that any of them could have played Edward.
[00:17:10] Rebekah: Maybe not the guy that played Eric. They could have
[00:17:12] Josiah: pulled it off. I think that he could have been a quirky little Edward. Considering what you just
[00:17:19] Donna: said, what do you think about the fact that they initially wanted Henry Cavill to play Edward, but by the time they got through several years of production talks and were ready, He was 25, and they said no, and so then they said would he play Carlisle?
And he said he was already committed to another film,
[00:17:41] Josiah: and he couldn’t do it. He would have made a pretty good Carlisle. I
[00:17:46] Donna: couldn’t see Edward, even younger, somehow, in my head,
[00:17:50] Tim: I don’t see. When we talked about, the actors and everything being beautiful people, Rosalie is supposed to be so enormously…
Beyond belief, beautiful, that nobody could resist her. And,
[00:18:05] Josiah: in the film. Does she crack the top three in the
[00:18:08] Tim: film? In the film she’s an attractive
[00:18:10] Josiah: woman.
[00:18:12] Rebekah: And it’s weird, it’s also weird to me just choose a hot blonde. I loved the actress, but if you see the actress with her natural brown hair, she’s drop dead gorgeous.
In the film, she looked weird because she’s a brunette who has dyed her hair, in the first couple of movies, blonde, and it doesn’t, she doesn’t look, she just doesn’t have that overwhelming quality, which I think is one of the issues with a lot of adaptations. Again, you said we already talked about it, but it is an interesting thought process.
Most of
[00:18:43] Donna: them wore hairpieces, Bella hairpiece, Rosalie started with dye, and just Jennifer Lawrence, they had to move to hair, to wigs because They
[00:18:55] Rebekah: were destroying her hair. Let’s talk timeline because they did change the timeline of the first book and I will say unlike a lot of adaptations or at least some, Stephanie Meyer was very involved in all of the changes and all of the screenplay stuff.
So she approved. Essentially everything that was changed sometimes obviously when the writer is not as involved, that’s a lot different, but they changed the timeline of the first book. So in the book, Bella actually moves to Forks in January and in the film, it starts out by saying it’s March, middle of.
Second semester or whatever. In the book, there are also two dances, like the first dance that all of the drama happens before she starts dating Edward is like the girl’s choice. And then there’s a prom that happens later. And that becomes an awkward question for everyone. I think that simplifying the timeline was actually a really good choice because you have one dance, you have.
Like kind of one clear stream of thought. They also cut out a month of time, essentially, where Edward saves Bella from getting hit by Tyler’s van, Josiah, and after that, in the book, there’s like a month that goes by where Edward just ignores her and is like trying to not be her friend or whatever.
And in the movie, it basically is like a couple of days or a day go by, and then… They just decide to be friends,
[00:20:20] Josiah: I think that makes sense as far as book slash a movie adaptation where in the book, it’s so easy and so natural and so expected by the reader to move time quickly like that, whereas.
With film, you can use montage, but I think the suspense is maintained better when you can have a quicker pace, quicker timeline. Makes sense.
[00:20:49] Tim: Yeah um, in the book, Bella is a lot more domestic. She cooks a lot of meals and things like that, uses grandma’s recipes, but in the movie, she and Charlie eat at the diner most of the times that you see them eating.
So that’s that was one of the
[00:21:07] Josiah: differences because
[00:21:09] Tim: it, having her cook and things like that helps to helps to expand the thought that She’s selfless because she’s always trying to help other people and she’s always taking the roles of serving other people so they don’t have to and you miss that in the book or in the movie rather and She’s a little more selfish In the movie, because there aren’t those times, you don’t see those kinds of things.
[00:21:42] Josiah: I will say reading the book for the first time recently, I was so pleasantly surprised at the beginning of the book, because I was trying to go in with a blank slate, trying to go in with good faith, trying to judge it without having the critiques of the movie in my head. And before Bella meets Edward, I thought that Bella was a really nice person.
A really relatable person with some flaws, but the thing that stood out to me was that every time she had a negative thought, like Oh goodness, I’m never gonna see the sun again. Then she would have a positive thought, and she’d be like at least I won’t get sunburned. That probably wasn’t what she said, but every time she had these like little negative viewpoints, she would Counterbalance it with a positive and she did that four times in the first couple chapters and it really made me Like her as a character be like, okay.
Yeah, a lot of kids have moved When in the middle of a year, when parents do something, and a lot of people are children of divorce, and so it’s just, she’s very relatable, and that somewhat goes out the window whenever she meets Edward, but uh, before she meets Edward, I thought that she was surprisingly likable, and more likable than in the film.
[00:23:06] Rebekah: Let’s also talk about the fact that while Midnight Sun is not The book adapted. We did read it. I think most of us read it for like preparing for this. There was so much more depth even that you hear. So for those of you who are listening who have never heard of Midnight Sun or don’t know what I’m talking about, Midnight Sun is a book that Stephanie Meyer wrote that is basically the story of the first Twilight novel, but it’s all from Edward’s first person perspective.
So you get to hear a lot of how he, saw things, thoughts he heard other people have, his experience. During the times when Bella in the book, in the original Twilight book, just doesn’t know what he’s thinking, whatever. So in Midnight Sun, I, oh, I will say Edward is so much more whiny in that book than I thought he came off in the other book, but there were so much more pieces to Bella that offered this like depth to her character.
And like you said, made her more likable to me. So he even observed how. This is stuff she never even mentions, but like he observes all these times where like she helped students in classes that were struggling or people that she saw that didn’t have friends or bringing them things. And so she’s like this incredibly generous person, very giving, very servant hearted and that’s one of the things that he keeps seeing that makes him not be able to avoid her anymore because he starts developing affection for her, which is also like interesting because When we get to the end of the book when you meet Renee for the first time in person, Edward in Midnight Sun talks about the fact that Renee seems to have this power that he can like sense because he’s a vampire, where he can hear her thoughts and before she ever states them out loud, when she’s in the room with someone, everyone in the room is drawn to answer her needs.
Like they immediately want to come and help her. And so you get this sense that like Bella actually did develop this sense of servant heartedness throughout being raised by her mom who without, like by no fault of her own and not on purpose, literally made her want to be helpful. I wouldn’t
[00:25:17] Josiah: take all the onus off of her.
That’s
[00:25:19] Tim: an interesting character development. To leave out of the movie that she’s so helpful because otherwise she gets really whiny really quickly and You do feel like no hobbies, right? She doesn’t do anything. She seems depressed most of the time and it’s strange that you wouldn’t include that because that’s that makes her character a lot deeper that.
Yeah. Yeah.
[00:25:46] Donna: They also could have had, even just a few mentions of Renee, more than just saying, oh she’s moving with Phil, and they established that at the beginning, and why Bella comes to Forks. But you do see that in the book, Renee is a very, she’s needy. Bella had to help her and you get the little scene in the movie where she calls her and she says, Are you calling from a payphone?
And Renee’s I didn’t lose the phone. It walked away. It went away. You get little nod to it,
[00:26:26] Josiah: but like you said it Charlie were my favorite characters Yeah, and
[00:26:30] Donna: Charlie is amazing to me in the book and he’s amazing in the movie the casting of him Was spot on To what I got from
[00:26:41] Josiah: him out of the book Who do you think was the best actor in the first movie?
[00:26:47] Rebekah: Actor? Oh, probably the guy that played Charlie, right? Yeah, I
[00:26:51] Josiah: think it was Charlie.
[00:26:53] Tim: Yeah, I think probably.
[00:26:55] Josiah: He’s so real. He’s so down to earth in the middle of a very surreal blue filter fantasy. And he’s just this real guy.
[00:27:06] Donna: But a good secondary character, I thought Anna Kendrick. anD the
[00:27:11] Rebekah: kids she’s amazing
[00:27:12] Donna: that she made friends with, I thought they were decent.
I liked what they did. They meshed well together. I thought they had a better chemistry as a group as better than Edward and his family. Yeah. When you first get to
[00:27:28] Josiah: see them because they’re
[00:27:29] Rebekah: real people. Yeah, they seem more real.
[00:27:33] Donna: The Cullens do move into a better chemistry, I think, even through the first movie, I feel more comfortable with them.
And then I think that improves as we go to other movies,
[00:27:43] Tim: but You lose one of the characters from the
[00:27:46] Rebekah: book. Yeah, there’s a third character, Lauren. Lauren, that’s what it is. They take out Lauren. And she’s the one that ends up being really rude to Bella. She makes a lot of rude comments. They combine Jessica and Lauren, and Lau Like instead of Lauren being a character, Jessica has some moments where she’s like a little more rude and stuff like that.
I do think that the students, honestly, all of them were portrayed almost identically to how they were in the books. Appearance aside, like Eric was supposed to be covered in pimples, but stuff like that, I think was so good. Mike was exactly that kind of like awkward, protective. He wants to be Bella’s boyfriend, but no, she’s not into it.
And like Jessica, was, more outgoing and wants to be the center of attention. She’s annoyed that Bella gets Edward’s attention. Angela was very docile and sweet and kind. They also the only other one I will say they cut out Ben. Which one’s Ben? Angela goes to the dance, the first dance in the book with Eric, but they’re only ever friends.
Ben is another member of the friend group that Angela ends up getting in a serious relationship with over the course of the series. So they cut that completely from all the movies, which I thought was.
[00:28:57] Josiah: Why would you cut out a friend who’s mean to Bella if that makes us feel worse for, if that makes us feel for Bella?
You’re just taking out all these things from the movie that make us relate to Bella, that make her a flawed person. It’s already in the book, and I hate it, that Everyone asks her to prom. Yeah, oh my goodness. That’s when the book lost me is Because I liked Bella and I was like, okay. Okay.
I’m following her. I’m following her Then when everyone asked her to prom, I just couldn’t it took me out of it. I couldn’t help but think okay, Stephanie Meyer You just want You’re writing a fantasy about how every guy wanted to ask you how every, every girl wants every guy to ask them to prom or something like that.
And that took me out of it because I want Bella to be she was towards being grounded, but then it just keeps giving her all of these, everyone fawns all over her. It
[00:30:01] Tim: is interesting how they. How they seem to drop the things that make Bella an even more broad and likable person from the book to the movie.
The movie almost seems to want her to be more two dimensional, to be less complicated and less deep.
[00:30:25] Rebekah: She was my least favorite character in the movies, and I do think I’ve seen Kristen Stewart act in other things where she had a lot of depth and was able to play, Like much more interesting characters.
I do think that this was a failure of whether it was writing or direction or whatever I think it was a failure in the adaptation to take out like you said everything that makes her likeable Relatable she just seems like a painfully shy person Who’s very plain looking who I think they made her look as plain as they could so that they could have the transformation later on, which is obviously important, but she’s plain looking, but then people treat her like she’s some, gorgeous babe and instead of being sweet or particularly bookish and being interested in her novels and whatever else, It’s nope, she’s just someone who is completely vanilla in every way.
Who
[00:31:18] Josiah: can’t use ketchup bottles.
[00:31:21] Tim: Yes, true. Speaking of the high tech of the ketchup bottle. Yeah. That she can’t use. There, it is interesting that just in, I believe, was it four, four or five years after, after the first book? Was written the first movie came out. It was 2008.
[00:31:43] Rebekah: It was 2005 to 2008. Oh,
[00:31:45] Josiah: yeah, just three years.
And I do think there was, I do think that was a big difference. In 2005, every high school student did not have a cell phone. And in 2008, every high schooler might have had a cell phone. That is
[00:31:58] Tim: an amazing thing to me that just shows the difference. Because what Meyer was writing was current.
And then what they were doing in the movie was current. And so there’s so much difference in the tech. Cell phones. And I do find it interesting, even in the movie, though, that we’re still not in the place where we are today because they ask a couple of questions, what was this or that, and I can’t remember the specific question, but I thought, okay, if it was today, somebody, by the time you ask, finish the question, would have already Googled it.
Yeah. To find the answer. So the internet is different than mobile phones, stuff like that,
[00:32:38] Rebekah: computers. And that was a whole thread through the four books because Bella not having a phone was like a big point of contention because in the fourth book, finally, Edward makes her like gives her a cell phone and she’s like very annoyed.
But like before then she emails Renee back and forth and they call on landlines. That’s how they communicate because when Meyer wrote this, obviously it was published in Oh five, but she wrote it. In the early 2000s, which is I remember all that moving from my middle school to high school years was when all that was going on.
But OK, here’s a
[00:33:12] Josiah: change that surprised me. I thought this is so silly. It must be. In the book, but it’s not. Edward never calls Bella spider monkey in the book. No, because
[00:33:24] Donna: that’s stupid. That’s a
[00:33:26] Josiah: stupid thing. Rosalie does not refer to Emmett as my monkey man in the book. I thought surely at least one of the monkey references is from the book.
But no. I don’t know if it was Stephanie Meyer years later, or if the director or someone just liked monkeys, I don’t know, but that, those were two weird lines that I thought, okay I guess they’re probably in the book and they weren’t.
[00:33:50] Rebekah: This is an audio podcast, so you can’t hear me rolling my eyes, but you might be able to.
I, it was like one of those, okay, do you ever like notice lines in movies or books? where someone significantly older is trying to talk like a teenager talks, and it sounds so disingenuous. That is what it made me think of was like. I think you were trying to make it sound like something cute that a teenager would say, but it’s if I started saying all of the weird, like things that the Gen Z, like I’ve been learning Gen Z slang because of my kids.
And so I try to learn what they mean, but it’s as if I was using all those words. No one actually thought that like Edward was like genuinely calling her a spider monkey. This man is 109 or something years old.
[00:34:40] Donna: He’s 109. And still holds to values and stuff from when he was originally 17, which is a huge trope as we go on that about drives Bella crazy because he’s living in the past, which I personally was glad she wrote it that way, not gonna blame him.
[00:35:01] Rebekah: I apologize, I just, for the rules lawyers in the room, or not in the room, but like listening, he was 104 when they started the first Twilight book, I apologize. But
[00:35:12] Donna: the one, one change that I don’t understand why they put in the movie, it was a chunk of time, I don’t know, you’ll have to tell me how long the scene, you think the scene was.
But they could have used it for other stuff. What was the field trip? Yeah, they added that. What was the point of the field trip? What was the point of the compost tea discussion? Why? They could have done so many other, they could have done funny stuff, they could have done, Anything. Probably
[00:35:47] Josiah: a change of scenery from the school since we are in a visual medium.
But to make it com, to make it completely for the visual instead of plot, I think they, they could have done better with that change.
[00:36:01] Rebekah: I have a theory. I think that it was done partly, I mean I think all of what you said is probably right as well. I think one of the reasons they did it that way was also to introduce this feeling of like levity and laughter and The passage of time in the set, like the set of people that are just humans that age normally all that stuff to make it feel compared to this very serious gravitas of what the vampires live in where their lives are so like, it’s just so different.
There’s not a lot of levity. There’s not a lot of I think it was meant to make the vampire thing feel like really serious and important and like, All that kind of stuff and then you have that compared to the humans who just joke around and laugh a lot and all that stuff. In Midnight
[00:36:51] Tim: Sun, Edward talks about the fact that going to high school is just this horrible thing.
This is the time he really wishes he could sleep and this is purgatory, going to school. So yeah, those kinds of details. I also from midnight son, there are a couple things you find out in Edward’s version that there would be attacker in Port Angeles gets arrested because he gets Carlisle to actually take the guy to another place and love that, basically help him get arrested.
[00:37:24] Rebekah: And Edward doesn’t tell Bella because he doesn’t wanna scare her. by knowing that the guy who was going to attack her was like a genuine murderer.
[00:37:33] Tim: And some other things about with midnight sun, you get a lot more of the background detail of Carlisle and Esme and Rosalie. And you find out a lot about his family that you don’t get in the movie version or in the original book.
[00:37:53] Rebekah: And I will say Midnight Sun for comparison, cause we did, we reviewed Oppenheimer recently. It is the same length as the Oppenheimer audio book. It is a freaking huge book. And it’s funny that it’s so big considering that like a lot of the scenes you already know what’s happening because you read the first book.
Yeah. But. While I got a little, I think it was a little long, I got a little annoyed with his whininess by the end of it, but I do think it was a really interesting read for the, all of these different little details. Another thing that you get in Midnight Sun that’s never in the movie, which I don’t think would have fit in the movie.
I think this was the right choice, even if Meyer had it in her head in Midnight Sun, you learn about what happens. After Bella essentially passes out at the end of the ballet studio scene because she sleeps for three days or something. And so you find out all of this other stuff, they, all of their run from James and stuff, which I thought was a really interesting story.
[00:38:52] Tim: I listened to to a couple of YouTubers. One was a two hour and 40 minute rant on why Edward was the worst because he was reviewing Midnight Sun. And I listened to another lady, a young woman reviewing as well. And she said it was so wonderful to have this. This was the greatest thing to, to be able to listen to it.
And another one I listened to. Just thought that that it was strange that Meyer was so prudish in all of the things that she does. And that has something to do with the fact that she is a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. And she didn’t want it to be R rated.
She didn’t want it to have to have a lot of sexual content and things like that. I find all that interesting and other people’s views of this some people look at this whole series and say, Oh, it’s, it was terrible. It was awful, but it was extremely popular. And then other people say they’re It’s come back around and some people questioned whether or not it was good for women and Meyer said she considered it a feminist book because the women in the book always make their decisions.
They are, they determine. their own life and their outcome. You’re interesting.
[00:40:17] Rebekah: It’s also, I watched a video that Josiah sent us about the flack that Twilight and Stefanie Meyer got for awhile, and we’ll talk about that at a little bit, I think. But, the part that you said her being a member of that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints because of that she wrote a book that was like very clean in other ways that like it was a steamy romance, but not in the not in a sexual way.
Apparently there was like this whole thing where the person who wrote Fifty Shades of Gray. Not word for word, but used a bunch of things and made them like hyper sexualized and stuff like that. And there was a clip of an interview in that video we watched that was like, Stephanie Meyer was like, I wish that Bella and Edward story hadn’t been used in that way.
What am I going to do about it? It was interesting.
[00:41:07] Tim: One per one person I listened to about that particular thing said that actually the Fifty Shades of Grey was initially fan fiction of the Twilight story. Oh gosh. And that’s how they started it. And in order to make it an independent thing later, after it got a little more popular and they wanted to release it as a book, they took out all the references to forks and vampires and different things like that, that would mark it as fanfiction connected to this other story.
And you mean copyright infringement. Yeah, that would have been, that would have been that kind of stuff. But you’ve got a lot of fan fiction out there. Yeah. And I find that interesting, but apparently, yeah, Fifty Shades of Grey, at least purportedly, has has a connection to that, which is very strange.
[00:42:04] Donna: As we’ve, through the last few things, it dawned on me what they could have used in place of that field trip scene. When we meet James, Victoria, and Laurent in the meadow, there’s this great storyline in the book where he sees Alice first and realizes he knows her. And so then you get into Alice’s story.
And I think it’s fleshed out more in Midnight Sun, but he met her, she was in an institution. And they make remarks in the books how Alice doesn’t remember being human. It’s a very interesting backstory of how Alice is completely different from the rest of them. She doesn’t remember being human. Later on, Jasper gets a whole scene.
Talking about him being the military man, whatever his accent
[00:43:09] Rebekah: is. I did think it was weird to cut that out. It was a choice that I felt like could’ve, you could’ve replaced some of the weird parts of the movie that didn’t feel like they, it felt like they did not move the plot along. You could’ve actually developed Alice’s character with more of that.
[00:43:24] Tim: In the book, Edward warms back up to Bella after, after she’s, he’s listened to her turn down a number of suitors. It gives them an opportunity to communicate and things like that because it includes the biology class where they were doing blood typing that he missed. But that’s not in the film.
But that was a, that was an opportunity to show he and Bella had this friendly one on one interaction before the trip to Port Angeles, right? It is
[00:43:55] Rebekah: Bonkers to me that in the movie the whole interactions are, we meet him and he looks like he is gonna vomit, okay? So that’s a freaky thing.
Then he’s gone a few days. Then you see him again and he’s like polite and they talk for like 15 minutes and then he saves her from a car accident and makes a comment about not being friends and then like awkwardly pulls her into the woods and it’s like this intense scene and it didn’t make any sense for anything but like love at first sight kind of thing.
We’re in the book, like they have interactions and they encounter one another in ways where Bella falls for who Edward is. And again, in the movie, it just makes her feel so vapid Okay, you think he’s hot? And that was like where it ends. And I just thought it was weird. In the book, he helps her after she passes out during a blood typing session in biology class that Edward skips.
And they, he takes her home and helps her and there’s just a lot more, like the timeline changes and the weird. skipping school and going into the woods thing. Just I don’t know. I it was so disingenuous. They did not seem like people who were falling in love.
[00:45:08] Josiah: I think that for probably my biggest criticism of the book and movie as a story is the lack of plot.
And so I was reading the book very recently and I think that the book is like 20 chapters and we meet James in like chapter 17 or at the end of 16 or something like that. And it’s okay, yeah, we’re Bella and Edward. And then we have a conflict introduced at the 11th hour.
And I thought it I have plenty to talk about with James and everything, but I was surprised in the book at how quickly it was resolved. And then when I was reviewing the movie after I read the book for the first time I’ve seen the movie before after I was reviewing the movie. I thought it’s even quicker in the movie they cut stuff.
We already talked a little bit about James changing Alice like I can’t believe is that important or not? It seems like a really important detail. Is it ever brought up in the future books? I haven’t made it through the entire series of books yet. It’s
[00:46:23] Tim: not really
[00:46:23] Donna: depth. They talk about the fact that she was institutionalized.
[00:46:28] Rebekah: And. And that they discovered James was the one that changed her. Yeah. But other than that, they don’t really go into that.
[00:46:36] Josiah: I was just going to say Bella also in the book only has that fake conversation with James on the phone and writes Edward that letter that she stashes in Alice’s luggage. Yet
[00:46:48] Rebekah: again, does something that makes you like her?
[00:46:52] Josiah: Yeah. You’re yelling at the book. Why are you being stupid? But. To be fair, she is making a choice, it is based on her love of her, of someone besides Edward. That is one of the best things in the book, that what almost gets her killed is because she loves someone besides Edward. And I think that is…
One of the best character traits that she has.
[00:47:15] Rebekah: Okay, my thoughts on the whole plot with James, and I know this might be a weird hot take, I wish they had just never done that. I literally think the first book would have been better if the conflict was, like, the whole finding out Edward was a vampire, was he gonna kill me thing, and leaving it there.
I know that, I know that’s a weird, and I’m sure there could have been. I’m sure there could have been something else, but I was remembering like this time reading through the book and I was like, wow, as soon as this comes up, as soon as they meet James and Victoria and Laurent, I lost interest. And I was like, can we just get back to all of the weirdness with Bella and Edward and like their relationship?
It just felt so like bizarre to me. It fell out of place.
[00:48:05] Tim: I think there’s a reason because. In an adult mind, you’re thinking there, you really need to show why she needs Edward. This old man who’s in love with her, although he’s stuck at 17, I get that, but he’s a vampire and he’s a villain and all of those kinds of things.
But you’ve got this other guy who’s worse. Who’s definitely worse and so that’s okay then that she wants to give her soul to Edward and you know she’s willing to give up all, everything for him and I think that may have been part of it. That there needed to be an even bigger villain so you don’t question a lot of the other stuff.
I also listened to just a few minutes of a podcast of all of the all of the red flags that any sensible person would have gotten when, in, in their relationship as it started moving forward. Oh no, this is an abusive person. This is emotional abuse. This is this kind of stuff. Yeah. So maybe you needed something else that was so much worse that all the other stuff was okay.
[00:49:17] Donna: But the viewer did get a little back scene that the people in the story didn’t see at the time. When James Victoria and Laurent killed Buttcrack Santa in the boat. Oh. Poor Waylon. Buttcrack Santa. I’m sorry. Waylon who doesn’t exist in the movie.
[00:49:41] Rebekah: In the book at all. I don’t, number one, I don’t think you can say butt crack Santa, but at the time of the release of this episode and the time of release, Halloween was four days ago.
But I hope that for this Halloween, one of us just went as butt cracks.
[00:49:57] Donna: That’s my vote. My vote is somebody got to do it. Wait, but Waylon wasn’t butt clack crown. What? Okay, we’re going off the rails here. Butt what crown?
[00:50:15] Josiah: bUtt clack is when you’re walking and they just keep clacking together.
[00:50:23] Donna: Butt clack. You’re simply watching it like after Halloween. Yeah. Around the Halloween season. We’re going to air the episode, but
[00:50:32] Rebekah: he’s not a butt crack
[00:50:35] Donna: clown. He’s a,
[00:50:37] Rebekah: in the Donner
[00:50:38] Donna: is the only other time you see him, a guy who doesn’t exist in the book in any way, shape, or form. So they create a character for the movie.
Skip a bunch of really important cool things in the book and have Waylon go, don’t you remember me? I used to play Santa when you were little in the Donner, and Charlie’s O, okay,
[00:51:00] Josiah: thanks O. Okay. She hasn’t been here. She hasn’t been here for Christmas since she
[00:51:03] Rebekah: was four. Yeah. I cannot let this topic of conversation go without sharing my favorite joke with our listening audience that all of you have heard.
Please share it. Mom knows exactly what I’m talking about. I wanted to tell it. I wish it’s an audio podcast, so none of you can see us, but everyone is shaking their heads at me. Yes. Okay. So why are butt cracks up and down and not side to side?
[00:51:30] Donna: Because if they were side to side when you go down the slippy slide, your butt would go buhbuhbuhbuh Still
[00:51:46] Rebekah: a better love story than Twilight. Am I right?
[00:51:54] Tim: So I have a strange question from that. So not about butts. Okay. No, in what, in, in what ways is that meadow scene different from the book to the movie? Because I think there are some big differences. The placement of it, when it happens.
[00:52:15] Rebekah: All right. I’m going to go on a rant. Here’s my rant of the day, similar to my rant about Hunger Games.
So you’re just going to have to stick with me. That was the stupidest possible way in the movie to show what happened. So first of all, The scene in the movie, basically Edward and Bella, tells Edward to come off with her and they leave the school, they skip school, which by the way, neither of them would do like Edward will skip school for things, but like they would not get to school and skip Bella would not do that.
Bella takes him off. They go into the woods near the school and have a fight, like this weird, awkward fight. And Edward is having this horrible moment. He becomes like this murder, suicide y moment. And he, and she’s you won’t hurt me. And then As soon as she says, You won’t hurt me.
Edward literally yanks her arm and pulls her away, which by the way, if it happened in the movie, like the way they show it, the movie, if that was real, according to who he was in the book, it would have broken her arm. Like it was not a good thing. So then they have part of the scene happened. Then he puts her on his back.
They run up into the woods and like he does not run with her like that until after like they’ve established he’s a vampire. And that’s in both of the works. But then they get up to the top of the hill and he like pulls his shirt apart and shows her his sparkling skin. And he’s this is the skin of a killer, Bella.
And it’s like it’s so bad. I yeah. Remember being like actively disgusted watching this in the theater because In the book, there’s this buildup to the fact that there’s a day that’s going to be sunny and Edward knows, you find out in Midnight Sun, like he knows it’s going to be sunny so they can’t be out.
And she and Edward were planning on driving up to Portland or something and they were going to go I don’t even remember why it was like for books or something. They were going to just drive together and go up, whatever. But because they had the whole thing in Port Angeles and he drove her home during that car ride, she had acknowledged like that she knew that he was a mind reader and then like they established there that he’s a vampire and they’re trying to figure out all this stuff.
And so by the time they go to the meadow, it’s basically a date where they’re going to have this like time together. And Edward knows it’s actually Bella knows too, that there’s this possibility that He’s basically going to kill her when they go to the meadow. But there’s also this buildup of like their affection for each other is increasing and all this stuff.
So it’s after the medicine is after not simultaneous to the point where she learns that he’s actually a vampire. And so they get to the meadow confirms it confirms. Yes. They get to the meadow after a long hike, and it’s very tender and sweet getting there. They get out to the meadow, and there’s a brief scene where Edward and Bella kiss for the first time, and then he has to jump away from her because he smelled her blood, and it I don’t know if it’s because I was like, freaked him out or whatever.
But like the scene is this like precious scene about romance and like it was wonderful. And they’re so in love and they like, you can tell that they love each other and all this stuff. And I’m like, no, we had to turn that into a murder suicide plot in the movie where we show our skin of a killer.
Like I was so like, so angry, but it is a completely different thing. Happens on a different day. It’s wild.
[00:55:56] Josiah: Another
[00:55:57] Tim: thing in the movie, when Vill Bella visited the Cullens the first time, they were cooking food for her and Edward said that she’d already eaten, Rosalie breaks the bowl and walks off.
You, you don’t have enough story about Rosalie. I love that.
[00:56:12] Josiah: To know that she’s not. Yeah. I thought that was a good additions. Just a horrible person. I You just don’t, this is one of those dumb how dumb it’s to be clear. Yeah,
[00:56:21] Tim: That was for the movie. But not in the book. But, I guess it’s supposed to show you a little bit more about Rosalie, but to me it’s just too much.
She’s
[00:56:31] Donna: who in the world is she? This is what has blown my mind about this since I got into this trivia research. The production cost of the movie, 37 million. The USA Canada gross, 408 million. Worldwide, 407 million.
[00:56:54] Tim: They made their production cost back in the first weekend. And they more than 10 times made it in the U.
S. and Canada and then
[00:57:05] Josiah: again worldwide. I think that statistically, I once read that most movies need to make At least their production cost back in the first weekend because their total gross is usually just over double their opening weekend and so for it to be 10x it’s got long legs you probably had a lot of repeat viewings from big fans this becomes
[00:57:31] Tim: 20x when you add The worldwide.
Yeah. That’s
[00:57:36] Josiah: crazy. diD you know that this is Robert Pattinson’s first role playing an American with American accent? Cause he is very British.
[00:57:45] Donna: So he gets to develop his American accent and then pretty soon, not pretty soon, a decade or so later, he’s emo Batman. Yes, he is emo
[00:57:58] Rebekah: Batman. I really liked that Robert Pattinson musically was.
He got to actually be a musician like Edward is I don’t like it in movies when a character That’s supposed to be very musical is like clearly not really musical or whatever And so he actually plays the piano in the scene where he’s playing Bella’s lullaby. He is the one playing the piano Robert Pattinson had two songs on the soundtrack called Let Me Sign and Never Think.
Never Think is the song that’s playing during the restaurant scene right after he saves her in Port Angeles. And then Let Me Sign is that song that plays after Bella gets bit and she’s in pain in the ballet scene when he’s sucking the venom out of her arm where it’s I can’t understand the words.
I’ve always thought that was such a weird song. So was funny to discover.
[00:58:46] Donna: A few other little. Rapid fire trivia notes, Pattinson, he and Kristen went to Catherine Hardwick’s home, the director’s home. They go in her bedroom and portray or play out the meadow scene. And for whatever reasons, why would Catherine Hardwick, I don’t know her, I don’t know anything about her.
And I’m not saying anything weird, I just don’t understand why you would want to use your own bedroom. A bed. And have these two, the bed.
[00:59:20] Rebekah: One minor and one adult at the time, by the way. Kristen Stewart turned 18 during
[00:59:25] Donna: filming.
[00:59:27] Josiah: ANd we are recording this on Women’s Equality Day. And I just want to say that if a male director did that, it would be a big problem.
So I think it’s okay to treat this as a problem. But I
[00:59:40] Donna: thought that was an interesting way to cement her decision on the two of them
[00:59:46] Rebekah: together. I understand the concept of wanting to see their chemistry. Yeah, I want to I get the chemistry question, but that is disturbing. That is weird.
[00:59:57] Josiah: On a positive for Hardwick.
I guess I was just going to say that this is the first. This was the highest grossing movie at the time directed solely by a woman. Congratulations. And then the. And then they fired her and hired some guys to direct the other ones.
[01:00:13] Rebekah: Which were demonstrably better movies.
[01:00:16] Donna: Yeah. Opinion question for you all.
Do you think the relationship that went on off camera between Stewart and Pattinson was genuinely where they fell for each other for a period of time? Or do you think it was a mixture of that and a cool way to boost the movie attendance later on?
[01:00:41] Josiah: PR. No, it was probably a I think it was likely
[01:00:46] Tim: PR, but when you work together with someone that closely for such a period of time you do get a bond with them.
And if you don’t, sometimes that really shows on
[01:00:55] Rebekah: camera, Josiah has mentioned. And sent us a video I thought was really good. I think that compared to books and movies of the same time period and all those things, I think it got more flack than it deserves in my opinion. So I did think that was an interesting concept to be aware of.
I’m glad that I read Midnight Sun. There were all sorts of other little things we didn’t even talk about. Where, we find out that Charlie, when he speaks in his mind, Edward can’t hear him totally normally. He hears him as ideas and things like that, and so that and Renesmee’s thing lead you into Bella’s skill, and then later Renesmee’s, which I thought was interesting.
When she first wrote Midnight Sun Stephanie Meyer doesn’t know how, but it got leaked and so she didn’t release it until much later. And I’ll also say, I remember that. Yeah. I will also say there is a book that she wrote. She’s written two additional supplementary books in addition to Midnight Sun.
She did the short Second Life of Bree Tanner, which we’ll talk about in our next episode. And then she did Life and Death, which was a gender swap of the original book. So it’s the same story as the original book. Edward’s character is a girl, Bella’s character becomes a guy, whatever. It was an utter waste of time.
Do not read it. It is literally the one thing that I’m like Bo,
[01:02:12] Josiah: Swan, and Edith Cullen.
[01:02:14] Rebekah: Yes. So I was thinking like, oh, they’re gonna gender swap it, and they’ll adjust their personalities, and they’ll make Bo be like More give him some, I don’t know, in, in any way, masculine trait or make it like it’s interesting to have a gender swap.
It is so stupid. Everyone is gender swapped. By the way, it’s not just them. Charlie is like the only Charlie and Renee are the only people that don’t get gender swapped. Everyone else is the opposite gender. It is not interesting. There’s no like actual depth. to it, it like is the exact same characters, except Beau is a boy that likes classic novels and is shy and takes care of his mom.
[01:02:53] Donna: There is the possibility of a TV series in the works. Based on the Twilight series to be interesting
[01:03:01] Rebekah: as much as I do enjoy this and I like I joke like I love hate the movies partly because again, they’re not adapted well at least first one, but there were a lot of criticisms that Stephanie Meyer and Twilight got so like the difference in the tropes, not the tropes, sorry, the difference in the lore of vampirism was like, Why and there is a question to be had like why vampires if you’re going to make them so much different than vampires stuff like that the the idea of the werewolves, but they’re not really werewolves They’re shapeshifters like that, we get into that later but I think that a lot of the most Significant criticisms were around the like unhealthy portrayal of relationships.
And then obviously there’s every critic is probably going to have something to say about the plot, being sin or whatever. It’s a love story. I don’t really care about that, but I did want to talk really, briefly about the The unhealthy relationship things, because, I had mentioned man, we’re covering this on the podcast.
I want to be cautious of how we do it because I never want to like just spend the whole time hating on something. I want to be realistic about what was good or bad. But also it is true that like when I read this back when I first read it, I was. A young adult who had just gotten married and it didn’t occur to me how unhealthy a lot of it was when I read it back now, I’m like, Oh, my gosh, I would not want my daughter to read this because it’s, it’s so difficult because.
Ultimately, if there’s a person that you’re in love with that threatens your life or controls you so that you don’t like under the guise of protecting you actually controls you like a lot of that stuff is not good. However, I think when we were talking about this the other day, Josiah had sent us all a video that I said, earlier I watched and I think I’m going to include the link to the video in the podcast notes if you want to look at the show notes to check it out.
It’s about 20 minutes long and it’s a review of essentially, sorry, Stephanie Meyer, because when you look at a lot of the entertainment from the same time period before after, these are not tropes that are like specific to Twilight, there’s a lot of portrayal of terrible relationships in many different ways.
And so I think it, I think it got probably a lot more flack than it deserved because of how popular it was, not necessarily because it was the most unhealthy thing, definitely, I agree with that. The whole part
[01:05:29] Donna: of him being in her room watching her sleep, it’s bad enough after she knows it, and then she’s you can’t leave.
But then before that, knowing he’s there,
[01:05:42] Tim: In Midnight Sun, he says there should be punishment for that behavior. That was terrible behavior. But I couldn’t stop it, and I’m not going to stop it.
[01:05:53] Donna: Yeah. Yeah, and I think the part that’s so disturbing is that she doesn’t care. It doesn’t matter what he does, what he tells her about himself, how he threatens her or tries to scare her.
She is just I don’t care, please just bite me. I
[01:06:15] Rebekah: want, my soul is nothing. And I think that Twilight got a big pass from a lot of parents, including us probably because of the whole, I don’t want to sleep with you thing. And was that fair? Maybe it wasn’t fair. Like maybe it shouldn’t have gotten so much of a pass, but at the same time, if you compare it to other pieces of entertainment, it’s not as if Stephanie Meyer and she said this, you shouldn’t have.
Role models that are characters in a piece of fiction like I never wrote this as role models I wrote this as a story. I had a dream about so okay quick questions, and then we’ll do our final verdicts Okay, so the question is, are you Team Edward, or are you Team Jacob? And I’ll go first. I was Team Edward in the books hardcore.
When I saw the movies, I was like, wow, Taylor Lautner’s way hotter and way more interesting, and so I became Team Taylor Lautner when watching the movies. But I ended up firmly staying on Team Edward.
I’m
[01:07:15] Donna: Team Edward. It’s probably because I read this as… A full fledged adult and a mom of teenager
[01:07:23] Rebekah: at the time,
[01:07:25] Donna: but I’m Team Edward because he absolutely refused to have sex before marriage.
[01:07:32] Tim: Team Edward or Team Jacob. Actually, I’m probably more Team Jacob because Bella didn’t have to change to be with him.
He was more hot headed and things like that. I think it, when I’m thinking about it as an adult, I’m thinking, okay, she didn’t have to change. She didn’t have to become something different.
[01:07:52] Josiah: Yeah, I’m stealing this from my friend who’s probably stole it from a meme, but I’m team Tyler’s van.
This was
a, this was a, I had to pick between Edward and Jacob, Jacob dad, but you made a great point. She doesn’t have to change for Jacob. I think that Jacob and Edward are both really manipulative, but Jacob’s kind of manipulation is more of a nice guy towards her a lot of the time, whereas Edward is like, I’m evil.
You’re, I’m going to kill you. But Jacob is more I will take care of you. I don’t
[01:08:37] Rebekah: know. I’m sorry, the murdering. I don’t
[01:08:39] Josiah: think either one does it for me. This is the skin of a killer. This is the skin of a killer.
[01:08:46] Rebekah: Would you would you become a vampire if you could? If this was real? No.
[01:08:52] Tim: Why? It’s a simple, it’s a simple answer.
One of the things that has come back to me in the time getting ready for this, they, they never sleep. And, They, they don’t really have a purpose that they don’t have anything to do. I’m thinking, Oh my goodness, what would it be like to live for 200 years and never sleep? It just, it is not wonderful paradise to me.
I hear that as pure torment. So no,
[01:09:27] Rebekah: maybe it’s watching Kristen Stewart, but I’m going to give the vapid answer and say, Yeah, if I could be super hot and incredibly strong and rich for the rest of eternity. That sounds great. Sure.
[01:09:41] Donna: Yeah. And you have a sister that knows the future and can work the stock market.
[01:09:48] Rebekah: All right. We have come to the point in the podcast where we give our final verdicts about whether or not we think the book or the movie is better.
[01:09:56] Tim: I’ll go ahead and do mine. I think,
I’m gonna, I’m gonna do it this way. I think the movie is better because it’s over faster. I because, because I got so bothered by the first person narrative in the book. It just sounds like Bella is just whining about life and Her parents love her and they have an amicable divorce and, all of the, she just As a horrible life, it’s just not worth living.
And I, yeah, so that’s my final.
[01:10:37] Rebekah: That is so funny. I’m going to give a little behind the scenes thing here and say for our listeners that my sweet husband, our producer is muted on the track here, but he’s like sitting here with us. And I saw, I was looking down and I saw. I saw him as soon as you said that mouth of the word savage, I just thought that was really accurate, but I totally get it.
I
[01:10:59] Donna: did like the book in the fact that I got background on other of the characters that we didn’t get in the movie. So I would pick the book solely for that. I do agree with you, Tim, that what they covered in the movie was in, was more concise. It was, obviously it was over quicker, but you still got a picture of the characters.
You saw it, and it gave you a basis, and I did want to go on and see the next movie. I’m still going to choose the book in this case, but um, I’m not completely in utter disagreement with you.
[01:11:41] Josiah: My final verdict is that the book is better than the movie. This is not the best Twilight book, and it’s not the best Twilight movie.
If you’re looking for romance, it’s going to it’s going to be the best book. I guess that’s not my number one concern. But the book makes Bella more likable. And even though the movie works to foreshadow James as the ultimate conflict of the movie. The book makes Bella a better character. I don’t think I’ll say this about the future books.
Spoiler alert, but this book is better than the movie. It was so it was directed so weirdly. There were so many. Oh, yeah. Color filter can’t get over that color filter. I think most of the actors were chosen poorly, and I think it affects the rest of the series. But yeah, book is better this
[01:12:39] Rebekah: time.
I personally think that this movie was trash, so I hated the adaptation. I hated the blue coloring. I thought, I think that the characters of Edward and Bella had zero chemistry, which I do think they have more chemistry literally in every other Twilight movie after this. I think it was very poorly directed.
I watched some of the bonus content from the Twilight movie just to see what it was like and even when the actors are like going back with Hardwick and seeing some of the places that they shot, I felt like they felt awkward with her. Like I don’t think that she directed this well. I think it, it comes more down to that.
I don’t think that like the actors are to blame necessarily. Particularly as we’ve said, both Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart actually can act, believe it or not. And you don’t realize that until later on in the series slash in literally other like IPs that they do. But I. Enjoyed the book so much.
I think the book is better almost all the time, obviously. So I’m an easy one, but I enjoyed the book better. I think that it was a more engaging story. I liked the characters in the book so much more than I liked the characters in the movie, the way that they were portrayed. And despite the fact that I felt like the whole James thing felt extraneous, honestly, like I definitely enjoyed the book.
Hey, thanks for listening. If you have questions, feedback, or future episode ideas, email us at bookisbetterpod@gmail.com. You can find us on social media most places online @bookisbetterpod. Please leave a rating and review on your favorite pod catcher. It helps us out a ton. And in two weeks, we’ll be dropping our episode on new moon eclipse and the short second life of Bree Tanner until then enjoy your fall.
[01:14:28] Donna: It’s similar to the Harry Potty series. The Harry Potter.
[01:14:32] Rebekah: Harry Potty!
[01:14:35] Donna: It’s similar to the Harry Potter series. I’m
[01:14:38] Rebekah: sorry, it’s now Harry Potty. For the rest of your life.