Twilight: A Blue Filter Fever Dream

In our Season 2 premiere, we dive deep into the misty, blue-tinted woods of Forks, Washington, to tackle the cultural juggernaut that is Twilight. It’s been 21 years since Stephenie Meyer’s book hit shelves and 17 years since the movie permanently altered our middle school personalities. We’re dissecting the "Twilight Paradox": How can a franchise be so deeply beloved, widely ridiculed, and endlessly rewatched—all for the exact same reasons?

Gallagher, Sarah Elizabeth. Why We Love (and Hate) Twilight. Mango Media, 8 Apr. 2025.

Hardwicke, Catherine. Twilight Director’s Notebook : The Story of How We Made the Movie Based on the Novel by Stephenie Meyer. New York, Little Brown And Company, 2009.

Meyer, Stephenie. The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide. Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 13 Apr. 2011.

---. Twilight. New York, Little, Brown And Co, 2005.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

No, this is the first time I've heard this. When I read this outline, I said, What? Are you serious? I googled it because Candace, that's how like I was so in the dark, I did not know. I literally got on the internet, did some Googling, and was like, oh my god, that's crazy. Welcome back. Season two has arrived. You are listening to the Zillownial Rewatch podcast. I'm your host, Allie, and this is my co-host. Candace! Candace, tell the good people how we're starting season two.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Twilight, baby. No buildup. Oh, oh, no suspense. We're just diving straight in because we have so much to say about it.

SPEAKER_02 0:49

Like, I I'm so excited that you're so excited. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah. I've been pushing for Twilight since season one. I'm like, okay, I know we have season one lined up, but Allie, season two opener, Twilight, please. It felt like I was begging, but there was no like there was no pushback. You were like, yeah, that's totally fine. And even after your yes, I was like, Allie, we have to do Twilight. And you're like, we're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21

Was it a reveal that I was not like a big fan of Twilight? Like, did you know that about me ahead of time?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

I don't think I knew it about you ahead of time, but it didn't surprise me. Because I was just like, Why does that feel like a read? No, no, no, no, no. Well, one, I've already seen like some of your notes. Okay. But and and I think that's a good like point to point out when we get to it. But getting to know you over the years and being like, oh yeah, that makes sense. Not a read at all. It just makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Yeah. So what I'm talking about for reference is that prior to this past week, I have never I had never read the book Twilight, never read any of the books, and I had only seen the movie a single time over 10 years ago. So it very much felt like I was very much felt like I was coming into this with fresh eyes. Meanwhile, Candace is like, I've seen the movie so many times. I listened to the soundtrack, like I've read the books, like we're we're just not on even playing field coming into this episode, but I like that for me.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

I think having this like fresh experience of it is gonna give you a way more like objective opinion about it, and probably has because the girlies who were getting it were getting it, and that was me. But the girlies who weren't were unbothered by it. Okay, okay, yes, it's like privy to this, very little experience with it. Yeah, I'm gonna be able to do it. And I'm sure, yeah, that I'm sure that didn't bother you. You were like, I don't feel you probably didn't feel left out of the conversation.

SPEAKER_02 3:05

No, no, well, let's get into it.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Let's let's talk about when this first came out. The book, because we can't talk about the movie without the book because they are so they're intertwined with each other to the max. But the book came out 21 years ago in 2005. That is crazy, isn't it? Like, I don't think I realized that the book was quote unquote old, but like went back that far. Yeah, but then the movie only came out 17 years ago only. But yeah, the movie came out 17 years ago in 2008, and I think I was more on the train of like the movie fans, but I had read the book before that. Here's what I don't know. I don't know how I got the book, I don't know when I read the book, because it definitely wasn't 2005, I would have been in third grade. Yeah, like that doesn't make any sense. 2008 makes way more sense for me to read the book the first time. Sixth grade, another thing about me, I notoriously do not remember my sixth grade year. A lot was happening, and honestly, I was burying myself in books, probably as a form of like escapism. Yeah. Which, you know, better books than other things. I didn't remember a lot of details that happened within the book. Like, I remember the movie way better. Totally. And I think that's just because you have, you know, your audio visual taken. Whereas I'm losing myself in this book, not really retaining any information.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Well, that's what I remember is that in like fifth and sixth grade is when the girlies at school started carrying around those huge, thick black books as seen behind you. Like, like in a little fifth grade sized hand, that's a huge book. It was huge. It was like I was not a big reader. Like, I really to this day I'm a very slow reader. I just started getting back into reading fiction um a couple years ago. I feel like my brain kind of like got ruined in grad school. Like I I like forgot how to read for pleasure. Um Anyway, but at the time I certainly was not a big reader. So um when these girls started carrying around these huge books and like, oh my god, you have to read this, I was like, no, I don't. Um, but I had read the Harry Potter series. Famously, fake books. I know, I know. It's it just so happened that like I got into that one summer and I read them. But when it came out that it was like there was like a lot of this like discourse, like Twilight versus Harry Potter, which is better, which side are you on? And because I had read Harry Potter, it was just easy for me to be like, no, no, I I'm a Harry Potter girl, like I'm not even gonna read that because like I'm just such a Harry Potter girl. Like, it was very much like wizards versus vampires, like who does it better? And I was like, Yeah, like wizards don't sparkle. That's so crazy. And like, it's not because I actually felt that way, it's just because that was socially easier for me to do than read hundreds of pages.

SPEAKER_00 6:20

I mean, yeah, completely understandable. You just opened up a memory for me. Harry Potter had been out for a while already by the time we were in fifth and sixth grade. Because I vividly remember the new kid in my first grade class. Like the first week he was there, he had the biggest Harry Potter book. And I was like, why are you reading such a big book? He said, chapter book? Hold on. We kind of fast forward into the fandom of it all. People were fans of the books, people became fans of the movies, like hardcore.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Like, you know, insanity. Like people insanity. Have you okay? This is so off topic. It isn't, but it is. Have you ever just gone and looked? Like, have you just Googled like Twilight tattoos? No, I haven't. Girl. They're me too. They're like, it's like a whole thing that people get the most god-awful tattoos of Twilight. Like full back pieces, full chest pieces, but it's like like the logo, or like like just banana stuff that people are getting. Because that's what I'm saying, is like that's how crazy the fans were, is they're like, this is in my veins. Like, I'm putting this on my body for the rest of eternity.

SPEAKER_00 7:36

This is insane. They're so bad, aren't they? A lot of that, like, they're technically good. Like, the detail is great. But I give credit where credit's due.

unknown 7:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:49

The artists have their job.

SPEAKER_00 7:52

Like, there's one on here that's a little more like niche. You've got the tru it's all it's all black and white, but the truck and then a sign that says forks and Port Angeles. It's like a truck.

SPEAKER_02 8:07

Of all things to get tatted on your body, a bust down pickup truck.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Right. And then Jacob's pregnant.

SPEAKER_02 8:17

Yeah, yeah. People people took it too far.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

Okay, there's one on here that's like a collage of all the book, like the fronts of the books.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

You support that one?

SPEAKER_00 8:28

Cool. Support is a hard word.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

And that's what I'm saying is like the fans were not just like, oh, I really like this book. They're like, this is my life. I have become so impassioned that I'm getting a full chess piece of pregnant Bella or all four books across the chest.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Insane.

SPEAKER_02 8:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:55

Anyway. Along with the success became a lot of contradiction, which is kind of what I feel like is the theme of Twilight in general. You would hear people say, Do you like Twilight? Have you seen Twilight? I love Twilight, but it's so bad. Mm-hmm. And it's like, but why? Have we been answering why? Have we dug deep into why we love it and why we love to hate it?

SPEAKER_02 9:20

And that's what we're gonna get into today, no?

SPEAKER_00 9:23

We're getting into it deep. Allie, I've read four books. I know, that's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. You've done so much research. So much. And the author of one of these books is actually a super fan. The book is a large conglomerate of information, experiences, and her own research. And I'm gonna mention this book so many times, so just stay with me. And the book's called. The book is called Why We Love and Hate Twilight.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

In our notes, Candace had typed several times WWLA H T. And girl, it the amount of times that I just kept typing into Google, I'm like WWLA H T acronym stands for what? Like I just kept trying to figure it out, and then finally I was like, oh, this is the book she was talking about. Why we love and hate Twilight.

SPEAKER_00 10:23

Because you gotta give credit where credit is due. Okay. We can't talk about any of these books without talking about Stephanie Meyer and Sarah Elizabeth Gallagher, who's an author of why we love and hate uh Twilight. Let's start with the book. Let's get into it. So, like I said, Twilight came out in 2005. A small fandom had started. It was mostly young adults, but you had your people who were reading it for the first time, such as Ms. Gallagher. Um, she was 27 when she first read the book. That's kind of tea. She was in school for her PhD, and so she was also trying to escape from what she was doing, and her mom was like, You should read this book.

SPEAKER_03 11:09

Her mom read it.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I'm pretty sure. I don't know if her mom read it, but somebody who I feel like was her mom was like, just just read it. And she was like, I'm 27 reading, you know, reading a young adult book.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:25

What am I doing?

SPEAKER_02 11:27

Because just to be clear, like, it wasn't just that the books were like marketed as YA, like like the author is has indicated that this is for young adults.

SPEAKER_00 11:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:39

Got it.

SPEAKER_00 11:40

So it would make more sense that like your tweens and teens were reading it.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Yeah, like your niece would be like, Auntie, you should read this book. Exactly. Not the other way around. That's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Right? But then you get the people who have now read all of Twilight because Twilight through Breaking Dawn was released between 2005 and 2008, which crazy turnaround, if you ask me. But Stephanie Meyer had this story ready to go.

SPEAKER_02 12:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

She had a dream, and she was like, Oh, these are my two characters. I'm writing a book about both of them, and then this whole world exploded. You got people who love the Twilight Saga, and then the movies come out. Or they're about to be released. Now, Comic-Con 2008, four months before the movie releases. Some of the actors, definitely Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, probably other like vampire family members, are making an appearance at Comic-Con in Hall H, which I did not understand what that meant, but that's like the biggest room that holds 6,500 people. And the Twilight cast brought out 6,000 people. Oh my god to Hall H four months before the movie premiere.

SPEAKER_02 12:58

Wow, that's that's T. That speaks to the success of the books, period.

SPEAKER_00 13:05

Yeah. Cause like I said, movie hadn't even come out yet. Based on what Gallagher was saying and why we love and hate Twilight, was that Comic-Con sold out for the first time in history. Wow. Yeah. Why else would it have sold out?

SPEAKER_02 13:21

Yeah, because Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson were not like A-list celebrities at that point.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

No, they had each been in other things. It hadn't hit this type of success before, like you said. So people were seeing them for the first time.

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Yeah, it's not like they were going there to see Robert Pattinson. Like, because they're a fan of his work. They're going there because they're a fan of the books that Stephanie Myers wrote.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Yeah. They want to see Glittery Skin, Vampire Edward Cullen, and Lip Biter, Bella Swan. Not Lip Biter! As Twilight Is and What It Did, there was immediate love versus hate.

SPEAKER_02 14:01

It was very polarizing.

SPEAKER_00 14:03

Oh, so polarizing. Because the fans that read the books criticized the casting.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

At the same time, a lot of people loved Who They Picked. And I don't know if it was in Stephanie Myers' The Official Illustrated Guide.

SPEAKER_02 14:20

Bible.

SPEAKER_00 14:21

Bible, bitch. I don't know if it was in the Illustrated Guide or this book that's by the director, which I only skimmed this one because it's literally the director's notebook. Like storyboard pictures and little notes that she took. It's a good skimmer.

SPEAKER_02 14:40

I've already read, I've already read three other books in preparation for this episode.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

Exactly. Stephanie Meyer's goal was literally to cast a hot Edward. Casting created tension. The story created tension and backlash. Because there were depictions of bad relationships, bad treatment of women, casual racism, and we'll get into it. And a hint of pedophilia, which we will be talking about. I do want to take a moment to have like a quick aside about the Quilute depiction that happens in Twilight. This could be a whole episode.

SPEAKER_02 15:18

Yeah. Because all those things you just listed, you're like relationship issues, pedophilia, like all racism. Like, we could do a full episode on each of those topics and how they relate to Twilight.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

So as far as the Quill Ute depiction goes, this is a real group of people that reside in Forks, Washington. Whoa. Yeah. I actually didn't know that. In an interview that Stephanie Meyer did, she was like, I had set this story in Forks, Washington, and then realized that this group of people was here. So it just seemed right to put them in there. But then she made up their backstory and made them to be things that they weren't. Mm-hmm. Like their backstory isn't actually very clear. But if you go and watch videos like on YouTube about the Koyu tribe, their stories say they started as wolves and then turned to man. And that's my loose understanding of it. Like, don't take my word, like, do your own research, learn about this tribe because they're good people just trying to live their life. But Stephanie Meyer just went and twisted it in a really false narrative. And the way that she talks about the russet skin people, like girl, come on. What are we doing here? I just have to mention that it could be a whole episode. If we ever talk about New Moon, we'll probably get into it more because that's when like the werewolves. We spend more time with them.

SPEAKER_02 16:55

Yes. Well, I feel like I feel like in the early 2000s, like there was no awareness of like how to speak about Indigenous people and how to respect Indigenous people. And like if this book went into publishing today, there would be some kind of like I I mean, I don't know anything about book publishing, but I have to imagine there's like some type of like cultural awareness team that probably does some type of proofreading and is like, hey, we might want to edit this, like, hey, we might want to um, you know, do something a little bit different here. But I like I feel like in that time everybody's like, yep, great. Send it send it to press.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

Or even just like an acknowledgement of the cool you people, which by the way, they have their own forum that's like truth versus twilight.

SPEAKER_03 17:43

Oh, wow. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

That really separates this fantastical world with who they really are.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

And there was no consulting, like, it wasn't like Stephanie Meyer like reached out to anyone in the tribe. Got it, I got it, got it.

SPEAKER_00 18:02

Anyway, to kind of get back to racism, if you know what I'm saying, um, period. Let's talk about white folks. Let's talk about white folks. Stephanie Meyer's depiction of what vampires are and who they are is really unsettling. And like how they become once they're turned into vampires. And I would like to read you something from her illustrated guide. She wrote these words, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

She can't stop writing. She just can't stop. She can't stop writing.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

Which this book was published, I think, in 2008, 2009, after all the books. Just kidding. 2011. Oh, okay. Because I think she just kept adding more stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 18:48

Here we are. So in the Illustrated Guide, Stephanie Meyer like lays out a lot of detail that goes unsaid within the books and the movies.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:58

But it talks about, you know, vampires, the covens, everyone's backstory. Like, she's got this world all imagined in one book, and it's absolutely ridiculous. Because there's a lot of contradictions. Interesting. There's a lot of contradictions. But as far as the physical characteristics of a vampire, once they are turned, there's a section called pallor, and I would love to read it to you. Please. So pale vampire skin is a product of vampire venom's transformative process. The venom leeches all pigment from the skin as it changes the human skin into the more indestructible vampire form. This is the part that gets me. Regardless of original ethnicity, a vampire skin will be exceptionally pale. The hue varies slightly, with darker skinned humans having a barely discernible olive tone to their vampire skin. But the light shade remains the same.

SPEAKER_02 20:05

Oh Lord! Okay, here's the issue with that. Like the whole the whole thing is that Bella wants to be one so bad. Like she she continues to say over and over, she's like, Edward is perfect. He does everything well. He's he's perfect, perfect, perfect. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Liter like literally, that description is saying like whiteness is perfection. Like whiteness is associated with perfection, you know? Um that's crazy that she put that great.

SPEAKER_00 20:40

Oh, I bet she wish she could redact that so bad. Who knows? I haven't found anything that says I take it back. But yeah, isn't that insane?

SPEAKER_02 20:51

Also, yeah, I've I have like a few things to say about that. Number one is that when I read this for the first time in the year of our Lord 2026, that was like an immediate thought that came to mind as I was reading even like Bella's description of herself. Like, there is there's some like paid like not pages, but there's some paragraphs spent in the book, like describing herself and making jokes about how pale she is. And I'm like, why is this even part of it? Like that like it really it doesn't necessarily add to the plot that she's pale.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

No, like why are we spending time describing this? Her biggest thing, Bella's biggest thing, is like, oh, I'm from Arizona, but I'm pale. Yeah, I'm pale. Like she says that in the very beginning. Like you would think that I'd be really tan, but nope, I'm pale and I have dark hair. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 21:44

Alright. We get it. Can we stay on whiteness for just a second? Can we stay on Bella? It is February 1st.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

When we're recording this. When we're recording this, it is February 1st. Said, can we stand whiteness? And you said, no, ma'am. For the sake of the episode, I'll say yeah. But listen, as an all uh-toned person myself, as you were though, no, no, that was that was excellent comedy right there.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

Okay, so the other thing that stuck out to me about like reading this in 2026 is Bella being just the classic, like helpless white woman in media. And I understand that there were certain traits given to her to contrast Edward. Like he's light on his feet, he's athletic, she's clumsy, but my- She's clumsy as hell. Like, geez, she can't, she can't breathe, she faints all the time. I'm like, I get that we're contrasting like vampire versus human, but this specific helpless white woman is beyond helpless. Like, like girls stand up. No, for real. I'm like, this I just don't, I don't know. Do people still write women like this these days? Like, I can't imagine that they do.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

I just found it honestly like annoying. Yeah, she just seems so helpless. And if I remember correctly, in the book, she says something about being depressed, right?

SPEAKER_02 23:14

All the time.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

She it's just every chapter.

SPEAKER_02 23:18

She's pale, she doesn't want to do any forks, she's tripping, falling all over the ground, she slips, she falls, she passes out more than once in the text. We've made it to the premiere.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

You're like, we've got to be. Eventually earning 407 million against its $37 million budget. That's amazing. It speaks to the fandom, I think. It speaks to the fandom, and we'll get to the fandom because they're a big part of why this movie became what it was. The books and the movies, honestly. Before we really get into the plot, let's just quickly talk about some of the characters we see in this movie. Talked about Bella. My biggest qualm has always been you went from being severely depressed, at least in the book, to wanting to live forever. I'm not saying that she had ulterior motives or thoughts about the opposite. It just doesn't track for me. Yeah. For me. Huge change. Huge change. Yeah. And it's your first relationship. I want to understand what's Mary Sue mean. Whenever Stephanie Meyer wrote this book, a lot of people were like, Bella is just an insert of Stephanie Meyer, which means like Stephanie Meyer is writing herself as this character. Yes. Which you do see a lot of authors write themselves into their books, but there's some differentiating factors that say, okay, she is, but she isn't. And that can be said about this book, but it tracks. In Why We Love and Hate Twilight, Sarah Gallagher says, Bella is widely considered not only a self-insert, but a Mary Sue, an idealized version of an author who was without flaws and serves as the ultimate wish fulfillment for said author. Yeah. So basically making themselves better than they are in character form.

SPEAKER_02 25:34

And that's what I'm saying about her being so helpless is like the reason that white women are so often dis displayed as that like helpless person is because they're often like maybe not so much in like current media, but they're often like victims, you know, of crimes and of you know bad relationships or whatever. And it's like people are trying to write them as perfect victims, as you know, we feel sorry for this person because they're flawless, like we can't criticize anything about them. And that's why I feel like it was hard for me to like relate to the character of Bella at all. Because I was like, she's just bumbling around, falling down, taking care of her mom, her dad. Like, she's she's objectively like doing good in the world, you know? She's helping she's helping people. Um, and also the thing that was so corny boots to me is okay, like I've never ever read a story of a new girl arriving at school and instantly being popular, instantly having boys throwing themselves at her. Like Tail as old as time, all of the stories about going to a new high school are about you're ostracized, you're bullied, you don't fit in, you're the new girl. I'm like, what is with all like five different guys being like, Bella, come to the dance with me? Like, wanna go to the dance? Wanna go to the dance? Like that to me, I was like, this is just unbelievable.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Like, this is just anyway, sorry. No, you're so right. Because I completely forgot about that. In the movie, I remember Mike being like the one person that was truly crushing on her.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

Eric. I think he just wanted a report. He wanted a feature. Yeah, he wanted he wanted front page spread of the new girl.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

They were drooling over this girl, like literally throwing themselves at her. Gross. Which does make sense that if Stephanie Meyer was like writing, like, ideally, you know, I wanted all the boys to throw themselves at me in high school. Probably why it was so popular amongst women is like women love male validation historically. And if you can read a uh fantasy or romantic book that features that, it it's escapism, you know?

SPEAKER_00 27:49

Yeah. You're speaking to a lot of what Sarah Gallagher said in her book. Kind of going back, Bella is written in a way where she's just like everybody else, but she's so unrelatable at the same time. It's like we can't actually see ourselves in her. And like Stephanie Meyer, I don't know if it was in an interview or something, or maybe it was a Robert Pattinson interview where he was talking about reading the book for the first time and being like, Yeah, the author is mad. She wrote herself as this character and is now in love with this character that she dreamt about, essentially. And I just find that really funny.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

He's unhinged in interviews, Robert Pattinson, like to this day. I think it was because of this movie. Alright, let's get into it. Should we talk about it? Let's talk.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

You've you got some notes on Edward. Red flag. Walk away, do not disturb, block, report, restraining order. Are we kidding?

SPEAKER_02 28:53

I would have beef. Like, I would have beef if there was like a 19-year-old character wanting to date a 17-year-old in high school. Like, I'd be bothered by that. I'm like, people outside of high school should not date high schoolers. The fact that he's a hundred years old and interested in somebody who's 17, boy bye. It's weird.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Per Stephanie Meyer's illustrated guide, yup. She writes that vampires do not mature emotionally or mentally. It still doesn't excuse anything, but it's like, you need to tell me that this boy, this boy, slash man, I I don't know, he's 17 forever, mentally and emotionally, but still doesn't see what's wrong with like I don't know. It's again, it's so contradicting because he's got this wide knowledge of the world, music, arts, people, and how the world is changing around him. And yet, yeah, I just don't buy it.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

I don't buy that you've lived a hundred years, you've seen multiple wars fought, you've you've lived through like, you know, cataclysmic influenza. Yes, like you've you've you have the life experience of someone who is, you know, 80, 90, like you have the wisdom of that, but you're still 17. Like, come on, no way.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

Remember in the book, he literally says like something about I was looking around and all these children. It's like, yes, because you see yourself as a hundred-year-old man.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

I will say, I'm gonna, I'm not an Edward apologist. I am not, but I will say one thing. I like I said, I saw the movie once 10 years ago. So when I read the book, I had this vision in my head of like who Edward was. I just remember him being like really stoic and like serious and really intense. But I feel like he and Bella have pretty good dialogue in the book. Like they banter, he has like other dimensions, other sides of him that are not all serious all the time. And that was nice, like that was that was uh I I enjoyed the book a little bit more than the movie because there was more going on than just him being so intense and insane.

SPEAKER_00 31:06

I feel like the book version of these characters is way better because there's way more context about who they are, what they're going through, and why they're doing the things they're doing, which we'll get into later because I I had a comment about that, just like there's so much context that's lost in the movie. Yeah. And it adds to the conversation of even the actors portraying these characters, but we'll get to it when we get to it. Top down, Charlie. Mm-hmm. In the book, Bad Father.

SPEAKER_02 31:39

I actually love his casting. I love his casting in the movie.

SPEAKER_00 31:43

It's perfect. It's like on the nose.

SPEAKER_02 31:45

Mustache, police chief. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:49

And he's so small town police chief, too. He's doing the best he can.

SPEAKER_02 31:53

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 31:54

At the end of the day.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

We we have to have separation from the parents in order to get a good storyline for a teen. It just is what it is. You guys are right. Writing really shitty parents is one way to do it. And talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:07

Renee can kiss my ass. Sarah Gallagher in her book says that Renee is actually Bella's child. Because why is Renee always losing stuff, misplacing clothes? Like the first thing that she writes to Bella after Bella's moved is, Do you remember where my pink shirt is? Girl, you're the mom! Grow up. Grow up. And you're more focused on your mid-minor league baseball playing fiance.

SPEAKER_02 32:38

Yeah. Any woman who puts a man above her child, not good. I just want to travel, so I'm gonna go with Phil. Girl, bye.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Go to Jacksonville.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Phil probably does steroids and has anger issues.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Like, if that was part of Phil's backstory, I can only imagine like what Bella has learned from her mom in terms of the type of guy to look for.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Yeah, being with an angry guy. Being with an aggressive guy. Mood swings.

SPEAKER_00 33:10

Mm-hmm. Mood swings, mood swings, mood swings. Renee, see you later. Let's get to the Collins because what a bunch. Carlisle.

SPEAKER_02 33:20

I can't lie, I kinda like him. I kinda like him. He's a good guy. He he's he's ethical, he has morals, he has values.

SPEAKER_00 33:28

Totally, totally, totally, totally, totally. I get it. I get it. You don't think he's playing God?

SPEAKER_02 33:32

Okay. I mean, how could you not? How could you not if you're immortal? But for like his own good.

SPEAKER_00 33:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

He was lonely. He needed a companion.

SPEAKER_00 33:42

So he changed Edward.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

I'm not saying that he is without flaws. I'm just saying that compared to her descriptions of the other vampires who are vicious and eating people and killing people, I do think he is a step above the rest. And that's a fair statement.

SPEAKER_00 33:59

I do think he started a cult though. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And what doesn't sit right with me is he's supposed to be 23. Mm-hmm. Raising kids.

SPEAKER_02 34:10

Yeah. And that I think is intentional. You know, people are weirded out by the Collins.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Oh, 100%. I mean, even the students at the school are like, those are the Collins. They they stay by themselves. They keep it. They're weird. Right. They're together. But they want to be with them so bad. I'm mostly talking about Jessica, but Yes. Another perfect casting, Miss Anna Kendrick. Love Anna Kendrick. Her comedic timing is perfection. I love her in that role. I think she is great. I do too. So remember Lauren from the book? Okay. They didn't keep her in the movie. So they kind of merged Jessica and Lauren's character. Mm-hmm. I don't remember which book it was in now, but like growing up, the key demographic didn't like Jessica.

SPEAKER_02 35:01

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Because they thought she was too mean to Bella.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

But if you get into it, Bella is a terrible friend to her.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Yeah, of course. Literally the definition of going to Boyfriend Island.

SPEAKER_00 35:15

For real. Gets a man and removes herself from the lunch table.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Yeah, come on now. Esme. Love her. Mommy.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

She's the only one with mommy.

SPEAKER_02 35:27

Not me loving the parents. I'm like, mom and dad.

SPEAKER_00 35:31

Mommy daddy. Why not? She's the only one with a developed frontal lobe. She was 26 when she was transformed.

SPEAKER_02 35:39

Thank God somebody's got one. Are you kidding me?

SPEAKER_00 35:42

I know. Her backstory is tragic. Yeah. Tragic. Per the illustrated guide. Meyer says that she got married really young and then she got pregnant. And she obviously didn't like her husband. So she ran away, fulfilled her dreams of becoming a school teacher, and then she gave birth. The baby died. So she jumped off a cliff. Right. Terrible. Sad. And then she ended up in the hospital where she found Carlisle again. Because she had met him when she was younger, younger. Oh like some I think she had broken her leg or something. Something had happened. And she saw Carlisle, or more so, Carlisle saw her and thought she was like really sweet, I guess. Or maybe the movie. Oh, I know stories like that. It's bad. It's all bad. Uh I take it back, Carlisle. So he saw her after he had changed Edward and then was like, Esme, you jumped off a cliff. I'm gonna save you. Is that actress wearing a wig in the movie?

SPEAKER_02 36:51

Gotta be. Because the bad the way her baseball cap does not sit flush against her head is I mean, I think they could have they could have done better.

SPEAKER_00 37:01

There's no way that they had those people braid their hair down before putting on a wig cap.

SPEAKER_02 37:07

There's just no way. This is too poofy.

SPEAKER_00 37:10

Alice, love her little freak. Love her. Love her. Another tragic story. So sad. Do you want to hear about her backstory?

SPEAKER_02 37:20

I I want to know what hair thing are we talking about. Also, we know Alice's backstory from the book, don't we? She was in an insane asylum. Yes. She was always in the dark in a cell.

SPEAKER_00 37:31

Yeah, and that's why she doesn't remember how she was changed. Changed. That's in the illustrated guide is who changed her.

SPEAKER_02 37:38

That's in the book, too. It was James, wasn't it? No. Oh, it was it was a different different vampire. Vampire.

unknown 37:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Because James was like targeting her.

SPEAKER_00 37:50

Yeah. James was targeting her. And so the vampire that was working at the asylum changed her. To protect her, basically.

SPEAKER_02 37:59

Yeah, from him.

SPEAKER_00 38:00

So then she just woke up and didn't remember anything, but then started having all these visions because that's another part of it.

SPEAKER_02 38:07

In the Asane Asylum is because she was having visions and people were like, no girl, you're not.

SPEAKER_00 38:12

Yeah. But the hair thing that I have written on here is, well, first of all, Alice's hair in the movie is iconic. Yeah, I love it. Like she's got this spiky look pretty much throughout the whole movie, except like the last couple, she has a pixie cut. Wispy little Bob. So apparently, when you get transformed into a vampire, your hair stops growing. What? Yeah, it doesn't grow anymore. Cause you have nothing.

SPEAKER_02 38:42

Stephanie Meyer, girl, like these details don't matter.

SPEAKER_00 38:47

This book is unhinged. The backstories that come from this are diabolical. Like it just doesn't matter. I feel like this was written to make vampires make sense. I think her vampires make sense. Yeah. So yeah, their hair doesn't continue to grow. It stays exactly how it is. And part of Alice's backstory is her head got shaved. Um. And so it had started growing back out.

SPEAKER_03 39:16

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 39:17

So that's why it's like kind of just and spiky. Where it's that everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

Yeah. God, that's funny.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Her counterpart, Jasper. Race's question mark?

SPEAKER_02 39:29

I feel like he really hardly makes an appearance in the first book and movie. Honestly, he makes more of an impression in the movie than he does in the book because in the movie, the actor who plays him looks bananas.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

He looks crazy. He looks constipated and he looks like he's about to shit himself all at the same time.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Hundred percent. Like those crazy eyes. And they credit that to him being a young vampire who's been young for like 50 years. He wants to suck the blood of the humans.

SPEAKER_00 40:02

But yeah, he joined the Confederate Army on purpose. Stephanie. Yeah. You could have left that out, girl. Supposedly his name was like the only one that she really did research because and she has said before, either in an interview or something, she doesn't really like research. Girl. She doesn't really like research. But she researched like Confederate soldiers' names and found Jasper Whitlock, I think. And that's how we got Jasper Whitlock hail.

SPEAKER_02 40:37

Oh my gosh. She's weird for that. That's the one thing she researched. Yeah. Which says a girl. And I think this speaks to the overall picture of like why we love it, why we hate it, why we love to hate it. Is is these just inherent flaws that were completely overlooked until it was too late, until it blew up into the massive success that it was. And people are going back and they're like, hold on, he's a w. And that's the only thing you research in the whole book.

SPEAKER_00 41:09

Yeah. And I I could get into all the contradictions of like even the backstories, like, it doesn't really make sense. Like Carlisle was supposed to be hiding in a sewer, like way back in the 16 whatever's, but sewer systems weren't even invented until like the 1800 type beat. Yeah. Rosalie and Emmett, I'm just gonna lump them together to keep it pushing. They're cute together. Mm-hmm. I understand Rosalie's discourse about letting Bella in this family as a human. Yep. But I also appreciate Emmett's open arms to her. Yeah. To just be like, Edward's bro, if he loves her, I'm gonna love her. Is it dangerous? Yeah. Do I love you? Yeah. That is a lovely summary. No notes. And then finally, Jacob. Not to put him last, but we don't see a lot of him really in the book or the movie in Twilight specifically. But Jacob's character was doomed from the beginning. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. Um, Sarah Gallagher says in Why We Live and Hate Twilight that Stephanie Meyer has said that Jacob's character was like an afterthought.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

That's apparent.

SPEAKER_00 42:27

Yeah. Her publisher was like, we need more of Jacob in the second book. Like, we really want his character to go somewhere. So that's why, like, his backstory, the other Quill Boys stories are also added in there. But their stories are tragic too. Like, the way that that's another thing is the way that she writes for them is terrible. None of them have a full family. A lot of moms are past. The inner relationships that they have with each other are just so broken and sad. And it's like, why do the people on the reservation have to have this doomed story? Yeah. And you get these vampires that are just living their life, doing whatever they want, playing God, and changing people for the sake of their own coven. It's weird. It's weird. There's there's a power imbalance in the stories.

SPEAKER_02 43:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:24

And later in the stories, it's also mentioned that like Jacob was never gonna be with Bella. That was determined from the beginning. But we just had to make the girls go crazy. Yeah, we had to have something to some conflict. Team Edward or Team Jacob. And that holdeth course. Let's actually talk about the movie. There's a lot of differences and similarities between the two. It's so much that not all of them can be mentioned, but I do want to say and point out that like these are all the marks where I I think this happened in the movie. Mmm, okay. So, like, I'd say every 10 to 20 pages there's a reference.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

So it was very pick pick and choose.

SPEAKER_02 44:08

I liked how in the movie we saw James and quote unquote the bad guys way earlier. I actually really appreciated that. Yes. I I thought I thought that was an excellent change. It moved the story along. It added stakes from the jump. Like, I get that there's stakes and that they're vampires and all. But it just felt like in the book, like all of a sudden there was a villain, and all of a sudden we're changing the plans. Like, I just felt a little like late in the game. Um, but from the jump in the movie, we see that, and I I thought that was nice. It was a nice change.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

Yeah, it gives some suspense of like they seem safe, like the vampires seem safe where they are, but as soon as these villains are introduced, it's apparent that they need to be like quiet and secretive about who they are. So, yeah, totally, totally agree.

SPEAKER_02 44:59

The thing that I most want to talk about about this movie is like the style, the filming. Like, I want to hear your take on like the color saturation, and just like honestly, the camera work is so unique.

SPEAKER_00 45:15

It is, it really is. Like, one of the first shots in the movie is like Charlie driving Bella across that bridge, and it's just so skewed, and you're like, I feel off. I think that is a really good note for the DP. It just makes you feel uneasy, yeah, and like a bit uncomfortable, but also it's not like it's a bad frame.

SPEAKER_02 45:43

Yeah. You know, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I don't necessarily have beef with it. Like, I I just feel like it really sticks it in 2008. You know what I mean? Like, when I see that, I'm like, oh, this is this is the early 2000s, it's close to the 2010s, like the colors of it all, of like how pale everyone is and how blue they go with it.

SPEAKER_00 46:06

It's like so blue and it's so green.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Yeah. But like, I'm I'm not like I don't have beef with it. I'm okay with that. Because I feel like it adds to the angst, you know? I that to me says YA. Yes, like like your middle school brother was like working on a project for his media class, and he's like, Look how cool this is. Look how I made the colors, and look how I did this cut, and I've only filmed from their eyebrows down. There's so many sh there's so many sh close-up face shots of Bella and Edward, and their format is not in it, it's just that. And I'm like, okay, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Eyebrow to bottom lip. Yeah. That's all it is. You got that right. I think Twilight alone, based on the book, is a great adaptation.

SPEAKER_02 46:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:00

You know, because like I said earlier, I think the actors really portrayed the characters in the book. Not to say that they didn't add their own flair, their own personality. But I really think they took these characters and they just plopped them on screen. And that's what happened. They took the description of Forks and the school and just everything and said, movie. And ultimately, that's what fans want to see, you know? Yeah. I mean, Bella described everything as just so green, and she hated it, you know? And here we are with this green movie, and some people hate it, but like you said, it adds to the time. It gives the movie the look that you expect, especially if you read the book first. Like the movie, technically, doesn't look bad to me.

SPEAKER_02 47:55

Go off. Say more.

SPEAKER_00 47:57

The color, the color is bad, but again, it's taken from the book. You know, it's not a visually disturbing movie at all.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

I actually was impressed with some of the shots, given that it gives like I know when it was filmed, you know what I'm saying? There's a lot of um quote unquote special effects that are not bad. Like, I'm I'm not too bothered by them, you know? Which ones are you thinking of? I'm thinking of like the jumping and the running, and like it is corny and it is cringe, but like not not in like uh the special effects are bad way, just in like a the concept is silly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:42

It's not in a way where you're like, oh, I can't watch this. You know, it adds to the camp of it. I really think Twilight is so camp.

SPEAKER_02 48:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:52

No, it is so for real. It is. What are some plot points that stood out to you in the movie as a second time watcher?

SPEAKER_02 49:01

Great question. Um, for whatever reason, I'm going to like the scene at the Collins house where in the book that is where Bella gets the backstory. That's where she learns Carlisle's whole tea. Edward like gives the family history, and instead in the movie, they jump out the window, jump around the forest, and don't kiss, but just put their faces really close to each other in the tree. Yes. And I'm like, okay, I get it. Like, we're doing like a little intimacy montage here, but like, I do feel like the backstory of the Collins is relevant to the plot, and Oh, it totally is. I was like, that was the one thing that I was like, ooh, I wish that was still in there. Otherwise, I I liked the I liked the choices that they made in the adaptation of like only keeping the things that move the plot forward. For example, like combining those two characters. I truly felt like the the plot moved along in a pretty okay clip. I just was like, ah, dang, what is what is this jumping through the forest business? I want to go into Carlisle's office, I want to hear the family lore.

SPEAKER_00 50:11

They leave out a lot of context, everything. You want to hear the backstory, you want to know how did you get here. And speaking of the house, like she gets there, and I don't know if you noticed in the movie, but they put like everything that's described on the wall.

SPEAKER_03 50:29

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

So like she walks in and there's that huge cross.

SPEAKER_03 50:33

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

And then the graduation hats weren't in the book. In the book. I think that was a director's choice by Catherine Hardwick, but they eventually play baseball, so all the baseball bats are like up on the wall in a shadow box. There's masked from I don't I don't remember where, but like, you know, relics. Long time ago. Yeah, that have been found, and it's strewn about the house. If you read the book and you see those like set design pieces, you cling on to that. Which I think is really cool because, like we said, you can't put this whole book in the movie without it being three, four hours long. Exactly, yeah. So you need to have some type of interwoven thing, whether it be props, clothes, a look, because something else that we lose is like the way that Edward communicates with like Alice and everything. Yeah. And so I know as I was watching the movie, I'm like, okay, in the book, they verbally say this, but in the movie, they give these looks, and I notice a lot of Edward's reactions to not only his sister, but like Mike. He's hearing their thoughts, right? And if you read the book, you see him hearing their thoughts, and you're like, okay, he hears it.

SPEAKER_02 52:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:06

I feel like that's good acting.

SPEAKER_02 52:09

That's what Andrew and I were talking about. So uh we we watched it last night, and the opening scene where Robert Pattinson is in the biology class and the fan blows and he gets a whiff of Bella, and he's like, And it's like so corny. I was like, oh my god, the acting. And Andrew was like, Okay, but he is supposed to be playing something that's not human. Like, he is supposed to be from another world. Like, yes, he's he's not supposed to act normal, like that's the whole thing. And I was like, I know, but man, is it it's like that's another level?

SPEAKER_00 52:47

That's what I was telling Lava because she watched it, she watched the first half with me. And in this sense, I am Andrew when you are Lava. Yeah, she was like, I feel like his acting is just so bad. And I said, I'm not gonna hold you, but he's playing this character really good, like he's playing to the context. Yes, yes, word of the day, context.

SPEAKER_02 53:11

Context.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Yeah, he's playing to what we're not seeing, and I think it's pretty good.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Yeah, I I feel like the part of the movie that we haven't gotten to yet is the music.

SPEAKER_00 53:29

I love the soundtrack of this movie, a handful of songs, admittedly, but I really think that the music moves the story along in a way that is necessary. Yeah, for sure. It's so necessary to have like these specific songs. I truly feel like something that I wrote was you hardly notice the music because it blends with it, like it blends with the story so well.

SPEAKER_02 53:56

I so disagree with that. Okay, let's hear it. Well, I I feel like the angsty songs do blend well. Like the um the what's this what's the first song on the soundtrack? The black hole song? Supermassive black hole. Yes. Love, the Paramour song. Like, I feel like the the angsty ones blend well, but then there were moments of they were just doing like a lot of aerial shots of trees to like orchestral music, and I was like, this I don't I like I I didn't like the blend. There was it they were too different, and it took me out.

SPEAKER_00 54:38

I do want to redact not necessarily redact a statement, but kind of backtrack a little bit. I think the songs that were brought in for the movie worked yes, I think the ones that were composed were a little iffy for me. I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 54:55

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:55

The ones that already existed, top notch. But I get that the orchestral overture. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 55:03

With the with the blue screen and the tight shots, I'm like, what? Like, what is this? It's a little bizarre. There was one moment that I actually felt like needed music. Um when Edward uh creeps into Bella's room for the first time, and which that's the number one red flag that we didn't mention earlier. Is if a man was like, I've been watching you sleep for months, I'd be like, get out of my house. There's the door. And she's like, I'm reporting you to the vaultary. So sweet. Okay, what? Anyway, um, he's like going in to kiss her, and they make such a long suspense of the kiss, right? They're just getting closer and closer, and they're breathing, and there's no underscore. There's no music, and it's just so awkward. And like you just hear it's like like teenage breath sounds. Ew, I just I felt like I was watching something I shouldn't have been supposed, like, I felt like I was seeing something that I shouldn't have been watching. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 56:10

But I think no one should be in that room except for Bella.

SPEAKER_02 56:13

Yes, but that moment would have been less awkward if there was even just a little something going on, soundtrack-wise.

SPEAKER_00 56:21

I do wonder if that was a purposeful choice. No, I'm sure it was. I'm sure it was. Heighten the suspense. It's it's a it's a little yucky.

SPEAKER_02 56:31

I think it's because I'm watching it as an adult, you know. If I was like if if I was 17, I would have been like, oh my god, so hot, Robert Pattinson, uh, but I'm I'm an adult woman, and I'm like, ew.

SPEAKER_00 56:44

We're knocking on 30's door, and it's just not cute. Something that I read in the Illustrated Guide was when Stephanie Meyer was writing the book, she would have songs, like she has paired songs with moments, which I found really interesting, and there was a lot of muse. Okay. Like integrated into her personal story.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

Well, I feel like the baseball scene is the scene that gets referenced the most, like on the internet. Like, people love to reference that scene. And I do feel like the song there is iconic.

SPEAKER_00 57:22

The baseball scene is iconic. Iconic. And I think it has to do with the music. 100%. Like it's so, so good.

SPEAKER_02 57:34

It's just really dynamic. Like, from kind of some of those like woodsy, like ethereal, we're laying in the grass. Yeah, literally. Like, to contrast that, it um energizes the the plot. Because that's that's where they introduce the the quote unquote bad guys to the Collins, and it the baseball is honestly kind of irrelevant. It's just that they were being loud enough that another group of vampires heard them. Um, but when you add that song, yeah. Insane.

SPEAKER_00 58:13

It says, hey, uh, the plot is plotting. It sure is. It kinda also makes them a little more human.

SPEAKER_02 58:22

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 58:23

Like they're playing a game. They're doing something as a family outside.

SPEAKER_02 58:27

It's a family field day. Are you ready to unleash about the fandom? I'm so ready. Go ahead. I don't even know. I was gonna say what's crazy about like thinking about Twilight, I actually think like when I think of Twilight in my brain, I think of the fandom more than I think of the source material. I think of the people who were reading the books at school. I think of the people who were getting into debates about Team Edward versus Team Jacob. Like, I think about the culture surrounding Twilight way more than I think about the book or the movie, which speaks to its impact on culture. Oh, a hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 59:06

I to piggyback off of that, when I think of Twilight, I think of, like you said, the fandom, the people surrounding it, but I also think of like the memes that have come out of it and the jokes, and I also think of the experiences that I've had surrounding Twilight. I text two friends of mine earlier this week doing research, being like, thinking about y'all, because I remember when we spent the whole week, like we had we took a whole week to watch every single movie. Yes, like Monday was Twilight, Tuesday was New Moon, so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Period.

SPEAKER_00 59:46

And it was every night after we all got off of work and we were like, let's watch. And you know, of course, we got to breaking dawn part two, and there was one person who hadn't seen it. And it was like the side-eye watch being like, It's coming, it's coming. And so I think about that, you know, I think of the experiences that I've had surrounding Twilight, and it is bizarro.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:09

Well, before we dive into the fandom, there's something that I've been like holding on to that I'm like, ooh, when when should I share it? But I think I'll say it now. I truly feel like, and there's a we we could say this about almost any media, but I feel like Twilight was like a Rorschach test at the time, and people were projecting really hard onto both sides of the coin of either loving it or hating it. Um so uh the the term romanticy is like fairly new. People only started saying that in like 2023, but the idea that like um there's fantasy stories encapsulated with romance and they can't be separated, like that's that's the I guess the distinction between just fantasy and romanticy. Um, and it has always been polarizing. Like, yes, romanticy is a quote unquote new term, but like there are stories from the 1800s about you know girls falling in love with fairies and goblins, like like tale as old as time, you know? And I think they're so polarizing because of the way that the men and the women are written in the story. So some people would say that like a romanticy type book like Twilight is inherently feminist because it's written by a woman, it's written for a female audience, and it does center like female pleasure, not necessarily Twilight specifically, but a lot of these types of books do, right? And then others are like, no, like this just reinforces the patriarchy because all the male characters are written to be like overly masculine and they have super strength and they're aggressive and they're stoic and like it's it's reinforcing the patriarchy that way. And as we kind of get into the team Edward and the team Jacob of it all, I feel like like that's what it comes down to is people have a visceral reaction to stories like this because of the way that they are, like, because of the way that women are written and men are written in these books, and people have some feelings about that.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:15

Shall we get into Team Edward and Team Jacob? Let's lock it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:21

Obviously, there wasn't much of a choice in Twilight. Yeah, you know, that didn't really play itself until New Moon. But what did happen immediately with Twilight, because the fandom had read all the books already, they knew who these characters were and supposedly what they looked like. Yeah. Taylor Lautner was a child when he was first put into Twilight. I think he was 16, 15, 16, and these grown women were slobbering on themselves, being like, oh man, he's so hot. I would I don't even want to get into that. Disturbing. It's it's terrible and it's disturbing.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:05

So, like you said before, if this movie, if this book was written today, as it already is, cancelled.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:13

I don't think it would have gone past publishing. You need some credits, you need some just everything that's scale, scale the characters up.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:23

Like at least make them over the age of 18. Like, can we at least put them in college, you know?

SPEAKER_00 1:03:28

Literally, that's what Sarah Gallagher said. She was like, in no way, shape, or form did Stephanie Meyer have any intention on like furthering any of their lives where she could have, because the whole saga takes place over, I think, two years. Wow. The whole thing from meeting a biology class to having a baby is two years, Allie.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:55

And that I think is why it was so it was so popular amongst like middle school girls and high school girls, because once again, as women, we're socialized in a certain way, and we're socialized to prioritize relationships, marriage, family. And so a little 14-year-old reading this is like, oh my god, like it's her high school sweetheart, and they're together forever, and they get married and have a baby, like that. That is very much what young girls are socialized to think is ideal.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Quick aside, you said high school, and I just remembered something that I read. Why are they repeating high school so many times? Girl. Why are they choosing to repeat high school every couple years?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

And that's what I'm saying is creepy. Why are you a hundred years old hanging out with kids that are increasingly younger and younger and younger? It's like Leonardo DiCaprio. Just stop. Just stop. Get get a coffee shop job. As Taylor Swift once said, I get older, but your lovers stay my age. Okay. That is that is Edward Collins M.O.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:03

Um put them in college. That's my only ask is put them in college. If Kristen Stewart decides to revamp Twilight for the 20-year anniversary in two years, put them in college.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

Kristen Stewart is in no way, shape, or form returning to playbella. Let's let's get that straight. She wants to direct it.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:25

Oh, that's right. That's right. I forgot about it.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:28

She said something about wanting to like direct a rendition of it. Oh, that'd be cool. And I was actually talking to a friend yesterday, kind of giving her an inside scoop on us talking about Twilight. And she was like, I personally think they should make Twilight a TV series. That's what I was thinking. I it would fit that so much better than this scrunched up movie series.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

And that would be really cool for Kristen Stewart to direct.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:59

Yeah. Yeah, because you get the backstory, you get more of that context, you get probably some better character development.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:06

Hopefully better writing.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:09

Hey.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:10

We haven't said it yet, but I think this is your perfect opportunity to talk about some of those crazy lines. Say it. Out loud.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:24

Not in the book. Oh god. Not in the book. And neither is this is the skin of a killer. Not in the book. This is the skin of a killer, Bella. I want to see the script.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

Yeah. I know. I know. Oh my gosh. Anyway, sorry. Back to the fandom. Back to the back to the psychos like us who are still talking about it and who are still rooting for more IP to be made. Who are still like, oh yeah, we would love to watch a series. We would love to see Kristen Stewart direct a series with multiple episodes and multiple seasons. Because we're not done with this. We're not done talking about it. We're not done. And you know who wasn't done talking about it?

SPEAKER_00 1:07:07

I'm gonna barf. I think I'm gonna barf when we start talking about this. Snow Queen's Ice Dragon. AKA E L James, aka the author of Fifty Shades of Grey. You heard of here. Probably not first, ladies and gentlemen. Fifty Shades of Grey is Twilight Fanfiction.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:28

No, this is the first time I've heard this. When I read this outline, I said, What? Are you serious? I Googled it because Candace, that's how like I was so in the dark. I did not know. I literally got on the internet, did some Googling, and was like, oh my god, that's crazy. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:47

E.L. James.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:48

How old were they when they wrote that? I just have to know.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:52

So E.L. James, if we're going based on 2006 when she started writing the Twilight Fanfiction that eventually became Fifty Shades of Grey, she would have been good old Farty Far.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:05

No, no. Oh my god. You can't, you cannot write about minors like that.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:14

They're kids. She placed them. I haven't read any of it. I haven't read Fifty Shades of Grey, but um famously she was writing fanfiction on probably a fanfiction website or Twitter. I think it was actually Twitter. And she was going by the name Snow Queen's Ice Dragon. And she was placing Edward and Bella in these spicy scenarios. Dungeon clad rooms and making them do very questionable things.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:49

And like, and that's what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:50

Just put them in college, make them older, stop with the high school stuff. Yeah, and maybe she did. Like I said, I haven't read it, haven't read either form of this, but and then all of a sudden it was gone from the website that it was on, and it was published.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:10

Fifty Shades of Grey is a massive success. Talk about another like franchise that took the nation by storm. That is T, and that is very interesting that it came off the back of Twilight because I just have to guess that the reason why like women our age love books like Fifty Shades of Grey, love like romanticity, like Fourth Wing and Sarah J Mass, like those types of things, is because we grew up reading Twilight. Yeah, is because it's like it's like the next level of that. Um I mean that author honestly was smart. Capitalize off you know fanfiction, yeah. Well, yeah, girl, make your bag.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:52

And here's the thing: there's other fanfictions out there that have been, you know, wiped from the internet so that they were published and released. There's a movie, or there's a fan fiction about Harry Styles that got turned into a movie. I love that movie.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:09

I think it's good. Look, I'm an Ann Hathaway stan.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:16

I love Miss Annie. She's that girl. You have fan fictions such as that. Um, the largest fandom at the time that made up Twilight fans was the Twi moms, the moms of people who were reading Twilight, which I don't think is cute. It's not cute. Um, there was a website called twilightmoms.com that had roughly 27,000 members.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:50

That is literally so 2010 coded.

SPEAKER_00 1:10:53

Right. And um that domain now is up for sale for over $4,000. Should we buy it? Hell no.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:05

You said I mean I do not want to be associated with Twy Moms.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:09

I'd rather make our own website first.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:11

So true.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:12

Figure out, you know, where to go from here.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:15

The fandom went berserk. I feel like I need to take a moment and reflect. Like, I am dogging on adults getting so into this, but like I I actually really like watching like teen dramas as an adult. Like, I I love like um Ginny and Georgia features teenage storylines. That's a show on Netflix. Yeah. A lot of people like Euphoria, that's too dark for me, can't watch that. Um, like, I don't feel like it's all that uncommon to like love or like be interested in like teen inks type media. It's more just like what I remember about that era is that people were feral.

unknown 1:11:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:57

Is that if you were in a public space and you were like wearing a shirt that said Team Jacob at the ripe age of 40, and you got into beef with like another woman at that age, it's like we've we've gone a scoche too far, ladies. Reel it in.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:15

Well, that's that's what was happening is in um Sarah Gallagher's book, she talks about how a lot of the what I'm gonna say, disgusting, a lot of the disgusting acts of fans came from the Twine Moms and the older fans because they were putting themselves in this, you know, teenage mindset. And mind you, this is a fantasy romance or romantic as we know it today. But to your point of like people our age watching this young adult content, not necessarily Twilight, but like the Ginny and Georgia, the euphoria, to me it feels more healing, not euphoria, but like other mediums and other storylines feel healing because we could be seeing represent representation that we never seen before and needed at the time of our teenage years. And maybe not us specifically, but maybe we have kids who are growing up in a similar situation that need to see that everything is gonna be okay or everything could be okay. I don't disagree with you in like at our age now, taking in what I'm gonna quote unquote teenage media, yeah. I don't think it's a bad thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:38

Yeah. I think what is what we kind of spoke about earlier in that Bella is written to be flawless. You know, she's she's the perfect victim, like she's bumbling around, like she's so innocent, yeah, yeah, yeah. If these women are fantasizing and putting themselves in Bella's shoes, that might be that like white woman, like just yeah, feel like feeling like they have a right to act insane. You got it on the nose there, sister. And and white people have always felt like they had that, but I feel like getting so lost in like a fantasy where the the female lead like is quote unquote flawless. It's like, well, I'm justified in getting into an argument in Walmart with my girlfriend over here who's team Edward, you know? Like, I'm justified in acting crazy.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:39

To your point, I want to bring up the like parasocial of all of this, not just with the characters, but with the actors that portrayed these characters. And because we're coming off of the what I'm gonna call the white woman craze of being able to do whatever you want to do, race is not associated with what I'm about to say because I think everyone has the ability to do this, um, just putting yourself in a parasocial situation. Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson had so much anxiety after and during the release of Twilight, the filming of Twilight, because, like you said earlier, they went from having not these A-list roles and A-list, you know, status celebrity status, to being just hawk-eyed. Their personality in the movie became who they were to other people, which I don't think is fair. You know, one of my friends that I texted the other day, she was like, You have to talk about when Kristen Stewart cheated on Robert Pattinson, and I laughed at the time, and I'm sorry, girl, to kind of write on your parade, but they didn't want that relationship to be public, and it became public because that came out, and Kristen Stewart ended up apologizing for something that she never wanted anyone to know. Yeah, you know, we don't actually even know if she cheated. She could have, she could have not. Yeah, we don't know. But people were so attached to these real life people who were playing characters that were together that did end up together, but it's like you're putting too much of your own feeling behind both scenarios.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:32

It also was just a different time. Like, okay, this movie was released in 2008. 2007 is when Britney Spears shaped her head, as we know. Like paparazzi, and like I mean, now we have like insane surveillance of like every single person has a cell phone and is filming at all times, but like that to me feels a little bit different than like grown men with cameras chasing you down the street as a young woman. Like, that is scary. That's a scary experience. Also, like I feel like celebrities have a little bit more permission to be human nowadays. I still think celebrities have like unreasonable, insane expectations held upon them. But man, back then it was like you have to act right, look right, talk right, dress right, like um, and I just cannot imagine that pressure as a young person.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:27

No, and oh, that was the other thing. Kristen Stewart was only 17, yeah, so young. Like she was Bella's age, she was the real age, and it's just not fair. Yeah, it's just not fair. We're we're closing in, we're rounding home. Why are we still talking about this? In the best way possible. And why are we kidding? Why are we still? Why are we still talking about this? Oh man. Twilight changed the way we viewed romanticy and just the depiction of the type of characters that we wanted to see in books. Specifically, I'm gonna say like vampire aesthetics. In the freaking illustrated guide, Stephanie Meyer maps out that the Volturi, like the head vampires or whatever, they wanted to eradicate like some of the myths that surround vampires. And this sounds so weird to be talking about so seriously, but like I have a feeling that somewhere in this narrative, she wanted to make vampires seem a little more approachable and human and make it as if they were walking amongst us. You know, because in the past you've had Dracula and Nosferatu, who are like iconically these scary monsters with fangs, and they look dead, they smell dead, and you just don't want to associate yourself with them. Right. But then you have this glitter clad hunk of a man that's still a monster. He swears up and down, I'm a monster. But somehow this girl has fallen in love with him. And maybe that's her own dream world being projected onto paper. But at the end of the day, whenever we think vampire, now we think the Cullins. We're thinking Twilight.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:28

Yeah. I'm thinking Carlisle's bad hair, bad bleach job, that washes him out, intentionally washes him out, you know what I'm saying? I'm thinking, yeah, Rosalie's blonde hair with again intentionally washes her out.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:47

So the current renaissance of Twilight, the ironic rewatches of it all, we still have people saying, I watch Twilight every fall. It's hoa hoa season, you know what I mean? It's time to hunker down in my room and have the camera spinning around me with seasonal depression. New moon excerpt. But people are still clinging on to this story, and I don't know if it's the story, I don't know if it's the aesthetic. I feel like it's the aesthetic, and just the again, the camp of it all is just so relevant to our reading and our media intake. Yeah. Um, something that I think still happens, I'm not 100% sure. There's like a Forever Forks like convention that happens in Forks.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:41

Yeah. So Yeah, it still happens. September 10th through the 13th. It's coming up.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:47

Yes, the Forever Forks Twilight Festival that happens in Forks, and it's like four days.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:56

No, she was there in 2025.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:59

G. Well, that's what I'm saying. Is stuff like that still happens. And once again, in Sarah Gallagher's book, she's like, this is the fandom, like the present fandom, is the one that she wants to be a part of because there's an appreciation for this story.

unknown 1:21:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:16

As weird as some of the stories are, and the representations and the problematic stuff that comes along with it, there are people that see the Twilight saga and the Twilight World as nostalgic and just want to live in the good part of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:36

I love that.

SPEAKER_00 1:21:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:38

That makes sense. I think the the line on this outline that really stuck out to me that you wrote is Cozy cringe as comfort media. Like for me, Twilight, we'll get into is it worth a rewatch eventually, but I would I would not consider this movie to be a comfort movie for me, because I did not grow up watching it, right? Like I wasn't a fan, I didn't go see it in theaters, I have no real associations with it, but I totally see that, you know, if you grew up watching this with your girlfriends at a sleepover, if you waited in line to go to the midnight premiere, like I could totally see how even as an adult, you're like, oh god, like this is really cringe, how it would still be so comforting. And I think that's fine. And in our state of the world right now, where the internet is so overwhelming, the news cycle is so overwhelming, like having media that you can consume in a way that like calms your nervous system instead of like triggers it is important.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:40

And that leads us into kind of our last little section that we always have. Clearly, this movie, you either love it, you hate it, or you love to hate it. Something that I have written here was you don't have to think it's good to understand why it matters. Final line from my Bible, Why We Love and Hate Twilight. If you come across somebody passionately wishing that Stephanie Meyer had given money to the Quil You tribe, or had not used them at all, had thought for one second before making Jasper a Confederate soldier, had never ever thought about imprinting for one second. That's a whole other conversation. Yeah, we haven't even gotten there. Had let Bella go to college, had aged up the characters in general, or a litany of other critiques that we'll discuss in the rest of this book, then you're probably looking at a Twilight fan who wants more from their favorite media and wants to write Myers wrongs. I really think that that sums up the people that understand the issues that are within the whole saga, but they still have an appreciation for it. Because something else that she writes is she's like, something that I love to do is hate on what I love.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:05

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:24:07

Because I think, like you were saying, people need to find something to critically analyze, especially now. It's like there's so much happening, it's like, okay, what can I ground myself in that I know like the back of my hand, find the issues within it, but still have some type of appreciation for it. I think Twilight is one of those things.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:32

Yeah. To to your critical analysis piece, like I feel like it's just our human brain's desire is to look for constant improvement, right? Like our brain is a pattern recognizer, our nervous system is built on pattern recognition, and in order for us to feel safe and at ease, like we we have to progress, right? Like we have to get better at things. And there's a lot, a lot, a lot of discourse right now about how nobody is doing any type of critical analysis. Everybody's just taking what they, you know, see online as truth. And people are arguing that it's like a skill that we're losing. And I don't think that's true per se. I would just say that like, in terms of like why we love to hate it, why why we're re-watching as like a hate watch or whatever, is because like it gives our brain an opportunity to flex that muscle and be like, this is wrong, you know, she should be older or she should have been allowed to go to college or whatever. And it it helps us use that part of our brain that we want to use, but when we're constantly stimulated by social media and we're constantly just in entertainment and we're not thinking, we don't get to use it. But if it's like a piece of you know familiar media that we we love, we get to use that part of our brain.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:50

And I think that's good. We should keep doing that. It's great because I to that point, I think it helps us analyze other things that might be a little bit harder to take in, you know. And I think things like this will help them, you know, come around to seeing both sides and realizing, okay, maybe I am on the wrong side of history.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:12

Yeah, for real. Speaking of which side of history you want to be on. Are you gonna re-watch Twilight sincerely or ironically?

SPEAKER_00 1:26:23

And are you gonna re-watch it at all? I could see myself putting it on in the background. I think this it was a hard movie to sit through all the way through.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:32

Girl, I felt the same way. Say more.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:35

I had to watch half of it last night and half of it this morning, not even due to the fact of a full day of activities. Like by the middle, I was like, I'm sleepy. We get through 70% of the book and nothing has happened. We get through 70% of the movie and nothing has happened. Everything picks up after the baseball game, and it's like, okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:58

Let me just fast forward through this scene of them s running through the woods.

SPEAKER_00 1:27:04

Literally, that's all they're doing is running and climbing and climbing and running and breathing.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:09

Yeah. That so as somebody who was not a big fan of Twilight growing up, who really hadn't been exposed to the book at all, who had only seen the movie once a long time ago, um, coming into this like rewatch for the podcast, I was open-minded, was totally open-minded because I know so many people love it. I liked the book way more than I thought I would like the book, and I liked the movie way less than I thought I would like it. For for those same reasons you just mentioned, and maybe it's because I had literally just finished reading the book the same day that I rewatched the movie, but I was like, God, I know what happens, and I know we got a lot more plot to get through before this thing is over, and it just felt like it was dragging towards the end. So this is maybe this is a hot take for some of our Twilight super fans. Um, I will not be rewatching this. And I don't blame you. It's not it's not for me. It's it's for the girlies who did read it when they were 14 and have nostalgia around it. That just wasn't my experience.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:10

I feel like when you when you ask, am I gonna rewatch it ironically or sincerely? I really feel like I'm right in the middle of it.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:18

It's like I do understand why you don't want to watch it, but I'm also like, you want to watch my liver.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:26

It's the perfect movie to put on for like a gal's movie night in the fall and just shit talk the whole time. To like you're talking over it, you can't hear it because you know it so well, and you're like, oh my god, like why is she wearing a short sleeved shirt over her long sleeve shirt again? Fellow. What are we doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:28:48

I am the definition of I love it, but it's so bad.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:52

Yeah. Hate to love it, love to hate it. And that's why she's sticking around because she makes you feel something.

SPEAKER_00 1:28:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:00

It's not we're not neutral about Twilight. We're we're either pro or con. Yeah. If you can't tear it apart, then it's probably not for you. Um, should we tease what's next? Speaking of fanfiction.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:15

Ooh. Ooh. Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:19

We talked about Harry Styles and Ann Hathaway earlier, and that's gonna be our teaser for what's coming next. That's it. Actually, no, I don't want to leave it like it's spicy. We're gonna watch the Double Whips Prada. Yeah. It's the 20-year anniversary.

SPEAKER_00 1:29:35

Have you seen the trailer? No. Or I don't know if there's an official trailer yet, but I know that there was a teaser that came out like last May or so.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:45

Yes, I have seen that teaser. It's everything. Yeah. Alright, well, hey, um, happy season two. Welcome back.