By: Nick Matthews (U Mass Amherst)
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I sat down today to write an article on how the A-Team was a sick movie and how “haters are gonna hate” a movie that doesn’t take itself seriously and still manages to be awesome.
That is what I was going to do. Until my Facebook feed got (I think I can fairly use the word, literally) raped by people talking about this new Twilight movie. I can’t seem to get away from this culturefudge of tween angst. What further made me rage was when I found out that it doesn’t even come out until next week and it’s getting about as much buzz as The Dark Knight did after Heath went mono-a-mono with a pharmacy. Like maybe if Taylor Lautner offed himself or something, this movie would be buzzworthy.
Anyways, three movies in and I finally have to know what the hell every girl is insert sexual euphemism-ing about, so I do what any rational person doing a research paper does and consult Wikipedia. I therefore present my heavily compressed report on the Twilight saga. With this synopsis, every man should be able to throw in an insightful comment when a group of girls completely dismisses him while talking about pale douche bags and jacked tan Native Americans (this one doesn’t even own a casino!).
So at first glance, Twilight has already been done before. I’m looking at vampires and werewolves fighting some epic struggle on the outskirts of humanity. At least the first time they did it they had Kate Beckinsale and some bro that looks like Scott Stapp from Creed.
^Guy from Underworld ^ ^Guy from Creed ^
They could have just rehashed the awesomeness of vampires and werewolves using ridiculous high-tech weaponry to attempt to make each other extinct, but no, they had to make it a God damn romantic drama.
Movie 1:
Kinda gothic depressed chick leaves Arizona to move to the boonies of Washington, so her step dad a, wait for it, minor league baseball player can do his thing. She gets to Washington and doesn’t even get to explore the birthplace of grunge rock before some anemic kid shakes his hips and makes her “involuntarily drawn” to him. She eventually learns, and of course is totally cool with the fact, that he is a vampire. Don’t fret your fragile tween mind though, because he is a good vampire, because he only sucks the blood from animals, like cows and ponies and stuff. Oh did I mention, most vampires are bad vampires! (Plot Twist) One of these bad vampires decides that this movie doesn’t have enough action and so drives the plot by deciding he has to hunt down goth chick. Why? Because he is sadistic. Bad vampire chases goth babe to Arizona where Cedric Diggory saves her and brings her back to Washington.
Movie 2:
The anemic kid and his family leave Washington, because they apparently were fed up with the continued futility of the Mariners and Seahawks. This causes the gothic chick to become (surprise!) depressed! Don’t worry though, her tan Native American tan that decided to get jacked between movie one and movie two is conveniently there to pick up the pieces. Oh yeah, he’s a wolf. So bad vampire that died in the first movie had a girlfriend who wants to avenge his death (such an easy out for a plot point). She comes and tries to kill Becca or whatever, but is confronted by a bunch of giant frickin wolves (that actually sounds kind of cool). People get confused, and Edward (that’s the anemic kid’s name) thinks that his girlfriend is dead. Since he is wicked angsty too, he decides to kill himself (To think the movie could have ended here!) but he gets surprised by his sister who’s like, “Wait! I have your girlfriend and she’s not dead so you shouldn’t be dead either even though you are technically already un-dead.” So then, for reasons unexplained by Wikipedia, they meet with some powerful vampire coven in Italy, who only lets them go if they make Becca a vampire. They agree to it and return to Washington, just in time to catch Dave Matthews Band at the Gorge.
Book/Soon to be Movie 3:
The guy that Diggory killed in the first film had a girlfriend who was pissed that he died. So she created her own vampire army to fight Cedric’s family and kill the angsty chick. Meanwhile, angsty finds out that her Native American friend is actually a werewolf fighting an ancient battle against vampires or something like that. He hates Diggory, so she has to choose between them, creating sexual tension and allowing for the addition of another chiseled heartthrob to up ticket sales. With need for a happy ending, the “Good” animal killing vampires and the Native American kids’ werewolf pack team up to kill the “bad” vampire army (at least the bad guys had real motivation this time). They successfully kill the bad vampires, and the goth chick chooses the anemic kid over the tan werewolf. She then decides to marry him.
I’m obviously not the first guy to rip on Twilight, and I definitely am not the first to make the obvious connection to Underworld. Some of you may call me un-original and try to remind me that this is a fantasy film and you need to suspend reality and all that jazz. To each his or her own… but for me, I have had just about enough of all this Twilight hoopla.
I know I’m probably overly bitter from when New Moon beat The Dark Knight’s opening weekend (what the fudge man?). I also know that many you probably have credible arguments against my own. Sucks, bro or more likely bro…ette. Deal with it.
