First off, let me just say I’ve never read the Twilight trilogy. I saw the first movie as a matter of curiosity; never had the hankering to see the second one; and saw the third movie because of all the bad reviews – no one can resist a train wreck.
Having said all that, yeah, Eclipse wasn’t all that good. As I said, the books were written with a particular audience in mind – teen American girls. It was inevitable that the movies wouldn’t be Oscar-winners. I mean, heck. The plot barely even existed.
The basic story is that the girlfriend of the vampire Edward killed – James – is out to get Bella. She wants Edward to feel the pain of her loss. To do this, she infects a runaway kid who then proceeds to help her raise an army of newly infected vampires – “newborns” (needless to say, I prefer the term used by White Wolf – neonate) who are physically more powerful than older vampires (On a tangent, that’s just plain stupid. Almost as stupid as sparkly skin).
To protect Bella, the Cullens have to ally themselves with Jacob’s werewolves. Big fight ensues – and underwhelms, with the exception of Ashley Greene’s matrix moment with a big gray wolf – yadda yadda yadda, and the movie’s big finish is the discussion between Edward and Bella – in the midst of a field of wildflowers – about the relative wisdom of having a vampire for a wedding planner.
No, I’m serious.
So, yeah. If you’re looking for a good movie, pass this one up. However, if you’re looking for a window into American teen life and mores – let’s face it. The rest of us non-Americans are just looking in on American culture with these movies anyway – this is probably a good movie to see. Whether on purpose or not, the movie reflects the current state of the teen American girl psyche. At the very least, it was to be expected that the movie would be full of archetypal characters that, when they saw it, might help teeners navigate the treacherous waters of puberty, peer pressure, and the crew politics of American high schools.
Let’s face it. The rest of us non-Americans are just looking in on American culture with these movies.
Edward, for instance, embodies American teen-girlhood’s negative reaction to American teen-boyhood’s multimedia-fueled objectification of women. Almost every other Hollywood movie portrays women as playthings for dominant men; chastity is derided as a disease that is eventually cured by either the smooth talking rogue or by sweet innocent love. Either way, lost to a predator or lost to a sweetheart, chastity ends up a discarded concept.
Edward breaks that stereotype and is cast as unwilling to let Bella sacrifice her chastity. Even when it’s Bella stepping on the gas – the excuse most men use for justifying illicit sex – Edward stomps on the brakes with Catholic determination. In fact, in his litany of how he’s gonna respect Bella and do everything right, Edward sounds downright Filipino.
I imagine that for teen American girls, used to being treated like sex objects, this chivalrous approach must set off endless giggles. Add to that the subtle element of Edward actually being an older guy – he is, y’know? – then you have the archetypal female fantasy of being taken care of by a MAN, as opposed to being the play mate of a BOY.
Jacob, on the other hand, represents the argument that sex is good and natural rather than a sinful urge. His desire for Bella doesn’t feel like lust as much as it feels like a natural extension of his love for her. This is another lesson being unconsciously transmitted: that if celibacy is chosen, then it should be chosen for the right reasons – such as Edward’s insistence that he wants the first time to be within wedlock – rather than because sex is dirty.
This means that the Jacob v. Edward face-off isn’t about sex v. chastity. It’s about making the right decision for the right reasons. Think about it. Bella with Edward is just as acceptable as Bella with Jacob. Therefore, chastity is just as acceptable as sex with a man who truly loves you. Bottom line: not having sex isn’t bad, but having sex isn’t bad either provided you pick the right partner.
And picking the right partner is Bella’s burden.
Bella represents the Freshman – as in that song by the Verve Pipe.
Well, ok. Not entirely. Just those coupla’ lines from the chorus:
For the life of me, I could not remember / what made us think that we were wise and we never compromised.
Yeah, that’s Bella right there: all youthful conviction of the rightness of her actions; unwilling – or more precisely, unABLE – to appreciate a differing view. Not that I blame her, of course. When i was younger, I and some friends of mine, we used to prowl the benighted streets of Sampaloc whispering “bite me” into the darkness. We were seduced by the delicately textured decay that Anne Rice wrote about in her vampire novels. Like Bella, and Winona Ryder’s Mina in Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula movie, we thirsted for something better than the world we lived in. Mina Harker wanted to escape death; Bella wanted to live forever with her love; we wanted to be faster than the Flash and stronger than 10 men combined.
Oh, and the fact that we could smoke without fear of cancer was also one of the great draws of vampirism.
In Eclipse, however, Bella’s motivations – as predictable as they were – were not as important as her obstinate refusal to accept any other course of action. She was going to be a vampire, however stupid that might be. In a sense, this is another way that this movie could be seen as empowering for young girls. Bella’s stubbornness, which after all was rewarded in the end, teaches that if you stick to your guns, your love will eventually be proven right.
I said “empowering;” I didn’t say “intelligent.”
Apart from these three characters, the others that populate the movie also offer a glimpse at the social landscape of the land of its birth.
Take Charlie, for instance; Bella’s father. He is a well-meaning but bumbling dad who can’t even talk to his teenage daughter about sex. Not surprising considering how un-essential he is to Bella’s life other than as a provider of food and shelter when she’s not getting either from her boys or the Cullens.
The Cullens represent every little girl’s fantasy family. Neil Gaiman, in Brief Lives, wrote about how little girls all pretend to be princesses; how their parents are not their real parents and that the real mum and dad are monarchs of some distant fantasy land. Well, that’s exactly what the Cullens are to Bella: the cool parents she wished she had. The Vulturi, on the other hand, are pretty good stand-ins for the implacable nature of real life; and a good anti-dote to the saccharine escapism represented by the Cullens.
So, I got all of that from the movie. What I didn’t get is how it advances the love story of Edward and Bella. So, I suppose in the sense that this movie failed to achieve its primordial goal – that of telling precisely that love story – I can now better understand the dismay of my friends who have been bitching about it since they waited til midnight to watch the movie. To be perfectly fair, eclipse ran on too long for just a side story. Even if it had Ashley Greene and Bryce Dallas Howard making vampires look good again.