Disclaimers:
a.) *Spoiler Alert* This article is full of spoilers. If you want to watch the movie for its pure unadulterated romance, 1.) Never come back to this website 2.) Why are you still reading?
b.) Yes, I went to the movie on my own volition. No, I am not crazy. I guess it was my way of trying to tag along with a gal who is way out of my league (she’s a 9,9 on brains and beauty) and yes she wanted to watch Twilight. Girl’s allowed to have weaknesses. And yes, the jury is still out on the matter of me being crazy.
c.) This article is for a very select audience. The kind that knows who General Custer is and that Avatar is not necessarily about a blue Pocanhontas and who have read this blog so far.
d.) This happened.
e.) But don’t believe everything you read on the internet.
The usual riff-raff:
The backstory since I assume you haven’t seen the rest (Nor have I but I was given a full synopsis during the pre-movie adverts). Vampire meets girl. Girl meets werewolf. Vampire meets girl again. Wedding bells and a fast forward to a baby that just falls short of being a chestburster from Aliens. Nah, this is a romantic movie. Or so you’d think.
The game for surviving 116 minutes of Twilight craziness works as follows: Identify the maximum number of elements from the movie that violate physics, break real legal laws, identify historical references and or shamelessly copied movie references. Very much like in-game achievements that you collect. So here is a list of opportunities for collecting the achievements in-game.
Some survival pointers: Don’t buy any soda/pop. Also make sure the popcorn is salty. The sweet version might just send you into a diabetic coma from the ensuing romance (which I felt was boringly mechanical. Then maybe I am dead within. Who knows?)
Scene: Opening credits.
The scenes are from a cold isolated place. Bear Grylls shot some of his scenes in one of these locations. No he actually didn’t. But let’s imagine he did.
Achievement challenge 1: How long can you survive in this place if you were a.) left without any tools and b) weren’t a vampire c) had to run a distance before your hands start shaking.
Achievement challenge 2: Some of those are not outdoors nature scenes but more like what a chestburster would see as it claws out of its victim. How many?
Scene: Bella wakes up.
She’s hungry and superstrong. Cue the scenes where she and her vampire hubby run through the forest looking for prey.
Achievement challenge 3: Which movie has the similar scenes where the characters run really fast like Flash? (hint: it has to something to do with Kung Fu).
Bella almost kills a man (I am guessing he was a certain famous Scientologist) who is minding his own business a.k.a. rock climbing. Then she decides against it and jumps off the ledge back into the forest.
Achievement challenge 4: Name the scientologist and calculate the velocity of impact when Bella hits the forest floor.
Bella then goes back and instead of killing the doe she kills the cougar that is about to bring dinner home to its cubs.
Achievement challenge 5: Which US state believes that cougars are nuisance wildlife?
Scene: Back at the coven lodge.
Bella finds out that she’s given birth to a creepy baby (no seriously, that spawn of the devil better be a bad CGI job else we are doomed) and that her ex-boyfriend werewolf has ‘imprinted’ on her. It took me a while to figure out what imprinting means and that explained why Bella throws a half-hearted fit.
Achievement challenge 6: Estimate the creepiness factor involved with first dating a woman and then her daughter (whom you will actually see in her diapers)
Bella is annoyed that the werewolf nicknames her precious daughter after the Loch Ness monster.
Achievement challenge 7: Name the American equivalent of Nessie. Also for added bonus, correctly locate the coordinates of Nessie’s home.
Scene: Their new home and some overdue snogging. Don’t expect more, it’s a 12A movie.
The house has appeared in the middle of nowhere. Sure they may be vampires but…
Achievement challenge 8: Suspend your disbelief that power, water and sewage handling magically happen in the house in the middle of nowhere and the forest rangers don’t notice the sudden appearance of the house.
Scene: Enter stage right Castor.
Castor/Aro, all blackened from the events at the End of Line club goes yadda yadda. Doesn’t matter what he says. He is the evil guy as usual.
Achievement challenge 9: Daft Punk it. Agreed Tron Legacy was lame (not). Maybe there will be another post about that later. But if you can play the Castor soundtrack in your head, you just survived a whole four minutes more. Added bonus if you can recall the distraction called Olivia Wilde on that really white couch.
Scene: Merchant of Venice
Someone has disappeared. Not before they leave a cryptic message that asks Bella to find witnesses to put in harm’s way before the snow sticks. Why not just pencil the date on the calendar?
Achievement challenge 10: Wonder why Bella will take another 20 min of the movie before figuring out there is more to the message in the rest of the book. And the fact that it proves to be actually worthless eventually.
Scene: Meet the family
Up north-er still? There’s the weird old aunt who packs a 10,000V spark generator instead of paws. This Taser-aunt is not going to be on the favorites list for that chestburster which has by now grown into a non-CGI horror kid, but still retains the creepiness just like baby-fat.
Achievement challenge 11: What would happen if a Taser is triggered in a shower or more relevant to the movie, when the hand is stuck in snow? Actual question: Which movie shows one of the protagonists catching the Taser in his face?
Scene: Enter the Avatar
The last Airbender’s scene with equivalently bad CGI set in Egypt suddenly shows that the pyramids survived the events of Transformers 2. In the real world the Airbender movie actually trailered before Transformers 2. That also happened. Surreally.
Achievement challenge 12: The courtyard was originally used for another movie involving scarabs. Which one?
Scene: Sue Storm meet n00b Vampire.
So Bella is a shield. Nick Fury is going to be very annoyed. But their paths wont cross fortunately. She’s projecting her shield but is nowhere good as Jessica Alba in (the answer unlocks Achievement 13). Too bad Bella also never skimps down to her bare essentials like Ms Alba does.
Achievement challenge 14: Even X-men (the movie version) had a character that could disable mutant superpowers. Where is this mutant kept in the movie?
Scene: Campfire with war stories
An odd collection of vampires have gathered. And they are sharing stories. One mentions two battles. One at the Little Big Horn. Judging by the lack of laughter in the theater, this was an American in-joke lost on outsiders. Unless they have watched the movie with Amelia Everhart and Sacagawea called (answer unlocks Achievement 15). Another battle is mentioned. Guess the date for unlocking Achievement 16.
Scene: More random stuff
I don’t care what it is. I am just trying to find my moxie while contemplating about Amy Adam’s pretty nose. Yeah, I am still stuck on Achievement 15. But get pulled out by the sudden appearance of a Scientologist’s annoying daughter (in a movie that is). She’s all grown up and is messing with people’s heads. I guess screaming at Martians (in which movie? for Achievement 17) was not enough.
Scene: Final battle
The battle royal or so it seems. Peace negotiations fall through. And some nice head-lopping action follows. Why is Dakota Fanning’s character allowed to loiter on the battlefield? Couldn’t they have in the last so many months filled with campfires come up with a proper battle strategy? Why is the Airbender punching vampires when he could convert all the frozen ice into a flying rain of sharp head lopping shards? Even Voldemort knew better in the Order of the Phoenix. But they eventually behead the annoyance that is Castor/Aro.
Achievement Challenge 18: Identify one more good vampire who could have ended the battle just on her own. Hint: She creates whole holodecks right in your mind without requiring a three-finger mind-meld and face touching (Achievement Challenge 19: which was the last movie to feature this?)
Scene: The rude shock or enter Alice (no Umbrella involvement detected).
The battle never really happened. Castor was shown what would happen through a hand-meld futurama. This is the worst part of the movie ever. (The romantic bits excluded.) For a well rounded movie, someone in the protagonist’s camp has to die. More the better. The sense of loss is greater and the value of victory is better valued. But the battle itself dies a lame death post-simulation. Aro drops the ball literally. Aro now knows exactly how and when each of his compatriots dies in the battle. Given that he spends most of that time standing around doing nothing, he could have manipulated the events to his favor. Even (answer unlocks Achievement 20) does a better job with just a sports almanac As for the victorious Bella: All those folks did was to round up a bunch of dumb vampires who couldn’t even work out a proper battle strategy and kept bitching about Alice who disappeared. The shameful bit is that Alice is actually working her pretty behind off to find proof that the child is not a chestburster, umm.. I mean an immortal child. And the very same Alice also manages to stave off a head lopping filled fight and brings the standoff to a peaceful conclusion without a single head rolling. Well except the one of that stupid cousin from up north, who creates the whole mess in the first place. I guess, justice is finally served.
Scene: All’s well and it’s happily ever after.
The movie is finally over. Whew! If you are anything like me, you will have spent most time recalling the best bits of the (16 at least) movies that unlock achievements of our little game. You’d have never really noticed the movie in front of you during this time. Congratulations! You just survived the end of Twilight. Final achievement unlocked!
Now go home and pop in an old DVD of a Buffy re-run and remind yourself: a.) vampires are not real. b.) if they are they usually die with a stake through the heart c.) and even if not, they can’t loiter around in broad daylight. d) It is still illegal to ‘imprint’ babies in all 50 states and pretty much across the whole world.
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