10 Ways The Twilight Movies Have Not Aged Well

Summary

Many things in the
Twilight
movies have aged poorly, including problematic story elements and bad visuals.
The movie’s depiction of the vampires is supposed to be ethereal and beautiful, but comes across as unnatural and unconvincing.
The story could have benefited from spending more time with the supporting cast, such as the Cullen family, the Volturi, and Jacob’s pack.

There are a lot of things about the movies comprising The Twilight Saga that haven’t aged well, such as problematic writing, bad acting, and effects that should have been much better. Twilight exploded in the late 2000s and revitalized the vampire romance subgenre, offering a seemingly ideal star-crossed romantasy escape. The story follows average-as-can-be teenager Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who moves to the town of Forks, Washington to live with her father and finds herself inside an epic romance and fantasy adventure.

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In the middle of all the hype, the worst parts of the Twilight movie series did not hinder its success. The books sold millions of copies, the movies grossed billions of dollars, and that success spurred on other vampire franchises such as The Vampire Diaries and True Blood. Such enduring popularity has even resulted in a new Twilight animated TV show entering development. However, as the final Twilight movie faded into history, more critics joined those who had been highlighting fundamental problems with the series all along.

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Movie	Rotten Tomatoes score	Metacritic score	Audience score
Twilight (2008)	49%	56%	72%
The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009)	28%	44%	61%
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010)	46%	58%	60%
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 (2011)	25%	45%	60%
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 2 (2012)	49%	52%	70%

Related The Secret Meaning Behind Each Twilight Movie Title

Twilight’s titles are never explained in the novel series or their adaptations, but they’re a reflection of the character arc undergone by Bella

10 Bella’s Relationships With Edward & Jacob Are Abusive

Both Edward & Jacob Are Possessive Of Bella

The central plot of Twilight is based on Bella’s romance with vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), which turns into a love triangle with werewolf Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner). Team Edward vs. Team Jacob was a cultural phenomenon in the early 2010s, despite neither of them actually being a good match. Both are possessive and controlling, making their respective relationships with Bella toxic. Principally, they are both determined to stop Bella from seeing the other one.

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Ultimately, Edward and Jacob are both self-righteous and force their views onto Bella to the point of abuse.

Edward goes as far as disabling Bella’s truck so she can’t drive to see Jacob. Jacob brutally insults Bella about her relationship with Edward on multiple occasions, and kisses her without consent while insisting she should be with him. There are potential dangers in dating Edward and Jacob, as both could accidentally hurt Bella, but Twilight excuses this because they can’t fully control their supernatural instincts. Ultimately, Edward and Jacob are both self-righteous and force their views onto Bella to the point of abuse.

9 Twilight’s Vampire Makeup

Twilight’s Vampires Look Silly & Unnatural

The Twilight books set the movies up for failure in a way a lot of fantasy novels dealing with supernatural beings do, describing the vampires as being so ethereal and beautiful that everyone around them is awestruck. They are inherently describing people who are not human, and whose true appearances do not exist in real life. This leaves the Twilight movie adaptations stumbling to figure out a way to capture the effect as written in Stephenie Meyer’s books.

In this particular case, a lot of the main vampire characters in Twilight end up with awful makeup. The Cullen family all have an unnatural-looking pale foundation that renders them as caricatures. The makeup gets better in later movies, as if Twilight figured out how to strike a more pleasing balance, but most of the vampire characters have a slightly fake appearance, especially when offset with red or gold eyes.

8 It Would Be Better To Spend More Time With Twilight’s Supporting Cast

Twilight Has A Lot Of Good Supporting Characters Who Are Underused

There are a lot of supporting characters in Twilight whose spinoffs would be more interesting than the actual movies. Twilight might have been able to spend some more time exploring these characters if they weren’t so oddly distributed across the story. There are characters like the Cullen family, the Volturi, and Jacob’s pack who should have been given more attention throughout the series, but are sidelined in favor of the main romantic entanglements.

Then, in the second half of Breaking Dawn, roughly 20 more new characters are introduced, with only the barest details of their lives being mentioned. Additional information about them was revealed outside the series itself, only underscoring the fact that they have lived interesting lives that would have made for better stories. Twilight might have been stronger overall if it had used the romance as a vehicle for vampiric history. As the romance hasn’t aged well, the fact that better subplots are ignored also becomes more aggravating.

7 Twilight’s Vampires Use Their Immortality To Repeat High School

Twilight Has A Mundane Setting That Hurts The Story

The barrage of supporting characters introduced near Twilight‘s ending highlight that there are other ways to live as vampires than how the Cullens do it. With immortality and a natural skill for just about anything, the vampire characters in Twilight are free to travel, study, and generally do whatever they want so long as they are not seen in direct sunlight. The Cullens are just repeating high school over and over again.

This seems like a strange lifestyle, especially when the Cullens complain a lot in the books about being in high school. It plausibly gives them a reason to all be together, posing as the local doctor and his kids, but some of the other covens must have come up with different excuses. Situating the story around high school doesn’t make the characters more interesting – it is all part of the way the story romanticizes a teen romance for its intended demographic.

6 Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart Are Better Actors Than Twilight Allowed Them To Be

The Twilight Cast Has Gone On To Appear In Much Better Movies

The dialogue and basic scene structures are so awkward in Twilight that the actors playing the main characters never really stood a chance. Most of them were still relatively unknown at the time and trying to get their careers off the ground, so the opportunity to appear in a major blockbuster would undoubtedly have been tempting. Yet roles that are only about staring creepily at someone and delivering cringe-worthy lines no one would say in real life gave the actors little opportunity to flex their chops.

Since Twilight, Stewart has managed to win an Oscar nomination for her performance in Spencer. Meanwhile, Pattinson’s career has flourished. Despite its mixed reception, he plays a fascinating and charismatic time-traveling agent in Tenet, and delivers a new, even darker version of Bruce Wayne in The Batman. Revisiting Twilight doesn’t put these actors in the best light when their careers are in much better places now.

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5 Twilight Appropriates Quileute Culture

A Twilight Subplot Features Racially Insensitive Themes

The Twilight series’ handling of Jacob’s heritage could be interpreted as a case of cultural appropriation. Once the story was set in Forks, the Quilete tribe, whose reservation is just outside Forks, also became a part of the plot. Twilight’s version of the Quilete lore is partially inspired by the real Quilete culture, but large parts concerning the werewolves and origin myth are fictional. Therefore, Twilight appropriated a real culture and changed it to serve the needs of the story.

The characterization of Twilight’s Quilete characters is also problematic, as many of them are hot-headed and violent, set up as a direct contrast to the sophisticated Cullen family. Twilight’s Quilete controversy has gained more attention since the series ended, with Hollywood’s inaccurate depiction of various cultures becoming a more prominent topic in and around the industry. The Quilete tribe has also not received any royalties from the Twilight franchise; the only possible revenue they would have received would be from increased tourism (burkemuseum.org).

4 Bella & Edward’s Age Gap

Bella & Edward’s Relationship Has An Unsettling Age Gap

At one point in Twilight: New Moon, Bella jokes that maybe she shouldn’t be with such an old man, which might be one of the most disturbing things she says, given how accurate it is. Bella is 17 to 19 years old in Twilight, while Edward is over 110 years old. There is already something of a stigma surrounding relationships with age gaps of more than 10 years in society, let alone a century. This is made worse by Bella being underage when she and Edward meet.

Some of the other vampire couples in Twilight presumably have similar age gaps, and it is a common, problematic feature within paranormal romance literature more broadly. Nevertheless, Twilight puts too much emphasis on Bella’s youth, making this plot point even creepier. When Bella turns 18 – the point where she is legally an adult – she has an existential crisis about aging when Edward is now physically younger than her.

3 Twilight’s Bad Special Effects

Twilight CGI Looks Worse Than Ever

Some of the special effects in Twilight hold up, such as the CG wolves, which still look good enough today. The biggest offenders in this regard are the CGI baby and the vampiric abilities: super speed, the power to scale any vertical surface, unnatural leaps while playing baseball, etc. Predictably, the worst examples are mostly in the first movie, and part of the problem is that vampires running is a slightly awkward thing to capture.

Things that are meant to convey the vampires’ power or ethereal beauty just provoke laughter and ridicule.

However, these visual elements of the franchise have not aged well when there are movies that came out earlier that look much better. Scenes that are meant to convey the vampires’ power or ethereal beauty just provoke laughter and ridicule. Of all the bad parts of the Twilight movies, this is probably the easiest to forgive, but the effects still haven’t aged well compared to other movies released around the same time.

2 Bella’s Life Revolves Around Edward (& Vice Versa)

Bella & Edward Are Too Dependent On Each Other

From the moment she meets him, Bella’s entire life revolves around Edward, creating a deeply unhealthy dynamic. Twilight depicts some real mental health concerns, primarily when Bella becomes depressed after Edward leaves. However, this is also romanticized, framed as part of their unbreakable love for each other. When Edward returns, Bella resumes her previous stance, where she is planning to break off all contact with her parents to attach herself to Edward forever when she is barely an adult.

However, Edward’s attitude toward Bella isn’t much better. Everything in his life is about her; he plans to force the Volturi’s hand to kill him when he believes that Bella is dead. He is even planning to take his own life once Bella has lived out her natural human existence, as he thinks he has no reason to exist without her. It’s an unhealthy relationship on both ends that suggests it is romantic to have absolutely nothing else in life but one’s partner.

Related Even An Animated Twilight Show Can’t Fix The Book’s Silliest Decision

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Even the proposed animated Twilight show can’t fix (or even redeem) the silliest decision Stephenie Meyer made when writing her vampire novels.

1 Jacob Imprinting On A Child

Jacob & Renesmee’s Relationship Is One Of The Worst Parts Of Twilight

Twilight goes through a lot of trouble to justify Jacob imprinting on Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), but it is still deeply problematic. Twilight‘s werewolves may at some point find their predestined soulmate, at which point their entire existence shifts to be about them. This causes a lot of drama when Sam (Chaske Spencer) ends his relationship with Leah (Julia Jones) after imprinting on Emily (Tinsel Korey). In the cases where the imprintee is a child, the imprinter becomes her guardian/protector/friend.

Twilight‘s narrative repeatedly says that the relationship between Jacob and Renesmee is not romantic or sexual, but the implication is that once she is of age, they are going to get together. Twilight even shows a flashforward of an adult Renesmee happily with Jacob. Essentially, Renesmee is arranged to be with Jacob from birth in a way her parents can not prevent. It is definitely one of the things in The Twilight Saga that has aged the worst – if it was ever well-received to begin with.

Twilight Where to Watch
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Based on Stephenie Meyer’s book of the same name, Twilight follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who falls madly in love with Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), who she soon finds out is a vampire. Falling in love with her at the same time, Edward and Bella must overcome obstacles to preserve their forbidden relationship.

Director Catherine Hardwicke Release Date November 21, 2008 Cast Robert Pattinson , Ashley Greene , Peter Facinelli , Rachelle Lefevre , Elizabeth Reaser , Kristen Stewart , Nikki Reed , Jackson Rathbone , Cam Gigandet , Kellan Lutz , Taylor Lautner , Anna Kendrick , Billy Burke Runtime 121 minutes
The Twilight Saga: New Moon Where to Watch
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The second film in the Twilight film series, New Moon follows Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart), who is thrown into a deep depression when he vampire boyfriend, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) breaks up with Bella and moves away after an incident convinces him that he and his family and dangerous to her. As she struggles to cope with her depression and begins forming a closer bond with her werewolf best friend Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner), Bella begins to be pulled deeper into the world of the supernatural despite both Jacob’s and Edward’s attempts to keep her safe.

Director Chris Weitz Release Date November 18, 2009 Cast Kristen Stewart , Taylor Lautner , Robert Pattinson , Billy Burke , Ashley Greene , Anna Kendrick Runtime 130 minutes
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse Where to Watch
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In the third chapter of Stephenie Meyer’s phenomenal Twilight series, Bella Swan is surrounded by danger as Seattle is hit by a string of murders and an evil vampire continues her quest for revenge. In the midst of it all, Bella is forced to choose between her love, Edward Cullen, and her friend, Jacob Black — knowing that her decision may start another war in the ageless feud between the werewolves and vampires.

Director David Slade Release Date June 23, 2010 Cast Kristen Stewart , Robert Pattinson , Taylor Lautner , Billy Burke , Ashley Greene , Jackson Rathbone Runtime 123 minutes
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Where to Watch
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The fourth film in the Twilight film franchise, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1, sets up the finale for the adaptation of the popular book series. Following the wedding of Edward and Bella, the two are soon with child, but its unnatural rate of growth begins to threaten Bella’s life, as well as strike fear into the hearts of the wolves. However, a greater threat marches ever closer for the residents of Forks.

Director Bill Condon Release Date November 18, 2011 Cast Kristen Stewart , Robert Pattinson , Taylor Lautner , Billy Burke , Peter Facinelli , Elizabeth Reaser , Kellan Lutz , Nikki Reed , Jackson Rathbone , Ashley Greene Runtime 117 Minutes
The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 Where to Watch
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The fifth and final film in the Twilight franchise, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2, picks up with the newly transformed Bella, now a vampire, learning to adjust to her new life. Her daughter, who has continued to grow at an accelerated rate, is seen as a sin by the Volturi, leading them to sentence the entire Cullen family to death. To protect the clan, Bella, Edward, and Jacob gather allies to prepare for a showdown.

Director Bill Condon Release Date November 18, 2011 Cast Kristen Stewart , Robert Pattinson , Taylor Lautner , Billy Burke , Peter Facinelli , Elizabeth Reaser , Kellan Lutz , Nikki Reed , Jackson Rathbone , Ashley Greene , Michael Sheen , Dakota Fanning Runtime 117 Minutes