In a very unwise move, my friend Tim recently confessed to me that he had read all the Twilight books and seen all the Twilight movies. (And liked them!) The taunting that resulted from this admission has never come to an end, and probably never will come to an end.
Essentially, my complete experience with all things Twilight is based on my friendship with Tim, and my complete experience is this: under Tim’s guidance, I watched a half hour of the first movie on TV. I did not fully pay attention. Mostly I was busy shouting things like “Abstinence glitter vampires!” at Tim. Also, I peppered him with questions. Questions like this:
“They live there because it’s rainy? Why don’t they just live near the arctic circle where it’s dark all the time?” “Could there be a worse way to spend eternity than going to high school over and over again?” “What? They’re all in relationships?” “They fly?” “All that happens in the sunlight is that they glitter?” “Could this be more spellbindingly stupid?” “How does this relate to Mormonism again?” “Really, his soulmate is a high school girl?” “So Bella is just hot and popular and everyone likes her? Aren’t heroines supposed to have to overcome obstacles and sh-t?” “They’re not actually going to play baseball, are they? Oh no. No way.”
The part we watched was the part where Bella is getting to know Edward and he shows off by playing the piano for her. And then they all played baseball. Vampires. Playing baseball.
Quick digression: Years ago, before Twilight was a thing, my friend Jeremy and I had a job working for HBO. We adapted a really bad novel about werewolves into an HBO movie that HBO (wisely) decided never to make. Since the novel was terrible, we changed vast swaths of it. At one point, Jeremy wanted to have our hero werewolf fighting drug dealers in a huge warehouse. This was supposed to be near the end of the movie. I made the point that werewolves are only cool and acceptable in a very narrow context — which is outside, in the woods, at night. Put them in any other context, and they become ridiculously goofy. A werewolf fighting drug dealers isn’t cool, it’s “Teen Wolf 3.” Jeremy quickly agreed with me.
But Twilight ridiculously violates this rule at every turn, which is the source of all its absurdity. Vampires are cool at night, roaming the streets. Or in castles. That’s about it. But Twilight puts vampires in every dorky situation possible, it seems. Playing baseball! At high school! At a coffee shop! At the mall! In a tree! In a box! With a fox! Eating lox! Hilarious.
Armed with this realization, I quickly made Tim turn the movie off.
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But now, the new and final trailer for Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 2 has come out, and it falls to me to watch and probably mock it. Here is a second-by-second transcript of my reactions. Please to enjoy:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QdHjMbzyo&w=584&h=390]
0:09 — Bella is a vampire now! That was one unavoidable thing that I learned just in the process of getting this video from YouTube. Anyway. Vampires doing ‘Super Mario’-style mega-jumps, NEVER NOT FUNNY.
0:10 — In addition to knowing that above fact, I also know the names of three characters in these movies: that’d be Edward, Bella, and Jacob. And for the record, I am currently on Team Nobody.
0:12 — Puma? Puma.
0:15 — I’m going to be utterly honest with you here. I didn’t think that the sight of Kristen Stewart tackling a puma in midair would be something that I would encounter in this movie. Or really, something that I would encounter in any context, anywhere, ever.
0:17 — I’m assuming that the dopey looking guy is Jacob? I am instantly (if tentatively) on Team Edward.
0:21 — Kristen Stewart gets something of a free pass from me for appearing in Adventureland, which is a really great movie. But she’s sort of stretching the limits of my free pass with her voiceover right now and the prior puma-jumping. In fact, I can’t think about much of anything but the puma-jumping right now. Hard to get past. But still, if you haven’t seen Adventureland, you should check it out. It’s sort of like Twilight, minus the vampires, I think. Although you could use that description to describe almost any movie. “Gone With the Wind: like Twlight, but without the vampires!”
0:28 — “Forever isn’t as long as I’d hoped.” Is it ever?
0:32 — Uh, I guess this is an evil vampire council? Of some sort. No idea, really. Still way hung up on the puma. Bring back the puma!
0:35 — Okay, I’ve rewound this part of the video twelve times, and I still cannot understand what the hell Edward is saying here. Best guess: “The military thinks we’re fascinmation a morgue the child.” Sure, why not?
0:37 — I guess Edward and Bella had a child? According to third-hand accounts that I’ve been given of the book, Bella’s daughter chewed her way out of Bella’s womb? Or something? Makes about as much sense as anything else that’s going on.
0:42 — Shattering vase… and a wolf! I care not for wolves. BRING BACK PUMA. What I really want is a two-hour movie about the puma. It could just be a movie about the puma’s normal life — hunting, sleeping, scavenging — and then for three minutes in the middle of the movie, Kristen Stewart tackles the sh-t out of the puma for no particular reason. And then it resumes its normal puma life. By the way, in case I get comments from animal lovers — the puma might not be a “puma.” It could in reality be a mountain lion, or a cougar. Or a catamount. I think I read once that all of these animals were in fact the same cat just given different regional names, but I might be wrong about that. I know as little about indigenous North American over-sized cats as I do about Twilight.
0:48 — Non-menacing people in robes, cute girl with too much eyeliner, car. Easily the weakest section of the trailer so far. And this has already not been a good trailer. And the sad part is, you should be able to make a good trailer out of anything. Just have random out of context dramatic quotes, a bunch of aerial shots, and the Inception music. Really, the Inception music should be added to every trailer. You could make a video of a guy flipping pancakes seem dramatic if you used the Inception thudding horns. I’m convinced of it. But I, er, digress.
0:52 — Vampires drive Volvos, it seems.
1:04 — Okay, so the dramatic fight for all humankind, or vampire-kind, or whatever is happening here — this climatic battle involves 10 people and 15 wolves… running at each other. I’m going to need a lot more wolves before I’m convinced that this is epic. At least a hundred wolves. Although 10,000 wolves would be better.
1:10 — I PUNCH THE GROUND IN DEFIANCE OF YOU, ADORABLE WOLVES.
1:19 — Holy sh-t, this looks aw-wwwful. Look how I’ve made it through almost the whole column without discussing the Kristen Stewart scandal, though. The worst part of that whole scandal? How people call her “K-Stew” now. You know who I blame for all of this? …J-Lo, that’s who I blame. Jennifer Lopez inaugurated the whole stupid trend of nicknaming people based on tiny chunklets of their names. You used to have to put effort into coming up with a nickname for someone. Like, the basketball player Darrell Dawkins; his nickname was “Dr. Dunkenstein.” That’s fantastic and is the greatest nickname ever, and it took at least a little creativity and effort. But now it’s all K-Stew, J-Lo, T-Mac, K-Fed. Blurgh. Blurgh to the max.
1:24 — Wow, it’s over. Done. Awful. After this movie, Twilight is over, right? There are no more books or movies. And there are no like prequels in the works, right? Seriously, I don’t even have a joke here, I’m just hoping that this is correct. Right? Guys?
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…I feel used up and empty now. So that was me watching abstinence glitter vampires… in real time. Yay. I can barely even speak or type now. Anyway, stay tuned at some point for my independent, privately-financed movie, PUMA: THE UNTOLD STORY. As for me, right now, I’m out. Way out. Laters, yo. 
