Post by Torgo on Mar 11, 2013 1:26:49 GMT -5
We’re on the countdown to the fifth and final Rifftrax for the Twilight “Saga” (I put that in quotation because I don’t think Twilight ever did anything worthy of being labeled a “saga,” except for plodding itself to an insane length). The occasion is always one for celebration. Why is Twilight so special? It’s not the most prolific franchise Rifftrax has pumped out for, as they’ve churned out seven riffs under the Star Wars banner, six of the eight Harry Potter flicks, and have already given us five in the Star Trek series. If you want to count films based upon Marvel Comics as one whole, then that would have definitely taken the cake.
No, Twilight is special because of the quality. Not of the movie, rest assured Rifftrax has done much better films. Casablanca and Jaws spring to mind, and the nerd in me wants to lump Spider-Man 2, the Dark Knight, and Predator up there with them. The quality lies within the trax itself, which has been so consistently hilarious that I dare rank them up not only with the best of Rifftrax in general (Cloverfield, Spider-Man, Lost, the Island of Dr. Moreau, and Battlefield Earth are all top tier for me) but some of the best of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well, which is a feeling I don’t get often with Rifftrax. That alone makes a new Twilight film an event worth looking forward to, even if the squealing teenage girls will forgive me in not squeezing into a Team Edward t-shirt and joining them at a midnight premiere. I’ll wait until DVD to get my giggles from three guys I trust with my laughter.
I’ve never read the books, don’t intend to. If the movies are anything to go by, I’m sure I’d find them a waste of time. I do enjoy a good fantasy series, as my enjoyment of the adventures of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson in literary fiction will attest to. But the story of Twilight is so uneventful over the course of four books (or five films) that I wouldn’t find anything worthwhile to be invested in it. I hadn’t even heard of Twilight until I saw a piece about the movie filming on some news show on TV. Didn’t really pay attention, not even enough to notice that the leads were Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the trampy older sister from Zathura (which are two movies far more worthy of your time). I skipped the movie in theaters because the ads didn’t interest me, and didn’t even bother renting the DVD until Rifftrax tackled it. Even then it took me a while, as I was entertaining my then-girlfriend with the antics of Mike, Bill, and Kevin. She was a fan of the books and I told her they had done one for the movie, naturally we went out to Redbox and made a night of it.
That then and there was my first experience with this inane story about vampires full of…crystals or something, and how one of them who had lived for hundreds of years, banged his fair share of chicks, and somehow fell in love with the blandest, not just woman, but person imaginable. But alas, we all have our opinions of the story, so let’s let the funny ensue and we’ll get to that later.
Day One:
Rifftrax Intro: Kevin and Bill get into a heated debate over the extent of a vampire’s “sparkliness.” If the movie were any less silly than it is, this might have come off forced, but Kevin and Bill really sell it. Just be thankful the movie never answers just how sparkly a vampire is on their buttcheeks.
The Movie: Twilight is the pale story of a pale town full of pale people. A robot named Bella…(::whispers are heard:: )…that’s a girl? Okay, fine whatever. A girl named Bella (named after Dracula actor Bela Lugosi I assume. Too bad a better tribute couldn’t have been afforded to the legendary actor) moves into a small Washington town where she drones around and somehow makes friends even though she constantly ignores them. There she gets into constant staring contests with the palest of the pale, Edward (I’m guessing named after Dracula co-star Edward Van Sloan, but don’t quote me on that). I guess she wins these contests because he keeps hopping away like a scared bunny.
So Edward stalks stalking Bella and for some reason she isn’t creeped out by this in any way. After a few needless displays of superpowers, Bella puts two and two together and figures out that he is actually Clark Kent, er, I mean a vampire because that makes even more sense. Now happily embracive of this fact, the two start dating. But the whole “vampires crave human flesh” thing gets in the way and Edward has to fend her off from vampires with slightly less hair gel than him.
I’m a dude. Twilight’s a romance. Logic dictates I should dislike this movie simply because it’s a romance. I don’t. I dislike it because it’s a poorly told romance full of personality-less characters who couldn’t recite a believable line of dialogue if their lives depended on it.
I’m also a monster movie lover. Twilight makes the monsters less horrific. Logic dictates I should dislike this movie because it gave vampires sparkles. I don’t. The truth is that I do somewhat admire a more folklore (ish) approach that Stephanie Meyer has given these age old creatures, and let’s face the fact that it works for the story she wanted to tell. The problem is that by trying to make these creatures more desirable the gothic tone the story goes for becomes full blown melodrama instead with a trashy “dangerous things in beautiful packages” theme that it’s trying to sell us on.
I don’t dislike Twilight for what it’s trying to do; I dislike it for being a complete failure at it. At its best it’s like a really bad episode of Smallville, at its worst it’s like watching a brick wall for a long period of time. That’s not a good combination.
On the back end, it’s just not a very skilled production. Director Catherine Hardwicke was taken straight from the indie circuit and thrown into this studio film. She doesn’t entirely seem sure of how to handle the wires, effects, and stunts, and as a result every use of the vampires doing their thing just looks silly.
That said, I kind of dig that Carter Burwell score. It seems to embrace the tone of the film rather well, underlining the drama for those who are actually taking this seriously and/or enhancing the camp value for those who are seeing it for how goofy it really is.
That and that brunette Cullen, whatshername (if I were more interested in this movie maybe I'd learn her name) provides eyecandy where Kristen Stewart fails...
Yummy.
The Trax: Mike, Kevin, and Bill keep the riffing on rapid fire throughout, probably afraid that if they let the laugh ratio drop then the movie will push the viewer away. To them I say mission accomplished. While Twilight is in many ways a different movie for them, it’s also in many ways a movie that has all the qualities that they shine with. It’s poorly acted, poorly directed, cheesy, obnoxiously stylized, and is even a half-assed monster movie to boot. They have everything that they need, and I’m glad they grabbed the ball and ran for the endzone.
“Hellooooooooooooooo doin’ your sister!” There’s a lot of mileage early on from the incestuous undertones of the Cullen clan.
“Oh god, I shouldn’t have drank that sample…” The really bad acting portraying the “romantic tension” (and I use that term loosely) in science class leaves itself wide open for mockery.
“Can’t socialize, obsessed with crappy book series!” The entire pop culture phenomenon isn’t safe from our boys, either.
“Is she supposed to look sexy or like she’s wearing a rabbit’s dentures?” Ah, Kristen Stewart, the most unsexy sex symbol this side of Uma Thurman.
“What was our math homework?” Those weird random scenes where Edward suddenly appears in Bella’s room are unveiled for just how damn creepy they really are.
“Line?” In a movie so filled with awkward silence, a running gag such as this flourishes. If all of that silence was cut out the movie would have been 20 minutes long.
“Wal-Mart on Black Friday!” The satanic photos on the internet while looking up articles on vampirism get some great reactions. Having actually worked at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday, I can vouch for this particular reaction.
Bill hums the Benny Hill theme to Edward’s first display of super speed. Needless to say it’s perfect.
“So if I say I’m a vampire, I wonder if I can get away with that groping thing he just did.” Too many creepy vibes from Edward go unnoticed just because he’s “hawt.” But not today.
“C’mon Mike, you don’t worry about how many lives he’s snuffed out when you meet someone with eyebrows like that! ::growl::” So yeah, the whole vampires feed on humans thing just gets shrugged off. Seems like it would be more important than it is.
“I’m Haaaaaaaaaaaaaarpooooooooooooo!” The Cullen who looks like a disturbed, satanic Harpo Marx is the butt of this running gag, which never fails to make me laugh.
“Yeah, it was fun until they slammed into that eagle’s nest.” That hilarious on its own tree climbing scene gets even funnier as the boys pick it a part.
“I want to jump into your throat…and watch you bleed out on the floor…” Kevin’s lyrics to Edward’s piano solo are just brilliant.
“Jeez Louise, a peewee football team takes less time to score!” That forever make-out scene in Bella’s room takes a well deserved thrashing.
“Let’s see you hit my puffball!” So they really thought that baseball scene was going to be cool? Well now they know better.
“She loves him based on him not killing her…that’s unhealthy…” Bella’s bond with Edward in a nutshell.
“Least threatening movie villain since that floating plastic bag in American Beauty.” Femmy ponytail does not a bad guy make.
“Infected already? Ponytail boy must never brush his teeth!” That climatic battle at the end, most pathetic sequence of “action” since Equilibrium.
“Whoa! Back off, mom! We’re not blind!” The real hellbeast of this movie? Bella’s mom.
“Wow! She jumped ahead of the script by about eight pages!” Kristen Stewart…ah let’s not beat around the bush. Just ugh.
“The sexual tension between these guys is off the charts!” – Mike on Edward and Jacob. Just wait until Jacob becomes a major player. This seems tame by comparison.
“Ah it’s Twilight author Stephanie Meyer and she is not happy with this production…DEAR LORD SHE HAS A SNIPER RIFFLE!” And with that we finish our film, and it wasn’t over soon enough…(::whispers are heard:: )…there’s four more? GODDAMNIT!
But before we sign off for today, I'd like to give a special shout out to my homies...
The REAL Bela...
The REAL Edward...
The REAL Harpo...
No, Twilight is special because of the quality. Not of the movie, rest assured Rifftrax has done much better films. Casablanca and Jaws spring to mind, and the nerd in me wants to lump Spider-Man 2, the Dark Knight, and Predator up there with them. The quality lies within the trax itself, which has been so consistently hilarious that I dare rank them up not only with the best of Rifftrax in general (Cloverfield, Spider-Man, Lost, the Island of Dr. Moreau, and Battlefield Earth are all top tier for me) but some of the best of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as well, which is a feeling I don’t get often with Rifftrax. That alone makes a new Twilight film an event worth looking forward to, even if the squealing teenage girls will forgive me in not squeezing into a Team Edward t-shirt and joining them at a midnight premiere. I’ll wait until DVD to get my giggles from three guys I trust with my laughter.
I’ve never read the books, don’t intend to. If the movies are anything to go by, I’m sure I’d find them a waste of time. I do enjoy a good fantasy series, as my enjoyment of the adventures of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson in literary fiction will attest to. But the story of Twilight is so uneventful over the course of four books (or five films) that I wouldn’t find anything worthwhile to be invested in it. I hadn’t even heard of Twilight until I saw a piece about the movie filming on some news show on TV. Didn’t really pay attention, not even enough to notice that the leads were Cedric Diggory from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the trampy older sister from Zathura (which are two movies far more worthy of your time). I skipped the movie in theaters because the ads didn’t interest me, and didn’t even bother renting the DVD until Rifftrax tackled it. Even then it took me a while, as I was entertaining my then-girlfriend with the antics of Mike, Bill, and Kevin. She was a fan of the books and I told her they had done one for the movie, naturally we went out to Redbox and made a night of it.
That then and there was my first experience with this inane story about vampires full of…crystals or something, and how one of them who had lived for hundreds of years, banged his fair share of chicks, and somehow fell in love with the blandest, not just woman, but person imaginable. But alas, we all have our opinions of the story, so let’s let the funny ensue and we’ll get to that later.
Day One:
Rifftrax Intro: Kevin and Bill get into a heated debate over the extent of a vampire’s “sparkliness.” If the movie were any less silly than it is, this might have come off forced, but Kevin and Bill really sell it. Just be thankful the movie never answers just how sparkly a vampire is on their buttcheeks.
The Movie: Twilight is the pale story of a pale town full of pale people. A robot named Bella…(::whispers are heard:: )…that’s a girl? Okay, fine whatever. A girl named Bella (named after Dracula actor Bela Lugosi I assume. Too bad a better tribute couldn’t have been afforded to the legendary actor) moves into a small Washington town where she drones around and somehow makes friends even though she constantly ignores them. There she gets into constant staring contests with the palest of the pale, Edward (I’m guessing named after Dracula co-star Edward Van Sloan, but don’t quote me on that). I guess she wins these contests because he keeps hopping away like a scared bunny.
So Edward stalks stalking Bella and for some reason she isn’t creeped out by this in any way. After a few needless displays of superpowers, Bella puts two and two together and figures out that he is actually Clark Kent, er, I mean a vampire because that makes even more sense. Now happily embracive of this fact, the two start dating. But the whole “vampires crave human flesh” thing gets in the way and Edward has to fend her off from vampires with slightly less hair gel than him.
I’m a dude. Twilight’s a romance. Logic dictates I should dislike this movie simply because it’s a romance. I don’t. I dislike it because it’s a poorly told romance full of personality-less characters who couldn’t recite a believable line of dialogue if their lives depended on it.
I’m also a monster movie lover. Twilight makes the monsters less horrific. Logic dictates I should dislike this movie because it gave vampires sparkles. I don’t. The truth is that I do somewhat admire a more folklore (ish) approach that Stephanie Meyer has given these age old creatures, and let’s face the fact that it works for the story she wanted to tell. The problem is that by trying to make these creatures more desirable the gothic tone the story goes for becomes full blown melodrama instead with a trashy “dangerous things in beautiful packages” theme that it’s trying to sell us on.
I don’t dislike Twilight for what it’s trying to do; I dislike it for being a complete failure at it. At its best it’s like a really bad episode of Smallville, at its worst it’s like watching a brick wall for a long period of time. That’s not a good combination.
On the back end, it’s just not a very skilled production. Director Catherine Hardwicke was taken straight from the indie circuit and thrown into this studio film. She doesn’t entirely seem sure of how to handle the wires, effects, and stunts, and as a result every use of the vampires doing their thing just looks silly.
That said, I kind of dig that Carter Burwell score. It seems to embrace the tone of the film rather well, underlining the drama for those who are actually taking this seriously and/or enhancing the camp value for those who are seeing it for how goofy it really is.
That and that brunette Cullen, whatshername (if I were more interested in this movie maybe I'd learn her name) provides eyecandy where Kristen Stewart fails...
Yummy.
The Trax: Mike, Kevin, and Bill keep the riffing on rapid fire throughout, probably afraid that if they let the laugh ratio drop then the movie will push the viewer away. To them I say mission accomplished. While Twilight is in many ways a different movie for them, it’s also in many ways a movie that has all the qualities that they shine with. It’s poorly acted, poorly directed, cheesy, obnoxiously stylized, and is even a half-assed monster movie to boot. They have everything that they need, and I’m glad they grabbed the ball and ran for the endzone.
“Hellooooooooooooooo doin’ your sister!” There’s a lot of mileage early on from the incestuous undertones of the Cullen clan.
“Oh god, I shouldn’t have drank that sample…” The really bad acting portraying the “romantic tension” (and I use that term loosely) in science class leaves itself wide open for mockery.
“Can’t socialize, obsessed with crappy book series!” The entire pop culture phenomenon isn’t safe from our boys, either.
“Is she supposed to look sexy or like she’s wearing a rabbit’s dentures?” Ah, Kristen Stewart, the most unsexy sex symbol this side of Uma Thurman.
“What was our math homework?” Those weird random scenes where Edward suddenly appears in Bella’s room are unveiled for just how damn creepy they really are.
“Line?” In a movie so filled with awkward silence, a running gag such as this flourishes. If all of that silence was cut out the movie would have been 20 minutes long.
“Wal-Mart on Black Friday!” The satanic photos on the internet while looking up articles on vampirism get some great reactions. Having actually worked at a Wal-Mart on Black Friday, I can vouch for this particular reaction.
Bill hums the Benny Hill theme to Edward’s first display of super speed. Needless to say it’s perfect.
“So if I say I’m a vampire, I wonder if I can get away with that groping thing he just did.” Too many creepy vibes from Edward go unnoticed just because he’s “hawt.” But not today.
“C’mon Mike, you don’t worry about how many lives he’s snuffed out when you meet someone with eyebrows like that! ::growl::” So yeah, the whole vampires feed on humans thing just gets shrugged off. Seems like it would be more important than it is.
“I’m Haaaaaaaaaaaaaarpooooooooooooo!” The Cullen who looks like a disturbed, satanic Harpo Marx is the butt of this running gag, which never fails to make me laugh.
“Yeah, it was fun until they slammed into that eagle’s nest.” That hilarious on its own tree climbing scene gets even funnier as the boys pick it a part.
“I want to jump into your throat…and watch you bleed out on the floor…” Kevin’s lyrics to Edward’s piano solo are just brilliant.
“Jeez Louise, a peewee football team takes less time to score!” That forever make-out scene in Bella’s room takes a well deserved thrashing.
“Let’s see you hit my puffball!” So they really thought that baseball scene was going to be cool? Well now they know better.
“She loves him based on him not killing her…that’s unhealthy…” Bella’s bond with Edward in a nutshell.
“Least threatening movie villain since that floating plastic bag in American Beauty.” Femmy ponytail does not a bad guy make.
“Infected already? Ponytail boy must never brush his teeth!” That climatic battle at the end, most pathetic sequence of “action” since Equilibrium.
“Whoa! Back off, mom! We’re not blind!” The real hellbeast of this movie? Bella’s mom.
“Wow! She jumped ahead of the script by about eight pages!” Kristen Stewart…ah let’s not beat around the bush. Just ugh.
“The sexual tension between these guys is off the charts!” – Mike on Edward and Jacob. Just wait until Jacob becomes a major player. This seems tame by comparison.
“Ah it’s Twilight author Stephanie Meyer and she is not happy with this production…DEAR LORD SHE HAS A SNIPER RIFFLE!” And with that we finish our film, and it wasn’t over soon enough…(::whispers are heard:: )…there’s four more? GODDAMNIT!
But before we sign off for today, I'd like to give a special shout out to my homies...
The REAL Bela...
The REAL Edward...
The REAL Harpo...