How to Make ‘Twilight’ Better

I find it very humorous the one time I’m not trying to irk the Twilight misguided souls (also known as fans) came when I wrote this satirical piece that took on Sony’s very, very moronic decision to reboot the Spider-Man franchise. Depressed mothers across the land came at me with claims that ‘I didn’t know what I was doing’ or (my favorite) some outcast teenager citing Reel Loop “as bad as the National Inquirer.” Somewhere, the National Head of Morons (also known as Twilight Fan Club) throw darts at my articles or even a picture of me.

Well they’d better trade their safety tipped darts for NERF guns after they get a taste of what I’m cooking up here. First, let me offer a little proposal: as much as I do hate, and I mean loathe this series and all it stands for, I have at one time talked about what should be done to make the franchise of quality. No, I’ve never done it on this platform but to others I have actually given legitimate ways to improve the series other than “STEPHENIE MEYER NEEDS AIDS BEFORE THIS CAN GO AWAY!” So while there will be hate here, as there always is when discussing this series with me, this time I’ll offer up some suggestions on how the franchise could appeal to more than just its demographic. And how do you improve this material? Well…

Throw out the source material - Yes, I said it. Let’s not kid ourselves, Twilight is one of the most poorly written pieces of scrotum that should never have achieved the popularity it gained. I still say if you take away the vampires and werewolves, you’re left with a trashy romance novel that finds it’s way to the bottom of the bin at your local grocery store. Besides, Hollywood’s known for just taking the characters of properties and doing their own thing with them, and there’s nothing making Twilight so special that it’s immune to that form of treatment. Keep the character names and situations, but restructure the story heavily.

Make Edward’s vampirism a metaphor – Ideally, I would make it racism which is something that will always be a problem until the day the Earth is finally hit by an asteroid. Stephenie Meyer took vampirism and supposedly made it the “too cool for school” thing, when she could have at least been attempting a metaphor. Maybe Edward sees what he has a a disease he can’t shake, akin to most cancer or AIDs patients? Perhaps Bella’s father has a problem with Edward because of what he is, not because he’s the kind of man every dad wants his little girl to find. The possibilities really are endless here if Meyer or someone had turned the gears in the brain a little bit.

Give Bella and Edward’s relationship real conflict’s - In this alternate Twilight universe, this tale begins with Edward and Bella well into their relationship. Show us how Bella’s humanity affects Edward amongst his vampire cohorts, and if you still want to go there, have Jacob be more in control of his werewolf transformations and not one who causes domestic violence. Make Jacob be the better choice for her, and not just “the other cool guy”, yet Bella feels her heart truly belongs with Edward. At the very least, it would give people reason to actually care if Bella and Edward make it to the next film and not because “they’re supposed to.”

Make Jacob the villain – This kind of back-ups what I said before, but in its current incarnation Jacob is just ‘there’, even with the silly, stupid, moronic revelation in Breaking Dawn comes up, which really felt more like a way to justify his entire existence. He and Bella do have a history, so play on it with Mr. Black using that as a means to try to convince Bella that he’s better for her. Maybe this is what hurts Twilight (among many other things) is that Meyer defines Edward as the hero in the first book, then decides that’s no good and flip-flops Jacob and Edward in the role. Handled by someone with talent, that could work but for this particular story, there needs to be one hero, and one villain. Since it’s established from the first story on that Edward is the hero, he’ll get the nod in this new incarnation. Does he always have to be good? No, but never lose sight that he’s the protagonist.

Again, throw out the source material – I can’t stress enough how terribly written this franchise is and how untalented Stephenie Meyer is as both a writer and human being. Give us a different take that is everything Stephenie’s Twilight isn’t (which would be that of the ‘good’ variety) and let the fanbase have films and books they can actually be proud of. How awesome would it be to not actually dread watching one of these films with an obsessed lady friend when you know that you’ll be getting at least a solid movie? Females deserve a good franchise that they can call their own, and while many claim the current Twatlight Saga is theirs, this isn’t it. Give them something challenging, with undertones and themes. Just give women something of quality that they deserve.

Or I could be wrong, and maybe women want to have their overly ripped men beat the snot out of them or emotionally torment them the rest of their relationships. I guess that’s why I’ve been doing it wrong for so many years, by being the one makes the sacrifices and not slapping the hell out of her. I want to be wrong, I really do, but the popularity and my failed relationships tell me otherwise.

Oh, good grief, just get Kathryn Bigelow to make Near Dark 2.

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Author Bio: Philip Barrett is a budding director and purveyor of opinionated movie news and reviews. Follow him on Twitter.