The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 is not for everyone. The movie’s plot is a little start-and-stop, a good portion of it won’t make sense to the uninitiated, its visual effects border on cartoonish, and — despite the best efforts of its cast — the characters are nearly impossible to relate to.
Which is to say, it’s a nerd movie if there ever was one. And geeks should get behind it.
Because, really, what’s more geeky than allowing someone to nerd out with something that not everyone understands? With the arrival of Breaking Dawn at midnight Thursday, we are reminded again of the obsessive nature of Twihards. There are fans occupying theater sidewalks awaiting the film’s premiere, copious merchandise tie-ins and the kind of online buzz that is already leading to $140 million opening-weekend predictions.
Remove Twilight from the above description and you could just as easily be talking about a Star Wars prequel (I could go further with this metaphor, but this is a Wired blog and I value my eyeteeth.)
Yet there is little support from the broader nerd community for the Twilight films. In fact, a bit of the reaction can be downright hostile. For example, when Harry Knowles at Ain’t It Cool News posts something as innocuous as a casting note and praise for director Bill Condon, the comments immediately devolve into varieties of “How the FUCK is this COOL?” The same is true when that moment of tension hits Comic-Con International each year as Twilight fans encounter folks in head-to-toe Cylon gear.
Breaking Dawn was made for a certain type of geek and it succeeds wildly at appealing to their needs. But why? Is wearing a Team Edward shirt so much different from donning a vintage X-Men tee? Does it take much more obsessive attention to detail to memorize the age at which Edward was turned into a vampire than it does to know what triggers Wolverine’s berserker rage? You don’t have to care what the details are to appreciate someone’s love of knowing them.
Let’s be clear: No one is saying anyone who calls themselves a geek has to like Breaking Dawn on its merits, which are negligible (more on that below). But complaining about its shortcomings as a general-audience film is the equivalent of saying Green Lantern was a terrible horror flick. Breaking Dawn was made for a certain type of geek (just like The Dark Knight was made for a certain type of geek) and it succeeds wildly at appealing to their needs.
(Spoiler alert: Fairly major plot points follow.)
It’s also the most sci-fi film in the series, which usually lives in the realm of the supernatural, so far. Picking up where Eclipse left off, the film starts with the wedding of Edward Cullen (played by Robert Pattinson) and Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart — the Carrie Fisher of her franchise down to the commitment to her source material and hair braids. OK, I’m done).
It goes on to the romantic honeymoon where, yes, hot, bed-breaking sex is had, many times. Bella then inexplicably becomes pregnant even though it shouldn’t be possible according to whatever vampire myth Stephenie Meyer concocted when she wrote the books on which the films are based.
Then things get freaky. Bella begins wasting away as the part-vampire being growing in her womb takes over her body, forcing her to drink human blood through a straw to feed her offspring. The creature nearly kills Bella on its way out, breaking bones and going all apeshit (yes, it’s very Alien). Once Edward removes the child, Bella is near death, so her vamp husband stabs her in the heart, Pulp Fiction-style, with a syringe full of his venom in order to change her into a vampire and save her life.
Cue the (cheesy) animations of vampire venom coursing through her veins and into her heart. (This, for the record, is about as far as any of the films have gone into explaining how vampires “work” in the Twilight canon, physiologically speaking. Pseudo-science!)
Meanwhile, shape-shifter/alternate-Bella-paramour Jacob Black (Taylor Lautner) thinks Bella is dead and has to deal with his wolf pack, some of whom want to kill the beast that Bella has borne. Jacob vows to kill it for them, but then sees the child (a girl now named Renesmee) and “imprints” on her immediately, thus meaning none of his shape-shifting pack can touch her. Following this highly unlikely turn of events, Bella’s vampire conversion completes itself and her birthing injuries heal. Ta-dah!
It’s all quite strange, and out of step with the bulk of vampire fiction that has come before it. Chaste vampires and the brides-who-love-them-and-refuse-to-abort-their-life-threatening children? Yeah, that’s kind of wack (and fairly problematic in terms of the messages it sends to young women, but that’s for another story).
But if it is a story that draws you in, the film adaptation of Breaking Dawn is the best movie version you’re going to get. And, writing quality aside, nothing here is any more incomprehensible than the standard storyline in many comic books or any given episode of True Blood. Beyond that, it is an entertaining film, and possibly the best yet in the franchise.
If their unabashed enthusiasm is the same, then it’s not possible for anyone to say they are a supporter of geek culture while dismissing the Twihards among us. Yet (and please forgive the gross generalizations here) it’s still seen as largely uncool amongst geeks (and movie snobs) to like Twilight films. Why? Awhile back the A.V. Club made a good point that it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Twilight fans are predominantly women, and thus their passions are viewed differently — an observation that seems spot-on. (It also explains why people are still throwing fits about “bronies,” dudes who like My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic.)
It’s become too easy to dismiss the entire Twilight juggernaut as mopey, watered-down vampirism made for teenage girls that will trample “real” movie fans calmly standing in line to see The Descendants. But are those teen vampire fans any different than the hordes who follow any other geek property? And if their unabashed enthusiasm is the same, then it’s not possible for anyone to say they are a supporter of geek culture while dismissing the Twihards among us.
If, at its core, being a geek means loving what you love unabashedly, collecting all of its related schwag, attending the related conventions (full disclosure: this writer was on a panel at TwiCon in 2009), and sleeping outside before a new film comes out, then Twihards are geeks of the highest caliber. Even if you don’t like the subject matter, you have to admire their passion. (If it’s good enough for Guillermo Del Toro, it’s good enough for us.)
None of this is to say that there aren’t self-identified geeks out there who support Twilight and who won’t be lined up to see the first installment of Breaking Dawn this weekend, but it is saying that we should now be at a place where saying “Team Edward” out loud shouldn’t get you unceremoniously ejected from a monthly Dungeons & Dragons game. That’s all.
Because, like a Star Wars movie or the latest offering from Marvel Studios, Breaking Dawn isn’t going to appeal to anyone who isn’t already geeked out on the subject matter (and probably wouldn’t even make sense to the uninitiated).
But the film maintains the commitment to its core audience that is the series’ lifeblood. It’s for Twilight fans and those secure enough to enjoy overwrought teen vampire dramas at face value. That’s how we geeks like our franchises — made to appeal to the “true fans.”
Haters can suck it.
