In her first 10YA re-view, Heather Schofner bares her fangs with the odd middle child of the Twilight series, Eclipse.
Over the years, I’ve admittedly have a weird fascination with the Twilight movies. I saw the first film in theaters without having any idea what it was about. I had been camping in Forks, WA prior to that and was like, “This is a blockbuster? Weird! Oh, it was a teen novel series? Okay.” I honestly liked the cyan color of the first film and the misty rain that felt all too familiar to me. I watched each subsequent movie as it came out just to see what cheesy weirdness would unfold. After seeing all the films, I can definitely say that The Twilight Saga: Eclipse is the odd middle child of the series. I watched it twice in a row on a chilly summer night to write this account.
So, in the first movie, Bella falls for a mysterious guy who turns out to be a vampire. In the second movie, after her vampire love deserts her, she kinda falls for her bestie. He turns out to be a werewolf! She then risks her life to prove she loves the vampire when she finds out he’s still alive. This installment of the series, Eclipse, is the saddest part. This is the one movie, out of the five, where we see Bella break down. A fear of death and a strange obsession with a corpse causes her to surrender her will, and she joins up with the Cullens, the vampire coven, rather than choosing a life with her fuzzy little werewolf suitor Jacob.
Eclipse starts out with rain. Very hard rain on a dark night. An adorable, anonymous, blonde newcomer to Seattle is assaulted by both rain AND a vampire. (This is why you stay out of the Northwest.)
Suddenly we’re in a flowery field with Edward and Bella. In the past two movies, we have seen Bella fall in love with this dude—he’s over 100 years older than her. Given the sort of grooming stuff (Drake, Weinstein, Epstein, R, Kelly etc.) that’s been in the media the past ten years, I can’t help but find this age difference and behavior extra creepy. It was creepy before, but it’s even creepier to me now. Edward uses this picturesque, sunny, floral setting to propose to Bella. She laughs softly, basically declining and says, “Change me.” He says he wants her to marry him before he “changes her” (into a vampire) and she doesn’t like the idea. He calls it a compromise. She calls it coercion. Edward’s basically like, “Gotta marry ya before I kill ya, Bella.”
Bella and Edward are made aware that there’s an evil vampire uprising in Seattle (they’re out on the OIympic Peninsula, not suuuper close, but like, close enough). They hear that the vampire police, the Volturi, might be out from Italy soon to enforce some “Hey, don’t make so many vampires at once, that’s like, not excellent subterfuge on your part” kinda rules. Those same police fully expected the Cullens to embrace Bella as a vampire by now, so they are gonna be like, SO PEEVED when they find out Bella’s still a human. So the Cullens are like, “We gotta hide you.”
Meanwhile in the romance part of Twilight, Jake and Edward are obviously mad at each other. Jacob says to Edward during a heated exchange, “She has a right to know, she is the one the redhead wants.” He’s referring to the vengeful vampire Victoria, who wants to kill Bella because Edward killed Victoria’s boyfriend in a previous film. Both the werewolf pack and the Cullens have recently witnessed Victoria running through their territory. Alice, Edward’s clairvoyant sister, has had visions of Victoria and has known she’s coming. And now she’s here! Oh joy. Not sure why no one has built a Bella Bunker by this point. Maybe they enjoy the trauma bonding.
Now that cute blonde guy from the first scene is in Forks, stalking Bella. There’s a scene of him fondling items in Bella’s bedroom (she’s not there). He’s sniffing her bedspread, clothes, and stuff. His eyes are red, which in Twilight world means he’s been drinking human blood. Bella’s got a whole-ass vampire after her. For some reason, no one in Forks has connected this baby vampire army with Victoria yet.
Edward, caramel-eyed because he still just drinks animal blood, comes over Bella’s. He sniffs around and notices someone’s been sniffing around Bella’s bedroom. So many scents up in this place! The Cullens are all worried! Oh no! What to do? They bring Jacob in and he’s worried too now! Double oh no! Jacob and Edward start fighting. “We all have the same goals here, right? To catch the bad vampires.” Bella says. Great observation, Bella.
One of the most chuckle-worthy moments of Eclipse is when the series almost mocks itself when Edward blurts out, “Doesn’t he own a shirt?” to Bella about Jacob. He and Bella had just pulled up to meet Jacob. Bella’s scheduled to hang out with Jake while Edward is going on a hunt to suck deer blood or whatever.
I’d like to note that people pass Bella around like a child that needs a babysitter. She’s never alone. This infantilism further adds to the creepy vibes I get from Edward. Anyway, so, yes, when they roll up Jake is literally standing there half-naked, like he is during most of his screen time. Edward kisses Bella passionately to say goodbye. (When they kiss, is his mouth cold? Is it like kissing someone in the winter when they’ve just chugged ice water?) Bella then goes over to Jake and with his eight-pack fully out he wraps her in a big hug and says. “Hey, beautiful.” and she says “Hi.” Not awkward at all! Not one bit. If these three could just open up their hearts to polyamory, I think they’d all be a lot happier. But I digress.
It’s now nighttime and we have reached the period where Bella is privy to stories of the ancient vampires that terrorized Jacob’s tribe, the Quillayutes. It’s a campfire setting, a meeting of their tribal council. We learn that a woman of their tribe who they label “the third wife” stabs herself in the gut in a heroic act to distract a “cold woman” (a vampire femme) to save the tribe during an attack. I wish she would have slashed her hand and lived through it, still causing a distraction, but it is what it is.
There’s a weird scene where Jacob confesses his love to Bella. “I want you to choose me instead of him,” says Jacob. “You feel something else for me, you just won’t admit it.” He’s upset because she wants to turn into a vampire to be with Edward. He pulls her close and says, “You feel that? Flesh and blood and warmth” he says to her, and then he kisses her against her will. She hits him in the face and injures her hand doing so. Shortly after this Edward rolls up suddenly to start a fight with Jacob. Then Charlie, her dad, shows up out of nowhere. It’s a big thing where everyone is like, “Bella is beautiful and fragile and we all love her so! This delicate flower! Her hand is hurt! Oh my!” She gets treated at the hospital by Edward’s dad and is told that it’s just a sprain.
We go back to Seattle and now there’s a mob of vampires led by the pretty blonde guy who was seen sniffing around Bella’s bedroom. We see the Italian vampire cops, the Vulturi, watching the blonde from a distance. They seem conflicted as whether to kill the vampire mob or not. They basically decide to leave the baby vampires alone and let chaos and bloodshed reign.
We go to Bella and Edward’s graduation where Bella’s bestie Jessica is giving an adorable speech on behalf of the senior class. After, there’s a graduation party where Jacob shows up grouchily with a few friends. During the party, the werewolves and Cullen vampires decide to band together to protect Bella and their territory from these baby vampires. (Baby vampires are supposedly super powerful because they still have human blood running through their veins.) There’s a big training montage where the Cullens teach the werewolves how to fight baby vampires. They also practice fighting each other in little sibling vampire fights. It’s pretty silly.
Please note that Jacob is a ridiculously big werewolf when transformed. Big and floofy. The fluffiest.
After a bunch of character development, back stories on Rosalie and Jasper Cullen, as well as moments of parental bonding between Charlie and Bella. There’s also a rather uncomfortable scene where Bella gets personal with Edward, asking about marriage being his condition for turning her into a vampire. She says SHE has one condition. She wants to have sex with him. She says, “I want you, while I’m still me.” He says it’s too dangerous. He’s too strong and she’s too fragile. She obviously feels super rejected.
Moments after this rejection, Edward gets down on his knee and formally proposes marriage to Bella. We see the engagement ring which many jewelers were forced to recreate in following years, a silver toned oval piece with lots of small diamonds inlaid. The way she says yes is so Kristen Stewart. Just like, “Well, okay, maybe, sure” kind of attitude. Was Edward super sad right then that she’s like, the only person on the planet whose thoughts he can’t read? Yeah, probably.
The next scene is Victoria, the vengeful vampire leader, talking to her blonde right-hand man. She’s convincing him to kill all the Cullens. They make out after he buys her idea. Guess impending murder is a super turn on for vampires? Makes sense.
The plan is to bring Bella to the mountains and hide her there, away from the vampire baby army. Jacob carries her up to cover the scent with his stinky werewolf musk. Then a winter storm comes and Bella, a mere human in a little tent, gets super cold. This is the moment, for some reason, I always define this movie by—the cuddle scene! “Oh yeah, Eclipse is the one where Bella and Jacob cuddle during the snowstorm.” It makes me giggle.
Jacob comforts Bella and warms her while Edward watches. Edward’s so salty he can’t warm her because he’s as cold as ice, undead. “Could you at least attempt to control your thoughts?” says Edward to Jacob, since he can read minds. While Bella snoozes against Jacob’s ample pecs, they exchange words about Bella. Edward admits that he wouldn’t kill Jacob if Bella chooses to be with him. “I’m not going to force her into anything again. The last time I tried, it nearly killed us both.” (Edward’s referring to the events of the last movie where he was going to kill himself and Bella walked into a den of ancient vampires to save him.)
The next day, Edward does a truly dick move and talks with Bella about their upcoming nuptials while Jacob is out of sight, but within both auditory and telepathic listening distance. Jake’s horrified that Bella’s going to marry a vampire. He runs off to go into battle with the baby vampires. Bella demands that he kiss her before he leaves. It’s not a rapey kiss like last time before they locked lips she’s like, “I’M ASKING YOU YO KISS ME.” They kiss and Jake clearly likes it very much and the scenery behind is quite majestic and it’s like, “So, you cuddled all last night, and now you’re making out? Just friends. Got it.”
The time comes for the faceoff between the baby vampire army and the Cullens/Werewolves. They fight, with the Cullens and werewolves doing much better than the supposedly nearly invincible neophytes. Victoria has caught Bella and Edward’s scent and is heading towards their hiding spot in the mountains.
She catches up with them and there’s a fight scene where Edward, Victoria, and the blonde guy fight. A battle ensues, Bella, like “the third wife” from Jacob’s family story, cuts herself and draws blood to distract the vampires and save Edward when it looks like he’s going to be taken out. Edward uses the distraction, bounces back and beheads Victoria with his fangs. Yes, that’s right, he noms her head off. Then they set her on fire!
Meanwhile, at the main battle with the baby vampires, Jacob gets super hurt. The battle is basically over. The werewolves flee because the Volturi are on the way to the battle site and they don’t want to die at the hands of creepy ancient vampire warriors. The Volturi show up and Jane, Dakota Fanning’s character, is super mean as always. She orders the destruction of the little vampire Bree that the Cullens were trying to give shelter to. That part is honestly a bit of a bummer.
After the battle, Bella goes back to Jacob’s place where he is screaming in pain because Dr. Cullen is re-breaking his rapidly healing bones to reset them after the battle. When Bella shows up, she’s told that Jacob’s been asking for her (of course). He is shirtless except for bandages (of course) sweating, injured, and tells her he has been worried about her. She admits she loves him. “I’m exactly right for you, Bella,” he says, “It would be as easy as breathing with me.” We can tell she has no intention of leaving Edward for him. It’s sad! I’m kind of on team Jacob, I guess.
We end up in the same flowery field we basically began in. Bella professes her love to Edward yet again. They talk about wedding plans. Bella says, “I’m not normal, I don’t want to be.” She feels she belongs with Edward, in his undead world. They end the film by deciding to tell Charlie about their decision to wed, wholesomely hugging in the flowery field. Aw, cute. He has perfectly groomed her and now she’s asking him to kill her. A virginal teenager marrying a hundred-something year old undead dude. The stuff dreams are made of.
Yeah, 10 years later this movie feels even more messed up, and corny, than it did back then. And the two Breaking Dawn movies were still to come! Yikes on bikes.
— Heather Schofner
10 Years Ago: Films in Retrospective 