Twilight Saga

[RedFox]

I just posted this in another thread regarding photo shopped pictures of fans and the main character out of the Twilight series.....this is my response.
I thought it would be a good idea to repost here....just so any of you who may have kids who may be interested in these films should be warned that, frankly, its a really unhealthy film for them to watch.

If you think that picture is shocking, you should watch the Twilight films!
I happened to catch the second in the series of films, because a friend rented it to watch after hearing all the hype about 'how good it was'.

Dear god! Its nothing but pure unadulterated glamorisation of narcissism (and maybe even psychopaths) from start to end!

*spoiler alert, if your REALLY bothered what happens in the second of the Twilight films, don't read *

Their are two things that really stood out in the film for me (at which point I screamed at the TV a series of profanities).
The Vampire the main girl is 'in love' with just ups and leaves without telling her....to highlight how she 'feels' we are shown a scene that lasts a minute of her (probably in black, I don't remember) sat in her room staring blankly out of the window, with angst ridden music playing...and as the camera slowly pans around her we see the seasons changing.....to imply she is sat in this numb place (that she is 'dead' without him) for several months...if not longer.

The culmination of this is the discovery that he is 'protecting her magically'.....and that each time she is in danger/does something stupid an image of him (looking fa-lawn) appears saying 'don't do it'.
So what does she end up doing? She jumps off a cliff into the sea and nearly drown.....just to get him back. And then he shows up and they profess their undying (emotionless) love for each other. And that he only left (and metaphorically tore her heart out) for 'her own good'.



The messages behind this??
Love = I cannot live without you (And would rather die) for the woman....and emotionless/soulless/rip your heart out to protect you while looking cool....for the man.
It was unadulterated whole sale glamorisation of narcissism with so many emotional hooks for all the angst ridden love sick teenagers out their I wanted to smash the TV to a million pieces. Its the most disgusting thing I've ever seen

So if you want to be really shocked, go watch those films.....I can't imagine the TV series is any better.
I think I'll go re-post this review in the film section.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

RedFox,

I felt the exact same way as you watching this movie. Especially when she jumped off the cliff! I was like

I think Twilight is a pretty telling movie of the signs of the times in terms of youth mentality and what is shown as "true love" to these poor kids.

As it has been said in the book thread of this series, I think it's a brainwashing tool for women to fall in love with psychopathic men and there is really nothing deep or even remotely close to love in this movie/series.

 

[Atreides]

I didn't see the second film, only the first, but I didn't get that impression at all really. A lot of vamp romance flicks are a bit twisted I suppose, and I am not a vampire fan (I like werewolves), but don't you think you are going a little too far? It's just a movie, and there is plenty of reasons for young girls to think like you are describing just by watching their own parents. Maybe their parents and relations have twisted narcissistic love relationships because they watched twilight?

It just seems a bit like all of the Christians saying Elvis and rock n roll are the devil's tools to corrupt the youth.

All I am saying is that people aren't mirrors for movies, movies are mirrors for people.

 

[Turgon]

I saw movie 3 recently. I'll sum it up.

SPOILER ALERT***



"I love Bella!"

"Oh yeah, well I love her more!"

"No way, I LOVE Bella more!!"

"Bella, who do you love? Is it me? Because I can treat you better all you gotta do is love me and everything will be alright!"

Bella: "Umm... *stares off into space*..."

I'm joking of course! But you get the drift. This is roughly how the movie plays out. It's bubblegum pop that glamourises vampires and werewolves. I would be interested to see how Twilight fans would react to a movie like Let Me In. It's like the anti-Twilight vampire movie that portrays the vampire and it's manipulations in a very raw form, osit. At least you don't leave the movie with eyes to want to fall in love with a vampire, even though there is a romance in it.

 

[Hildegarda]

I didn't see the second film, only the first, but I didn't get that impression at all really. A lot of vamp romance flicks are a bit twisted I suppose, and I am not a vampire fan (I like werewolves), but don't you think you are going a little too far? It's just a movie [..] All I am saying is that people aren't mirrors for movies, movies are mirrors for people.

I went to see both movies, and both times made an observation which painted a consistent picture. There were a lot of women and groups of women, both same age and intergenerational, in the audience.

And I am not being Captain Obvious here, bear with me. Most movies are geared towards men (action flicks) or men bringing dates (those same action flicks or "the date movie"). There is usually more men then women in the audience, unless it's a family feature. The few movies that are meant for women show older women who are bonding over their mutual hatred of, distrust of or inability to get along with men (any "divorce movie", "Sex in the City" etc.), and they, frankly, appeal only to a certain segment of jaded females out there.

"Twilight Saga" is truly the only movie series in a very long time that is made for women, by women, that talks about relationships from a woman's prospective and that is equally friendly to women young and old. It will work equally well for a group of teenagers, a group of older women and even mother and daughter couples as a basis for a nice "girls night out" followed by appetizers and coffee. In other words, it made for a very good entertainment for the female population across the board, and THAT largely determined its commercial success, which in the history of cinema is actually pretty unprecedented.

As a story and a movie, yes, it leaves a lot to be desired, but that alone, in my view, is not enough to completely demonize it. There is a ton of bad "men's movies": action flicks, thrillers, heist etc, yet they do not tend to receive the same vitriol from the critics. My point is, it is made for a certain large audience whose needs (entertainment, not spiritual needs) have been, up to this moment, largely ignored, and apparently it delivered the goods. What's sad is that there is nothing better out there for women, but may be the tide is turning now.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

I didn't see the second film, only the first, but I didn't get that impression at all really. A lot of vamp romance flicks are a bit twisted I suppose, and I am not a vampire fan (I like werewolves), but don't you think you are going a little too far? It's just a movie, and there is plenty of reasons for young girls to think like you are describing just by watching their own parents. Maybe their parents and relations have twisted narcissistic love relationships because they watched twilight?

It just seems a bit like all of the Christians saying Elvis and rock n roll are the devil's tools to corrupt the youth.

All I am saying is that people aren't mirrors for movies, movies are mirrors for people.

I think one of the things that made me dislike Twilight as much as I did is... the fact that the story is so.. for lack of a better word, 'white washed' when it comes to Vampires. I'm a vampire story fan, and always have been. One thing that bothered me was how the lady who wrote it portrayed Vampires as basically these "beautiful" and misunderstood beings. How their skin shines like diamonds in the sun light and that's why they can't come out to the public because they're so different looking, etc.. I was like pfftt give me a break!! Vampires are supposed to burn in sunlight not shine! And I've watched my fair share of Vampire stories, including Buffy who was also about a human girl who fell in love with a Vampire. And that show was waaay better than Twilight. And so is True Blood- (The Vampire show I watch now) because they all stick to the same old, same old things we all knew about Vampires. In those examples, the shows did a good job at portraying the Vampire for what they actually are: monsters.

One can argue that in Twilight, the 'bad guys' are vicious too- but I stick with my statement about the skin thing. It's SO Corney!

Twilight went over the top to try and be something new and different and it failed miserably in by book.

There are lots of things in the entertainment industry that corrupt everyone, one show Hildegarda mentioned is Sex & the City (I'm not going to even get into that one). So I'm not one to say Twilight is worse than something else just as bad- it's all mostly bad. But Twilight does take the cake on the crappy attempt at a love story and that's just my opinion. :P

 

[Azur]

I've hated the vampire schtick that has been around movies and popular fiction lately.

It's always raised my hackles. I get the same thought every time: they're trying to popularize feeding via relationship angst, and thus normalizing it. As in, this is a normal societal more.

It's garbage.

I remember seeing a movie way back when, and it was one of the scariest movies I had ever seen. It mildly marked me, and I don't know why, it just did. It wasn't gory, there was just something there under the surface that seriously pushed a defensive button.

It's pretty much a sci-fi vampire movie, without any of the 90210 glamour bullshite trappings. No dancing around, just the business of feeding.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089489/

 

[sid]

I didn't see the second film, only the first, but I didn't get that impression at all really. A lot of vamp romance flicks are a bit twisted I suppose, and I am not a vampire fan (I like werewolves), but don't you think you are going a little too far? It's just a movie, and there is plenty of reasons for young girls to think like you are describing just by watching their own parents. Maybe their parents and relations have twisted narcissistic love relationships because they watched twilight?

It just seems a bit like all of the Christians saying Elvis and rock n roll are the devil's tools to corrupt the youth.

All I am saying is that people aren't mirrors for movies, movies are mirrors for people.

Atreides, I actually didn't think too badly about the first movie either but when the second movie was on, even my Mrs. shut the telly off after 45 minutes as it bored and annoyed her to death. And she can tolerate just about anything on the idiot box. And I fully agree with what Redfox and Deedlet have posted; things are really pretty bad with some of the ladies both young and old out there as I have seen and felt this in person. Watching Twilight made me understand "Why women run with the wolves". And boy I was glad to learn that an unfinished copy of the fifth Twilight book got leaked on the internet before publication and forced the writer to discontinue with the series altogether.

-Sid

 

[clerck de bonk]

... I would be interested to see how Twilight fans would react to a movie like Let Me In. It's like the anti-Twilight vampire movie that portrays the vampire and it's manipulations in a very raw form, osit. At least you don't leave the movie with eyes to want to fall in love with a vampire, even though there is a romance in it.

I made my teenage daughter(who is a twilight fan) watch it in order to try to explain to her what "real" vampirism means, her reaction? Can You guess?

Boooriing! Duuuh! Sooo strange!


and my reactions to that was :(

 

[Tigersoap]

I suffered the Twilight movies to see what it was all about and it's the best sleeping pill I have ever found.
Althought the first one wasn't so bad but still...
The plot is horrible, the characters are lacking depths and the fx are awful.
I don't understand how it is in any way a good movie.

For those who haven't read what Psyche wrote about it it's here

And boy I was glad to learn that an unfinished copy of the fifth Twilight book got leaked on the internet before publication and forced the writer to discontinue with the series altogether.

As in "The publishing house leaked a copy on the internet to see if they could still sell the books now that everybody knows it's really bad"

 

[Gimpy]

... I would be interested to see how Twilight fans would react to a movie like Let Me In. It's like the anti-Twilight vampire movie that portrays the vampire and it's manipulations in a very raw form, osit. At least you don't leave the movie with eyes to want to fall in love with a vampire, even though there is a romance in it.

I made my teenage daughter(who is a twilight fan) watch it in order to try to explain to her what "real" vampirism means, her reaction? Can You guess?

Boooriing! Duuuh! Sooo strange!


and my reactions to that was :(

;) Twilight hooks teens right in the hormones, and at that stage of life, its tough for them to think around it. If you've given her a balancing view, and it bothered her, it might niggle her mind enough so that later she'll

look back and wonder about it.

Or not. ;) Its tough being a parent, and my heart goes out to you there.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

LOL Mr.Tigersoap that picture cracked me up! Thank you!!

 

[Gaby]

For those who haven't read what Psyche wrote about it it's here

Re-posting FWIW:

Maybe there's a lesson there about 'attraction'. Sort of like: 'Mindless' meets 'soulless'?, or perhaps: "lack of knowledge of psychopaths" meeting up with a psychopath can lead to "obsessive love" (trans-personification?).

Just a thought.

I read and analyzed the books (or most of them) awhile ago and found they are among the most dangerous things out there for girls these days. Here are my impressions FWIW.

The short story is that the author of the books, Stephenie Meyer, portrays the vampire as the Knight in shiny armor, the savior. She is inspired by English classics like Jane Eyre, Sense and Sensibility, etc. But she twisted everything and she does something similar with "The Host" where Souls and Seekers are the ones who invaded the Earth a la "body-snatchers". We can even say that this reflects her spiritual views and archetypal energies, she portrays her blood thirsty religion as a savior (she is latter-day Saint).

Vampires – pathological people like malignant narcissists and psychopaths - really suck our life force and creativity. Monotheistic religions -a psychopathic system- does the same thing but with billions of people. A blood thirsty God, a blood thirsty vampire. Giving her the benefit of the doubt (which is too much considering what she has created), perhaps she is projecting her inner self into a blood thirsty archetype, trying to make sense of it by making it the savior, so the bad guys become the good guys. But I actually think she was simply inspired by 4 or 6D STS.

So she brings some elements of the Knight archetype and merges it dangerously with the Vampire archetype. The Knight fights and slays the dragon which represents our negative personality programs in order to rescue the Damsel in distress which symbolizes our Soul. The Knight who gives us what we never had but yearned for all our eternities: Unconditional Love. No matter how idiotic, insecure and imperfect we are, the Knight will love us for who we are, allowing for much needed re-parenting. Courtly love is true unconditional love that sees and knows and understands and yet loves. The Knight and his courtly love can stand as a metaphor which can exist and be nurtured within ourselves. It is not necessarily an external metaphor, although that can certainly be the case when we are healed through a relationship where we are loved unconditionally. Another example of external metaphor applies when we are in an environment or network which nurtures our higher selves (not our programs!) and truly supports us for who we really are (not our false personality!), allowing thus for a healing re-parenting process.

The psychopath/vampire "steals" the concept of courtly love and corrupts it for his own devious purposes. This is where the author makes her greatest disservice as well, she sustains and enhances to its maximum degree this illusion, leaving people (specially women) susceptible to the predatory schemes of psychopaths. She portrays a scenario where the Vampire, the Psychopath, will love us unconditionally, where he has a Soul, where he is a Knight. She really hasn't done anything extraordinary, as people usually project their conscience and empathy into the Psychopath who lacks capacity of both. Twilight can be even a symbol of the result of projected higher emotions and conscience into a Psychopath, a truly impossible scenario.

He is the predator, he doesn't have such potential. Qualities of charm, perfection and hypnotizing abilities towards woman are only for predatory purposes. Even emotional displays are only for predatory purposes. The "falling in love" frenzy is all about chemicals, with feel good hormones which can make a person feel they found their soul mate, when it is strictly purely chemical.

It is all about passionate obsessive love like a powerful drug which tries to mimic the real thing but at the end it turns out to be the entire opposite. It is a trap that lures a person in, it doesn't give emotional freedom, it enslaves. Once a person is drawn in, they are no longer in reality. Bitten by the vampire, they become slaves, forced to feed from others in order to survive.

Twilight tries to soothe a very deep wound, but it really doesn't give any real means to actualize needs and dreams within reality and daily life, on the contrary. The more a person needs a soothing fantasy such as that one, the more out of touch with reality and susceptible they become. It might give an idea of what the needs and wounds are, and how deep they run, but it can only go so far.

Dangerous concept. People, specially girls should be reading and watching classic romance instead, not the twisted version, and learning about real vampires and psychopathy.

 

[knowledge_of_self]

Vampires – pathological people like malignant narcissists and psychopaths - really suck our life force and creativity. Monotheistic religions -a psychopathic system- does the same thing but with billions of people. A blood thirsty God, a blood thirsty vampire. Giving her the benefit of the doubt (which is too much considering what she has created), perhaps she is projecting her inner self into a blood thirsty archetype, trying to make sense of it by making it the savior, so the bad guys become the good guys. But I actually think she was simply inspired by 4 or 6D STS.

Very well said Psyche! Your thought that she may have been inspired by 4 or 6D STS may not be off the mark. This was shared on the book thread of Twilight some time a go and I thought it was very interesting and telling.

I do not care for her books either. I just found it odd that this is her subject matter, since she is so popular right now.

What caught my attention was when I saw her in an interview a while back. In this interview she said she had no interest in the horror genre prior to writing the books. What stuck out in particular was when she said she got the idea from a dream she had:
_http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1734838,00.html

Five years ago, on the night of June 1, 2003, a Phoenix housewife named Stephenie Meyer had a dream: a young woman was talking to a beautiful, sparkling man in a sunlit meadow. The man was a vampire. They were in love, and he was telling the girl how hard it was for him to keep from killing her.

Meyer had not written anything much before then. Her main creative outlets were scrapbooking and making elaborate Halloween costumes. But the dream was so vivid that she absolutely had to write it down.

In the video interview, she said the dream she had was so vivid that when it came time to choose the lead for the movie, the character in the dream looked almost exactly like the guy who now plays him. This was one of the reasons he was chosen. Here's more from the Time piece:

Becoming Stephenie Meyer

Meyer wrote twilight in three months flat. "I know to the day when I became a writer," she says. "One day. Which is cool." Once she'd had the dream, she wrote like a woman struck by lightning, barely sleeping, typing one-handed with a baby in her lap.

Sounds a bit like Thor's Pantheum to me:

http://www.cassiopaea.org/cass/stargate.htm

What is of most compelling interest is the information on Andrija Puharich and the possibility that there was a "program" in effect for a long time designed to teach very psychic kids to learn to "project" thoughts into the minds of others so as to convince them that they were channeling extraterrestrials. This is also something of which we are aware, only it was very recently that we were apprised of Puharich's possible role in such activity. The Cassiopaeans very clearly told us that there was an "army of psychic projectors" which they designated as "Thor's Pantheum," which was being used to influence individuals in positions of power and in the creative arts so as to have them produce books, movies, television shows and series - all with an agenda in mind: the same agenda identified by Picknett and Prince.

P & P go on to describe their research findings - how various channels, researchers, writers, and other individuals of some influence in the subject - have had CIA connections, and all seem to circle around the same "circle." Circles within circles indeed! And quite a few of them have impinged on our lives as well - generally quite negatively. For a long time, we thought it was simply because we were "strange" and involved with such an "off the wall" thing as channeling. Now we realize that most of them were also involved with channeled messages - of a very different sort. And it is most definitely clear after reading the excerpts of some of this material as dug up by P & P, as well as learning about the backgrounds and connections of these individuals, why our work has been marginalized and discounted by these very same people with their own "channeled" agenda.

and

At a C's session of August 1, 2001, the following exchange took place:

Q: (One of our egroup members) has been reading some channeled material that suggests that this planet is a breeding ground for aliens, and the life cycle of the aliens, as in the reptilians or whatever, may mimic something like a preying mantis. This material also alludes to the suggestion that the underground of the earth is kind of a dormant stage for the female and that it is the male that is returning, or that does return at the end of each epoch, and that the focus of this appears to be the Great Pyramid. Is the earth a breeding ground for some kind of aliens as suggested in this passage?
A: No.
Q: So, this stuff is just another diversionary channeled message designed to keep people confused. It looks like the guy has made up messages out of our worst nightmares, putting the worst possible spin on it imaginable. So, we can forget this idea?
A: Yes.
Q: What is the source of this kind of material? What kind of energy is behind it?
A: STS mind control signal.
Q: What is it designed to do?
A: Reach those that are programmed to receive.
Q: Let me ask you this: if some of these STS programming signals that are going out, I mean, I'm assuming some of them come from 3rd density, is that correct?
A: Yes.
Q: Do they actually have, like, some place on the planet where these guys sit around and read science fiction books and get these really crazy theories and stories that they assemble with some sort of fiendish glee, and then convert them via computer into the programming signal code that gets beamed out into people's heads, while the guys who are making up all the space brothers scenarios in some secret military base or whatever, just fall down on the floor laughing at what they have just done? That people will believe anything? Is this possibly something that is going on?
A: Yes.
Q: That's sick. (A) Well, if you had their agenda, wouldn't you do it? (L) If I was as sick as those puppies, and had the money and facilities, yeah - I guess that's what they are doing. They have probably taken whole H. P. Lovecraft novels, converted them to programming signals, and beamed 'em out for the New Age crowd to channel and believe! And then they say "My God! The space brothers or guardian alliance told me! It's just like Lovecraft said! He must have been a prophet! Oh my God! Can you imagine?" (A) But it works. (L) It sure does.(A) You see, what this guy R___ is telling us about, the musician who is working on laser light shows in conjunction with certain music, is that it is capable of inducing prolonged altered states of consciousness, and that it will be used for massive, grand scale programming via the entertainment arts. He's telling us about another phase of the program. And it's coming pretty soon, according to him.

[...]

I kept wondering where I saw this interview as I have no interest in Meyer. Finally through some searching on another website, I realized it was on Oprah. Here's what she had to say about her choice for Edward:
_http://uk.eonline.com/uberblog/b153786_twilight__mastermind_stephenie_meyer.html

The usually press-shy author who gave life to Bella, Edward, Jacob and a billion-dollar media phenomenon told Oprah Winfrey today that R.Pattz and his unique and "significantly featured" face brought her visions of Edward to life.

"I knew that the problem was going to be Edward, because he's the perfect vampire," Meyer said in what will be her only formal interview before New Moon hits theaters Nov. 20. "How do you cast that from your pool of human actors?"

But Pattinson "doesn't look like everybody else," she said. "There's something unusual. There are moments where he looks exactly like he did in my head."

Interesting indeed.

 

[Gaby]

Your thought that she may have been inspired by 4 or 6D STS may not be off the mark. This was shared on the book thread of Twilight some time a go and I thought it was very interesting and telling.

And the similarities with Enoch and other sources... Yeah, creepy.