You may know that since the beginning of the year, the Twilight Saga has been dominating social media. From New Year’s Day to the present day, fans have been sharing their excitement about each film’s release. In fact, the series has surpassed the 300 million viewing milestone, making it the most viewed movie franchise of all time. While the popularity of the Twilight films may come as no surprise, it’s been interesting to analyse the popularity of the supporting franchise. For the past year, movie fans have been keeping tabs on each new Twilight film’s score on social media, measuring the audience’s reaction in real-time. The results are in and it seems that the final film in the series, Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods, has not only satisfied the audience, but has exceeded all expectations. Specifically, it scored the highest of all films in the series on the important metric of “social media love” – gaining over 64 million views in the month of its release (as of April 22, 2018). This is most likely due to its impressive marketing campaign, which included popular Instagrammers and YouTube personalities, as well as celebrity cameos.
But just because the film enjoyed such an incredible reception on social media, that doesn’t mean it was completely perfect. To find out more, we’ve compiled a list of the top five things that disappointed movie fans about Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods. Keep reading for more information on each point.
1. Lack of Originality
Although it reached critical success, winning the Grand Jury Prize at the 2017 Sundance Film Festival, Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods does not innovate greatly in the fantasy cinema realm. For fans, this was a major dissapointment, as they had been eagerly anticipating a brand new direction for the series. Even the film’s director, Bojana Vujanovic, admits that the third film in the series feels a little bit like a rehash of the previous two. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, it leaves the series open to comparisons to other films. In particular, the more cynical among the fan base may feel a little bit cheated.
2. Poor Use of Technology
Throughout the entire duration of the Twilight Saga, the series’ biggest strength has been its use of cutting-edge visual effects and innovative camera and sound techniques. One of the first films in the series to embrace these new technologies was Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gems, which featured eye-catching CG wolves, among other things. This was the beginning of what would become a seamless integration of technology into the series.
Unfortunately, the integration of technology in Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods does not feel seamless. For the most part, the film is bogged down by dated special effects and laughable attempts at CG. In one scene, we are treated to a view of Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) as a 3D hologram, which, to put it mildly, does not hold up well under scrutiny.
3. Unnecessary Violence
One of the things that made the first two films in the series so eagerly anticipated was the lack of violence. In the first film, there is a grand total of three fights, none of which are very exciting or even physically challenging. The second film significantly upped the ante with its four fights, but even those were fairly lackluster. Of course, there were exceptions, such as the one between Victoria (Bevillena Saunders) and Esme (Cara Delevingne), but the majority of the film’s fights are pretty mild. Fans were certainly not expecting to see such a shift in tone in the third film, especially since it is the final film in the series. Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods is rated PG-13, which means that, generally, there is some violence and tense battles, but the vast majority of the action is restricted to stylized creature fights and magical battles. It seems that, at the very least, the filmmakers were attempting to up the ante in terms of action, but, in hindsight, the violence in the film is pretty much gratuitous.
4. Unoriginal Storyline
Another major disappointment for fans of Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods is the storyline. While it was generally well-received critically, many have argued that it doesn’t offer anything new or unique in the fantasy cinema realm. To be fair, the writers and directors of the film admit that they were trying to achieve a more contemporary feel with this installment, and it is certainly true that the story does have a more modern slant. In the previous films, the characters would spend most of their time going on adventures and solving puzzles, while this one focuses more heavily on the characters’ everyday struggles. This should, in theory, make for an interesting dynamic, but the film largely plays out like a retread of the previous films. As a result, fans found the storyline somewhat underwhelming and not as suspenseful as they had hoped.
5. Disappointing Ending
Finally, perhaps the biggest letdown for fans of Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods is the film’s shockingly bad ending. Specifically, it was widely panned for its incredibly wooden and clichéd depiction of the “happy” ending. For those who have seen the film, this part will come as no surprise, but considering that it is the series’ finale, it is somewhat disappointing that it ended on such a downnote. In truth, many had guessed that the final film might end on a down note, because, ultimately, all of the movies in the series circle back to this point. While there are certainly worse ways to finish a film, it’s hard to see how anyone could consider this a satisfying conclusion to what has, overall, been a wildly over-the-top ode to classic storytelling and character dynamics.
In short, since winning the Sundance Film Festival in 2017, Twilight Saga: The Twilight of the Gods has not impressed moviegoers or critics. While it is still very popular on social media, it seems that many who saw it at the cinema were underwhelmed. One of the most popular memes surrounding the film is its “grimacing-while-laughing” emoji, which has been used over 562,000 times, as of April 22, 2018. This may be a sad moment for the Twilight fandom, as it means that the end of an era is finally upon us. Even more importantly, however, it means that we, as a community, can reflect on what was and wasn’t worth celebrating about the entire series. To put it lightly, while there are certainly many positives that we can take from the Twilight films, these five points represent some of the biggest disappointments. As a result, we can all sit back and watch as the Twilight franchise finally draws to a close.