This past weekend, I turned 21-years-old. To celebrate I forced several my closest friends to crowd into my apartment, watch me play Fire Emblem: Three Houses (Golden Deer gang squad up), and sit through the movies that I have spent the past year carefully selecting just for this occasion.
The favorite of the night? Twilight: New Moon.
And what turns thirteen-years-old on September 6th? Twilight: New Moon.
Image via Apple TV App
Time to party, folks.
Now, the movie adaptation of New Moon didn’t come out until November of 2009, but I’m not going to reread one of those cinderblock sized Twilight books just for a ‘heeheehaha’ gag article.
I did my time, and I ain’t going back in.
Speaking of my time, it was in middle school. Every November, a new Twilight movie would be released. And, baby, ‘obsessed’ wouldn’t even begin to describe my friends and I.
We had the neon clip-ins from Hot Topic, knee high converse with zippers down the back, and #TeamEdward shirts that were all black with glittery silver font.
I wasn’t emo. I was scene. So, obviously, Twilight appealed to me.
Some girls I probably would’ve gotten along with/Image via Cinelinx
And though it was a phase that took up about four years of my life, it was still a phase. I’ve seen the first film many times since said phase, college kids today enjoy reliving that vampire laden pre-pubescent nostalgia, but my memories of New Moon had all but faded away.
Until this weekend.
New Moon opens on Bella Swan’s 18th birthday. We learn through her Sylvia Plath poem of a nightmare that she is now officially one year older than the age Edward Cullen was when he was turned into a vampire, the age he will remain for the rest of his time on earth.
Technically, Edward is well over one hundred years old, but Bella worries that once her body ages past the point of Edward’s he won’t be attracted to her anymore. So, she has decided to alter her mortal life state for this guy she met in science class last year, and become a vampire.
Bella and Edward back in the good old days/Image via Twitter
Edward’s not into the idea. In fact, (after an incredibly awkward birthday at the Cullen’s) Edward dumps Bella’s dumb ass HARD.
He claims that his family is moving, because townsfolk are becoming suspicious of the lack of aging going on over in the Cullen house. Which, yeah, they probably would be.
Bella, however, sees through his very fair reasoning. She knows that Edward is just leaving to protect her from the greatest threat to her life. Him.
OOOOOOO deep.
Anyways, Edward leaves Forks and Bella sits in her room alone for, like, five months.
The iconic catatonic state scene/Image via Youtube
Eventually Bella’s father, Charlie, begs his daughter to end her melodramatic sobfest and go outside. And when she does, she realizes that she can conjure hallucinations of her lost love if she puts herself in dangerous situations.
So she puts herself in more dangerous situations, of course. One of such activities is cliff diving with her new rebound, Jacob.
However, Alice (Edward’s psychic sister) has a vision of Bella falling into the sea, and assumes the worst. She returns to Forks in order to check on Bella, and while the two are catching up Edward calls the Swan’s landline only for Jacob to pick up the phone.
Jacob then proceeds to tell Edward that Bella is f–king dead.
So Edward decides to go to Rome during what looks like a giant Handmaid’s Tale festival, walk his glittering naked body into the sunlight, revealing his vampire status. This is a crime that in the vampire world is punishable only by death, which is convenient because the vampire police headquarters is stationed right next door.
How anyone on God’s green earth is #TeamJacob is beyond me.
The festival that probably isn’t a real festival/Image via Italy Guides
Anyways, Bella and Alice fly to Rome via hard-cut, and rent a zippy Italian sports car (when in Rome, amiright ladies?) in order to reach Edward before he can pull a Romeo and off himself in the name of love. Take a shot every time I say ‘rome.’
It’s also worth noting that in the opening sequence of this film Bella wakes up with a copy of Romeo and Juliet in her bed, and the following scene shows Edward reciting a stanza of the famous Shakespeare play from memory. I just don’t want you to think that any of the allusions in New Moon are subtle or nuanced in any way. They aren’t. They beat you over the head with any and all references to outside works in order to prove that, yes, Stephanie Meyer has read a book before.
Moving on, Bella is running through this festival trying to save her ex-boyfriend. He’s stripping down, about to walk into the sunlight, and a child is watching him do it for whatever reason, when Bella is able to run in a stop him at the very last moment.
Then the rest of the film is plot set up for the next book in the series, and it’s all happily ever after or whatever.
What stuck out to me in these final moments of New Moon, are Edward’s incredibly pale nipples. I get what they were going for, but Jesus Christ. Edward shirtless looks like when they pulled E.T. out of that river, like a dehydrated used napkin.
The nipples in question/Image via Flickr
In retrospect, it was a choice.
Featured Image via Netflix
