Here’s the dilemma. I have to think of Eclipse from two different perspectives. The first from a business perspective and the second from a content perspective.
From the business perspective, the Twilight saga has done a good deal to move the conversation forward about the women’s market and how women can make films be a box office success. It’s so about time for that and Hollywood would do itself a real favor if it figured out how to build more female franchises. This franchise is huge and growing. People are becoming fans of the franchise after seeing the movies. Eclipse is going to have a monster weekend. According to Summit, the studio releasing the film, the last film had a 50/50 breakdown between under 25 and over 25 women and the gender breakdown was 60% women and 40% men. Now I can believe the age figures, but the gender figures give me pause. One of the goals is to age up the franchise and I will be interested to see the age breakdown and gender breakdown for this film.
Additionally, Eclipse, which opened today at 12:01AM, will have the distinction of being the film released in the most theatres — 4,416 — breaking the record set by Iron Man 2 last month.
A female led franchise will open in the most theatres EVER. Sounds to me like the game has changed.
There is probably no way this film will break the opening day record of $72.7 million set by New Moon, but since this opens on a Wednesday, and in the summer on a holiday weekend with not that much competition (The Last Airbender), its weekend earnings could rival New Moon which made $142 million on its way to $296 million domestic and $413 million overseas. That’s a shitload of money on a film that was budgeted at $50 million.
The reception and reviews for this film have been better than for New Moon because the book lent itself to more action, and I am guessing the budget for this is higher than it was for New Moon which was $50 million. (Rumors have it between $65 and 70 million.) It seems that guys will be ok with this one and will probably not make the decision to see the film on their own, but they won’t freak out when dragged to the theatre.
So from a business perspective this is great for women.
Then we get to the actual movie. Now, just remember we don’t do content analysis on big Hollywood films that star guys like we do for the ones that star women. So we are already creating a double standard here.
But because there are so few female films we need them to fulfill way too many expectations and that is where these films all fall short.
Eclipse is no different. Yes, it is better than New Moon which was pretty bad. I didn’t feel this had the heart that Twilight had, but this one had a sense of humor and at times made fun of itself. The love story between the three leads made me laugh. Firstly, Taylor Lautner just cannot act. He’s basically eye candy and while many women get pigeon holed as eye candy and have no other active role in the film, Lautner does get to be a werewolf and kick butt, so I’m not going to put him in the same category as a woman in the same type of role. He spends the whole movie with his shirt off that Edward the dead vampire played by heartthrob Robert Pattinson in one moment even asks, “doesn’t he own a shirt?”
Pattinson is fine but kind of boring as the cold one but he looks the part really, really well.
That brings me to Kristen Stewart as Bella, the lead of the film. This is her story. Now I haven’t read the books and didn’t know anything about the film except that there was more action and big battle between vampires. Whatever. But really the movie is about how Bella tries to get Edward to have sex with her before she becomes a vampire after graduation from high school. She literally throws herself at him the entire movie (when of course she’s not in peril), and Edward being an old fashioned guy (he’s 100 years old in actual time) says that he won’t sleep with her until they are married.
Boring. If people complained that New Moon was the poster film for abstinence, this one puts New Moon to shame.
I don’t know the thought that went into directing Kristen Stewart’s scenes with Robert Pattinson but it seemed like she never looked up when she was with him. And most all the scenes between the two of them were done in close up so it kind of starts to make an impression when the girl does not look the boy in the face as she’s trying to get in his pants. Very, very annoying.
But let’s remember one very important fact. THIS IS A MOVIE. And it is based on a novel. Bella is not real, she does not and should not speak for girls and women and should not be looked to as a role model at all. She is a fake, made up character. But this is Twilight and there is some serious fan mania surrounding it so of course everything about the film will be over analyzed.
But because we girls have been walking in the movie desert for so long when someone turns on the spigot we go and drink the water. It’s a natural reaction. it’s my hope that someday soon when I go and get my drink from the spigot it won’t be full of sand.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Melissa, thanks for pointing out the dichotomy between business and content. I took my daughter to see this film (as I did the other two) and hoped to make the best of it, and to enjoy what I could. Instead, other than liking the cuddly Jacob werewolf character, I felt as if I’d been violently catapulted back into my childhood (the early 1970s) when all movies and tv shows were about men and boys taking action, and girls and women being absent, silent, passive, or victimized. I’ve never seen a more passive character than Bella in this film. She is literally carried around like a child or invalid by the two men in her life, argued over while she lies silently between them, and when it comes to the battle, her only recourse in defending herself and others is to take a knife to her own skin and bleed. Shocking and disappointing, to say the least. Laughable, if you can take it as parody, but the seriousness seemed to counterbalance any of the humor. My twelve year-old daughter does not need more images of passive girls and women, being fought over by uber-macho males. Sheesh!! With Buffy and Xena in the past, and Angelina Jolie in the present, we shouldn’t be going backwards this far into extreme stereotypes and strict gender roles. The scene where the woman is violently gang-raped and left for dead gave me nightmares, because she was so defenseless. As if the only way to survive being female is to make yourself bleed, or have two men protecting you, or become undead, and get married at 18. Horrifying. I wish the film market for women was not changing because of this awful, Mormon-inspired franchise. That’s my rant.
Thanks for the great blog, Melissa. You keep me sane, and hopeful.
Have a good summer,
Rachel
Hi Rachel and Melissa,
As a 21 year old (young adult?) I would like to say that many parts of the movie did make me see Bella as not only passive, but weak-minded. In New Moon, when Edward leaves and Bella becomes catatonic for three months, all I could think of was: “seriously? you’re going to sit there and cry over a boy for three months?”
Is that the image we want young teens to have? Do we want them to think that a grieving period for a relationship should be this long.
Secondly, Bella chooses to be with a boy who could kill her (at least that’s what Edward says) and decides to risk her life for love. Again, what kind of message is that?
I believe that Bella is a very weak character indeed. But if one can put aside the fact that this is an extremely sexist movie, it’s overall good.
I am a Twilight fan, but since I’m 21, I feel like I can separate what is just a story and what is real life.
But how can the young teens do that?
I came across another movie, (a darker movie) but I really like this one.
It’s called The Incubus.
http://bit.ly/ahKeh7
Let me know what you ladies think.
You need to read the books ! She comes off in Eclipse as the one who puts it together for them.. she wants to fight they won’t let her because she would get in the way yes, she is weak but, she is dealing with Vampire’s and Shape Shifters and Crazed New Borns she is mortal one skinned knee and she is lunch… and the others are toast…. they all come off better in the Books but, the jist it there and for the most part I enjoyed it as a great escape and at 62 I loved the chance to go with my daughter and granddaughters and feel young again… yound and in love…. so kill me if I tend to over look the flaws and just …. ENJOY
Good said Linda…
Reed the books, and compare…
Books are very interesting with much more to read than to see in movies, but must say that first move made me go to bookstore and buy it!!!
And I dont say that this is the best of everything that I read but dont remember when something hold me so long, as love story…so
love beyond everything…:)))))))
See ya…
p.s.-And yes 3 months are quite little to cry for your love, expecialy if its try love, so everybody has their own way of dealing love problems so that is not something you can teach someone, like teens..
I have yet to see a movie that lived up to the book which it was created from. However, I haven’t really had the build up of excitement over a book-turned-movie before either, which made this let down more like a throw down. The first movie left so much untold that I wonder how Stephanie Meyer was okay with her creativity being as sliced, diced, and… well – violated. The second movie was better only in the sense that it had a bigger budget and I didn’t have to squint my eyes to pretend that I was watching a real movie instead of one made in my little brother’s bathroom. I put off seeing the third one for so long because I was afraid that the “rest of the story” would never be told, and I have to say that it’s a good thing there is some real eye candy because it helped to take my mind off the fact that it was still a major disappointment.
The story is amazing, captivating, and utterly alluring. And the movies are… lacking.
Wow! Twilight was bigger than Iron Man 2… That is a bit impressive! I have to admit that I didn’t want to see the movies because I heard so much negativity but when I finally saw it I loved it.
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