Way back in the early 2000s, a strange phenomenon took over the entire world: the Twilight saga.
Based on a popular book series written by Stephanie Meyer, the saga follows a teenage girl named Bella Swan who moves to the small town of Forks, Washington to live with her father.
She meets a mysterious and handsome boy at her school named Edward Cullen, who she soon discovers is actually a vampire. She begins dating him, despite the danger it brings.
The franchise consisted of five movies that were released from 2008 to 2010. The first was Twilight, then came New Moon and Eclipse. The final installment, Breaking Dawn, was split into two parts.
The movies were undoubtedly a huge commercial success, grossing over $3.3 billion worldwide.
However, just because a movie makes a lot of money, does not mean that it is any good. In fact, the entire Twilight series was all over the place. Critical reception was always mixed at best and downright brutal at its worst.
There are so many problems with the movies that it is hard to express up in just words. Thankfully, there are plenty of memes that do the trick.
With that said, here are 15 Twilight Memes That Show The Movies Make No Sense.
Using the word "vampire" very loosely
The Twilight saga is supposedly about vampires. However, the vampires in the movies bear little resemblance to other vampires in folklore or in other popular franchises, such as Dracula, True Blood, or The Vampire Diaries.
When people think of vampires, certain characteristics come to mind.
In most stories, the creatures cannot go out in the daytime because the sunlight will seriously hurt or even destroy them. Sometimes vampires do not have a reflection and they do not show up in photographs.
In some folklore, vampires cannot enter a human's home unless they are invited inside and they are vulnerable to certain things, like garlic, a crucifix, a rosary or holy water.
However, not one of these traditional vampire tropes appeared in the Twilight saga.
Jacob imprinting on Bella's baby
The werewolves of Jacob's tribe find their soulmates by imprinting on someone -- once they make eye contact with their soulmate, they are unconditionally bound to them forever. Imprinting is involuntary and there is no way to control it.
Throughout the series, Jacob is smitten with Bella and distraught by her choice to stay with Edward. That is, until Bella's daughter Renesmee is born.
He immediately imprints on the infant. He realizes that he only had feelings for Bella because he was destined to imprint on her daughter.
Jacob acts like a big brother figure to Renesmee when she is young. However, when she gets older, he will likely be with her romantically.
There are a lot of creepy things in the Twilight series, but this will forever be the creepiest thing of all.
A waste of immortal life
Edward is blessed with eternal youth and has lived for over a century. He also never has to sleep, so he really has all the time in the world.
He has attended several universities, earning two medical degrees and studying a variety of other subjects.
There are so many things that he could have accomplished in his life. As this meme points out, he could put his time and knowledge to good use and help humanity.
He could research how to end diseases like cancer, or maybe he could use his mind-reading powers to solve crimes.
However, instead, the Cullens choose to repeat high school over and over again. Why would anyone willingly go to high school more than once? What a total waste of immortality.
Bella's prorities
Being in love is a beautiful thing. However, Bella and Edward's romance is so intense that it is obsessive. They do not seem to have room for anything else in their lives but each other.
Whenever Edward is concerned that he is putting her life in danger, Bella insists that being with him is worth risking her safety. Her own life is secondary to being with him.
The two of them would rather stop existing all together than be alive but apart from each other.
Bella has a lot going for her. She is smart, pretty, and gets along well with the people at her school. She could have picked a good college and had a bright future without Edward.
Ron Weasley says it best -- she needs to sort out her priorities.
Damsel in distress
Bella is the main character of the Twilight series. However, she manages to be an incredibly passive character in her own story.
She is lackluster in comparison to lead female characters in other fantasy movies, such as Hermione Granger from Harry Potter and Eowyn from Lord of the Rings.
Throughout the movies, Bella Swan embodies the tired "damsel in distress" trope.
To be fair, it is not entirely her fault. In the first four movies, she is the lone human among powerful creatures. She stands no chance against them. So she constantly needs to be protected and saved.
Many of the conflicts in the movie are started because of her, but she cannot actually participate in them. All she can do is watch as the others battle. She is just kind of there.
What was up with the sparkling?
In most vampire stories, the creatures cannot come in contact with direct sunlight and only come out during the nighttime. Twilight took a different approach.
The sun does not harm the vampires in the movies. However, they avoid going out in the sun because their marble-like skin will glow too brightly and humans would be able to tell they were different.
In the books, author Stephanie Meyer said Edward's skin "literally sparkled, like thousands of tiny diamonds were embedded in the surface."
Maybe this sounded more spectacular in Meyers' head. In the movies, though, the sparkling looked less like diamonds and more like cheap glitter.
On top of that, it was super inconsistent. How much sun is too much sun? At what point do the vampires begin to sparkle? The world may never know.
How Bella should have reacted
When Twilight was first released, nearly every tween girl in the world thought that Edward was the perfect boyfriend. A beautiful, mysterious, brooding boy sweeping the shy, awkward girl off her feet -- that is a fantasy that a lot of young girls have.
However, in reality, much of Edward's behavior is creepy and borderline abusive.
He is often possessive and controlling, treating Bella more like a helpless child than as an equal. His weird behavior starts before they are even officially dating.
Once Bella figures out that he is a vampire, Edward confesses that he would sometimes break into her room and watch her sleep. "It's kind of fascinating to me," he says.
Most girls would be horrified to learn that a guy they just met had been breaking into their home to watch them while they sleep, but not Bella -- she finds it romantic.
Why did Bella hesitate to marry Edward?
From the very beginning of their relationship, Bella begs Edward to turn her into a vampire so they can be together without complications. He and his family try to dissuade her.
As a vampire, she will never be able to age normally and experience a full life. She will also have to distance herself from her family and friends. Additionally, of course, there is the burden of lusting for blood and fighting the urge to harm others.
However, none of that seems to concern Bella because she is certain that she wants to be with Edward forever.
Yet when Edward proposes that they get married before he turns her, she hesitates. For some reason, she is more apprehensive about getting married young than she is about being turned into an immortal monster.
Jacob not taking no for an answer
Bella was pretty terrible to Jacob. After Edward leaves her, she uses him to make herself to feel better. They get close and he begins to fall for her.
However, the second Bella's sparkly love returns, she immediately gets back with him. She even admits to Jacob that she does love him, but just not as much as she loves Edward. It is completely understandable for Jacob to be upset or bitter in this situation.
However, Jacob does not accept the outcome.
He keeps pursuing her, even when Edward returns. Eventually, when his efforts fail, he uses the treaty between the werewolves and vampires to try and stop Edward from turning Bella into a vampire, even though he knows that it is what she wants.
What's the story even about?
There are a lot of interesting things going on in the Twilight movies. There are vampires and werewolves for crying out loud. The Quileute tribe has a rich history and there is a heartless ruling vampire coven rife with corruption.
Many of the Cullens have backstories that are arguably more interesting than all five of the movies combined. Rosalie slowly -- and dramatically -- got revenge on all of the men responsible for her passing.
Alice could see the future before she was a vampire and was institutionalized in the early 1900s because of this. Jasper even fought in a dangerous war between vampires.
Yet, the movies chose to focus on the most boring aspect of them all: the love triangle between Jacob, Bella, and Edward.
Harry Potter vs. Twilight
In the Harry Potter series, the titular character must leave Hogwarts to fight against the evil Lord Voldemort. This means leaving behind Ginny, the girl he loves, because he does not want to put her in danger.
However, Ginny carries on and proves that she does not need his protection.
Edward also breaks up with Bella with her safety in mind in New Moon (though breaking up with a girl in the woods and leaving her there was a questionable decision).
However, Bella's response is to put herself in danger until he returns.
She realizes that whenever she puts herself in a dangerous situation, she sees Edward's image warning her to be careful. She then risks her safety in numerous, thrill-seeking adventures just so she can see this hallucination for a split second.
Wooden acting
Kristen Stewart's acting, or lack thereof, in the Twilight saga was frequently criticized by audiences and critics.
She even earned The Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actress in 2013 for her performance in Breaking Dawn: Part Two (which she also won for her or her performance in Snow White and the Huntsman).
Stewart's acting in the Twilight movies consists of using same facial expression and never showing any outward emotion.
In his review of New Moon, critic Bill Goodykoontz called her "the real vampire" of the story. "She sucks the energy right out of the film," he stated.
In her other movies, Stewart has proven that she is a capable actress. However, sadly she is still judged by her performance in the Twilight franchise.
The most anti-climatic ending
In the final installment of the Twilight movies, the Cullens are raising Bella and Edward's half-vampire daughter Renesmee, who grows up at an accelerated rate.
Another vampire, Irina, sees Renesmee and mistakenly thinks that he Cullens have turned an infant into a vampire. This is a practice that is outlawed by the Volturi because the infant vampires, known as immortal children, can never be trained or controlled.
Instead of just asking the Cullens themselves, though, Irina goes straight to the Volturi. The Cullens and the Volturi begin preparing for a battle, which ultimately never happens.
They manage to convince the Volturi that Renesmee is not a threat and they part ways. It might be the most anti-climatic ending to a series ever. The whole misunderstanding could have been cleared up over a text message.
Who needs strong, independent female characters?
Many critics of the Twilight saga have accused Bella of being an anti-feminist character and a bad example for young girls.
Once she meets Edward, everything in her life revolves around him. She rarely speaks about her own dreams, interests, or goals in life unless they relate to her boyfriend.
In the second movie, New Moon, Edward breaks up with her while they are in the woods. She is so distraught that she falls to the ground and a man has to rescue her.
She then becomes a hollow shell of a person for months because she literally cannot fathom existing without Edward.
When she finally starts participating in life again, she does not work on becoming more independent or stronger on her own. Instead, she completely relies on Jacob to help her.
It's a great message for the young girls watching...
Jacob has to be shirtless every 10 minutes
Jacob is constantly taking his shirt off in the movies. The Twilight parody movie Vampires Suck poked fun at this, saying that he was contractually obligated to take off his shirt every 10 minutes of screen time.
The movies sort of justify it by explaining that werewolves have a higher body temperature than humans. However, even before he becomes a werewolf, Jacob rips his shirt off for no apparent reason.
For example, Bella falls off of a motorcycle in New Moon and her head starts bleeding. Jacob's first instinct? To take off his shirt and dab the blood with it.
Surely there was something else he could have used, but he needed an excuse to show off his abs to Bella -- and the delighted tween girls screaming in the theater.
To the movies' credit, they knew what their audience wanted.
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Can you think of any other memes that prove that Twilight makes no sense? Sound off in the comments!