The Twilight saga made a lot of changes when adapting Stephenie Meyers’ paranormal romance trilogy to the big screen, but the movies missed out on a key element that made the central love triangle so effective. The movies' treatment of Mike actually makes the adaptations poorer.
Beginning in 2008 with Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight, the vampire saga was a quintet of hit films adapted from the best-selling novel series of the same name by Stephenie Meyer. Following the story of Bella, an average teenage girl, and Edward, her vampire love interest, the novels were a fast-paced romance saga whose movie adaptations were hated by critics. But while the critical hate for Twilight may have been unfair, the movie adaptations did cut some vital content due to their runtime, leaving viewers missing out on context and franchise lore unless they had also read the source novels. A particularly unfortunate elision was the role that Mike (and by extension Jessica) played in the series’ infamous “Edward-Bella-Jacob” love triangle.
Portrayed (briefly) in the Twilight movie adaptations by Z Nation’s Michael Welch and a pre-superstardom Anna Kendrick, Mike and Jessica are a pair of high school sweethearts whose volatile on-again-off-again relationship frequently mirrors Edward and Bella’s tumultuous one. Of course, their relationship issues are treated as comic relief where Bella and Edward’s issues are (often literally) a matter of life and death, but the duo is nonetheless a foil to the protagonists of the series. However, just as Twilight cut a lot of backstory from the first film's villain James, in the original novels Mike plays a more important and less overtly comedic role as the third (and only fully human) suitor who tries to woo Bella. He may never succeed, but he does affect the plot of the Twilight saga more than his film counterpart.
Mike's Role In The Twilight Novels
Less of a comic relief character than he is in the movies, in the novels Mike is another rival for Bella’s affections. He’s not a terrible love interest either, even though the Twilight novels always make it clear that Bella isn’t interested in him. Throughout the series, Mike still manages to play an important part in the heroine’s story, as he’s the one who tries to keep in touch with her and help her through her depression during the Twilight saga's first post-Catherine Hardwicke installment New Moon. His attempts to keep her spirits up in the absence of Edward are played down in New Moon’s movie adaptation, whose inconsistent tone ensured it was generally regarded as one of the weaker films in the series. But in the novels, Mike actually asks Bella to prom, even if her refusal does prompt him to reunite with on-again-off-again girlfriend Jessica.
However, not all of Mike’s missing character elements are positive as Bella’s human would-be suitor is also seething with jealousy and, as the recent spin-off novel, Midnight Sun reveals, constantly angry at Edward, Jacob, and anyone else who is vying for Bella’s affections. This is touched on in the Twilight movies, but on screen, this character detail is played for laughs as Mike lingers awkwardly and acts as a frowning third wheel during Bella and Edward’s early interactions. In comparison during Mike's Breaking Dawn return, the novel’s iteration of Edward has to keep a lid on his anger at his and Bella’s wedding when the telepathic vampire overhears Mike’s R-rated thoughts about his bride.
New Moon’s Added Scenes
Edward may never face-off with Mike at his wedding, but in an odd touch, the movie adaptation of New Moon does add in a non-novel fight scene that pits Jacob and Mike against each other. The short-lived and slightly embarrassing conflict occurs when both Jacob and Mike take Bella to a movie (the unsubtly-titled Face Punch) without knowing the other would be there. It’s a strange decision for New Moon’s movie adaptation to add in this fight, as the two are friends for the rest of the Twilight movie series and it’s out of character even for the hormone-addled teens. In both the novel and New Moon's movie adaptation the scene is used to hint at Jacob’s lycanthropy, as the testosterone-fuelled competition of both boys attempting to woo Bella fast-tracks Jacob’s werewolf transformation in a twist that makes Teen Wolf's “lycanthropy-as-puberty” metaphor seem subtle.
But seeing the stronger, bigger Jacob fight (or more accurately, beat up) Mike for interrupting his conversation with Bella doesn’t do much to endear the character to the audience, and the fight ends up making Edward’s rival for Bella’s affections look more petty and abrasive than anything else in New Moon's adaptation. It’s a dynamic that plays out more effectively in the source novels, wherein the tensions between Mike and Jacob never cause a physical fight but leave the two constantly at odds with one another. There, Jacob is forced, like Edward, to rein in his abilities and anger, a more mature decision which could have made the character more likable onscreen.
Why Mike (& Jessica) Are Mostly Missing From the Movies
With the characters playing such an important role it may seem strange that, like Rami Malek's Breaking Dawn character Benjamin, both Mike and Jessica’s parts are cut down drastically in the Twilight movie adaptations. But there’s a good reason for this, and it’s that most of Mike’s attempts to woo Bella can be cut without the movies losing any dramatic momentum. With a werewolf and a vampire trying to win her over, it was always clear even in the source novels that Bella wasn’t going to end up with a very average small-town guy. Outside of narrative efficiency, the Twilight saga can also cut Mike's role because most of what the character stands for is also embodied in Jacob. Mike also represents a safer, more stable, but also less passionate and exciting life path that Bella could have chosen if it weren’t for her love of Edward.
But Jacob can be seen to represent a similar path for Bella, as he aspires to stay in Forks while, even with Bella pregnant, Edward and Bella are free to travel the world. Jacob like Mike is rooted in his community where Edward is (ironically) more of a lone wolf despite how close the Cullen clan is. With Jacob representing a lot of the same values, qualities, and limitations that Mike embodies, the Twilight films are thus able to cut his plot without negating his effect on the story, choosing instead to compress his role into brief comic relief and using Jacob to illustrate most of the character’s purpose. Trying to adapt Mike’s plot thread as well as Jacob’s and Edward’s could potentially have rendered the story of the Twilight saga even more complicated than it already was, but it is nonetheless unfortunate that the character was reduced to a bit part and an ill-advised fight scene despite him playing a more important role in the source novels.