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Which would prevail in a battle between a Constitution-class heavy cruiser and a Star Destroyer? There is a time and a place for such conflicts, and Star Trek and Star Wars fans have shed much blood in them. But George Takei reminds us that there is a threat against both franchises — nay, civilization itself. That is Twilight, and now it is time for fans to unite against it.
As a Trekkie, I take up Captain Sulu’s call and extend a hand of friendship to my geeky brethren across the divide. Our differences are not so great.
-via Blastr
If they can take and hold North Dakota, Twilight fans will split the country in two. The booklovers’ website Good Reads crunched some numbers and discovered this trend. Oh, Twilight fans have been discreet about it, but now we can see their plan.
Link -via Ace of Spades HQ
An eighteen year old girl in Aurora, Illinois was arrested for drunk driving and driving without a tire on one of her wheels. But she had a good reason:
She told deputies she was extremely upset with her boyfriend because she did not get to see the new “Twilight” movie as they were supposed to do, according to a police report.
It’s hard to be a teenager these days, especially when you have a crummy boyfriend like that.
Link -via Dave Barry | Image: Summit Entertainment
Come
on, 'fess up. Are you a Twilight hater?
The latest installment of the series, Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part I, was released over the weekend, and raked in more than $283.5 million worldwide ($139.5 million in the United States alone, that's the fifth-best opening weekend ever).
Surely a sparkly movie that made $283.5 million in a weekend can't be wrong, but if you talked to a Twilight hater (including many professional film critics - Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune said that watching Twilight made it seem like "time itself begins to crawl backward"), you'd be surprised at the virulence of their contempt.
But why all that hate? Erika Christakis of TIME Magazine thinks it's all about hating the female fantasy:
Why is it that female fantasies are such a source of derision and fear? The male species is allowed all manner of violent, creepy, ludicrous and degrading movie tropes, and while we may not embrace them as high art, no one questions them seriously as entertainment, even when sometimes we probably should. (Violent imagery is, after all, associated with violent behavior.) You want to saw someone in half or put their head in a vice? Showcase naked strippers as a fake plot device? Pair a beautiful and successful career woman with a slovenly, unemployed man? Pretend you are Wolverine? Go right ahead. We know you can’t really be serious. But watch a tender wedding night between a virginal, undead superhero and his teenage, human bride, and the scolds come out in force. Are parents worried that their teenage daughter actually wants to be impregnated by a 100-year-old vampire who can crush a headboard with his hands (and perform an emergency C-section with his teeth)?
Maybe part of the reason critics deplore these movies is not only because they are so unfamiliar with kooky heterosexual female fantasies but also because they don’t really like what these fantasies say about men.
Link | See also The 7 Harshest Critics' Jabs at Breaking Dawn
Yes, there really is a Forks, Washington. That’s where much of the Twilight series takes place, for those of you who studiously avoid the Stephenie Meyer book. And you’d better believe they’re capitalizing on the vampire trend. The Pacific Inn Motel in Forks has recently renovated several rooms to reflect the stereotypical bloodsucker image (you know… lots of red and black). But they aren’t the only ones to think of such a marketing scheme – the Week has four other hotels that have adapted rooms for kids using themes like Shrek, Barbie and more.
Via The Week
If you’re willing to publicly identify yourself as a Twilight fan, then you’ve no reason to eschew these mittens made by Etsy seller ChickenBetty. When held together, they look like the hands and apple featured on the cover of the first novel.
Previously: Twilight Hand Model Wants Fame | Image: Little, Brown, and Co.
After Cathy Ward, 49, lost 70 pounds and dropped 14 dress sizes in six months, she decided to get a permanent reminder of the her inspiration: the Twilight series of books and movies. Ward spent 22 hours and $3000 to tattoo her favorite characters on her back. But the supermarket worker from Reading, England isn’t done just yet:
‘I wanted a permanant reminder of the amazing series so I got a small tattoo and that turned into what I have got now.’
Despite having her whole back coverered in Stephenie Meyer’s creations the sun has not gone down on her inky obsession.
She plans to save £2,000 more to spend another 12 hours under the needle as she eclipses her whole torso with the gothic tribute.
The Daily Mail has more: Link -via Geekosystem
Kimbra Hickey is a hand model, and her hands grace the cover of the novel Twilight. She earned $300 for the photo. After seeing so many people attached to the franchise rise in fame and fortune, Hickey would like to get a piece of the action:
“I see people reading it on the subway, and I say, ‘Those are my hands! I’m a hand model!’ ” she explained. “I’m sure they think I’m crazy — a crazy lady on the subway.”
The good-natured Hickey sometimes hangs out near the cash register at the Barnes & Noble near her Greenwich Village apartment to spread the word. Surprised customers sometimes ask her for her autograph or to trace the outline of her hand on the book jacket.
She even carries around a Gala apple in her purse at times so she can recreate the pose for people.[...]
Hickey’s agent, Danielle Korwin, said her hands are in demand because they are “veinless” — not the sort of hands a vampire would like.
Link via reddit | Photo: Angel Chevrestt
Taylor Lautner, the actor who plays the werewolf Jacob in the Twilight movies, has sued a RV dealership that failed to deliver a rented RV to Lautner. The dealer responded by challenging the buff actor to a push-up contest:
On Monday the 30th, Brent McMahon, owner of McMahon’s RV, proposed that the matter be settled by means of a push-up contest. McMahon said that if the werewolf won, he would pay the $40,000 allegedly being demanded to settle the case; but if McMahon won, he would donate the money to Children’s Hospital of Orange County.
That sounds like a great idea to me, but the werewolf’s camp rejected the idea immediately. “McMahon RV’s response to our client’s legitimate claim,” an attorney declared in an all-too-attorney-like statement, “demonstrates the lack of professionalism that Mr. McMahon, his company and his employees have exhibited from the outset, and that compelled the filing of this lawsuit in the first place.” The push-up contest was simply a “facetious suggestion,” he said, and maybe it was, but it is also an awesome suggestion and seems to me like a perfectly good way to settle a lawsuit.
One
lonely evening in a yacht in Turkey after a cancelled meeting, Tom Barrack,
a no-nonsense businessman and one of the richest men in the world, came
upon a book on which "were written the words that strike terror in
the hearts of every macho, red-blooded male…TWILIGHT."
What happened next is probably the most insightful analysis of why Twilight captured the hearts of millions of girls (and their moms):
Alone, on a boat, with no wifi, no satellite, no magazines, no newspapers, just me and this book. This piece of chick lit, teeny bopper heartthrob stuff. Terror on the high seas! I wanted nothing to do with any of it. Not relevant, not interesting.
As I sat there with nothing to do the book kept taunting me. I began to think that there must be something I don’t understand. What could it be? What is it all about? Women don’t just read these books, they live them. They become each paragraph. I picked it up, but then immediately dropped it like a hot coal. What if someone saw me reading this? My macho reputation would be finished! I would be kicked out of the bench press section of the gym. My polo compadres would send me packing to the pony rides and my surfing buddies would exile me to the kiddie pool.
But it was a long night and there was absolutely nothing, and I mean NOTHING else to do. Long story short – not only did I read Twilight, I read the other two as well!! I was fascinated, captivated even. However, what intrigued me was not the same thing that hooked the millions of women whose lives and had been changed by this series, but something else entirely.
That "something else entirely" is the key to Twilight's popularity, which is no accident. Stephanie Meyer, the much maligned and pooh-poohed author, is actually a genius at her craft: Link - via metafilter
Holy Taco challenged readers to use Photoshop to make Twilight: Eclipse into a watchable movie. They selected the best 19 entries to post. Many didn’t really adhere to the original idea of the contest, like the picture here does, but they are funny anyway. Link
You don’t have to be a Twilight fan to enjoy this 8-bit interactive YouTube game. Just make a decision on which way the adventure should go, and enjoy the silliness along the way! Produced by The Station, animated by Doc Octoroc.
The legend of Dracula was inspired by the 15th Century Romanian warlord Vlad the Impaler. Researchers at Ancestry.com recently discovered that Robert Pattinson, the actor who plays the sparkly vampire Edward in the Twilight series, is related to him:
Researchers at Ancestry.com discovered that Pattinson and the Transylvanian leader (real name: Vlad III Dracula) are connected through their relationship to the British royal family. Prince William and Prince Harry are Pattinson’s distant cousins; Vlad the Impaler was their distant uncle.
“Tracing Pattinson’s family back to Vlad was difficult research, but the pieces that unraveled created the perfect accompaniment to the Twilight Saga,” said Anastasia Tyler, a genealogist at Ancestry.com. “Without any myth or magic, we find royalty and vampires lurking in Pattinson’s life — making his story just as supernatural as the one he’s playing on screen.”
Link via Nerd Bastards | Images from Geek Tyrant, photo of Robert Pattinson originally from Summit Entertainment
The Oatmeal skewers the over 40 year-old Twilight fan base in this hilarious step by step breakdown of the science of the series. Twilight is painted as a diabolically designed trap, able to turn all but the strongest middle aged women into lusting, exuberant fangirls.
View the rest of the piece (with some hilarious illustrations) at the source.
Link – The Oatmeal
Attention Twilight fans! After Robert Pattinson, the actor who played Edward Cullen was voted world’s tastiest movie star, LOVEFiLM commissioned food artist Prudence Staite to re-create his bust in chocolate.
Best yet, you can take home the chocolate head and "bite" it: Link
Got a Twilight Mom? Etsy seller meekssandygirl crocheted the perfect necklace for her: a Vampire Bite silk cashmere necklace.
Link | More unusual Christmas gift ideas by our very own Jill Harness over at Inventor Spot
What if all our favorite pop culture vampires got together in the same room? Pretty much what you’d expect.
Residents of the small town of Forks, Washington is being invaded by vampires. No, not real ones – these vampires are far worse: they’re teenage fans of the movie Twilight!
The logging town has been transformed, says Mike Gurling of the Forks Chamber of Commerce. "Two years ago we did not have a cash register or credit card terminal. Now our sales of anything that says ‘Forks’ have increased dramatically." A literary symposium was held last month in Forks high school, including – unusually for a symposium – "an actual, real Prom". Chris Cook, editor of the local paper and author of guide book Twilight Territory, says the school’s principal was mobbed at a Seattle airport when a teenage fan spotted his Forks Spartan jacket and started yelling, "He’s from Forks, he’s from Forks!" The fervour is such, Cook says, that a local evangelist, Hallelujah Bill, has started preaching to fans about the dangers of becoming cult followers of the books.
While some don’t like the attention Twilight has brought, others are enjoying the kudos. Cook says that "traditionally, Forks has been considered by Seattle folks as the sticks, the home of loggers and simple rural ways. Now it’s a bit of a status symbol."
