You May Now Bite the Bride

Bella is beautiful now. Her hair is full and shiny. Her makeup is perfect; her clothes are sleek and fitting. She smiles, because she is a vampire. In fact, being undead has never seemed to fit someone so much as it does Bella Swan. At one point Bella says, “I was born to be a vampire.” Her dreams have come true: dreams where she has intense, almost insatiable, cravings for human blood. She has trouble being around her father because of her lust for that blood. Her child, Renesmee, growing dangerously quickly, is the cause of international distress.

Yes, this is Bella’s good life. She is eternally young and beautiful, and she has her eternally young and beautiful husband right beside her. And she has a super vampire-human child that is the result of terrible digital effects. She also can live in the snow without worrying about getting cold.  Unfortunately though, in this installment, there are no scenes of sparkling-diamond skin.

All is finally right with the world, after just one more super-vampire face-off to defeat evil once and forever. Oh wait, that does not actually happen.

Well, all could have been right with the world if they had defeated the evil Volturi once and forever. Instead, they opt for temporary peace, much like the League of Nations before World War II. The great “twist” in the story is that half the movie is about a battle that doesn’t actually happen.

Just when you are about to applaud the director for killing off some of the main characters (it’s the last movie, anyway), you’ll discover that they are all just safely standing there while Alice shows the creepy leader of the Volturi what could happen if they choose to fight. Edward didn’t actually magically arise from the trench after all, nor did Bella learn to use to her shield to protect others. At least we know she could have.

The gathering of vampires around the globe turns out to be completely unnecessary. The international vampires are just as perfectly put together as the Cullens, though more suspect to red-eye. Guess not all good vampires are “vegetarian” banner-waving individuals.  But they had a few good nights sharing centuries-old stories around a campfire. It was probably time for a family reunion anyway. They offered their support and would have fought pretty darn well if they had the chance.

The future is uncertain, but for today, the super human-vampire child will continue to live, er, exist, free to touch people’s faces and to speak only when it is absolutely necessary and poignant.

This fact makes Jacob, the great big dog, very happy. He gets to go on unnaturally protecting a child till she is ready to be with him. She will reach maturity soon and stay that way, and as long as Jacob continues to shape-shift into a werewolf, he will not age either. Alice also sees a future where Renesmee, Jacob, Bella and Edward are all hugging and laughing on the beach.

Part II is the last chapter of the Twilight series, and the full story has finally played out. Along with accumulating an entire culture of dedicated fans, the series has made vampires mainstream. Its influence, in a way, has become so much bigger than it itself.

Good and bad is a blurry field of vision for twi-hards. Often, we root the “better” vampires over the “worse” vampires, when the only real distinction is friends and enemies. Sympathy for the vampires is hard to come by, though. It is more like envy, especially when looking through Bella’s eyes. They are like advanced super-humans, safe from the elements, without need for sleep or food. They never age and they live forever. They are amazingly talented and gifted, beautiful and graceful. Being a vampire is a bit like being perfect, a bit like Heaven, where human shortcomings no longer exist.

But the story ends, not with a vision of the future, but with a reminder of the past. Using a gift she learned from her daughter, Bella shows Edward a montage of her fondest memories from their first meeting to the present day. Sitting a field of flowers and sunshine, Bella could not be any happier. She’s a vampire now. All her dreams have come true.