Five ways to improve the Twilight Saga

But Twilight doesn't get me. It doesn't fulfill my expectations for nuance, or character development, or my need to be entertained, enthralled and, just maybe, enlightened. Last year, with Twilight Saga: New Moon on the horizon and the trauma of the first movie still fresh in my memory, I remained upbeat about the prospect of going through it all again and looked for 10 plausible reasons why it could be an improvement. As it turns out, I was wrong. So very wrong. The Twilight Saga seems intent on being as gormless as possible, pleasing the mostly tweeny female audience, no doubt, but alienating the rest of us. I've accepted that it's probably never going to make a fan out of me over the next three films (Eclipse is out this week, and final instalment, Breaking Dawn, will be split across two movies) but with the type of talent being invested in a franchise of this magnitude, the saga could easily afford to get its act together and at least be watchable.

Here are my five suggestions on how the makers can make better movies:

1. Lighten the f*** up
One of the best characters in the Twilight Saga is, naturally, someone we don't get to see or hear from very often. Jessica (played by the deliciously droll Anna Kendrick) is just a bit player in Bella's drama, and one of her few human friends. Her wry, quirky observations on Bella's Edward-obsession makes her easy to relate to. What passes for humour in Twilight is mostly of the awkward, unintentional sort: Bella remarking on Jacob's beauty in New Moon was a gut-buster because it was such a ridiculously false moment. Forks might be a permanently overcast and gloomy town, but the tone of five, 2-hour-plus movies needn't be. We want to see that the saga can see the funny side too, because we'd hate to think they take it so seriously.
 
2. Be more, you know, vampire-y
Sparkling aside, the Twilight vampire mythology is toothless and bloodless. They may as well be aggrieved youth league leaders for all the power and influence they have. Watching the feuding Cullen clan of vampires growl at their enemies on a baseball field in Twilight was... ridiculous. Vampires are primal creatures, they aren't afraid to get, erm, get their teeth into it. We haven't seen much in the way of the vampires' true, predatory nature in the Saga thus far. We want blood! And lots of it.

3. Don't be too respectful of the the source material
Stephenie Meyer's novels are written from the perspective of a teenage girl. A sullen, obsessive young girl who disregards her long-suffering father's attempts to help her, rejects her humanity and pretty much lacks in the personality department. And she is considered a role model. Some of the best film adaptations of popular novels found their own voice, allow the visual images to roam free and open themselves up to interpretation and new meaning. Twilight's staid, suffocating prose is literally translated onto screen, and that's no fun at all. A little imagination goes a long way.

4. Don't squander the pretty
We get it: Twilight is all about beautiful misery. But has the Twilight Saga become too reliant on its aesthetically pleasing cast? Will the sight of Taylor Lautner's ripped torso become the enduring symbol of the franchise, rather than say, an apple held in cupped, pale hands or a set of fangs? Twilight has been accused of being a glorified fashion catalogue many times before and that's unlikely to change. Twilight just doesn't do gritty. The true test will come in Breaking Dawn, when we see how some of the more controversial scenes will be dealt with. Book fans are probably dreading it.

5. The cast are people too - remember that.
When Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson appear ill at ease when talking about their characters, it's because they are. These geeks-at-heart have become the faces of a global phenomenon; the dancing ponies of Summit Entertainment, coyly avoiding questions about their maybe-real-life love affair (because it might be more alluring than the one they portray onscreen) and almost-kissing at the MTV Awards (for the umpteenth time) because they have to. Stewart and Pattinson will outlive the franchise, and based on what we know of their personal tastes (he's a fan of Jean-Luc Godard, she digs Albert Camus) it's unlikely they're actual Twilight fans themselves. It's clear that they're more interesting people than the characters they've become famous for portraying. Although, their life of world travel to glam hotspots and almost universal admiration is not a tough one - at all.

* The Twilight Saga: Eclipse opens in cinemas on 30 June. Read our review here.