If you look at all five Twilight movie posters, you can see the tone slowly shift from almost painfully serious (vampiric Edward looming over frail Bella) to ridiculous (werewolves and vamps charging across the snow in the final battle). This change reflects the movies’ eventual descent into entirely meta self-awareness, making 2012’s Breaking Dawn, Part 2 into nearly a parody of 2008’s Twilight.
By the time that Twilight first hit theaters, Stephenie Meyer’s novels were already a literary and pop culture phenomenon. Fans breathlessly awaited the first movie adaptation; and like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, it was almost entirely by-the-book. But as Summit Entertainment released each subsequent sequel, it became clear that the Twilight movies have two very different audiences: the “Twihard” fanbase, and those who see the films ironically.
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