I know what you guys are thinking. We don’t talk nearly enough about Twilight around here. Wait, you weren’t thinking that? Well that’s just too damn bad because I’ve gone and done you all a favor. I’ve watched a Twilight documentary so you all don’t have to. Wait, why did I do it? Voyeurism? Maybe. Running short of ideas for blog posts? Most definitely. Here’s an idea of what I just experienced:
Except that that isn’t even the documentary I watched! There are actually two full length documentaries. At first I thought they were the same movie. Why you ask?
Well, similar titles/topics. Both produced by Summit. Both have the same director. They came out within several months of each other. I assumed the more recent release was just a re-release with added content. But the trailer above (for the first documentary) does not have any scenes that I recognize. I think they’re different! Guys, I will not watch two Twilight documentaries for you! I still can’t believe I managed to find friends to watch this one with me. So you will have to be satisfied with the more recent of the two (Destination Forks: The Real World of Twilight). Let’s begin!
Very pretty nature shots! I wonder how many of these were really captured in Forks versus other locations nearby. I’m gonna be honest, I love the Pacific Northwest so these scenic shots are a good sell for me. The quality of this documentary is pretty high, which I suppose makes sense since it’s sponsored/distributed/whatever by Summit. If they’re going to milk their vampiric cash cow’s fans, I appreciate that they’re doing it with quality!
Strange. I see fish and lumber but no vampires on their sign.
Welcome to Forks! They also showed a population sign that which I cannot tell whether it is real, or if they just made it for the movie. Forks, apparently, has 8.5 vampires. I really hope it’s real. I would love to have seen that town hall meeting. Well, should we reflect the vampire population from the beginning of the story or from the end? And how do we count Renesmee? She’s only half a vampire, so it doesn’t seem fair to count her as a whole.
Now the viewer is given a tour of the locations everyone sees if they go on the Twilight bus tour. First up? La casa de Swans. Except, that it isn’t really Bella Swan’s house. Because she’s not real. It’s just some random people’s house and they say it’s Bella. You were notice soon that that’s a pretty big trend in Forks. People pretending things that aren’t true.
“Swan” House
This couple is the most normal of the home tour folks. They think the whole phenomenon is pretty cool and they enjoy people visiting their house. Apparently in the summers, they claim 100 people a day visit their house. Wow. Apparently people leave flowers at their house for Bella. Seriously? I mean, she’s not getting them. Maybe these people should give those flowers to sick people instead. They might appreciate them more. Cause, ya know, they’re real.
Apparently one time their daughter and her friends were getting ready for a dance. All these teens were coming and going into the house. Some older woman, a Twilight tourist, came by to visit the house. She saw all these people going into the house and assumed it was a tour. So she walked in and started taking pictures. She finally realized what was going on and bolted. Heh.
Next up is Jacob Black’s house. This woman is actually convinced that Stephenie Meyer put her house into the books. No seriously, here’s a quote:
They said that she didn’t come here until like I think the second or third book. And I can’t imagine that she would have found pictures of this house. I’m kind of wondering if maybe someone scouted this area out for her or something because I was very surprised at how similar it looked. In fact, I really – when I go on the internet, I really have to look close to see which house is which.
Wait, what!?! The house does have some pretty wonderful wolf paraphernalia going on. Wolf prints, wolf statuettes, paw prints on the walls. One room is designated as Jacob’s bedroom. Pretty sure this woman has a closet full of three wolf moon t-shirts somewhere.
The wolves take this treaty thing very seriously.
Black House lady on the treaty line:
The sign says, no vampires past this point. So, we’re past that point. So, Edward can’t come down here. Jacob, however, is free to Roam. So, there you go.
There you go indeed.
So here we have the Cullen House Bed and Breakfast. Now while they don’t believe Stephenie Meyer scouted out their location (Seriously? Seriously?) they will not stop pretending that the Cullens actually live there. To the point where I am annoyed. This couple is not willing to break character, no sir.
“Cullen” House.
Here my favorite quote:
We have a visiting elk herd that comes within about a quarter mile of our house. We figure that’s why the Cullen family would want to live here – is they had readily accessible animals available for their appetites.
Uhh, yes. They claim 300-400 people visit their house during the busiest time. They may have a slightly tenuous grip on reality so take that fact with a grain of salt.
Now this girl is one of my favorites. She was staying at the Cullen House while they were filming. She’s Norwegian. And turns out she won a Norwegian quiz show about Twilight. And she won a lot of money. And used it to visit Forks.
Basically, that is my dream in life. No, not to visit Forks, but to be monetarily rewarded for being obsessed with things. There was that one time my obsession with Firefly rewarded me with an exclusive fan t-shirt. But then the t-shirt never came. And I still get sad. Don’t you guys feel like someone should give us all money for liking YA? Let’s arrange that soon, k?
Now this woman actually loved Twilight so much that she moved to Forks. Now she owns and runs three Twilight stores and the tour bus company. She wears very sparkly eyeshadow which one of my friends suggested is probably because vampires are sparkly.
And while I think walking into one of those stores would give me a Robert Pattinson cardboard cutout caused panic attack, the apparently sponsor some sort of beer pong events which wins my respect.*
*If all it takes to gain my respect in life is some beer and solo cups, maybe I need to re-evaluated.
Next on our tour is the Forks hospital. We are here to visit Dr Cullen’s parking place. No, really. And one of the doctor’s at the clinic actually pretends to be him. Again with the pretending. This is getting creepy.
Not the fake Dr. Cullen, but another says: We don’t get a lot of visitors inside the hospital. you don’t want to meet us in the hospital, you have to be sick for that. Touche.
Next up, we go over to Port Angeles to visit Bella Italia. It’s a real restaurant! And was even before the books. Which makes me think that Stephenie Meyer just looked up a restaurant on Yelp or Google to put into her book. Amazing.
It IS real.
Tons of Twilight fans come there to eat. And they all want the mushroom ravioli (what Bella ate on her first date with Edward, awwwz). It used to be a seasonal dish, but they changed that! Capitalists! Gotta love em.
That pretty much takes care of the tour portion of this movie. The second half focuses on the fans and interviews them extensively during the Eclipse premiere. Unfortunately, by this point I’d had about three glasses of wine and my note taking devolved into a jumble incomprehensible mush. Apparently a woman named her baby boy Cullen. Some girl wore a shirt that said Team Jakeward which made me lol. Some guy who thinks he’s a big deal because Stephenie Meyer linked to his blog mentioned getting an email from a man who said his girlfriend was going to break up with him unless Stephenie told him not to. What?
Apparently my friends and I also discussed whether or not there are many lesbian Twilight fans.* We had no idea since so much of being a Twilight fan seems to be centered around a Jacob or Edward crush. Also, we couldn’t decide whether they would be called twibians or lezhards. Very important stuff. Good thing that made it into my notes.
*Don’t worry, for those curious, I asked my sister (lesbian and self-appointed expert and all lesbian culture) and she said there are lesbian Twilight fans. Apparently they think Kristen Stewart is a closet lesbian and the ones who like Twilight are those that have crushes on her. The more you know!
The last half hour of the movie is literally just nature shots with hypnotic music playing. It reminds me so much of those old commercials for the Pure Moods CD compilations. Seriously, just like this, but maybe with less unicorn.
So thank you all for joining me on my journey to Forks! So, meet you all at the treaty line?
