Did you know another Twilight book is among upcoming book adaptations? Midnight Sun is being developed into an animated Netflix series. but while we wait for that, let's look back on how the vampire movies and books stacked up against each other in the blockbuster films.
There are two breeds of Twilight fans, and no, I’m not talking about Team Edward vs. Team Jacob. You either fell in love with Stephenie Meyer’s novels first or found the series through the movies starring Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson. No matter the avenue in which you found your way to Edward and Bella, it probably changed the way you look at the franchise in one way or another. So, why don’t we compare notes and talk about the major differences between the Twilight movies and the bestselling books they are based on?
The last of Stephenie Meyer’s four-part saga was released just a few months before Twilight hit the big screen and became a cultural phenomenon back in 2008. As the Hollywood movies found their massive audience, the Twilight saga continued to become bigger with each new installment. And nearly a decade after the ending of the franchise , we’re still talking about what Twilight's main stars are doing now, rewatching the films on spare weekends and reading more Twilight such as with the release of 2020’s Midnight Sun. Let’s talk about how the source material and movie adaptations are different:
How Bella Tells Edward She Knows He’s A Vampire
One especially iconic scene in the first Twilight movie is when Edward and Bella stand in the forest together as Bella Swan puts two and two together concerning her crush’s true identity. Edward Cullen famously belts out “Say it out loud!” as she stands in front of him and responds with “vampire!” Sure, that’s cinematic and all, but it did not happen that way in the Twilight book.
Originally, Bella tells Edward her findings about him while she is in his car on the way back to Forks from Port Angeles. The revelation occurs after Edward comes to her rescue to pull her off the group of strangers who crowd her in the city, and were apparently thinking some uncouth thoughts about Bella. When it comes to this difference, I think fans appreciate seeing two distinct versions of Edward and Bella’s big turning point.
Bella And Charlie Were Not Diner Regulars In The Books
Bella Swan’s relationship with her father Charlie is a complex and interesting one in both the books and movies, but when it was adapted to screen, one key change was made to their dynamic. In Meyer’s books, Bella and Charlie don’t spend much of their time in a diner downing berry cobbler as the movies portray.
In the books, Bella is something of a cook and she makes the meals at home for Charlie. This may seem like a minor thing but the Twilight movies would not have been the same if Kristen Stewart’s character was always in the kitchen serving her dad another recipe. It shows a different vision for the teen that Meyer had, which was certainly more traditional.
There Was No ‘Cullen Crest’ In The Twilight Books
Starting in the first Twilight movie, it’s established that the Cullen family wear their own Cullen Crest around their necks. The symbol involves a roaring lion standing over three clovers and an open hand above its head. In the movies, the Cullens are often seen sporting the Cullen Crest, but it’s a completely new concept created for the movies.
My guess is the Cullen Crest was created by the costume department to create some uniform to the vampire family’s looks and their loyalty to each other. And honestly, it was also likely added to sell movie-themed merchandise as well.
The Book Cover In Twilight Is Not Directly Referenced In The Original Text
As you may recall from the first Twilight movie, there’s a scene early on when Bella drops an apple in the cafeteria and Edward bounces it off his foot and into his hands exactly how the picture on the front of the original book cover looks. It’s a clever reference to the cover, but it does not reflect a scene in the novel.
When it comes to the reason behind Stephenie Meyer having two hands holding an apple on the cover of the bestseller in the first place, it is more symbolic. Per the author’s website, the apple represents the “forbidden fruit” from Genesis because she loved the phrase “the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil.” As Meyer explained, that phrase is exactly what Bella ends up with Edward. She also said she finds the cover’s apple to represent “choice.”
The ‘Spider Monkey’ Movie Line Was Picked Last Minute
There’s a lot of quotes from the Twilight movies that are surprisingly funny, but the one that takes the cake the most is when Edward said “You better hold on tight, spider monkey” before taking Bella on a gorgeous jaunt through the skies of Forks. No, this was not part of the book.
As Catherine Hardwicke told MTV back in 2009, one night while they were shooting the movie she realized Edward and Bella needed a line whilst climbing that tree so it wasn’t simply another scene of them “looking into each other’s eyes.” Hardwicke wrote down a list of options for the actors to pick from, and Pattinson decided upon the spider monkey one. Honestly, that’s way better than some of the options like “prepare for liftoff” or “you’re not scared of heights, are you?”
Victoria Only Shows Up To Bella’s Prom In The Movie
At the end of the first Twilight movie, fans got a fun tease for the second movie when Victoria is seen watching Edward and Bella while they are at prom. At the time, the couple thinks danger is pretty much behind them, but Victoria’s secret appearance at the high school event helps signal more trouble on the way after Victoria’s lover James was killed by the Cullen Clan.
While the scene is actually a really great way to set up New Moon, it was not canon in the first book. Victoria does not show up to the prom, however you could argue that she might have since it is told from Bella’s point of view.
How Edward Proposes To Bella Differs
And New Moon ends with its own great cliffhanger when Edward finally agrees to turn Bella into a vampire only if she will marry him!! The scene is preceded by a more formal proposal from Edward in Eclipse when they are talking in their bedroom about waiting for marriage before having sex. In the movie sequence, Edward offers Bella his mother’s ring and tells her he promises to love her “every moment, forever.”
In the books however, Edward proposes to Bella for the first time at the end of New Moon after the Cullens vote on her becoming a vampire as a unit. When he does so, Bella actually thinks Edward is joking about it at first.
Jacob Black Is A Lot Taller In The Books
In the The Twilight Saga: New Moon, Taylor Lautner comes in with his glowing tan that won the hearts of Team Jacob fans after he’s introduced in the original movie as the unassuming boy next door. In the books, Jacob Black is described a bit differently than Lautner’s portrayal. The actor is 5’10, standing five inches taller than Kristen Stewart’s Bella and a few inches shorter than Robert Pattinson’s Edward. In the books however, Jacob is much taller. Much… much taller.
In fact, he’s the tallest character in the Twilight series, standing at about 6’7. If the movies had stayed true to the source material, it would have been a very different view when scenes of the werewolf are shown, especially between the first and second movie, since that is when he has a nearly foot growth spurt. Perhaps when Lautner was considered to be recast, height was a factor!
Bella’s Friends Are Barely Around In The Movies
Now, Bella Swan isn’t exactly the best role model for how one should balance their high school life. Girlie spends so much time with her boyfriend, she’s ready to die for him. But the movies make her seem more like a loner type than she was actually written as by Stephenie Meyer. In both the books and movies, Bella is seen on multiple occasions with a friend group consisting of Jessica, Angela, Mike and Eric and while she does share some scenes with them throughout the movies, she mostly avoids spending time with them. The actress behind Jessica, Anna Kendrick, recently spoke to feeling like a "bystander" to the franchise, and we're not surprised given the small role.
Bella’s human friends are more important to the books and overall storyline. Although Edward is still at the top of her mind, she does have some interesting arcs with each of these characters that the movie chooses to gloss over. But to be fair, there’s a lot of storylines the movies had to juggle and cutting the human characters’ screen time certainly makes sense.
We Never Get To See Alice Cullen’s Backstory In The Movies
Throughout the four Twilight books, fans are introduced to a lot of lore regarding the Cullen family, including how each member of the family came to become a vampire and then “vegetarian” after meeting its founder Carlisle Cullen. In The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, the movies even go into a number of flashback sequences most memorably through scenes featuring Rosalie Cullen and Jasper Cullen, but the movies fail to go into depth about Alice Cullen.
Alice is one of the most important vampires in the entire Twilight series and she was pretty short-changed by the movies failing to take time to get through her origins, romance with Jasper and how her precognitive ability really works. If only the Twilight Saga could have been a TV show!
In The Books, Bella Makes Some College Plans
Another issue book fans may find with the movies is how the Twilight Saga films decide to cut out a subplot involving Bella Swan making plans to attend college. In the books, Edward Cullen is very supportive of his human girlfriend attending university and Eclipse starts with Bella getting accepted into the University of Alaska and Edward additionally encouraging her to apply for Ivy League school Dartmouth, which he got into.
And in the book for Breaking Dawn, Bella decides to attend the university for a year after getting married (despite thinking it's a little pointless) and remain human, that is until she gets pregnant with Renesmee and she has to be turned into a vampire prematurely.
There’s More To Edward Cullen’s Early Vampire Years
Although the initial saga in both the books and movies are told from Bella Swan’s perspective, Edward Cullen is still a huge character to the series and as far as the movies go, there’s just not enough of his backstory and character development told that fans read in the books. For example, the movies do a bit of glossing over in regards to Cullen’s early days as a vampire.
Edward Cullen had a rebellious period in the ‘20s where he became somewhat of a vigilante and used his mind reading to take down the worst people around. The movie for Eclipse does bring this to the viewer’s attention, but there’s a lot more to his early days before Bella that informs his character that we just don’t get to see play out in the movies. Again, this was likely left out due to time constraints.
Changes Were Made To The Vampire Covens
Later in the Twilight movies, the movie franchise explores the myriad of vampire covens from all over the world who end up being part of the larger storyline. In the books the covens that are mentioned are the Denalis, Amazons, Romanians, Irish and Egyptians, in addition to the Cullen’s Olympic coven.
In the movies, the filmmakers decided to also add a French coven and a nomadic Japanese vampire named Toshiro. Some of the specific vampire characters from the international covens in the books also are not in the movies.
Jacob Imprinting On Renesmee Isn’t As Creepy In the Books
When Breaking Dawn Part 2 came out, there was a ton of backlash regarding Jacob Black imprinting on Bella’s daughter Renesmee and rightfully so! The movies do not explain the whole “imprinting” situation with care.
To book fans, it made more sense because the books had spent time developing what it means to imprint on someone over time in a way that was more sweet and endearing to the books concluding than anything else. But to fans who were not given that explanation, Jacob seeing a long life with Renesmee starting with her as a baby just came off weird. It’s an odd concept to begin with, and it just didn’t translate well on the big screen. Not to mention the decision to make that strange CGI baby.
The Breaking Dawn Finale Battle Was Added To Part 2
Lastly, although there’s definitely more major differences, the most noticeable change between the books and movies comes in the final act of it all. In The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 there was a massive sequence added to the last movie that is not even in the corresponding book.
The battle scene shocked fans because the battle we see in the movie doesn't even happen in Stephenie Meyer's novel. We think all these horrible things are actually happening and then we learn that it’s one of Alice’s most horrible visions. While it was underwhelming for many and strayed away from the books, it did a good job of delivering the unexpected and a major action moment to end the series on.
Now that we’ve talked out the major difference between the books and movies, you can decide for yourself if you have a favorite path to experience Bella and Edward’s love story. Hey, and “both” would be a perfectly acceptable conclusion! Check out how you can stream the Twilight movies here on CinemaBlend.
