Twilight’s TV Show Reboot Can Fix The Movies’ Most Baffling (& Horrific) CGI Decision
With Lionsgate making a Twilight TV show reboot, the new creative team has a chance to fix the movies’ most baffling and awful CGI decisions.
The Twilight TV show reboot has the opportunity to fix the most ridiculous and horrific CGI decision from the movies. Adapted from the eponymous book series by Stephanie Meyer, The Twilight Saga tells the love story between a human named Bella Swan and a vampire named Edward Cullen, spreading the plot across five films. These hit films quickly became a success, dominated with young women. In April 2023, Lionsgate announced that a Twilight reboot TV show was in development. This is just one of the many YA movie franchises with TV show adaptations in the works.
Lionsgate and the creative team will definitely have an uphill battle adapting the Twilight books into a TV show. The movies did many things right, including the action added to the ending of Breaking Dawn and the saga’s phenomenal soundtrack. They also did an excellent job making the werewolves look exceptionally realistic. Still, the TV show adaptation will have the chance to change negative parts of the movies, like the baffling use of CGI for Renesmee.
Twilight’s TV Show Can Avoid The Movies’ Terrible Baby Renesmee CGI
The Twilight TV Show Can Use A Real Baby
When it comes to things Twilight fans demand in the reboot, a top desire is for them to fix baby Renesmee. Rather than going the traditional route, the baby was created with CGI. This ended up looking terrible and horrifying, partly because of the CGI technology available at the time and partly because of the execution. The Twilight TV show can avoid the same criticisms by using a normal baby – not CGI or a doll. While the technology has progressed tremendously, recent uses of CGI have still gone wrong, and bad CGI will be extra noticeable on a baby.
Why Twilight Used CGI For Renesmee (& What Went Wrong)
Twilight’s Renesmee Was Almost Much Worse
The Twilight production has never explained why exactly they nixed the idea of using a normal baby face for Renesmee, but producer Wyck Godfrey’s comments about their goal for Renesmee could help explain the choice. He explained to The Guardian that they wanted the baby to look preternaturally intelligent and otherworldly but still similar to a real baby.
As explained in a behind-the-scenes featurette available on the Twilight Forever: The Complete Saga DVD box set, they tried to accomplish this with an animatronic doll. The Twilight production team had an animatronic doll created for the movie, but its appearance was nightmare fuel. They nicknamed the doll “Chuckesmee” due to it resembling the killer doll Chucky. Its movements looked extremely unnatural, freaking out the cast and crew. Ultimately, the production team decided Chuckesmee wouldn’t work. Instead, Twilight created CGI Renesmee by recording footage of 30 babies and combining five of these babies with CGI in an odd Frankenstein-like process. They also made use of Mackenzie Foy’s face and a baby photo of Kristin Stewart to Renesmee look similar to her mother and her older self.
Unfortunately, the idea of using multiple real people backfired drastic. Many perceive CGI Renesmee as extremely creepy because she taps into the uncanny valley effect — a negative emotional reaction caused when a robot, doll, or CGI looks almost but not quite human. The production team’s attempt at otherworldly wasn’t different enough from a human to stand out. However, the CGI baby doesn’t look human either, despite having many human characteristics. They ultimately would’ve been better off making Renesmee look like a regular human child in Twilight, even if it didn’t quite match the description provided in the book.
What We Know About The Twilight TV Show Remake
The Twilight TV Show Is Still Early In Development
While Lionsgate officially confirmed the Twilight TV show, very little is known about the reboot. Eleven years have passed since the movie series ended, so it’s unlikely that the main cast will return. It was already noticeable when actors aged between the first and last Twilight movie, so bringing them back now would be laughable. After all, by the end of Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2, none of the Twilight main characters are aging anymore, except for Renesmee.
Plus, Robert Pattinson hated the Twilight series, so it would be difficult to convince him to reprise his role. In that case, it wouldn’t make sense narratively for Bella to appear, but not Edward. While divorce and growing apart are normal aspects of life, the movies presented Edward and Bella as the ultimate romantic pairing that will never separate. As such, any explanation for his absence would come across as contrived.
