Twilight Roundtable: Thousands of Graphic Design Students Are Weeping With Impotent Rage

So Rosanne suggested to me a while ago that we take a moment to talk about the posters and promotional stills for Eclipse, and that struck me as a great idea. Because seriously, what the fuck is happening with these posters? I hate them so much! I want to murder them! And clearly all of you are against me on the subject of Jacob being an unredeemable asshole, so I think we all need to agree on something to clear the air. And I think we can all agree that basically every promotional image associated with ithus far has been a DISASTER. But maybe I am wrong, and we don't agree, and it's just my peculiar aesthetic taste that has been so offended.

So here is how we will play our game: Post your reactions to the items below (make sure to clarify which item you are referring to) in the comments, and I will repost them here in the appropriate spot. Check back to see what your esteemed Twilight colleagues have to say.

ITEM A [Click any item to enlarge)

Zac: Uh, what the fuck is this? What is the point of getting all your actors together for a photo-shoot if you are just going to make them look like oil paintings? Robert Pattinson got the worst of whatever photoshop tool this is, ("age drastically," probably) but Kristen Stewart sort of looks like she's going to throw up on us. Does the stomach virus come back in Eclipse?

Kira: Why are they being shot from below? It looks like they were about to take a professional photo and then a paparazzo popped (alliteration!) out of a manhole cover and snapped this while they weren't expecting it. They all look so disappointed in that paparazzo!
I hate the weird shadowing, too, where the light source is coming so strongly from one side that robpattz and taylaut's left cheeks are hidden in weird shadow. I get it, eclipse, but still. Taylaut's left eye looks like a creepy robot eye, peering from a melting flesh mask. Yikes!
Also, why is it so windy that kstew's hair is blowing about? Is her active "chaotic" hair supposed to hint at the excitement of the movie? Her hair is so excited!

Zac: Now I'll never be able unsee that robot eye. Maybe Taylor Lautner actually is a robot. It would explain SO MUCH.

Rosanne: I kind of like the melodrama here, but now that I hear what you guys are saying, I'm too busy laughing at how weird they look. What's up with TL's nose and has he always had that dimple on his chin? (Interestingly enough, I just learned today that dimples are technically called foveas.) Bella looks like a total see-you-next-tuesday and also looks like she should be on the poster for The Craft or any other movie about teen witches. And Edward needs to get back to 90210, Dylan's dad is back in jail and he needs a bro's shoulder to cry on.

Emily: I think that summit has gone too far. They have created monsters out of these hardly known actors. (Kstew, Rpatz, TayTay *shuder*) They can't even give the time of day to show up at a photoshoot. So they have to go all CGI on that shit.

Zac: I don't want to believe that these are just like, CGI composites (even though that's what it looks like) because it runs counter to my idea of Summit Entertainment as a draconian but nonetheless incompetent, sort of Orwellian organization who would drag these three in to a photo studio all day long only to airbrush the shit out of the photos so much that it looks like they were never there in the first place.

MusicallyInclined: It makes me feel like I'm (judging by the looks on thier faces) some nearly dead body of an animal that got ran over. It kinda makes me feel like I'm gonna get gangbanged or something.

ITEM B Zac: I was talking on Twitter a while ago about how Jon Hamm is really great at just acting with his face - his facial expressions contain multitudes (multitudes of "what the fuck is Don Draper thinking right now?"). All of these guys, not so much. Is that guy in the back trying to look threatening?

Kira: Good job giving weensy little dfann a double chin! They can photoshop everything but can't blur out the chin created by the awful angle of the photo? Isn't that the purpose of photoshop? Doyoyoy! Sll the actors look like they interpreted the photographer's instructions differently. From our left to right:
"look coy and super gay!"
"look sullen and bored!"
"look confused, stupid and mildly amused!"
"look pouty and also grossed out!"
Man, these costume and hair/make up people are so good at prematurely aging young, attractive actors. If there's an industry award for that they should definitely get it.

Rosanne: The Volturi are so unprepossessing [Nice vocab! Alice Cullen over here!-Ed.] in the movies. They aren't sexy or scary, they just look pouty and like they are trying to hold their eyes wide open. Vampire protip, guys, narrowed, glaring eyes are intimidating. Also, you on the left, you look too foppish. You, the tall one, you look uncomfortable in your clothes, and you on the right, I'm sorry you were turned during your awkward stage. Dakota, you're okay but you don't look fearsome at all.

ITEM C
Zac: I kind of like this one, because my girl Kristen Stewart even looks uncomfortable when she's been airbrushed into almost total obscurity. Are we sure this is even Kristen Stewart? It could be fucking Kat Dennings, you'd never know.

Kira: It's so cold on this photo shoot! (It's like she's holding herself together from the hole in her chest in New Moon! Like an easter egg for us, doodz!) Again, with her excited hair. It sort of looks like they took two separate pictures of her, one of each side of her face, and then pasted them together, but a one side was scaled a skosh too big. You see what i'm saying? Her face looks lopsided.

Rosanne: Oh, it DOES look like Kat Dennings. Also, close your mouth, Bella.

MusicallyInclined: What is with the facial expression??! Its like I look at it and have no idea what its supposed to be.

ITEM D

Zac: I can think of it least two things wrong with this poster. One, everybody has shirts on. Two, I think if they tried Summit's marketing department could fit at least 30 more people on here, and make it an even 100 people. With that dude way in the back it honestly looks like they were trying to make them stretch on into infinity. What is that dude doing WAY BACK THERE? Come up to the front, get in the picture man! I think I found Waldo, BTW.

Renken: First, the first 4 items are too airbrushed. Jacob: Far too tan, (Compare him in Photos A and D to photos F and I). Edward: Too tan! Isn't he supposed to be a vampire? Aren't vampires allergic to the sun? (Compare photo A to photos G and I). Kristen Stewart needs to learn not to inject heroin before a photo shoot, I don't care so much about how airbrushed to hell she is, so much as her expressions make me want to call Celebrity Rehab.

Zac: Jacob does seem suspiciously dark. Do we have a TIME magazine/OJ situation going on here? But lay off my girl K. Stewart, Renken. She is not responsible for her faces!

Kira: O doubt i have anything to say that is better than what Zac said. That teensy dude in the way back is fucking BUMMED. Seriously, that could be anyone in that picture. It could easily be a photobomb by Charlie Swan. I would like some shirtless pictures of the wolf pack to see if they got themselves in better shape for Eclipse because I found their physiques pretty disappointing in New Moon. Jacob is like a ripped superman and the rest of them are just slightly jiggly dudes in cut offs. Get these guys a cooler of meat patties and no more of those huge muffins! Leah Clearwater looks appropriately shrewish. Jacob's neck looks extra long in this picture.

Zac: I think I see M. Ward in there.

Rosanne: Leah Clearwater is a catch! I wonder if that rack affects her wolfself at all, though.

MusicallyInclined: That is a terrible angle for Leah, it's like you look at her and all you see is BOOBS, I mean honestly, they dont even look like they belong on her body!!

Zac: It almost looks like the shadow is coming from the boobs. Like, eventually they will block out the whole poster. Like an eclipse. See what I did there?

ITEM E

Zac: Rosanne sent me a bunch of posters, but this one I found on a Twilight message board, under which someone had commented that they think it really captures what Eclipse is about. This poster is not bad (at least, relative to the rest), but I really hope it is about more than this.

Renken: The "eclipse" part of the photo is photoshopped onto the clouds, which, according to these graphic designers, means eclipses happen under the cloud-line (Dear kids, pay attention in science class). Also, in dealing with the "eclipse" how come the Logo in Items A, B, D and E all have the "flare" on the right side, but in item C it's switched to the left? Also, why does the "flare" have varying lengths? (Compare the full "flare" in E to the rest, B having the shortest "flare.") If it has varying lengths, it tells me they have to crop it in order to fit it in the photo, which tells me these graphic designers don't know how to layer OR be consistent.

Rosanne: Haha, Renken, you know that Summit has an Eclipse style guide somewhere that talks about what the accepted flare lengths are and when you can use it on the left side as opposed to the right side.

Zac: I should also clarify that upon closer inspection the comment on the board read "i thnik it rlly cpatures what ekclispe is all abot." Who are these people and where do they come from?

ITEM F

Zac: This is Taylor Lautner conversing with Kristen Stewart's stand in, Ellen Page. I don't know why they'd use it as a promo still.

Kira: It's good that they are giving me plenty of time to prepare for how much kstew's hair is going to bother me in this movie. Thanks for the warning, bros. In this pictures it looks like she's doing that "what's that awful smell?" acting technique that Joey Tribbiani uses as Dr. Drake Ramoray. Jacob is not looming enough in this shot. She's supposed to come up to his chest, but whatever. I'm just so steeped in "Jacob is a huge, dark, heavily muscled, white hot-skinned indian man-god" imagery that it's hard to let go of.

Zac: We can't all be so lucky as the Harry Potter people - Rupert Grint growing tall and lanky exactly as written, Emma Watson getting gradually hotter - so maybe we should credit Lautner for getting buff as hell and be done with it.

Rosanne: Did you guys know that one of the reasons for reshoots was that Bella's wig was such a mess in some scenes? They should have just changed Bella's hair in this movie to that hot shag KStew was rocking while filming The Runaways.

Zac: I would have supported that.

ITEM G

Zac: I'm really happy they are keeping in the scene from the book where the Cullens visit IKEA.

Kira: Really, costume designer? Putting Carlisle (pfacc) and Jasper (jrath) in the exact same outfit in one scene? Why would you do that? There are other sweater styles and colors. They needn't both wear it right then. Also, jrath always gets fucked the hardest by the hair/makeup/costume team. So much fucking over of that guy. He can't NOT look like a middle aged lesbian. (In other news: a friend worked on The Last Airbender which is co-starring our under-appreciated friend Jackson Rathbone. They had a cast screening of the movie and jrath was there and my friend said he's really good looking in real life and very friendly, but not a great actor. Two of these were things I suspected and one was a pleasant surprise. FYI. Some good real life Twilight news. Poor jrath. He's the vampire actor no one has a crush on because he looks like a sad clown lady in the movies.)

Zac: I'm glad that I now have a reason to see The Last Airbender, because that trailer (there have been some boring teasers, but I'm talking about the one that ran before Iron Man 2) was AWESOME. And yet I have a well documented hatred of M. Night Shyamalan. But I can watch it for the blog and not feel bad.

Rosanne: So disgustingly monochromatic. The Cullens are the boringest vampires ever. At least Carlisle has an open collar. And yeah, what the fuck is up with the matching outfits? Was it family photo day? (Good to know that about J Rathbone. I always like it when you find out people are nice.)

ITEM H

Zac: Why do the Cullens look like X-Men now?

Kira: Yikes, this is a very unflattering still! Strangely, Rosalie (nfinke) looks very nice in it! Usually she's second in line, after jrath in the human centipede butt-fucking line which the hair/makeup/wardrobe team creates for the vampire actors. Heavy on the denim here. Vampires - we love denim so much for running through the forest! They all look a little full in the thighs, you know? I mean, normal people do, but they're not supposed to be normal people, they're supposed to be undead super hotties.

Zac: It takes a skilled cinematographer to make Ashley Greene look unattractive. Did I say skilled?

thetrace360: WHAT IS UP WITH JASPER'S HAIR?! He was supposed to be so hot, but the hair is just ridiculous. I pictured him much more buff when reading the book. And why is Alice dressing him so poorly? You'd think he'd be wearing something a little more sexy. Is he wearing a jumpsuit? Disappointed Tracey is disappointed...

Rosanne: When I first saw this, I was relieved that they weren't wearing, like, corporate attire. But now it just feels like something you'd see on awkwardfamilyphotos.com So much denim, so many shades.

Kim: What is up with the Cullens and the matching outfits? Is this what they do with all their non-sleeping free time, plan the weekly outfits? "Ok, guys, Monday we're going with blue sweaters and collared shirts - except you Edward. You're the angsty teenager so you get a hoodie. Tuesday, we're going early 90's with lots of denim!"

ITEM I

Zac: Shouldn't Jacob be bigger? (That's What Bella Said.) Can't they pull a Green Mile and have Robert Pattinson stand in a trench? Or did they blow the budget on hiring endless Kristen Stewart lookalikes to play her in this film?

Kira: Robpattz's sideburns are amusing and upsetting me in equal measures. Again, agreed that Jacob should be bigger, but they did a good job here making kstew look small compared to the doodz. Is this another v-neck sweater we see on robpattz? The cullen-hale household has cornered the market on v-necks, guys. There might not be any left for anyone else in the world. Sorry. All of taylaut's muscle tees are a continuing delight. Muscle tees are the best. seriously. in both ironic and serious ways, they are just the best.

Zac: Edward shops at the Ann Taylor Loft.

Rosanne: Aaaaand, back to the 90210 sideburns. Are people wearing those again? Not so much. Jacob must be the only wolf with a Napoleon complex.

Thanks again to Rosanne. Previous roundtables can be found in the sidebar.