The vampires in Edward Cullen and mortal Bella Swan. Twilight became a big hit, and it didn’t take long for it to get a big-screen adaptation.
Breaking Dawn, being split into two. The movies stayed as true to the books as possible, not only in of story and characters but also when it comes to the characteristics of the vampires and werewolves. Of course, the Twilight books and movies were heavily criticized for a number of reasons, among those the changes that Meyer did to these creatures, the main ones being that werewolves can turn into wolves at will and not under a full moon, and vampires can resist sunlight, with the only consequence being that their skin sparkles.
The vampires in Twilight have the basic characteristics of these monsters: they feed on blood (either human or animal), they are pale, attractive, and immortal. However, these vampires can’t die when being exposed to sunlight, but they don’t spend time under the sun either as their skin sparkles “like diamonds”. Bella and readers learn this in the first book/movie, when Edward shows her why he and his family don’t leave the house on sunny days. Meyer actually gave an explanation to this, saying that vampires’ bodies sparkle due to the crystalline properties of their cells, as vampire skin is very different to that of humans.
The skin of vampires is often described in the books as being like marble due to its texture, color, and feel. They are unnaturally pale due to their lack of blood flow, and their skin is very resistant, which is why when one is dismembered (to later be burned, as that’s Twilight books and movies possible: the reason why the Cullens move to Forks is because it’s cloudy and rainy most of the time, and if Edward could only go out at night he definitely wouldn’t have met Bella.
Stephenie Meyer made a lot of changes to classic monsters like vampires and werewolves which weren’t well-received, though she did give an explanation for most of them, even if they don’t make much sense. Ultimately, the sparkly skin from the Twilight vampires is what allowed them to blend with humans (as long as there was no sunlight), and it also gave viewers a lot to talk about and discuss.
