Twilight<\/a>. Two decades later, these two parallel inventions have grown ubiquitous, something that became abundantly clear to me as I watched my blue Maps arrow make its way from the East Village to Flatbush in a sea of Twi-Hards. We were headed to Twilight in Concert, a romantic live screening of the saga\u2019s first installment accompanied by a 12-piece orchestra (playing the film\u2019s score) and a thousand twinkling candles. Bad news, my date bailed on me halfway through my voyage. But I still had company: 3,249 other attendees, to be exact, who\u2019d sold out the Kings Theatre to demonstrate their love for one of this century\u2019s most popular, fanatical franchises, 20 years on. To my right, I first spotted an OG Twi-Hard, then the late-comers who bought their tickets twice after getting scammed. \u201cYou\u2019re one decision away from having a completely different life,\u201d said a Rosalie sympathizer snapping mirror selfies outside the bathroom during intermission. \u201cSo just try your best to be the great one.\u201d By the time the curtains had come down, the security guard who ushered us out had made his allegiances known. \u201cWhy doesn\u2019t she love Jacob?,\u201d he asked. \u201cEddie almost got her killed twice. Goddamn.\u201d<\/p>\n\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
LILIANA MORALES<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Twilight](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5485-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
SIMON DWIHARTANA: So what brings you here tonight?<\/p>\n
LILIANA MORALES: Twilight was big when I was in college. It was a big cultural phenomenon. So it\u2019s kind of hard to say no to a live orchestra with the movie.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Are there any memories of the franchise that you want to share?<\/p>\n
MORALES: Yeah. Oh, man. I remember reading New Moon and being so depressed. It just brought me down because it was that intense. But sharing the memories of the movies with friends, the memes, the commentary\u2014I feel like that\u2019s kind of the biggest part of Twilight for me.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: If they were to adapt Life and Death into a movie, who would you cast as male Bella and female Edward?<\/p>\n
MORALES: Wait so, the girl\u2019s a vampire and she\u2019s pursuing a human boy.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA Yeah.\u00a0<\/p>\n
MORALES: Oh my gosh. I mean, top of mind is like Mia Goth, only because I just saw her in Frankenstein and I feel like she\u2019d be really good.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Oh my god, yes.<\/p>\n
MORALES: Bella\u2019s character, as a boy, I don\u2019t know, man. I have so many problems with Bella.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: We all do.<\/p>\n
MORALES: I might have to come back to that one.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Do you have anything to confess?<\/p>\n
MORALES: There was a fan site in the early 2000s called His Golden Eyes, and you need to look it up on the archive. When Twilight was being published, that\u2019s where the OGs would go for fan art and fiction, and just all general Twilight. And it\u2019s a deep cut. If you mention it, a lot of people won\u2019t know it. But if you mention it and someone\u2019s eyes light up, they\u2019re a real one. They were in the trenches.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Ooh, I\u2019ll have to look that up after this. What\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
MORALES: Both Edward and Jacob suck. I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s a hot take, but I feel like the fandom is so often divided and I\u2019m like, \u201cNeither.\u201d She needs to dump both of them and just go live her life.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: No, literally. If you were Jane, Dakota Fanning\u2019s character, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
MORALES: I mean, like, everyone in the government right now.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
SHEILA CORONA & DESTINY BAXTER<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Twilight](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5487-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: So walk me through the fit. What\u2019s the inspiration?<\/p>\n
DESTINY BAXTER: Ugh, I don\u2019t even know where to begin. I was going for gothic ancient vampire, but then it turned into cunty work siren.<\/p>\n
SHEILA CORONA: Mine was maybe a little more Morticia Addams, a little more modern.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: We love it. Do you guys have any hot takes?<\/p>\n
CORONA: Team Edward is the only right choice.<\/p>\n
BAXTER: Edward was just a little weird, and it\u2019s okay. We\u2019ve all liked a little weirdo before. If he\u2019s not obsessed, what are we doing? If you\u2019re not his personal brand of heroine, what are we doing?<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] What do you have to confess?<\/p>\n
CORONA: I actually watched the movies backwards.<\/p>\n
BAXTER: Oh, that\u2019s weird.<\/p>\n
CORONA: The first movie I ever saw was Breaking Dawn Part 2.<\/p>\n
BAXTER: My confession\u2014this is also kind of like a hot take because people don\u2019t really like this one\u2014is that my favorite Twilight movie is Eclipse. Eclipse was just too good.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Wait, really?\u00a0<\/p>\n
BAXTER: And I kind of hated New Moon. [Laughs]<\/p>\n
CORONA: No, so real.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Last question: did you guys remember that Anna Kendrick was in this movie?<\/p>\n
BAXTER: I did because she was such a bitch.<\/p>\n
CORONA: I hated her. I really did.<\/p>\n
BAXTER: Not even a hot take, but she was just like, fucking weird. Girl, you know damn well you were mad because Bella was the new girl in school and nobody wanted your ass.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: If you were Jane, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
BAXTER: My ex.<\/p>\n
CORONA: My science teacher from like fourth grade. It runs deep.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
KHALILAH DENSON & SHANIYA WILSON-HARPER<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Twilight](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Khalilah-Denson-Shaniya-Wilson-Harper.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
KHALILAH DENSON: I feel like now, people wait to make an opinion once they know everyone else\u2019s opinion.<\/p>\n
WILSON-HARPER: I think it\u2019s just a reminder that you only live once, so you definitely want to just make the most out of it. And I personally believe you\u2019re one decision away from having a completely different life, so just try your best to be the great one.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Wow, I didn\u2019t expect us to get all deep at Twilight in Concert. Do you guys have any confessions?<\/p>\n
DENSON: Confessions? I haven\u2019t dated in five years. I don\u2019t know, I\u2019m scared of the population now.<\/p>\n
WILSON-HARPER: Not me being in a relationship\u2026<\/p>\n
DENSON: You found one of the good ones.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Emmett son or Rosalie daughter?<\/p>\n
DENSON: Rosalie daughter, she needs a daughter.<\/p>\n
WILSON-HARPER I\u2019m going to agree with that.<\/p>\n
DENSON: I just feel like with Rosalie, she wanted a kid so bad, and I feel like she really needed to have a regular life but she\u2019s always living vicariously through everybody else, and I feel like that would\u2019ve given her some closure.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Actually, what I meant was, would you want to have a son that\u2019s like Emmett or a daughter that\u2019s like Rosalie?<\/p>\n
DENSON: [Laughs] Oh! A son, then. 1000%.<\/p>\n
WILSON-HARPER: I\u2019m going to go with the girl.<\/p>\n
DENSON: We do have to fix the demographic. I want to adopt a white son so that I can infiltrate the system from within. You know what I\u2019m saying? And if he got into politics, I wouldn\u2019t be mad. And he has a Black mom\u2026 Please, we would rule the world.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Okay, my last question: if you were Jane, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
DENSON: Our President. Hello.<\/p>\n
WILSON-HARPER: Yes, same thought, immediately.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
CHELSEA HENRY & BRIANA RUSSELL<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Twilight](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5489-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Walk me through the fit. You can go first.<\/p>\n
HENRY: I was trying to go for Bella, but I think I\u2019m giving Elena Gilbert [from The Vampire Diaries].<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] Not the dupe.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: I was going for Bella after she transformed, like\u2014<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Dude, you\u2019re the second person who said that.<\/p>\n
HENRY: Because she was so tea.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Okay. So what\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: Carlisle is daddy. Carlisle is hot. There\u2019s no other hot take than that.<\/p>\n
HENRY: That is not a hot take.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: And Bella\u2019s dad. People don\u2019t want to see it, but the man\u2014<\/p>\n
HENRY: I feel like people are sleeping on Jacob. But the dad though, yeah, that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Wait, which dad?<\/p>\n
HENRY: Bella\u2019s dad. Charlie.\u00a0<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: Charlie can get it.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: EJ or Renesmee?<\/p>\n
HENRY: She tried to play with EJ. No, she was playing in their face with EJ, that\u2019s why her back broke. Renesmee, for real. Renesmee, because even Renesmee knew that was wrong.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: I agree.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: She heard it and she was like, \u201cMom, what the fuck?\u201d Bam! Breaks her spine.<\/p>\n
HENRY: She was like, \u201cMama, no! Mama, no!\u201d<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] Would you want to have an Emmett son or Rosalie daughter?<\/p>\n
HENRY: I like Rosalie daughter. I feel like she\u2019s misunderstood.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: She is misunderstood. Her background was kind of sad. She can\u2019t have a kid, so\u2014<\/p>\n
HENRY: But then I liked her after. She redeemed herself.<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: She\u2019s just a misunderstood woman.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA:\u00a0 If you were Jane, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
RUSSELL: Oh. My ex.<\/p>\n
HENRY: Fuck him, yeah.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
THAIS TAVERAS, ASHLEY ARNAUD, & SECURITY GUARD<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5517-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: So what happened?<\/p>\n
THAIS TAVERAS: Basically we bought tickets off of StubHub two months ago. And when we came, I tried to activate it, but the tickets didn\u2019t work.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Oh, shit.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: So we went to the box office and we got them there.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: And how much were the fake ones?<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: Bro, bank.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Shit. Okay. So what\u2019s your favorite song from the movie?<\/p>\n
ASHLEY ARNAUD: It has to be\u2026 is it \u201cBella\u2019s Lullaby,\u201d when he\u2019s playing on the piano?<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Yeah.<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: And then I would say \u201cDecode\u201d by Paramore.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: Which is the one that goes, \u201cHoa hoa hoa\u2026\u201d? [Searches on Google] \u201cHoa hoa hoa Twilight song.\u201d<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: I know what you\u2019re talking about.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: \u201cEyes on Fire.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Ooh, they\u2019re telling us to get out.<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: Okay, real quick.<\/p>\n
SECURITY GUARD: Why doesn\u2019t she love Jacob? Goddamn it.<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: He\u2019s a thug.<\/p>\n
SECURITY GUARD: Goddamn. Why? He\u2019s a childhood friend. Eddie almost got her killed twice. Goddamn.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: Edward is done! That boy.<\/p>\n
SECURITY GUARD: [Laughs] Have a good night, guys. Take care.\u00a0<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Thank you, you too. Okay, if you guys had Jane\u2019s abilities, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: Ex-boyfriend, for sure.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: No, literally.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Alright, last question. What\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: Well, I heard that Bella and Edward\u2019s dad had a thing on set, a vibe. I don\u2019t know. The whole lore is on TikTok.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Oh, really?<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: Remember when in New Moon where he was cleaning up her wounds when she got hurt on her birthday? They had a connection.<\/p>\n
TAVERAS: Apparently there was tension.<\/p>\n
ARNAUD: They had some sort of chemistry. Yes.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
CHARLENE LIEBERMAN & JULIA LIEBERMAN<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5520-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What brings you guys here tonight?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE LIEBERMAN: I\u2019m a super Twilight fan.<\/p>\n
JULIA LIEBERMAN: This was my first time seeing it.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Oh, really? So you\u2019re taking her Twilight virginity right now?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: [Laughs] Yes.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE LIEBERMAN: Oh, gosh. Okay, maybe this isn\u2019t that hot of a take, but Jacob falling in love with a baby? It\u2019s so whack.<\/p>\n
JULIA: That was a comedy, man.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Do you guys have anything to confess?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: I often imagine my life if I was a vampire in the Twilight life.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] No, me too. I used to play freeze tag in elementary school and I think that I\u2019m Bella in Breaking Dawn Part 2. I feel like I run faster when I imagine myself as her.<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: [Laughs] Yes, yes! Wait, I totally get what you mean.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What\u2019s your favorite song from the soundtracks?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: I love \u201cFlightless Bird, American Mouth\u201d by Iron & Wine and \u201cDecode\u201d by Paramore.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Period. Staple.<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: Yeah. But \u201cPossibility\u201d by Lykke Li from the second movie, so good. That\u2019s cinematic history.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Which movie is your favorite movie?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: Oh, I love New Moon. It\u2019s the best.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Would you rather have an Emmett son or a Rosalie daughter?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: Oh, Rosalie daughter.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Wait, why?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: She\u2019s just so girlhood. She is girlhood. It\u2019s like being a mother to such a girl, oh gosh.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you were Jane, who would you wish pain on?<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: Oh my gosh. So many people. All the ops.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Specifics, specifics.<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: My ex. Where\u2019s he at?<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] Okay. You?<\/p>\n
JULIA: My professor tomorrow.<\/p>\n
CHARLENE: Oh.<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n
MICHELLE & DIANA<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5527-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What was your favorite song? Favorite moment?<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: Favorite song has to be \u201cBella\u2019s Lullaby\u201d and then \u201cSupermassive Black Hole\u201d by Muse.<\/p>\n
DIANA: I agree with that statement. The whole baseball scene, it\u2019s my favorite. Favorite song, there\u2019s so many to choose from. I want to say the last song of the movie when they\u2019re dancing at prom, \u201cFlightless Bird, American Mouth.\u201d It\u2019s always a classic.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: What\u2019s a hot take?<\/p>\n
DIANA: It\u2019s not really a hot take, but we all know the dads are fun.<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: The dads are definitely a favorite.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Would you rather have an EJ son or a Renesmee daughter?<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: Renesmee daughter. That EJ son thing is crazy.<\/p>\n
DIANA: He\u2019s not for me.<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: She was like, \u201cIf it\u2019s a son, it\u2019s EJ.\u201d What?<\/p>\n
DIANA: I\u2019ll take the Loch Ness monster.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] Okay. Emmett son or Rosalie daughter?<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: Emmett. I think it\u2019s because he gives big brother vibes to Bella. I love Rosalie, but as a kid, you\u2019d want someone that\u2019s protective like Emmett.<\/p>\n
DIANA: Same.<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: Are there memories with the franchise that you guys want to share?<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: My mom watching the movie and me sitting at the kitchen table, side-eyeing, because I was not supposed to be watching. [Laughs]<\/p>\n
DWIHARTANA: [Laughs] So your mom was the OG Twi-Hard and she passed it down to you.<\/p>\n
MICHELLE: Yes. She loves Jacob. She\u2019s like, \u201cIf I had a son, I would name him Jacob.\u201d I got a kitten recently and she wanted to name it Jacob.<\/p>\n
DIANA: [Laughs] Oh my god. I am in a very religious household and Twilight was not a number-one thing, but I remember one of my cousins was like, \u201cWe\u2019re going to go watch Twilight.\u201d And I told my mom and she was like, \u201cOh, no, no, no, no, we can\u2019t.\u201d And then one of my older cousins was just like, \u201cOh no, we\u2019re just going to go chill down in the basement.\u201d And then I remember the first time I ever saw it, I got so scared in that whole ballet scene that my mom was like, \u201cYou see, this is why you don\u2019t watch it.\u201d But then I was like, \u201cWell, I actually liked it.\u201d [Laughs]<\/p>\n
\u2014\u2014\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photos courtesy of Simon Dwihartana. SUNDAY 5:30 PM NOVEMBER 16, 2025 BROOKLYN In 2005, Google Maps was born…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[26139,98,100,99,1873,19649,26140,26141,9,24,63,13241,26142,26143,26144,26145,26146,26147,26148],"class_list":["post-45913","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-bella-swan","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-flatbush","tag-kings-theatre","tag-kristen-stewart","tag-life-and-death-twilight-reimagined","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-robert-pattinson","tag-stephenie-meyer","tag-taylor-lautner","tag-team-edward","tag-team-jacob","tag-the-twilight-saga","tag-twilight","tag-twilight-in-concert"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45913","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45913"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45913\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45913"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45913"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45913"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Twilight](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/IMG_5467-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n