‘Forgotten Island’s Final Gag Makes It The Perfect ‘Twilight’ Parody
Published onSeptember 26, 2026
Forgotten Island (2026) is a great film about friendship that largely avoids romance. The DreamWorks film focuses on Filipino best friends, Jo and Raissa, who are dragged into a mythical realm shortly before Raissa plans to depart the island for college in the United States. Akin to something <a href="https://comicvibe.com/5-tv-shows-to-watch-if-you-like-fxs-adults/” title=”5 TV Shows To Watch If You Like FX's Adults”>like The Wild Robot (2024), Forgotten Island takes larger genre conventions and subverts expectations by bringing a deep well of heart to the story.
During their journey, Jo and Raissa reaffirm their friendship and create bonds with several of the inhabitants of Nakali, some of which become steadfast allies. Despite some minor teases for prospective romantic beats, the film notably skips any sort of love story subplot or setup. That’s what makes Forgotten Island’s end punchline all the more entertaining, as it underscores the true emotional focus at the expense of other tropes that helped animate the fandoms for franchises like Twilight (2008).
‘Forgotten Island’ Ends on a Joke About Shipping Wars
At the end of Forgotten Island, Jo reveals that she has turned their experience into a graphic novel series. These stories have made her extremely popular, while also winning over die-hard fans, especially of the love triangle that Jo invents for the narrative. While Forgotten Islandpointedly avoids entangling either Jo or Raissa in a romance story, Jo recasts Raww and Mermahn as hunky rivals vying for the heart of the character based on Raissa.
Despite Raissa’s clear embarrassment, Jo notes that romance sells, as evidenced by the hard-core shippers on either side of Raissa. It’s a great little gag poking fun at fan communities and fandom culture, made all the more effective by the way the film bluntly notes that it can be less about naturally incorporating love stories into narratives so much as it is meant to engage audiences on a purely emotional level. The fact that Forgotten Island slips in this kind of gag at the expense of the Twilight fandom while also using Filipino folklore to inspire a much more fearsome vampire characters makes the deemphasizing of love triangles all the more poignant.
‘Forgotten Island’s Romance Subversion Makes the Love Triangle Trope Even Funnier
Shipping has been a consistent aspect of fandom culture for decades, but it took on a spirited new life in modern times thanks to properties like Twilight. The romantic triangle between Bella, Edward, and Jacob was at a fever pitch for debate in the 2000s. It was also far from the only property with prominent “shipping wars,” where fans found themselves debating feverishly over their preferences for the story’s direction. This is something that extends beyond the realm of film and TV (don’t get me started on the arguments gamers have had over Cloud’s romantic partner in Final Fantasy VII), but feels especially prevalent in mediums aimed at YA audiences. Forgotten Island isn’t about romance, though.
It’s a movie rooted in themes of friendship enduring in the face of change. It’s extra hilarious then that even characters in-universe know that romance would spice up the story when they’re re-telling it to their own audience. It gives Forgotten Island a clever meta joke to close on that implicitly teases the countless shipping wars that even this film might inspire among fans. Instead, Forgotten Island stays focused on what it’s really about, which is the friendship between Jo and Raissa. In many ways a love story of its own, the movie follows the ups and downs of their relationship, even almost breaking them apart, only for Raissa to refuse to leave her friend and their memories behind.
As opposed to the way Jo reimagines the story for her audience with a love triangle central to the experience, Forgotten Island is never interested in that kind of subject matter. There’s no romantic conflict or external interloper to cause the drift between the young women. Mermahn even initially seems to be setting up that possible direction, only for the character to eventually tearfully reveal that the girls’ general disinterest in his hunky physique is what set off his obsession with them in the first place.
The movie is all about emotion, a deep friendship instead of a budding romance. Their growing distance is based on their diverging paths. It takes the pair of them refusing to give up on one another to finally get their memories back in full and rediscover the bond that binds them. The Twilight parody is a great little joke that reiterates the importance the film places on friendship above all else.
