Breaking Dawn: Part 1

Director: Bill Condon (also did "Dreamgirls" and "Beauty & The Beast" with Emma Watson)
Writers: Melissa Rosenberg (screenplay) and Stephenie Meyer (based on her book)
Composer: Carter Burwell (back for the first time since the original movie)

Cast:
Bella Swan- Kristen Stewart
Edward Cullen- Robert Pattinson
Jacob Black- Taylor Lautner
Carlisle Cullen- Peter Facinelli
Chef Charlie Swan- Billy Burke
Renee- Sarah ChalkeBilly Black- Gil Birmingham
Mike Newton- Michael Welch
Jessica Stanley- Anna Kendrick
Eric- Justin Chon
Angela Webber- Christian Serratos
Alice Cullen- Ashley Green
Jasper Cullen- Jackson Rathbone
Emmett Cullen- Kellen Lutz
Rosalie Cullen- Nikki Reed
Esme Cullen- Elizabeth Reaser
Jane- Dakota Fanning
Quill Atera- Tyson Houseman
Embry Call- Kiowa Gordon 
Leah Clearwater- Julia Jones
Seth Clearwater- Booboo Stewart

Introduction

I figured my work was done writing about these books/movies because I knew I wrote something about them on a blog. I just thought it was this one... turns out it was somewhere on the blog that was exclusively about Prince. Then around 2011, things start to sway in different directions. And the post was just a mental dump of everything else going on and I get to the movie by the end. 

Ok, so I picked the book up after we came back from Seattle and Alaska. (We weren't close to Forks at all, but we saw it on and Port Angeles on the map on the ship's navi channel). I left off with Eclipse ages ago. I knew it took a while to read, but I remember it being in my car on November 15 last year... when I was stuck in a snowstorm for 9 hours trying to get home from work. 

According to my post, I'd read the book only twice by the time the movie came out, so my memory wasn't that great. I forgot something about a significant plot point. I'm sure a lot of critics (and Twilight has a lot of them, unfortunately) would call it a Deus ex Machina-- something written into the story that is an instant cure-all for a problem. Is it a bit of a stretch?... yeah, maybe. But I get my happy ending with Bella and Edward together, so I could care less. 

The Book

This is one of those books I just remember going out and buying because it was a big thing when it was finally released. Twilight, I bought at Target along with the Freedom Writer Diaries way back in 2008. I remember reading about it in the paper, talking about a love triangle with a vampire and a werewolf. I'm not into horror at all, but it was an intriguing idea. The next two books... I asked for them for Christmas... New Moon I read in 2 days cuz I was miserable and wanted Edward to come back. And Eclipse took forever cuz I didn't find it all that interesting. The movie did a better job of conveying that story-- still wish they hadn't fired the original Victoria cuz Bryce Dallas Howard was a distraction.

With Breaking Dawn, I remember reading it in college. I was in my dorm room and I got to a pretty pivotal dramatic scene. Honestly, I laughed my head off... I couldn't believe they went there with it. You'll know what it is when I get there, but it was crazy.

Then that part ends and Jacob is suddenly narrating... I flip out... he'd become my least favorite character after a certain point. I mean, he was great until he became a werewolf and just hated Edward on principle and wanted to get in the way of that perfect ending. Of course, you spend enough time with someone, and you start to like them. Reading through the books again, I could almost see myself with Jacob, see why he's just as viable as an option. 

Reading through the book this time around, I devoured it and really got into it. Of course, there are bits and pieces they left out of the movie I wish they hadn't. But getting to know Jacob more and also getting to know Leah, another character I didn't like that much. Developing that dynamic between them was great. And I actually stopped reading the book where the movie would end. I'd never done that before, so it'll be interesting getting back to it from this perspective. 

The Story

Here's the basic story... and spoilers probably won't matter at this point. If you read the books or saw the movies, you know everything. And if you haven't, you probably don't care either way. I'm not gonna apologize.

Bella and Edward get married and Alice plans this really elaborate, but tasteful wedding for them. When she saw a vision of them at a Vegas chapel, she flipped out and demanded she plan the wedding. 

They have their honeymoon and Edward's condition for changing Bella into a vampire and them having sex is her becoming his wife first. Fair enough. But then they get together and he leaves bruises all over her body and refuses to hurt her again. So days are spent with her trying to get back with him and he's just planning excursions for them so she'll tire out. Later he gives in... but it's better this time around. 

The kicker... it should be impossible... but Bella gets knocked up. Edward is positive that it's going to kill her, so he wants it to get taken out. But she wants the exact opposite and actually enlists Rosalie (the one Cullen she doesn't get along with) to be on her side. 

The werewolves get involved, thinking that this thing will be a threat to their pack. What's worse is that it's growing really fast and, as Carlisle puts it in the movie, it's "incompatible with her body" so she's wasting away. Jacob finds out and alerts the werewolves, but when their leader Sam decides to kill Bella and the problem, Jacob rises to become an alpha, as he was born to be, and breaks away from the pack. Seth and Leah Clearwater later join him, despite his objections. 

Things eventually do turn a corner when they get the idea to have Bella drink blood and her condition starts to improve. Then Edward is able to hear the baby's thoughts, so things are turning around. 

The birth scene is very dramatic and almost horror-movie-esque with all that goes wrong. 

But Jacob imprints on the baby and Bella is able to change into a vampire with Edward's venom being injected into her Pulp-Fiction style.

And that's where Part 1 ends... 

The Movie

I'm just reading through some of my old notes to see if there's anything I want to copy/paste. 

For starters, the things in the book I miss... 

There was this dynamic between Jacob and Rosalie. Where he didn't like her and kept using dumb blonde jokes and she kept saying she'd heard them before. Another scene she gives him food and bends the plate to look like a dog dish. Also, Alice is really worked up about Bella's situation because she can't see her future and being near her gives her a headache. She and Jacob actually have a few moments where they're chilling together because he makes the headaches go away. 

The dynamic between Jacob and Leah- they sum up over two scenes, so I guess they did a good job of that. 

I also didn't like the dynamic between Bella and Edward. Carlisle gives his latest prognosis about the situation and surmises her heart will give out before delivery. Then Edward tries to convince her to stop things and she refuses. Then he yells at her, saying she'd chosen to take herself away from him. In the book, there was no fight. He spent a lot of the time as "the burning man" as Jacob described him. Like he was in pain, but couldn't outwardly express it. People are still incensed about Dumbledore yelling at Harry "did you put your name into the Goblet of Fire?" when the book clearly says that he said this calmly. Same thing... 

There were just so much drama during that 2nd half of the movie and there weren't enough light moments in between. But adding the complication that the Cullens haven't hunted in a while because Sam has the werewolves keeping a tight perimeter around the house... that was a good addition. 

One scene I felt was randomly thrown in there. Before Edward is whisked away to his bachelor party by Emmett and Jasper, he suddenly gets serious and says how she doesn't know everything about him and goes into flashbacks about a rebellious period he went through as a vampire.
My thoughts- why are you bringing this up NOW? They had so much time before this that this scene just feels thrown in to create some unnecessary drama. The book really didn't go into this at all. Bella did have a nightmare before her wedding day, but it had nothing to do with all of this. 

Backing up for a second to the wedding... 

The toasts were great. They showed the sense of humor of the cast. Emmett had his comments about not getting sleep for a while, haha... that could be taken a few ways. Then Charlie, omg, he was hilarious. The theater laughed at a bunch of his one-liners. How he knows how to use a gun and implying he'll hunt Edward down if he causes any trouble. 

The wedding was BEAUTIFUL… Alice went out of her way to make it look perfect… I did imagine it being in the Cullens’ living room, but to hell with that… the hairclip (which was her something old, new, borrowed & blue) was the greatest finishing touch, her dress was beautiful… she looked beautiful… everyone did…

there was a quick scene addressing the Denali sisters, Kate, Tanya and Irina, who was still pissed off about Laurent getting slaughtered by the werewolves... this becomes more important in part 2.
I forgot how self-involved Jessica was in the books… she made a comment in the speeches about how Edward became all about Bella when she arrived and vice versa and quote “it wasn’t like she was head of the volleyball team or anything… president of student council”… also made the comment about Bella getting knocked up cuz why else would someone get married at 18 :sigh: I think they only had those parts cuz Anna Kendrick seems to get a lot of screen time anyway. Kinda like they gave her the valedictorian speech in the last movie when she wasn't even the valedictorian. (I love Anna Kendrick, but I don't like that they changed that part of the book... even if it was a great speech). 

Jacob has always kinda been a two-way street for me… and the wires get crossed really fast with him… because he makes rash decisions too…
at the wedding he shows up and I’m with Bella, so happy he decided to come and sad that she has to say goodbye to him… then when he hears she’s planning to lose her virginity, he gets all bent out of shape… immediately I went from grateful he showed up to angry he was being so difficult…

Team Jacob fans will definitely be happy with this movie because there was a lot of Quileute coverage… scenes with Jacob, Leah and Seth… also kinda noticed there being a little added element of Charlie spending time with Sue Clearwater (widow of his friend Harry who died from a heart attack in “New Moon”)… it's sweet. And there's a hinted rivalry with him and Billy.

The honeymoon was everything I thought it was going to be… very romantic… no disappointments at all with the sex scene… there was no nudity and it didn’t last too long… 

I swear I was on pins and needles the entire time, though… because I had no idea when the news was going to come out.
The montage was great… they took the concept of the chess board from the book cover and used it during the scenes where Bella wants to get into bed with Edward again and he’s refusing cuz he doesn’t want to hurt her anymore… the bruises weren’t nearly as bad as I read in the book, I think he was getting a little too sensitive about it, though I agree there were some dangers in it

Finally she has a dream about getting into it again with him and she’s crying because she wanted it to be real  guilts him into going through with it again…It's also funny how she waltzes around in the lingerie Alice packed for her, as if making her intentions VERY obvious. I think the theater laughed at that too.

The pivotal scene was handled extremely well… but I was nervous about whether or not they’d include a key element… to my complete relief they did…
Bella gets panicked when she hears that Edward wants to save her from “the thing”… and that idea is just tangible enough where I’m in the same boat as she is… at the airport, it finally happens: she calls Rosalie and asks for her help

Rosalie’s biggest qualm about being a vampire was that she missed out on humans experience… the only thing she was ever jealous of was the fact one of her best friends was happily married with a baby… that was something she couldn’t have now that she’d become a vampire. Naturally, she is on Bella’s side, the only one in this matter…
there’s some banter back and forth between her and Alice about calling it a fetus or a baby, which makes sense…

For sure, my props to the make-up people for just giving the big picture to Bella’s deterioration…
some people can say that Kristen Stewart only has a select number of facial expressions, and in some cases, it's the same story here… but in the other cases, even in the honeymoon scene, I saw a few degrees for her character that I didn’t see nearly as much in “Twilight”…with time, she truly embraced the character and made it her own.

Leah rubbed me the wrong way in “Eclipse” but she was going through her growing pains… having just become a werewolf so she can’t get away from Sam… the fact he imprinted with her friend Emily when the two of them had been going out… talk about melodrama. She was hoping to imprint on someone so she could forget about Sam, put all of that behind her.

the one big werewolf scene was when Jacob fought against Sam, broke away from the pack and became his own alpha to protect Bella… supposedly the alpha can force his followers to submit to him and that was never fully addressed until now (well, except in “New Moon” where Jacob had to work around the order to not say anything to anyone about the Quileute tribe magic)

Just about all of the critical elements from the book were there.

A huge fight broke out at the end between the vampires and werewolves… I don’t remember that in the book at all… it was really cool.

The delivery scene on the other hand… I was expecting a lot more blood, honestly… they said it was supposed to be like a horror movie… but there really wasn’t that much at all…
Bella supposedly dies on the operating table and Jacob runs out, unable to take his grief… then for whatever reason, he feels pulled back in by something…

The imprinting scene was surreal… Jacob was in the delivery room, I figured it would have happened then, but maybe when he locked eyes with Renesme, everything clicked… and she’s going to look so amazing when she grows up.

For me personally… I think that the scene with Edward giving Bella CPR went on a little too long… I mean, she looked DEAD… as in not even getting the venom pumping through her veins would save her… he must have done 100 compressions in what feels like forever… 10 minutes too long, got less and less realistic and likely she’d survive it…
and yes, even in the realm of impossibility where a vampire and a human can conceive, I believe that was unrealistic.

After biting her all over and the CGI showed the venom circulating… Bella’s life was flashing before her eyes… she was under morphine, which explained why she wasn’t writhing with pain… something I was expecting, didn’t really see anything that indicated she was still alive.

Carlisle assured Edward that the transformation was taking place… strange how they made the room all comfortable for her… put her in a nice blue dress, combed her hair… perhaps the coolest of all the CGI was making her pale, taking away the bite marks… I swear she looked like Snow White, she was so beautiful.

It’s kinda funny that that was the first thing that came to mind: the way Bella described Esme the first time she saw her “an actress from the silent film era… Snow White in the flesh”… wow… And as I predicted, it was a similar thing to the end of “Avatar”—the movie ends with her eyes opening, but her eyes are blood red.

I swear this went by so fast and I was really absorbed in it. But maybe compared to the other movies, I don’t like it quite as much. A little too much drama. I’d place New Moon dead last and maybe this one next. The only movie that can rival the first point might be Breaking Dawn part 2. But I’ll know for sure when I get there.