We Watched The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2012, Dir. by Bill Condon)


Earlier today, Lis and I finished up the Twilight Saga with Breaking Dawn Part 2.

Bella (Kristen Stewart) is now a vampire and a mother to Renesmee (Mackenzie Foy), who is developing quicker than a normal child because she is half-vampire. Before Edward (Robert Pattinson) even lets Bella see her daughter, he takes her hunting, and he has to stop her from attacking a mountain climber who has scratched his arm on a rock. While Bella adjusts to being a vampire, Jacob (Taylor Lautner) adjusts to being Renesmee’s soul mate, and the Volturi prepare to make their move against the Cullens.

I’m going to get in trouble with my sister for saying this, but I was a little disappointed with the second Breaking Dawn movie. It bothered me that the entire movie was about the Cullens bringing together allies for their inevitable battle with Aro (Michael Sheen) and the Volturi, but then, when the big battle finally happens, it turns out that it was just one of Alice’s visions, and they end up deciding not to fight. After two hours of everyone talking about this huge battle and how everyone had to be prepared to fight for the lives, it was anticlimactic not to have a real one. It seemed like the whole movie could have just been 30 minutes long without really losing anything important. I really didn’t see the point of splitting the book into two movies because hardly anything happened during the second one.

Breaking Dawn Part 2 might not work as a standalone movie, but it does work as an end to the saga. After four movies and the longest senior year on record, Bella and Edward are finally together and they’re happy. And Jacob is happy too. At the end of the movie, when they showed everyone who had appeared over the course of the entire saga, I was really touched.

And that’s it for the story of Bella, Edward, and Jacob.

We Watched The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part One (2011, Dir. by Bill Condon)


Earlier today, Lis and I watched the second-to-last Twilight film, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part One.

The movie starts with Bella (Kristen Stewart) finally marrying Edward (Robert Pattinson). They get married in the woods, and almost everyone from the entire saga is there, including Bella’s mother. Bella’s father (Billy Burke) and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) don’t approve of her marrying Edward, and Jessica (Anna Kendrick) thinks Bella is pregnant—why else would she be getting married at 18? I probably would have thought the same thing if I were at the wedding, but actually, Bella and Edward are virgins when they marry. Even though Jacob warns that a human could die having sex with a vampire because of how strong vampires are, Bella and Edward still consummate their marriage without Edward turning Bella into a vampire. Edward does not want to turn Bella for some reason. Lis and I agreed that Edward probably wants Bella to get old and die so that he can find someone else. There’s also a weird scene when Edward confesses to Bella that he briefly rebelled against his father and drank the blood of men in the 1920s. Bella says that’s fine because all the men were bad. Team Jacob is looking better and better.

Bella ends up getting pregnant with a hybrid baby. The pregnancy progresses at a faster rate than Bella’s body is prepared for. Edward tries to talk Bella into having an abortion, but Bella refuses. Instead, they return to Forks and stay with Edward’s family. Bella starts to drink blood so that the fetus will stop feasting on her. Jacob, meanwhile, tries to keep the wolf pack from killing Bella to prevent her half-vampire baby from harming anyone.

I have to respect that Twilight built an entire movie around one very difficult pregnancy. That’s probably why the acting in Breaking Dawn is considerably better than in the previous Twilight movies—there’s more at stake than just Bella missing her boyfriend or trying to decide between Edward and Jacob. Though I didn’t realize it until I rewatched the movie, Taylor Lautner really poured his heart into Jacob in this film. I also remember that, when I first saw this movie, I wasn’t comfortable with the “imprinting” scene, and watching it again, I still wasn’t comfortable with it. If you’ve seen the movie or read the books, you know what I mean.

After all this time, I don’t know if it’s really a spoiler to say that this movie ends with Bella opening her eyes and revealing that she is now a vampire. She got a husband, a baby, and immortality! Way to go, Bella!

Tomorrow, we’ll be finishing things up with Breaking Dawn: Part Two.