Tag Archives: Justin Chon

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

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

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)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

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.

We Watched The Twilight Saga: Eclipse (2010, Dir. by David Slade)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Lis and I have been rewatching the Twilight movies this October. Yesterday, we watched New Moon and then Eclipse.

In Eclipse, Edward (Robert Pattinson) and the Cullens have returned to Forks because Edward was just so depressed not being near Bella (Kristen Stewart), and Bella somehow flew all the way to Italy to be with him without getting in very much trouble with her father. Edward has asked Bella to marry him, but Bella is upset that Edward won’t “change me,” and she’s also wondering if maybe she and Jacob (Taylor Lautner) are meant to be more than just friends. The first time I saw this movie, I was Team Edward all the way, but now I see Jacob as being the better choice because he could provide her with a stable and protective home without having to transform her into a supernatural creature beforehand.

While Bella is trying to choose between Edward and Jacob, vampire Victoria Sutherland (Bryce Dallas Howard) is gathering an army of “newborn” vampires to attack the Cullens and kill Bella to get revenge for the death of her lover, James, in the first Twilight film. Alice (Ashley Greene) is having visions of the newborns attacking. The Cullens enter an alliance with the werewolves to keep Bella safe.

There’s a lot going on in this movie. I feel bad for anyone who watched Eclipse as their first Twilight movie because they probably had no idea why Dakota Fanning showing up with her red eyes was such a big moment. Even while Bella is trying to pick between Edward and Jacob and get ready for the big battle, life goes on in Forks. She goes to her high school graduation, where Jessica (Anna Kendrick) is the valedictorian. She’s living both the life of a teenager and being vampire-stalked at the same time. Her father even tries to have “the talk” with her, but it’s not necessary. Edward doesn’t want to turn her into a vampire and he doesn’t want to have sex before marriage. He’s a 104-year-old virgin. That’s how strongly he believes in waiting for someone you love. That’s one of those things that seems sweet the first time you hear it and then obsessive the second time.

I liked Eclipse, even if parts of it seem pretty dumb now. My sister and I both agreed that it was foolish of Bella to ask Edward to make her a vampire before she even knew if they were sexually compatible. Becoming a vampire is an even bigger commitment than going exclusive. But it’s a fantasy. The big battle at the end is exciting and it actually happens instead of just being Alice having a vision. Edward proves that he can fight just as well as Jacob. I still think Jacob would be the better provider.

Tomorrow, we will move on to Breaking Dawn!

We Watched The Twilight Saga: New Moon (2009, Dir. by Chris Weitz)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Today, Lis and I continued to rewatch the Twilight movies on Netflix.

New Moon was the second part of the Twilight Saga. Because people in town are starting to notice that he hasn’t aged in ten years, Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) decides that the Cullens need to move to a new location. Edward explains to Bella that the worst thing a vampire can do is allow humans to discover that they exist. Edward also says that Bella can’t come with the Cullens because it would raise suspicion and it would also put Bella in danger, since even the members of his family are tempted to drink her blood. Bella says, “Change me!” and Edward says not unless they’re married.

The Cullens leave and Bella has a breakdown, and even her father wants to send her back to Florida to live with her mother. Finally, Bella starts hanging out with Jacob (Taylor Lautner), a member of the Quileute Tribe who is also revealed to be a werewolf. Werewolves and vampires hate each other, but the Forks werewolves had arranged a truce with the Cullens where they wouldn’t attack them as long as the Cullens didn’t bite any humans. If Edward had changed Bella, the truce would have been canceled and the werewolves would have had to attack Bella.

When Alice (Ashley Greene) misinterprets a vision of the future and thinks that Bella is dead, Edward leaves wherever it is he’s living and goes to Italy to ask the ruling vampire council to destroy him. Even though Jacob’s in love with her, Bella goes to Italy to try to save Edward’s life.

I remember really liking New Moon when I saw it because I was in a long-distance relationship and I could relate to what Bella was going through. When we rewatched it, I had forgotten how long the movie was and how little actually happens until Bella goes to Italy, which doesn’t even happen until the movie’s nearly over. The other thing I forgot about this one was that they really overdid the vampire makeup on Robert Pattinson at the start of the movie. He was so pale and wearing so much lipstick that everyone should have been able to figure out that he was a vampire just by looking at him.

When this movie came out, everyone was either Team Jacob or Team Edward. I was Team Edward because, again, I was in a long-distance relationship. But rewatching it, I realized that I should have been Team Jacob because he really was nicer to Bella and he wasn’t constantly sulking about everything like Edward. Jacob came with a lot less baggage and he was part of that tribe where you’re apparently not allowed to wear a shirt. No one in the tribe wore a shirt and they all looked like models. They probably all were models. This movie knew what we wanted to see.

I still enjoyed rewatching the movie. The men were all sexy and brooding. Anna Kendrick was funny. Dakota Fanning had red eyes and sent psychic pain waves. Bella said, “Change me,” and Edward looked tortured. It wasn’t as good as I remembered and it probably could have been cut down to 30 minutes without really losing much of the plot but it’s Twilight. If you know, you know.

Now, we’re moving on to Eclipse.

We Watched Twilight (2007, Dir. by Catherine Hardwicke)

Posted on by Dazzling Erin

Oh, Twilight! How we missed you, with your blue-tinted view of the world and your romantic bloodsuckers!

After her mother remarries a minor-league baseball player, 17-year-old Bella (Kristen Stewart) moves from sunny Arizona to gray, wet Washington State. She lives with her father, the police chief (Billy Burke), and starts at a new school. Her friend is played by Anna Kendrick! How cool is that? She has a crush on Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), and Edward has a crush on her, but Edward’s also a vampire, and he’s been seventeen since the Spanish flu epidemic. Bella discovers that she loves Edward, Edward loves Bella, and Edward’s family loves Bella, but there’s a group of vampires who want to feast on Bella. Also, Bella’s friend Jacob (Taylor Lautner) doesn’t like Edward, but we won’t find out the full details about all that until the next movie!

Lisa and I watched Twilight on Netflix earlier today, and yeah, it’s bad, but it’s just so addictive that you can’t look away. Even today, it’s hard to know whether to laugh or swoon. I usually end up doing both because the longing and smoldering way that Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson look at each other makes up for the fact that it’s a long movie where not much really happens. I was so excited waiting for the baseball scene, but I had forgotten how long it takes before Edward’s adopted family plays vampire baseball in the middle of a storm. Sign them all up for the Rangers, I don’t care if they glow. A sensitive ball player? Go ahead and bite my neck! Edward might seem mopey but when Bella needs to be protected from the other vampires, he and his father (Peter Facinelli) are right there and showing they know what to do. He’s a fighter, that Edward Cullen! And he’s a dream of a prom date too.

Twilight is what it is, and everyone who makes fun of it has a point, but I don’t care. I’ll be watching the second movie tomorrow.