When I see movies based upon books, which is a lot since I love both, I almost always come away thinking that the book is way better than the movie. Since the Breaking Dawn book was my least favorite in the Twilight series I did not have very high hopes for the movie. All of the Twilight movies thus far have been fun and enjoyable but nothing that rocked my socks off. The underlying story made me a devoted watcher but I certainly noticed all the flaws and at times, the bad acting. Breaking Dawn though really did blow me away, with how GOOD it is.

Perhaps the difference is the director, Bill Condon, or the addition of special effects never seen before. Maybe it was the lighter, funnier tone, or the fact that this movie (compared to the first three) actually felt like a sci-fi thriller. I enjoyed this movie immensely though. I was either smiling like a goofball or crying my eyeballs out. It was funny, it was touching, and it was action packed.

The first 1/3 of the movie is the wedding. The setting was gorgeous, the dress was enchanting, and all the different characters really made you “feel” what they were feeling. Charlie is conflicted about losing his daughter, Edward is over the moon happy (something we rarely saw prior), Rosalie is coming to embrace her new sister, Jacob is still painfully in love and trying to do the right thing, Carlisle and Esme are giddy with love and adoration for their new daughter. The whole wedding sequence was long but it really needed to be, to show how each and every character was impacted by this event. At the reception we got to hear everyone make funny toasts which was a nice upbeat change. Jessica couldn’t help but make little digs at Bella for being the one to snag Edward and Charlie couldn’t resist making veiled threats to Edward. We also met new vampires, the Cullen’s extended family, and the foundation was laid for future “issues”.

The second 1/3 of the movie was the honeymoon. It too was long but fans have waited several years for Edward and Bella to finally have their happy ending so I think it was worth it. Of course happy ever after ends in only 2 weeks when Bella finds out she is pregnant. The maid who is so alarmed that one of Edward’s kind is romancing a human was actually kind of a scene stealer. Her disapproving looks were priceless and when she discovered that Bella was pregnant she very ominously declared that this was a death sentence for Bella. Edward, knowing that this older lady did in fact have some experience with vampires, knew she was right.

The last 1/3 of the movie follows the pregnancy, and shows how conflicted everyone is after Bella decides she must keep the child. Everyone (except Rosalie) tries to talk her out of it but she is firm. I really liked how she finally got some courage and stood up to an often times overbearing Edward. On the flip side I also understood Edward’s constant anger towards her. When he told her that she was making all the choices and leaving him powerless in his own life, that she was CHOOSING to leave him, and that he would never be okay with that, I was heartbroken right alongside him. He was put in the position of having to watch her die and being told he needed to be okay with it, when he knew he never could be.

Jacob wrestles with his own feelings but he is helped along by his pack when they decide that Bella and her child have to die. When Sam tells him he needs to submit, he kind of snaps. He breaks off from Sam and makes his own pack. He also decides he will protect Bella at all costs but in the back of his mind he is toying with killing her child if Bella does in fact die. And it isn’t looking good. Through CGI Bella is made to look terrible… like a walking skeleton.

Edward meanwhile finally hears his baby’s thoughts. That may have been the most touching scene of all. Bella is doing better physically after she starts drinking human blood and she and Edward finally decide to make peace with each other and then he hears his child. You can visually see the shift in him from concerned lover to proud father and husband… a man who WANTS a family.

When the big moment comes Jacob and Edward deliver Renesmee and that moment was sort of perfect. Edward takes the baby and holds her up for Bella to see. The pride in Edward is so profound and he can barely pass the baby off to Rosalie such is his newfound love. When Bella fades away and dies shortly after I was crying so hard. She looked like walking death and then she was death. Edward goes into fast action and his furor and emotion was hard to watch. As was Jacob when he went outside and collapsed on the ground for a good cry.

Edward is able to get Bella’s heart beating again but she is peculiarly still and silent.   He cannot think about that though because Sam’s wolf pack is coming to kill his child. Jacob gets the same idea in his head and he walks up behind Rosalie holding the infant. Before he can pounce he imprints on her. We hear his own words in a voice over describing what imprinting is. We see Renesmee through the years from baby, to child, to an absolutely gorgeous young woman and we a sense, through these flashes and Jacob’s thoughts that he loves her, this woman he has yet to meet. With new purpose he goes outside to a nasty fight outside that it looks like the Cullen’s will lose. When they discover he has imprinted on Renesmee they leave in defeat, not willing to break their most sacred pact to honor the life mate of their pack members.

The movie closes with shots panning Bella’s body. It slowly heals and regenerates and she transforms into an ethereal beauty. Her heart stops and the whole household pauses and waits. Edward goes to her side and she opens her lovely eyes. We see a flash of those brilliant and slightly terrifying red eyes and then it goes dark.

Whew! What a fantastic ride! As I mentioned it was just the right mix of funny, touching, emotional, tense, and thrilling. It has some pretty amazing special effects to. We finally see and hear the wolf pack talking to each other using their hive mind. We see how they discover Bella’s pregnancy by reading Jacob’s thoughts with a series of picture images and memories. We go inside Bella’s body as the venom spreads and heals her body, cell by cell, and organ by organ. We also get to see how painful and terrifying the venom is, with a a series of scary flashes and terrified screams that are all in her head. She is writhing inside her own paralyzed body. This movie was able to go into greater detail than any of the others by using CGI to say what words cannot.

Of course the greatest testimony to how much I enjoyed it is the fact that I will be seeing it again. Maybe a few times. It was just that good.

Woot! The official trailer and boy is it ever exciting!! Fave line goes to Edward… “You are leaving me no choice!”

]]> http://www.fanpirediaries.com/official-breaking-dawn-part-1-trailer/feed/ 0 http://www.fanpirediaries.com/twilight-breaking-dawn-teaser-posters/ http://www.fanpirediaries.com/twilight-breaking-dawn-teaser-posters/#comments Fri, 09 Sep 2011 00:07:56 +0000 admin http://www.fanpirediaries.com/?p=975 Yahoo Movies released two new Twilight Breaking Dawn Teaser posters tonight. Enjoy!

This clip aired at Comic Con 2011 (#SDCC) and we only have this crappy quality version to share on the net but die hard fans are sure to overlook that … even the idea of these scenes get is smiling!

If you are a parent and are not familiar with the content of the Twilight saga you may wonder if these books are appropriate for young girls and tweens. Or maybe you HAVE read them yourself and just want to get the perspective of some other parents before you hand the books over to your kids. Either way I don’t blame you. Parents might want to consider this before letting their kids jump onto to the Twilight bandwagon.

The movies Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse are PG 13. The first is pretty innocent barring a few kisses with one party being in naught but panties. New Moon is pretty tame on the sexy stuff and Eclipse is more action packed as well but there is a scene where Bella tries to seduce her vampire boyfriend. As a mother of 3 and HUGE Twilight fan I would stick to that age 13 and up guideline.

I feel similarly about the books. The first book, Twilight is pretty innocent as is the second one, New Moon. Yes they have some steamy kisses and passionate longing but nothing is acted out. Some parents might still want to be careful exposing kids younger than 12-13 to that type of reading. While the physical relationship in Twilight cannot progress because of the human/vampire conundrum I think that just makes it all the easier for young girls to think about how those barriers do NOT exist in real life.

The third book Eclipse has one of the characters Bella thinking about sex quite a bit, even going as far as trying to shimmy out of her clothes while she and Edward kiss. There is a lot of description about Edward’s rock hard body and perfect face as well. The book has no sex to speak of but there is much longing for sex, even when not advisable… not something I would be anxious for my young daughter or son to be thinking about. And I like Sonja Bolle’s description of Breaking Dawn:

In the fourth book, by contrast, the lovers have tons of sex. First, they marry, of course, and produce a fetching baby. But the fourth book answers the burning question about what vampires do with all their free time, since they don’t sleep. It turns out that married vampires have a lot of sex. They are immensely strong, so they end up destroying a lot of perfectly lovely beds, and much other furniture to boot. In fact, their lovemaking is so ferocious that one young married vampire couple teases the newlyweds that they can’t be truly crazy for each other, because they haven’t destroyed enough houses yet.

As an adult I thought the sex could have and should been a bit more graphic after that long wait and a little less silly (aka pillow biting). BUT if kids are reading this same book and estimates say 25 million of these books ARE being read by kids 10 and under… then I think they are not appropriate. Especially inappropriate would be scenes that Bolle did not mention where Bella emotionally blackmails Edward for sex. He does not want to her hurt her again after their initial foray and so she parades around in front of him in skimpy negligees and uses her body to entice him. Sex is used as a bargaining chip as well. The last book is very much an adult book in my opinion and in actuality the characters ARE adults by this time. Some of them always were (the vamps). These are young ADULT books…not preteen books. The movie Breaking Dawn (which will be released in two parts) in rumored to have some stronger sexual content than the previous movies.

Happily though, they dispose of the dialogue quickly and then it’s supposed to be all limbs and writhing and wrapping around each other from the sea to the house and much of it is relayed, rather cleverly actually, in flashback form. After they show the initial hook up from beach to bedroom, we jump to the morning after as Edward is constipated about something and Bella is examining her body. Cut to her memories of the night before, the touching, and his kissing the length of her body, and the clenching, and her head thrown back, and his struggle to, um, think about baseball, and her resulting pleasure, and some furniture gets broken. It actually reads pretty erotic, and if they cut it the way it’s written, it should be even hotter to watch. Even I would enjoy watching it if they stay with that spirit. – Lainey Gossip

My daughter is still very young but I would try to keep this series away from her until she was at least 15-16. I see no reason to have her reading about this beautiful man/boy and how much Bella wants to have sex with him and how she uses her body to sway him from his decision to refrain. While it may have some semi-good points, like no sex until marriage even that is portrayed all wrong because all it does is give one a foolish reason for teenagers to want to get married… for the sex. I would rather my teen just have sex rather than get married just so they can have sex.

So… the recommendation of this thirty-something mom with 3 kids is that the first two Twilight movies are okay for kids 13 and up and the first two books are as well. BUT the second two books and the 3rd, 4th, and 5th movies, IMO, should be put on hold until 15-16 years old and some parental discussions should occur while they are being read. Moms should be reading them too so they get a feel for what their daughter’s might be thinking about sex and relationships.

So what do you think? Is Twilight appropriate for young girls, say 13 and under? Why or why not?

Like her sisters she is a peaceful vampire but she is angry with the Cullens for the death of her lover Laurent. Also according to the books, she and her sisters were orphaned by the Volturi when they executed their “mother” for harboring an immortal child. When Bella and Edward welcome a little someone into their lives, Irina will conclude that another immortal child has been made, and will set off a terrifying chain of events.

You may have seen the lovely Maggie Grace in Taken with Liam Neesan and the TV series LOST.

The first of two pictures will be released by Summit Entertainment on November 18, 2011, followed by the finale on November 16, 2012.

Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4) Average Rating: 5,654 total customer reviews...