Customer Reviews

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part I (Two-Disc Special Edition)

5 star:		(129)
4 star:		(24)
3 star:		(33)
2 star:		(18)
1 star:		(55)

 

 

I just saw "Breaking Dawn" part 1, and I was VERY impressed, even if as a man I am probably not the most typical fan of "Twilight" series. I rather liked all the "Twilight" movies until now and this one is, to my personnal taste, as good as the previous ones - and even in one aspect a little bit better, as Edward and Bella finally become lovers. Below, you will find a short description of what I believe are the best elements of this film, with very limited SPOILERS:

1. Actors. All actors evolved as the serie continued and I believe they all got better with time. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner are both excellent, but - in my humble opinion - it is Kristen Stewart who in this movie shines the most. Quite a lot of people frequently criticized her actorship claiming that she simply can not play at all and has a very limited assortment of expressions in her tool box. But for me, after reading "Twilight" books, this is how the character of Bella should be. I can hardly picture her wide smiling with all her teeth bared or doing any other highly extraverted things like that. In fact I believe that either by design or by accident Kristen Stewart got the things right about this character - her minimalistic approach to facial expressions actually makes (for me) Bella very believable and also quite likeable. In this part of the story, Bella takes a more dynamic approach to life by taking her destiny firmly under control. She makes important decisions and takes extreme risks, stubbornly resisting the opposite advice of all her family and friends - all of that in a deceptively unassuming way... And Kristen Stewart acted in the movie exactly as I pictured Bella did it, when I read the books. A very good job!

Other actors are also great, with Ashley Greene and Billy Burke being as usual the pillars - but amongst the supporting roles it is Nikki Reed who really gets the most praise from me. She has a much bigger role in this film and she is perfect in it! The one (little) disappointment is Jackson Rathbone, who changed comletely his haircut for this film and as a result his character, Jasper, seems much less impressive, which is a pity. He also seems to appear very little in the "first line", almost as if the director preferred to hide him a little...

2. Visual aspects. As usual, the images of state of Washington are great, but the tropical island where Bella and Edward spend their honey moon is also very pleasantly showed. Dark forests filled with (were)wolves are very much present here and they are a great background for the story.

3. Music. As usual in those series, music and songs have been selected very carefully and with a great taste.

4. The (were)wolf pack. The Quileute wolves are shown here even more and better than in the previous part. The scene of their war council, when they are all in the werewolf form, is absolutely great! The scene when Sam (the alpha male) asserts and confirms his power over the pack is excellent - as good as the description of Jacob's defiance and its consequences.

5. The wedding. A very nice and moving scene with some humour elements, especially when the guests make speeches offering toasts. Emmett, Jessica and Bella's father give here a great show. In the same time Mike Newton obsesses on vampire bridesmaids from the Denali clan, to the point of drooling (and I TOTALLY understand him!). Bella's mum and, suprprise surprise, Rosalie (!) are also real treasures in wedding scenes.

6. Quileute wolves vs. Cullen coven confrontation. This heartbreaking, tense and at moments violent conflict in which both sides are trapped against their will is a great moment in the Twilight saga - and its final resolution is even better! Finally it is true what the Beatles were singing - all you need is love! Babies help too...

7. The fight for Bella's life, Renesmee's bloody birth and Bella's fate - excellent! Those were moments very difficult to film - but the challenge was met succesfully! Nothing more about it to avoid more spoilers, but I was very impressed!

Conclusion: it is an excellent movie which I watched with great pleasure. My wife, who usually is a much harder person to please, loved it too and she is going to see it again with some girlfriends. And we will certainly both wait with great expectations for the "Breaking dawn" part 2. If it was done as well as that one, it will be certainly worth waiting one year to see it...

Being a huge fan of the books and a pretty big fan of the movies, I was blown away at what a great job they did with this movie installment. I loved the visual and audio parallels they drew between the original movie, Twilight, and this movie. For instance (Spoiler Alerts throughout): I loved how they played Flightless Bird during the wedding ceremony and the way the camera circled them kissing in the same manner the camera circled E & B kissing at Prom at the very end of Twilight. It was a subtle, yet stunning way to visually tie the two movies together and really made more of an emotional impact than if they had just shot them straight on and plugged in a different song. That was genius. And that dress...gorgeous. Just as it was described in the book.

I also loved that rather than having one continuous honeymoon "consummation" scene, they broke it up with Bella thinking about certain moments the next morning after looking in the mirror for the first time, where she's no longer a virgin. It was all done so tastefully. The way one's first time should be at that age. Not at some house party or in the back of some guy's car. For those who read the books and knew how Edward did everything he could to exhaust Bella with activities on their honeymoon so she'd be too tired to "try again", you have to admit that Bill Condon did such a great job showing you visually all the things they were doing without either character having to come out and say, I'm/you're trying to exhaust you/me. And it was adorable with KS put on her little nightgown and leaned against the wall...I got married when I was 19 and I felt the exact same way when I put on lingerie for the first time and dreaded walking into the bedroom with my little gown on. I felt like a child playing dress-up, much like it came off Bella felt.

I was also very impressed by the manner with which Bill Condon allowed us to see through the eyes of Jacob for the first time and hear what he hears with regard to the internal dialog between him and the pack. That scene where the wolves were running to the lumber yard and their voices echoed in Jacob's mind...that was so perfectly done. AND, I loved loved loved the way the Sam and Jacob had their battle for alpha. It was as if you, the person watching the movie, was in the mind of a wolf who is being forced into submission by it's Alpha. The CGI team did a great job because I forgot I was watching computer generated wolves and the intensity of the scene felt like I was there witnessing the true dynamic of a wolf pack.

I thought the birth scene was beyond intense. The scene almost mirroring that as it's written in the book. I think they showed just the right amount of Bella's internal agony during her transformation. For those of us who read the books, to say she had a prolonged bout of suffering during her transformation would be an understatement. However, if they had shown more of that in the movie, it would have taken from the torture that Edward was going through thinking he had lost Bella, and Jacob's malevolence towards Renesmee prior to imprinting on her. That whole scene allowed for each character's state of mind to be both seen, visually, and felt, emotionally. Powerfully shot and brilliantly executed.

I imagine the imprinting scene was a difficult one to translate from paper to screen. They did a great job in this as well. Not in any way cheesy, but sweet and breathless...if that makes any sense. The only thing I did not love about it was that the girl/teenager Jacob sees as an older Renesmee appeared to be CGI. They used an actual young girl to play the younger Renesmee, why not use a real person for the older Renesmee too? I'm sure Hollywood has a few young actresses that would have auditioned for the part???

I loved the fight between the wolves and the Cullens at the very end of the movie. In the books, you go from Jacob's perspective where he witnesses Bella's death and then walks into the living room to kill Renesmee, only to imprint on her. And then you go immediately back to Bella's perspective where she's riving in pain while she's transforming into a vampire. I feel Melissa Rosenburg had a stroke of brilliance when she decided to add this scene so that the audience could see what could have happened in the books, but did happen in the movie, during the time period between Jacob imprinting on Renesmee and Bella awakening for the first time as a vampire. Another unexpected and totally welcomed brilliant surprise of this movie.

Another welcome surprise for me was while Bella was at the very end of her transformation. I thought it was a touching visual moment that just before her heart beat for the very last time, we witnessed Bella's memories in a somewhat reverse chronological order, ending with her very first human memory as a baby in the arms of her parents bouncing her in front of a mirror.

But what was not a surprise and what I've been telling my fellow twi-hards the past couple years is the very last scene of the movie. Once I heard they were splitting BD into two parts, I've always maintained there's only one way to end part 1 with truly visual impact...and that is to witness Bella's subtle transformation from a broken human to a perfect vampire, surrounded by the Cullens, with the scene closing in on Bella's perfect facial features, zooming into her perfectly shut eyes...that suddenly open the most gorgeous crimson red....and straight to credits. I actually gave myself a little pat on the back for that one because so much of the movie exceeded my expectations of visual and audio creativity, and yet the last scene ending a certain way was something I was very adamant with my friends about, and sure enough that's how it ends. So maybe now I can revel in having an ounce of the vision that Bill Condon and Melissa Rosenburg possess...hey I'll take that ounce.

Aside from the standout scenes I've mentioned herein, I thought Kristen Stewart did her best portrayal of Bella yet. Her facial expressions alone are so real to each moment they're almost tangible. I've enjoyed the work KS has done prior to the Twilight Saga, and I am so glad these movies have launched her career because I am certain she will be one of the great leading ladies of acting for many decades to come. So to all Twi-hards out there. This movie was amazing. A must see for those who loved the books and fans of the previous movies. I can't wait for it to come out on DVD so that I can add it to my Twilight Saga collection.

You get a single disk with the Theatrical Release and a few extras. What in THE world makes this a special edition? You don't even know this is your lot until you open it and see it on the disc. :(

I was SO anticipating this last in the saga that is TWILIGHT!!! The eternal lovers Edward and his Bells would at last be united in holy matrimony.

I desperately wanted to feel majick* in the air, emotions running blood red hot, unbridled passion, heart wrenching torment, unspeakable angst!!! But alas, what director Bill Condon conjured up for us was non-existent majick, less than passive emotion, tepid angst and above all; bridled passion.

I was wondering why i was having such a difficult time writing this review...It's because i have never been so dispassionate before about writing a review on TWILIGHT! My disappointment runs deep my friends!

It seems as though the powers that be went out of their way to make everyone in this film look extraordinarily unattractive. In my humble opinion everything from hair and make-up to clothing choices was all wrong!

Why was Kristin Stewart's Bella made to look so matronly and dowdy??? Even on her wedding day she seemed far less than the perfectly deliriously happy bride??? Why did she appear to be even more skeletal then usual??? Why did Rob Pattinson's Edward look so pathetically emaciated, weak and wimpy??? Why did they chose to make Edward look so not sexy with those crazy screwy eyes???

Where was the deep emotional connection of love between Edward and Bella at the wedding ceremony??? Where was it at the honeymoon???

How did the set designers manage to make even the most anticipated honeymoon of all time, on Isle Esme, look drab and unromantic? You have to really go out of your way to make a tropical paradise look so unmemorable.

Bella's pregnancy was the most incredibly gray and drab and miserable period of time that i have ever witnessed. Where was the unbearable tension angst and sorrow during the heart stopping conclusion of pt. 1???

I could go on and on but why should i??? Even so, I can see a glimmer of hope in those shocking BLOODSHOT red eyes O_O of Bella's. Maybe i'll be able to sink my teeth into BREAKING DAWN pt. deux; after all and find redemption and closure at last.

BITTER* spits out her champagne...............

(Spoiler Alert!)

I've read a lot of the reviews here, and I had to have my say, as it seems most reviewers are either die-hard fans or Twilight-loathers. I'm somewhere in between. I have read all the Twilight books, and have seen all the movies. I am a fan, and for a while, I was an avid fan. Not so much anymore. Possibly because I got over the hype (and my own immaturity), and also because ever since Eclipse I have found the movies increasingly disappointing.

Twilight is like the junk food of literature, and the same can probably be said of the movies. The story is captivating, even if it gets a little silly. The first book was probably the best, and there is a certain charm to the first movie - it was moody and atmospheric, and really captured the spirit of the book. I was a bigger fan of New Moon. In my opinion it's the best movie of the four films that have been made so far. Chris Weitz inspired the best performances, and really delved into that sense of melancholy and heartbreak. Eclipse, to my mind, focused far too much on the tediously boring and badly acted newborns. And then Breaking Dawn came along, and made Eclipse look like an Oscar nominee. It was so disappointing I was annoyed.

Breaking Dawn is definitely the weakest movie so far. It is also perhaps the hardest of all the books to adapt to film, what with the telepathic wolves and vampire babies. But it was more than that. It lacked the indie touch that I liked in Twilight. It felt like it'd been edited too heavily, and in some places, not enough. The simpering, over-sentimentalized soundtrack made it sound like a soap opera, and I was surprised by how little emphasis was placed on the wedding, and how quickly it was concluded. Edward and Bella didn't even get to dance together properly, which was definitely a scene that could have been milked for all it was worth. The wedding was meant to be romantic, not funny. There was also a certain awkwardness about the honeymoon, and I don't mean in the bedroom. Some of the scenes were stilted, the acting stiff. Worst of all were the wolves. I laughed out loud when Jacob met up with his buddies for a pow wow. I don't know how else they could have done it, but it was too silly to be taken seriously. And these are just some of my complaints. There are too many to note, or we'd be here all day. The director finally showed some sense and produced a gripping birthing scene, with enough artiness and drama that it actually woke me up and got me interested. I even thought he handled the whole Jacob/Renesme imprinting thing pretty well. (Sorry if you haven't read the book or seen the movie yet.) But on the whole, the movie was unconvincing, and slightly embarrassing. Not even Robert Pattinson's gorgeousness did it for me this time, which is saying something. Oh, and that's something else that surprised me - somehow they managed to make a lot of rather beautiful people look as pale and unattractive as Bella did once she got pregnant. What were they thinking?

Even though I've bought all the other movies on DVD, I'm not sure I can be bothered with this one. I just hope they learn from the failures of Part 1 and improve Part 2. I've given the movie-makers a lot of leeway with these films because I'm a fan, but as a movie lover, I'm hoping for a lot better.

I have no complaints about the shipping of the product. I absolutely love the Twilight series, and this movie is my favorite out of all of them. I do however, recommend reading the books first. The books are mesmerizing and filled with suspense.

I have read all the Twilight saga books, and watched all the movies. I would recommend to everyone to read the books first, as they contain more detail and then watch the movies.

This movie in my opinion is the BEST. I have watched it 4 times in two days.

This movie was not as exciting as the others but it does leave the viewer wanting more and not wanting to wait. It keeps you on edge like the previous movies and I added this one to my dvd library.

I found this movie to be amazing and true to the book! They did a marvelous job and I believe the actors truly grew into their parts. I absolutely cannot wait for part 2 and what they do with the rest of the story!!! Simply loved the entire saga.

What can I say about Twilight? I've never bothered much to read the books,or watch the movies for that matter, but I saw girls/women around me in awe about this. Edward this, Edward that, Robert Pattinson here and there. So after watching Vampire Diaries I got curious and started watching Twilight. Within 20 minutes I was hooked. Can't let go anymore, ordered the books, ordered all the movies there are and following everything now very closely.

Feel a little embarrassed because I'm a 35 y/o woman that is totally hooked on the characters (book as wel as the people portraying them on screen) and keep rewatching over and over and over again. I actually feel a bit empty inside when I'm done watching, so I start from the beginning again haha!

I love the story, the special effects in the movie, it's just such a great big love. You shouldn't overthink it all too much. I know people are saying well how stupid is that, she has to die in order to be with him, he is too protective and overbearing. But don't look at that. Look at why she wants to become a vampire and why he acts around her the way he does. It's their love. And that love is amazing and I would wish for everybody in the world.

So read the books, watch the movies. You'll have a lovestory for life :)