My Experience Watching Breaking Dawn *With Some Spoilers*

This past weekend I went to see Breaking Dawn part 1 like all the other Twi-hards. I’m a fan of the Twilight series and don’t deny it, but I also enjoying poking fun at it. I’m one of the millions (or rather I should say hundreds of millions) who have read the series in its entirety. When I read Breaking Dawn, my reaction was WTFOMGBBQ because let’s be honest, the WTFOMGBBQ isn’t because Bella gets pregnant the first time she has sex on her honeymoon to her sparkly dreamboat of a vampire husband, but the fact that her daughter is the imprinted mate of the other boy she rejected who has lusted for her as much as her new husband has. Breaking Dawn angered me in so many ways because making Jacob a pedo is not my idea of a HEA that evokes rainbows, a field of pretty daises and cute puppy dogs.

You better believe when Breaking Dawn came out into the theater, I planned on going. And so I went to the Saturday night showing and dragged my mom along because she lets me whisper sweet snark to her during movies without wanting to slap me across the face.

By now you’ve probably read many opinion pieces and reviews about Breaking Dawn. Hopefully I can give you a different spin on my experience watching part 1 of Breaking Dawn. How in the world will there be enough of a plot to fill another 2 hour movie for part 2 is beyond me. But when part one has made $140 million in its first weekend, it’s no surprised the studio wants more of the cha-ching. It worked for the final Harry Potter movie, so why not the final Twilight movie? (yes, I dare compare Harry Potter to Twilight. I’m a bad woman).

I got to the theater an hour before because we thought it would be sold out. There was no reason for it to be sold out when there are 3,500 theaters statewide to choose from, and at some, like the one I went to, had two showings at the same time. But we got our pick of the seats. The female ratio to males was overwhelming large as you can imagine. But I was pleasantly surprised that there were more than enough boys or men there. Keep in mind most of these men where with their girlfriends, wives or were poor fathers who took one for the team and accompanied their daughters to the showing.

My favorite part of going to the theater besides the actual movie are the trailers. The trailers shown were great. We were shown Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows, some Nicholas Sparks wannbe movie with two actors who have starred in a Nicholas Sparks movie already and the awesome looking, The Woman in Black. I was surprised with The Hunger Games trailer. There was no reaction, no cheers or whispers of excitement. I wonder what this means for the movie because the Twilight audience is pretty much the same one The Hunger Games is geared to.

Then Breaking Dawn started!  

Spoilers ahoy…

It had the greatest opening in all the Twilight movies. Not even a minute in, Jacob tears off his shirt in anger and we see his abs of wonder. Unfortunately, this is the only time we see Jacob’s abs of wonder or his spectacular pecs and biceps (I’m allowed to drool over him now because he’s legal). He ends up wearing a T-shirt and jeans throughout the entire movie.

Bella and Edward are finally getting married. Bella has a nightmare where Edward eats the wedding guests. Edward see her the night before their wedding and tells her he was once a bad vampire because he ended up killing people. He was quite the baby vampire rebel back in the roaring twenties. But it was all good because his victims were all killers and rapists. Plus they were all men. That made me go hmmm…

The wedding was beautifully done. You see Stephenie Meyers at least 4 times during the scene and even a close up of her face. She was all smiles because hello, she has enough money to buy a small country. Bella’s hair really needs a haircut and was poorly styled. But her dress was gorgeous. Her mother is a twit because what mother in her right mind would be happy her daughter is getting married at eighteen? Her father Charlie (I adore Billy Burke and he’s works a mustache so well) steals the first half of the movie because he reacts exactly as a father should in regards to his eighteen year old daughter getting married. His speech at the wedding was the funniest thing where he says he’s a cop and can hunt and shoot people. He gives Edward the hairy eyeball because he knows Edward is going to deflower his daughter. God help Edward when Charlie finds out he impregnated Bella, she dies and gives birth to the demon seed. But that’s in part 2 so not important here.

Jacob appears and is angry emo that Bella is going to have sex while human with Edward on her honeymoon.

Jacob: But he'll kill you, Bella! (he actually says this line)

Bella: But I won’t die a virgin and while I have my first climax by sparkly vampire, my body will be torn in two. The pleasure will be much stronger than the pain. Hurrah!

Bella and Edward go to their island paradise and both are very nervous. I will say the honeymoon scene was my favorite part in the movie since it’s my favorite in the book because it’s before all the WTFOMGBQ crap. Bella shaves her legs for some reason, which you’d think she’d do the morning of getting married. She and Edward go skinny dipping in the ocean under a beautiful moon (aww) and the Edward breaks the headboard and tears the pillows apart while he holds back giving Bella her “O’s”.

The honeymoon scene was pushing the envelope with the PG-13 rating and a woman in front of me covered her daughter’s eyes during it. Edward does a little thrusting and Bella has an “O” face. I didn’t see anything wrong with how it was filmed, but again I’m an adult woman. But for the younger under 13 set, parents may want to take care. Still, it was sexy and I thought it fit the mood and was romantic and all the jazz. I was disappointed that not once did Edward sparkle! You'd think he'd have some sort of glow after waiting one-hundred years to finally do the deed with his heart's desire. Bella was glowing all over the place and wanted more.

And then the WTFckery begins. Bella ends up preggers, she returns home to the Cullen fold and in less than a month is dying as the baby inside her sucks her life away. The effects during these scenes where Bella is emaciated because she starving from lack of nutrition were fantastic. But then she’s given a sippy cup full of blood with a straw and she’s happy. She even says it taste good. Jacob’s reaction to this was haha cute. Jacob is still very much angry emo again because the it inside of Bella is killing her. Also there were many sly references to Jacob’s wolf peeps wanting to imprint on someone. Hmmm, I wonder why.

Jacob goes rogue because Sam, the alpha wolf wants to kill the it in Bella because it’s an abomination and can destroy the world! For some reason Jacob doesn’t want to kill the it. I wonder why?

Bella’s labor scene was so disappointing! There wasn’t enough gore and blood like I was expecting. When you read it, it’s much more graphic and makes you never want to have children. But then again this is a PG-13 movie.

And then the feat of all feats, the most awesome WTFckery of all is where Jacob decides he’s going to kill the demon baby because it killed Bella! He sneaks up behind Rosalie, who’s crooning to the demon baby, and no joke, new born baby, Renesmee (or who I fondly have nicknamed, Loch Nessie) and Jacob lock eyes. Jacob drops to his knees and has an acid trip where the heavenly hosts above show his future with Nessie (there's church music in the background. I expected a robed chorus to appear). And all is right with the world.

 Ugly Doll stand in for Nessie.

It ends with Edward welcoming Jacob as his son-in-law and waiting for Bella’s eyes to open because we all know what happens to her next (she doesn’t come into her sparkle just yet, but has a nice marble statue look to her).

And thus ends part 1 leading into part 2 with a segue showing the Volturi and Aro aka Michael Sheen, who I hope is given more screen time and actually acts this time around instead of just smiling like a psycho because he truly is an awesome actor.

For what it’s worth, Breaking Dawn wasn’t a bad movie. If you’re a fan of the book, you’ll enjoy the movie. It stuck by the plot of the book as a whole, even though there was more introspective from Jacob’s point of view. Also there was some questionable errors such as the morning after Bella wakes up after sparkly vampire sex, she has one or two bruises and isn’t hobbling or grimacing in pain. You’d expect s a virgin to have some discomfort for her first time even if her husband wasn’t a vampire who can crush a bed with his bare hands. Also at one point Edward is pumping Bella’s chest as a form of CPR. Since Edward has to watch his strength around Bella, I expected him to do more harm than good and crush her chest. But then Bella’s back broke from demon a baby, so what other damage could he do?

Do I think there should be a part 2? No. I have a feeling the final movie is going to be one big ZZZ fest even with the Volturi coming to cause havoc and Jacob walking around in a happy daze with his former flame’s daughter who’s his mate. Now it makes perfect sense why he had such a special connection with Bella.

Bleck.

It will be interesting to see how the second part of Breaking Dawn is played out and if after this whole hubba balloo with this series and movies is over, how long it will take for another literary sensation like Twilight to take over the world and for Hollywood to go crazy with it? I think it will be a long time coming, and even with The Hunger Games, I can’t see that series setting the movie world on fire like the Twilight series has.

Mho stand in for Bella.

For those who saw Breaking Dawn this weekend, how was your experience?