I found a pirated copy of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part One: The Rise of the Anti-Choice Pedophiles. Always strangely fascinated and not at all strangely disgusted by the “worldwide phenomena” I checked my firewall and clicked away.
I feel I should note, I’m one of what I have been led to be is a strange breed who doesn’t like watching pirated videos online. Whenever possible, I watch on Hulu or through the shows website because I feel guilty for stealing. I’m a snarker with a conscience. It is a sign of how much I detest this series that I actually get a sick glee out of stealing from it and actively searched for the movie on my day off. Also, I need to be able to pause to roll m eyes.
So I started to watch. As more of the movie went on, it occurred to me that I wanted to write down my head-snark and do a play by play. But I didn’t much want to rewatch all of the movie I’d already watched. That’s when I realized, I was less than four minutes in. I should have taken that as an ominous sign.
Note: I’m going to do this in ten to fifteen minute increments.
00:10- Bella narrates a quote about how childhood is forever. So that’s why Bella can be both lauded as super mature and also behave like a whiney little brat. Also, this almost feels like justification for all the forty year old women in the audience.
00:28- Quotes ends, no citation. Edna St. Vincent Millay should sue, dead or not.
00:32- Jacob loses his shirt. Yea, work that money maker!
00:52- Jacob is angry because he just received Bella and Edward’s wedding invitation. Was it news to him that they were getting hitched?
01:11- It might be. Apparently Bella informed her own mother of her decision to become a teen bride by mailing her an invitation. You can’t buy that kind of class.
01:20- But I’ll tell you what you can buy: $1,295 Manolo Blahnik white stilettos to be worn for your outdoor, garden wedding in the rainiest place in the continental US.
01:33- Bella can’t walk in the four and a quarter inch stilettos, despite three days of practice (amateur). So she asks if she can go barefoot. Alice almost has a coronary at the thought. Apparently no one ever told them about flats or wedges, both lovely and practical!
01:45- Bella thinks everything Alice is doing for the wedding (including the reconstruction of the Olympic Forest) is a bit much. Alice disagrees. Oh well, you know what they say about future fake sister-in-laws and weddings: it is their day to shine and everyone, including the bride, should be making sure it goes just as she’s always dreamed it would.
01:53- Apparently Rosalie doesn’t have the “vision” to see the clearly designated aisle directly behind her. Is this supposed to be a crack about Alice’s visions?
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| It's right behind you, you dolt |
02:06- Bella catches sight of Edward brooding on a balcony. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see Alice’s head explode when she finds out Bella saw Edward less than 24 hours before the wedding. Instead, Alice orders her to go home and sleep. Worst. Maid-of-Honor. Ever. If I’m not snorting coke of a stripper’s rock hard ass the night before my wedding day, something has clearly gone terribly wrong in my life.
02:33- Alice picks up the thirteen hundred dollar Manolos that were just left on the deck floor like a sandy pair of flip flops and smiles at her creation of a boost in today’s troubled celebrity bridal knock-off economy.
02:37- Bella prepares herself for bed the night before her wedding night. It strikes me that she is moving from being entirely supported from her parents to being completely supported by her husband with only a brief foray into an afterschool job to show for her independence. It makes me sad that we are promoting a woman who stubbornly refuses to have an independent adult life.
03:01- Bella smiles to herself as she turns around to find that an old man crept in through her bedroom window. No, that will never stop being creepy.
03:15- Edward is checking for cold feet. Bella says hers are toasty warm and it is a testament to how little esteem I have for this franchise that I was surprised Edward didn’t state to fellate her toes.
03:19- Edward, ever bipolar, seems to be having second thoughts. Gee, shouldn’t you have thought about that before you emotionally manipulated her into marrying you in the first place?
03:27- Ed’s been waiting one hundred years to marry her. Gee, I guess that really puts Jacob’s seven year jailbait wait in perspective.
03:29- Instead of asking why Edward didn’t go to Woodstock because he was too busy waiting for her to be born, Bell swoons.
03:33- There is a but to this, isn’t there?
03:35- Yep, called it. Edward hasn’t told her everything about himself. I guess how I can see him being a murderer slipped his mind in lieu of having to remind her to breathe and not play in traffic. Also, they spend a lot of time staring deeply into each other’s eyes.
03:37- “What, you aren’t a virgin?” Bella jokes. Bella, sweetness, it is my experience that while one should be careful of men who lie about their sexual histories in order to get laid, you should be even more careful of marrying men who lie about their sexual histories in order to avoid getting laid.
It’s odd that Movie Bella is totally cool in this discussion. Book Bella would already be in tears because she thinks Edward’s about to call of the wedding so he can go shack up with that blonde slut Irina.
03:47- Edward sighs, paces and spit it out you asshole!
03:51- Bella, “You can’t scare me away now.” That is so true. After sneaking into her home to watch her sleep, abandoning her in the woods after dumping her, breaking into her house to steal her stuff, taking the engine of the car and having her kidnapped, a little thing like murder isn’t going to affect their relationship very much.
03:56- The music of impending flashbacks starts up. Edward tells us this happened a few years after he was turned.
04:08- Edward is watching a black and white movie, where a woman screams. I can’t place the movie but I’m wondering the definition of “a few years” is, because the fact that the woman is screaming puts this over a decade after Edward’s turn.
04:23- Edward looks at the back of a man’s head and nods grimly.
04:46- Post-movie, Edward eats that man before he can creepily follow a woman down an alley. Sorry unnamed dude, come back when you can brood sexily.
05:08- We pan over to Edward who says the he was a monster. He broods with blood applied ever so artfully on his lips.
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| I R Monster |
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| So sexy |
05:20- Bella reasons that he probably saved more lives than he took. Depending on what makes the cut for part two, I may bring back up this “killing murderers is good” thing in re: lending cars to other vampires so they can eat humans. Oh wait, I don’t need to. The Volturi. Vigilante justice is great for brooding Byronic back stories but in the present day, feel free to sit back and caress your ex while the dulcet tones of forty people being murdered plays from the next room.
05:25- Edward says that they were still human beings. I guess those people in Volturra were just very sophisticated androids.
05:35- Bella considers this and in typical fashion makes it all about her as she realizes that when she turns she too will be capable of killing people. She also wonders why he took so long to tell her. No wait, why he is telling her this tonight, which is not the same thing. My bad.
05:40- She wonders how he could possibly think that learning he is a murderer would change her mind about wanting to become a sparkly vampire.
05:45- Edward just wondered if it would change her mind about herself. What does that even mean? Who will she want to see when she looks in the mirror a year from now? I actually have that answer, straight from the book. “I guess my brain will never work right. At least I'm pretty”
05:55- Bella tells him she knows she’s a Mary Sue who will be the bestest vampire ever. Actually, she thinks that it is because he did it. Were you not paying attention? No he didn’t! He killed people. Or does “this” mean, “become sparkly?”
06:01- Bella thinks Edward should give himself some credit for only killing some people and not all people. Or something like that.
06:08- Bella hopes a year from now she’ll look in the mirror and see someone like him. I think that means “pretty and sparkly.” But she thinks it means someone who is courageous, capable of sacrifice and love. I don’t know who she thinks she’s looking at, but it ain’t Edward.
06:16- They smooch but just as Edward makes an ass grab they are sounds outside her window. It is Jasper and Emmett who are impatient to start the bachelor party.
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| She looks like she's about to return the favor |
06:27- Emmett swoops up to hover in the open window. Dude, that is so rude. Only Edward is allowed to do that. He warns in the creepiest manner possible that if she doesn’t let him eat they will grab him from her.
06:33- Bella worries there will be strippers at the bachelor party. There’s the Bella I know and detest! But don’t fret; it’ll just be him eating mountain lions and bears. Personally, I’d prefer strippers.
06:44- Jasper tells Bella not to worry, he’ll be back soon. He has changed his hair, I approve.
06:56- Before Edward leaves, the sad music plays and he turns around to gaze at her. He tells her he’ll meet her at the altar. Bella looks unsettled at the thought.
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| Are you sure we can't just premarital boink? |
07:54- Those gorgeous Manolos are walking over rose petals. They are walking very steadily, so we know this is a dream sequence.
07:57- Apparently, at Bella’s dream wedding everyone wears white, because she is tacky.
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| So very tacky |
07:59- Even in her dreams Bella looks unhappy. Also, she’s wearing a strapless dress, immodest sacrilege!
08:00- Her friends look happy for her, even Mike. Now I know this is a dream. Anna Kendrick though looks chagrined that she is still contractedly obligated to be in these crappy films, even though she freaking got nominated for an Oscar.
08:06- Charlie, who is in the seats and not walking her down the aisle, looks unhappy that his teenage daughter is throwing her life away. This is why I love him the most.
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| I still don't believe you aren't knocked up |
08:28- Bella turns around in horror and sees that none of her guests cared enough to sit through the ceremony.
08:32- No wait, there is a puddle of red rose petals and blood at her feet, and some got on Edward’s white jacket. Good, white suits are ugly. Also, his lipstick is smeared.
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| Stay away from cheap beauty products, guy. |
Note: In the books this scene is Meyer sucking at foreshadowing as Bella dreams of a vampire baby.
08:58- Alice reprimands Bella about not sleeping because now she has to cover up the bags. Seriously, she’s the worst maid of honor ever. Bella apologizes instead of telling Alice to shut up and be happy for her because it’s her wedding day.
09:07- Rosalie enters in a purple silk robe and offers to do her hair. I hope that she will lob it all off. Bella is shocked at this proposition.
09:18- Rosalie tells her that she’s not offended by her choice of girl. Bella fills in that it is her blatant lack of respect for mortality. Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner! Rosalie tells her that she’s essentially correct.
09:29- Alice insists on being that annoying bridesmaid who only speaks in platitudes as she hugs Rosalie and gushes how weddings bring everyone together.
09:32- Outside, Renee and Charlie laugh at a piece of modern art that is all graduation caps. Wow, the Cullens suck at subtlety. Renee says its creative, Charlie says it’s weird. I love you Charlie, don’t ever change.
09:48- There is a mother-daughter moment at Bella’s bridal beauty.
10:03- Renee invites Charlie into the room, but he seems scared to enter the estrogen harem.
10:11- He ignores Bella’s hair and makeup and instead remarks on how hot he looks in his tux. God, I love him.
10:18- Bella’s parents give her a hair comb that they say is both old and blue, despite that I can’t see any blue in the shot. Apparently Bella’s grandmother was loaded and had a massive diamond hair comb. I’m totally disappointed that Alice doesn’t kvetch about how she now will have to redo Bella’s hair. Instead she just sticks it in.
10:38- Renee cries and says its Bella’s first family heirloom that she will pass on to her daughter and granddaughter. Bella looks mildly guilty because she doesn’t realize that Meyer will contort all laws of good writing and logic to give Bella the perfect Mary Sue ending.
10:49- Alice won’t let Bella hug her mother, less she smudge her makeup. Two words: waterproof mascara.
10:55- Kristen Stewart does her patented awkward hair touch, and yet Alice doesn’t rip her arm out of her socket so she doesn’t muss her do.
11:02- Time for the dress. Renee gasps and clasps her hands. Bella looks concerned and constipated.
And with that, I leave you. Up next: the wedding!
