It also enabled me to see that Eclipse absolutely does NOT fit into this film franchise—AT ALL. To put it in the words of Rosenberg’s first Edward (she has many!), “Money, sex, money, sex, cat.” Eclipse is the cat. All the other movies walk the line of extremely campy and epically love-celebration dramatic. When you watch them it’s like being at a midnight Rocky Horror Picture Show and Gone With the Wind combined…you can shout out things like, “Purple’s cool!” and “I don’t want you to come!” and “The only thing we do kill, Rastafarians.” You can preemptively giggle before Aro lets out one of his classic laughs, more maniacal than Vincent Price’s “Thriller”, and you can cringe with glee every time the fursplosion occurs. Your heart also swells for Beller and Edward throughout these films, as their undying love [pun intended?] seems to conquer all.
(source)
In Eclipse you’re left with too much non-campy film noir (Riley’s scenes), too gratuitous a makeout scene with Jacob, and too polished of humour. Eclipse’s two saving graces include: Charlie saying, “Super. That makes me really happy.” and the swelling violins during the engagement scene (also, “iced tea on the porch” #swoon). Sure the inclusion of the leg hitch helps, but it’s not going to carry the film into the same campy category of the other four.
This isn’t to say Eclipse isn’t a good film. It is. It’s actually quite well-made and paced excellently, especially given how basically nothing happens in that book except the tying of loose ends. However it simply does not fit with the rest of the franchise. I never realized this until the marathon. As my partner in crime MarbleNutSlut so eloquently put, “Sure, David Slade is a good director; he just didn’t know what film he agreed to direct.”
But let’s talk about the fun things that happened at the marathon! Like when I was down in the front taking photos for this post of Dean doing the trivia and Jackson showed up literally behind me. Talk about timing! He was his usual fun-loving self and helped with the trivia questions, giving away one of the Twilight Forever box sets to a lucky fan (not me!).
Jackson poses with the theater of fans at the Twilight Marathon.
After that we settled in for the supercut version of Breaking Dawn, Part 1. HOLY CRAP GUYS, it is so good! I used to love New Moon the best (maybe I still do, it’s hard to break the Weitz-spell), but after seeing this full version of BD1, I think it is my favorite. It opened with the Volturi bonus scene that is on the Deleted Scenes of the DVDs I’m sure you all already own (except for me—so all the scenes were new to me!) and then it just went for it. I loved that film! It was like Christmas come early or something. When Rob, er Edward, says “Sex is the key huh?” in that oatmeal v-neck? HOLY CRAP. I’m not even a Rob person, guys. But HOLY CRAP. #Died
The rest of it was solid. There are a couple never-seen-before scenes and then some extensions of scenes (like the birthing scene) with a couple extra seconds of reaction here and there. It made me wonder why they didn’t just release the supercut as the actual film. It was only maybe 15 minutes longer, hardly an issue for Twihards! Anyway, it’s definitely worth seeing, not that I’m condoning purchase of ginormous box set 😉
One of the best parts of the marathon was meeting the That’s Normal winner, Nattilee!!! Obviously we took a leg hitch photo together!
(L-R: Nattilee, Stephanie, me, and MarbleNutSlut)
Twilight Forever Fan Experience
Some might say it all begins with a choice, but actually, it all begins with a dinner at Times Square Olive Garden and a massive lineup outside Planet Hollywood. (and yes, that baby stroller in the front covered in an Edward blanket is indicative of that person having had their baby there since 8:00am)
The fan experience was kind of amazing… with Volturi guards serving mushroom ravioli and random costumes from the films on display, out in the open where anyone could touch them… Really, guys. When Jackson took the stage, there was an incident of a mannequin losing her leg… luckily the costume wasn’t ruined. It’s just Jackson, people! Chillax!
So, part of the event was this raffle that I didn’t realize was going on until it started (yeah, completely missed the whole “Here’s your raffle tickets” part of the evening! Sheesh). They had some good prizes—like getting to privately meet the cast that was there (Nikki, Jackson, and Peter), getting to ask the cast a question during the Q&A sesh, and another Forever box set giveaway. Then there were the *other* prizes… Really, Jackson explains them best…
So, towards the end of it, the three cast members who were there came out for the Q&A event and just general immersion with the crowd. I did a really mediocre camera phone job of taping it for you guys, and then my husband rocked out the editing to make it look somewhat more professional. Beware of the sound inconsistency and loudness! Beware of the motion sickness due to people thrusting their cameras in front of me! You have been warned. Also feel free to skip Nikki’s first answer (to 1:07) because she’s kind of hard to hear with the annoying woman yelling right next to me.
We now have reached the part of the post where I’m going to just pic spam you guys with a barrage of the random stuff that’s on display there! The Fan Experience is only open through the end of the year… so, get to NYC and check it out!
Beller’s Wedding Dress from a couple of angles
Jake’s motorcycle and the shirt he wears in that scene in New Moon (aka my favorite shirt in the whole saga and I want it in girl form)
We matriculate a lot…
Edward’s wedding shoes, cufflinks, and ring (hard to see with the weird lighting)
Volturi chairs and robes from New Moon and BD2.
Leg hitching the Volturi costume… #Normal
JORTS!
After the Q&A, Nikki and her hubby performed some Americana song that wasn’t memorable, and my phone had already run out of battery at that point (you’re welcome?). But, I’ll leave you with the sound bite of the evening…
The Twilight Forever Fan Experience is at Planet Hollywood Times Square through the end of December 2013. What item do you most want to see? Have you gotten your forever box set yet? Are you planning an at-home marathon with live twitter commentary as you do it? #Normal
