Friday, November 18, 2011

Countdown to Breaking Dawn: Eclipse

I know the hard-core and diesel Twi-hards saw Breaking Dawn: Part 1 when Thursday officially turned into Friday this morning, but for those of you who are planning on attending Edward and Bella's wedding this evening, I offer you an Eclipse retrospective to set the mood. And the caveats keep piling on. Yeah, it's weird that a girl who is totally on board for possibly surrendering her immortal soul for an undead existence governed by bloodlust is a little skittish about committing to  marriage. Whatever. Eclipse is my favorite adaptation for reasons that I would never admit to Judith Butler.

Bella and the boys.

What I'm not ashamed to admit works for me: 
  • It's more violent. Eclipse is directed by David Slade, who also helmed the adaptation of Steve Niles’s graphic novel miniseries 30 Days of Night. The vampires in Night are not emo. They are sadistic, grotesque, and famished. Slade knows how to showcase the vicious side of vampirism, and the army of bloodthirsty and volatile “newborns” in Eclipse gives him ample opportunity to do so. The combative scenes that are merely related in the novel (Victoria dancing over the "treaty line" between the Cullen clan and the Quileute werewolves; the battle between the newborn army and the Cullen/wolf alliance) are played out in the film version to great effect. 
The captain of the newborn army looks like an older, hotter, vamped-out Justin Bieber.
  • It's more honest. Jacob calls Edward out for the lies he tells Bella to keep her "safe." And the dangerous side of Jacob's devotion is exposed when he forces a kiss on Bella.
Not cool, no matter how mixed the signals she's sending you.
  • It's funny.





What I'm fairly ashamed to admit works for me:
  •  I'm not proud to reveal that, for psychobiographical reasons best left unarticulated in this space, I'm freaking into the Edward/Bella/Jacob love triangle. Whenever I screen Eclipse I watch this scene multiple times . . .
 

as well as The. Tent. Scene. The adaptation of chapter 22 in Eclipse, aka "Fire and Ice" (the latest in literary allusions the series invokes that are neither equaled nor earned ), aka "the chapter so nice I read it twice," is not quite as awesome as the book, but still imminently satisfying. As Bella sleeps in a tent in the freezing cold, warmed by Jacob as Edward fumes in a corner, the two rivals debate their love for her, as well as the benefits their relative supernatural statuses afford. It's quite fun.




What is actually quite lame:
  • The ring. 
NOT a fan.

Remember the scene in Sex and the City where Carrie threw up after spying the ring with which Aidan intended to propose to her? I had a similar response to what Edward offers Bella after refusing her proposal of premarital sex. Even if it is his mother's ring, I had hoped for something a little more fashion-forward.

I'm AMPED for Breaking Dawn tomorrow. The wedding . . . the honeymoon . . . the pregnancy . . . the imprint!!! Stay tuned for my review!

No comments:

Post a Comment