"the fetus is incompatible with your body" <- delivery of this line made the film worth it
So I saw Breaking Dawn: Part One at midnight last Thursday, and it gave me a lot of complicated feelings and opinions. Twilight always gives me feelings and opinions. :/ It was fun, though. I love the cult movie experience, and we had a great crowd - by which I mean, one that was obviously enjoying themselves, but was also not taking anything to seriously. Kind of loud and participatory, which I generally hate in theaters, but I think is kind of necessary for this kind of event.
I wasn't sure what to expect in this movie. I mean, nothing happens in the first half of the book, really, except almost no sex and the pregnancy from hell, and I figured the delivery would be pretty much unfilmable in what is essentially a PG-13 romance, vampires notwithstanding, so mostly I was just curious as to how this was even going to happen.
The first half of the movie was just kind of…awkward. BECAUSE not a lot happens in the first half of Breaking Dawn, and they were clearly fighting for screen time, and the result was just kind of embarrassment squicky and uncomfortable. And when I say that I am talking not only about the things actually happening in text (Bella’s awkwardness walking down the aisle! The wedding toasts), which admittedly were also embarrassment squicky and uncomfortable in the book, but also the acting and the dialog. My friends and I had a whole conversation - out loud in the theater - about how the music choices were making us uncomfortable. What was going on with that soundtrack? NOTHING GOOD.
The first interesting thing that happened was the wedding night/aftermath, and I think that may only be true for me because of how fascinated I am by that scene anyway. I've talked about that scene - and my reading of Bella a repressed submissive before. This is true throughout the series, given her interactions with Edward, her stated desires and the subtext, but the wedding night is really what drove that HOME for me in the books. Bella LIKES the sex they have. Edward won’t sleep with her because the kind of sex she likes as bad (sex shaming, hooray! But still interesting. And having the male character in the role of sexual gatekeeper throughout the series is also interesting). It was different to watch the scene on film, partially because I saw the bruises they were arguing about and went “that’s what all the fuss is over? She’s fine. That just looks like fun was had to me.” And okay, that is not true if you’re not into that sort of thing, obviously, but the text pretty firmly establishes that they ARE BOTH INTO THAT SORT OF THING, and that Bella is REALLY REALLY into that sort of thing. And just so much of their push-pull dynamic throughout that entire section read as pretty kinky to me. Not in a healthy way, and not in a way that I think is intentional in either the books or the films, which mostly just makes it uncomfortable to watch, but it's hard for me not to read that subtext into the text and the movie just reinforced that.
Then, of course, there was the horrific vampire pregnancy! :D: This was so, SO much harder to watch than it was to read in the books. Watching Kristen-as-Bella look that sick, combined with the anti-abortion propaganda that was coming through loud and clear (the baby or fetus fight, Edward hearing the baby, who is already conscious while still in the womb, Bella's martyrdom) was just a world of DNW. That said, there were times, especially toward the end of the movie (the birthing scene in particular *shudder*) where this actually felt like a horror movie. This pregnancy was something ugly and violent that was going to kill her. That moment when her spine snaps was absolutely as horrifying as it should have been. And yes, there’s the “look how valiant and noble she is” barf-worthy element of it, and I know Renesmee will be sweet and good and all of Bella’s martyrific self-sacrificing in the name of fulfilling what Twilight considers her true purpose as a woman (motherhood) will be justified, etc, etc, but still, I felt like they weren’t pulling punches with the portrayal of just what was going on. There was so me straight up body horror happening there, and it was gruesome and that was interesting.
The last scene I was really waiting to see how they'd film was the imprinting scene, and that was just as appalling/hilarious as anticipated. I especially appreciated the glimpses we got of Jacob seeing into Reneesmee’s future and the woman she will be (or whatever that was) as they tried to distract us from the fact he just fell in love with an infant. Pssst, film runners - IT DIDN'T WORK. I did like the touch earlier on in the movie where Jacob was complaining about the lack of free will and how imprinting is SUPER CREEPY. I was like “YOU ARE CORRECT, SIR, too bad that is not the actual message of this film.” Was that in the book? Or was that the movie trying to stealthily acknowledge an issue? If the latter, would be cool. I felt they did that with everyone hating/making faces at the names Bella picked for the baby. That wasn’t in the book, was it?
I will say they chose the perfect place to end it, as vampire!Bella’s eyes snap open, red and hungry. I’m actually kind of interested in Edward/Bella once she’s a vampire, though that may just be my immortals-in-love thing kicking in. It’s too bad nothing happens in the second half of Breaking Dawn either. Do you think they’ll take some creative license and actually have some kind of battle/conflict?
***
In other news, I signed up for Yuletide, and my assignment is very nearly the best possible outcome. I have already been writing a fic for months in one of the fandoms that I requested, and getting an assignment that might force me to finish that in some kind of controlled environment would have been the VERY best possible outcome. But if that wasn’t going to happen (and let’s face it, it wasn’t), then the assignment I got couldn’t possibly be better if it was tailor-made to fit my preferences. (Honestly, it might as well have been). The scene/characters referenced in the prompt is the very scene I was thinking about and secretly hoping to deal with when I offered the source. I am probably still going to rip my hair out and angst and take forever to write it, so this doesn’t mean that it will go smoothly at all, but still, I am pleased. I don't think I've finished a fic since Yuletide last year, though, so I may have been overly ambitious because speaking of fic exchanges, HOW DID THAT GET THERE. I think it was from the waves nostalgia that came over me looking at the names on the signup. Let's party like it's 2004, you guys.
Otherwise, I am behind on television because I have mostly been spending my time obsessively rereading Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner Series and rewatching the Glee Adele mashup 8462 times a day. I have some issues with Glee, but everything about Santana’s arc is everything I have ever wanted in a television show. Santanaaaaaa, why weren’t you on my television when I was 17 and queer and vicious in a small, conservative town?
My friend and I have also just started the third season of Vampire Diaries, and I want to wait on most observations until I’ve finished (we plan to be done before it comes back in January), but just one quick comment on how Stefan/Elena are one of my favorite vampire/human (or mortal/immortal at all, I guess, because the dynamic tends to be similar) couples ever.
I was thinking about this because I was thinking about how I refused to watch Vampire Diaires when it came out because I loved the books when I was a kid and was afraid they had “Twilightified” it. I am eating my words now. With the disclaimer that my opinion may change by the end of the third season, so I am reserving judgment since I have no idea where they’re going with Stefan’s storyline, I just really, really love Stefan/Elena because of the RESPECT there. Namely, Stefan’s respect for Elena, for her autonomy and her choices. It’s not even about shipping it really intensely. Other ships on the show are much more “my thing.” I would read a million words of Damon/Katherine! Hell, this season Stefan/Rebecca was INSTANTLY intriguing to me. Seriously, show, TELL ME MORE. (I have some kind of pavlovian response to evil vampires in love). I have almost no interest in any fic about Stefan/Elena, so I don’t ship them in the sense of wanting more of their story. Canon is plenty.
But there’s just something so gratifying about their dynamic and the way he trusts her and doesn’t patronize her. They’re both overprotective of each other and both would willing sacrifice themselves for the other, of course, so you definitely have some of that “leaving/lying/etc for your own good!” going on on both sides, but what really strikes me is the times it DOESN’T happen. Contrasting Stefan’s approach with Damon’s when Elena was going to sacrifice herself to Klaus really drove that home for me. I HATED how Damon behaved. But Stefan, through the whole thing, treated her like a reasonable person who knew her own mind and could make her own decisions and was ADAMANT that other people respect her decisions even when it was killing him to let her go. That scene on the mountain after she’s ingested Damon’s blood and is still determined to go to Klaus and so they think it’s her last day as a human? When he basically says, “of course I want you with me, but if I thought if it was an option you would have brought it up, because IT IS YOUR CHOICE THAT YOU ARE COMPETENT TO MAKE BECAUSE WE ARE EQUALS IN THIS RELATIONSHIP AND I TRUST YOU TO KNOW YOUR OWN MIND” was just…God, it was gorgeous. They love each other so much. Damon/Elena, as a pairing, bothers me (I joke that I ship Damon with everyone on the show EXCEPT Stefan and/or Elena) because of the way he always seemed so patronizing to her. Just a couple episodes into the third season that's a little bit better, but he still has her on this pedestal that keeps their dynamic from reading like an equal partnership the way Stefan and Elena's does/did. Whatever happens in the third season, I hope that’s preserved once the dust settles.
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I wasn't sure what to expect in this movie. I mean, nothing happens in the first half of the book, really, except almost no sex and the pregnancy from hell, and I figured the delivery would be pretty much unfilmable in what is essentially a PG-13 romance, vampires notwithstanding, so mostly I was just curious as to how this was even going to happen.
The first half of the movie was just kind of…awkward. BECAUSE not a lot happens in the first half of Breaking Dawn, and they were clearly fighting for screen time, and the result was just kind of embarrassment squicky and uncomfortable. And when I say that I am talking not only about the things actually happening in text (Bella’s awkwardness walking down the aisle! The wedding toasts), which admittedly were also embarrassment squicky and uncomfortable in the book, but also the acting and the dialog. My friends and I had a whole conversation - out loud in the theater - about how the music choices were making us uncomfortable. What was going on with that soundtrack? NOTHING GOOD.
The first interesting thing that happened was the wedding night/aftermath, and I think that may only be true for me because of how fascinated I am by that scene anyway. I've talked about that scene - and my reading of Bella a repressed submissive before. This is true throughout the series, given her interactions with Edward, her stated desires and the subtext, but the wedding night is really what drove that HOME for me in the books. Bella LIKES the sex they have. Edward won’t sleep with her because the kind of sex she likes as bad (sex shaming, hooray! But still interesting. And having the male character in the role of sexual gatekeeper throughout the series is also interesting). It was different to watch the scene on film, partially because I saw the bruises they were arguing about and went “that’s what all the fuss is over? She’s fine. That just looks like fun was had to me.” And okay, that is not true if you’re not into that sort of thing, obviously, but the text pretty firmly establishes that they ARE BOTH INTO THAT SORT OF THING, and that Bella is REALLY REALLY into that sort of thing. And just so much of their push-pull dynamic throughout that entire section read as pretty kinky to me. Not in a healthy way, and not in a way that I think is intentional in either the books or the films, which mostly just makes it uncomfortable to watch, but it's hard for me not to read that subtext into the text and the movie just reinforced that.
Then, of course, there was the horrific vampire pregnancy! :D: This was so, SO much harder to watch than it was to read in the books. Watching Kristen-as-Bella look that sick, combined with the anti-abortion propaganda that was coming through loud and clear (the baby or fetus fight, Edward hearing the baby, who is already conscious while still in the womb, Bella's martyrdom) was just a world of DNW. That said, there were times, especially toward the end of the movie (the birthing scene in particular *shudder*) where this actually felt like a horror movie. This pregnancy was something ugly and violent that was going to kill her. That moment when her spine snaps was absolutely as horrifying as it should have been. And yes, there’s the “look how valiant and noble she is” barf-worthy element of it, and I know Renesmee will be sweet and good and all of Bella’s martyrific self-sacrificing in the name of fulfilling what Twilight considers her true purpose as a woman (motherhood) will be justified, etc, etc, but still, I felt like they weren’t pulling punches with the portrayal of just what was going on. There was so me straight up body horror happening there, and it was gruesome and that was interesting.
The last scene I was really waiting to see how they'd film was the imprinting scene, and that was just as appalling/hilarious as anticipated. I especially appreciated the glimpses we got of Jacob seeing into Reneesmee’s future and the woman she will be (or whatever that was) as they tried to distract us from the fact he just fell in love with an infant. Pssst, film runners - IT DIDN'T WORK. I did like the touch earlier on in the movie where Jacob was complaining about the lack of free will and how imprinting is SUPER CREEPY. I was like “YOU ARE CORRECT, SIR, too bad that is not the actual message of this film.” Was that in the book? Or was that the movie trying to stealthily acknowledge an issue? If the latter, would be cool. I felt they did that with everyone hating/making faces at the names Bella picked for the baby. That wasn’t in the book, was it?
I will say they chose the perfect place to end it, as vampire!Bella’s eyes snap open, red and hungry. I’m actually kind of interested in Edward/Bella once she’s a vampire, though that may just be my immortals-in-love thing kicking in. It’s too bad nothing happens in the second half of Breaking Dawn either. Do you think they’ll take some creative license and actually have some kind of battle/conflict?
***
In other news, I signed up for Yuletide, and my assignment is very nearly the best possible outcome. I have already been writing a fic for months in one of the fandoms that I requested, and getting an assignment that might force me to finish that in some kind of controlled environment would have been the VERY best possible outcome. But if that wasn’t going to happen (and let’s face it, it wasn’t), then the assignment I got couldn’t possibly be better if it was tailor-made to fit my preferences. (Honestly, it might as well have been). The scene/characters referenced in the prompt is the very scene I was thinking about and secretly hoping to deal with when I offered the source. I am probably still going to rip my hair out and angst and take forever to write it, so this doesn’t mean that it will go smoothly at all, but still, I am pleased. I don't think I've finished a fic since Yuletide last year, though, so I may have been overly ambitious because speaking of fic exchanges, HOW DID THAT GET THERE. I think it was from the waves nostalgia that came over me looking at the names on the signup. Let's party like it's 2004, you guys.
Otherwise, I am behind on television because I have mostly been spending my time obsessively rereading Lynn Flewelling's Nightrunner Series and rewatching the Glee Adele mashup 8462 times a day. I have some issues with Glee, but everything about Santana’s arc is everything I have ever wanted in a television show. Santanaaaaaa, why weren’t you on my television when I was 17 and queer and vicious in a small, conservative town?
My friend and I have also just started the third season of Vampire Diaries, and I want to wait on most observations until I’ve finished (we plan to be done before it comes back in January), but just one quick comment on how Stefan/Elena are one of my favorite vampire/human (or mortal/immortal at all, I guess, because the dynamic tends to be similar) couples ever.
I was thinking about this because I was thinking about how I refused to watch Vampire Diaires when it came out because I loved the books when I was a kid and was afraid they had “Twilightified” it. I am eating my words now. With the disclaimer that my opinion may change by the end of the third season, so I am reserving judgment since I have no idea where they’re going with Stefan’s storyline, I just really, really love Stefan/Elena because of the RESPECT there. Namely, Stefan’s respect for Elena, for her autonomy and her choices. It’s not even about shipping it really intensely. Other ships on the show are much more “my thing.” I would read a million words of Damon/Katherine! Hell, this season Stefan/Rebecca was INSTANTLY intriguing to me. Seriously, show, TELL ME MORE. (I have some kind of pavlovian response to evil vampires in love). I have almost no interest in any fic about Stefan/Elena, so I don’t ship them in the sense of wanting more of their story. Canon is plenty.
But there’s just something so gratifying about their dynamic and the way he trusts her and doesn’t patronize her. They’re both overprotective of each other and both would willing sacrifice themselves for the other, of course, so you definitely have some of that “leaving/lying/etc for your own good!” going on on both sides, but what really strikes me is the times it DOESN’T happen. Contrasting Stefan’s approach with Damon’s when Elena was going to sacrifice herself to Klaus really drove that home for me. I HATED how Damon behaved. But Stefan, through the whole thing, treated her like a reasonable person who knew her own mind and could make her own decisions and was ADAMANT that other people respect her decisions even when it was killing him to let her go. That scene on the mountain after she’s ingested Damon’s blood and is still determined to go to Klaus and so they think it’s her last day as a human? When he basically says, “of course I want you with me, but if I thought if it was an option you would have brought it up, because IT IS YOUR CHOICE THAT YOU ARE COMPETENT TO MAKE BECAUSE WE ARE EQUALS IN THIS RELATIONSHIP AND I TRUST YOU TO KNOW YOUR OWN MIND” was just…God, it was gorgeous. They love each other so much. Damon/Elena, as a pairing, bothers me (I joke that I ship Damon with everyone on the show EXCEPT Stefan and/or Elena) because of the way he always seemed so patronizing to her. Just a couple episodes into the third season that's a little bit better, but he still has her on this pedestal that keeps their dynamic from reading like an equal partnership the way Stefan and Elena's does/did. Whatever happens in the third season, I hope that’s preserved once the dust settles.
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