My Eclipse Script Review (sort of) **Spoiler Alert**

You're supposed to learn from your mistakes, right?  I should've learned after reading the script to Remember Me.  I was shocked by the ending and immediately regretted that I caved into curiosity.

When I got my hands on the script for Eclipse, I wish dejavu had kicked my ass and sent my index finger directly to the delete key before I spoiled my favorite of the Twilight saga.

I read Eclipse twice.

How could reading the script kill the movie experience for me?

I wasn't thinking.

Fucking curiosity killed me again.

(For anyone that made a vow to stay Eclipse free....STOP.  Don't read any further, just click your way down to Rob candy and check out a video)

Reading the script re-affirmed my lack of confidence in Melissa Rosenberg scripting Breaking Dawn.  Although Eclipse pails in comparison to Breaking Dawn's complex mess, Melissa still falls short on substance in key dialogue scenes...
including my favorite...

(i.e.) The Jacob kiss after the tent.

Bella chases after Jacob to prevent him from joining the Newborn fight.  Out of desperation to stop himshe yells out, "Kiss me!"

He doesn't hesitate, she surrenders to it.

(script:  Push in close on her face as a wave of repressed feelings rises up, flooding her mind.  As they are kissing a series of fast dissolves, one into another as years pass...)

~Bella and Jacob, arm in arm, sitting on a stoop in the bright sunlight.

~Now they're in their late 20's rocking an infant

~In their 30's there are 2 kids now, toddler boy. Infant girl.

~In their 40's the GROWN children home for the holidays

~In their 60's, playing with their grandchildren

...she abruptly snaps out of it.

WHAT. THE.  FUCK?

Did I really need to know that while she's kissing Jacob, it's her life with HIM, that's playing out in her head? That this will be played out on the big screen? Betrayal of IMAX proportions?

And the dialogue with Edward after that kiss? Ms. Rosenberg's sophisticated writing talent goes as follows;

Bella, "Edward"

He appears from around the rock, comes toward her.  She sees his face, stops. Knows.

Bella, "you saw?"

Edward, "No, but Jacobs thoughts are very loud"

Bella, "I don't know what happened"

Edward, "You love him"

Bella, "I love you more"

I love you more? I LOVE YOU MORE? Is that fucking it?

After those one liners Edward goes on to say it was his fault asking her to choose, his fault for leaving her for Jacob to mend her.

Bella, "Don't blame yourself"

Edward, "I just want you to be happy no matter" ---

then it cuts to Edward saying, "It's begun"

Ms Rosenberg couldn't even let Edward finish his fucking sentence?

THAT'S  IT?

Is that the best Ms. Rosenberg could come up with?

After immediately reading that scene, I had a flash back to New Moon and Melissa's brilliant writing after Bella talks to Jacob for the first time after his phasing...

Bella, "So you're a werewolf"

Jacob, "Yeah, since the last time I checked"

Brilliant.

In the book, the character of Riley and the Newborn army was a background shadow to the story, to the LOVE story that Stephanie gave her readers. Unfortunately, that is not the case for the movie.

Case in point...

Riley.

His character plays a significant part throughout the script.  The opening scene starts with him, as a college student, being stalked and eventually bitten by Victoria. The scene cuts to Charlie, the police station, and Riley's parents filing a missing persons report.

He goes onto biting and recruiting newborns.  Taking those newborns to bite and recruit more newborns.  Riley and Victoria frolicking.  Riley, in Bella's bedroom stealing her red sweater.  Riley taking the sweater to other newborns to catch a sniff.  Riley and newborns traveling to the spot of Bella's (planned scent) in the woods.  Riley joining Victoria to Kill Edward and Bella.

Which leads to the fight between Edward, Riley and Victoria.

Edward tries to bargain with Riley by diss'n Victoria.  Doesn't work.

Script:

"Bella's POV on Edward:  Riley tackles him to his knees, Victoria grabs Edward from behind.

Time freezes-- slow motion as Bella's eyes meet Edwards.

Close on Bella's face--see her clarity, she's never in her life been more sure of what she wants than in this moment.  With purpose she grabs up a sharp piece of slate. Bella plunges the shard downward, stabbing her arm.  Blood flows dripping bright red onto the white snow.  Riley spins toward Bella, the scent making him wild. Victoria catches her scent long enough for Edward to seize the moment.  Edward rips Riley's arm off and tosses him to Seth to finish off...."

In a nutshell, Edward rips Victoria's head off with is mouth (true Violent David Slade style I would imagine)...

Script:

"Edward looks up at Bella.  Their eyes meet.  But shame, fear, cloud his face.  She moves toward him. Slowly. As she reaches him, he turns away.

Bella, "Edward"

Edward, "I didn't want you to see that".

Brilliant writing there, Rosenberg (eyeroll)

Much to my dismay, Rosenberg included that creepy imprinting crap into the script. Jacob fills Bella in on the Sam, Leah and Emily love triange, In which Bella herself, says is "creepy". (set up Jacob and Renessme')

Also set up in Eclipse for Breaking Dawn are 2 scenes in which both Charlie and Renee talk to Bella about having children.  With Charlie it was incorporated in the scene when she talks to him about his feelings about Marriage and in a scene with Renee when Bella goes to visit her in Florida.  Renee gives her a quilt made of T-shirts of different places they went to. With Renee saying to Bella that she can do the same with her "Children".


Eclipse was my favorite of the three books.  
My only wish was that Catherine Hardwick was the one to direct it.  She captured  Stephanie Meyers vision of Edward and Bella and brought their love story to life.  Unfortunately, and I hope I'm wrong, but I think David Slade being the dark director he is, does Eclipse an injustice by focusing on Victoria and Riley and the newborn army instead of the love between Edward and Bella and the conflict between Edward, Bella & Jacob.  That is clearly apparent in the script.


I hope the editing of this movie proves me wrong.


I can only hope Stephanie has a hand in the editing of the movie and and steals back her characters making all those involved with the movie, staying true to what the saga is all about. 


I haven't gotten past David Slade dissing Twilight before he was hired to direct Eclipse.  His forced twitter apology to put the die-hard twilight fans at rest
did not impress me in the least.


With all that being said,
I wish I had taken the vow to remain Eclipse free.
I cannot believe I  gave into curiosity,  yet again.

Godfrey throws a Breaking Dawn bone

The Twilight Saga producer Wyck Godfrey talked with the LA Times about Breaking Dawn.  He had some interesting things to say.

Wyck Godfrey, the producer of all the films in the “Twilight” saga, admits that the creative team still doesn’t know how they’ll handle the character [Renesmee] in the “Breaking Dawn” movie, but said that the plan is absolutely for the production to go forward — as either one or two installments — with an eye toward beginning to shoot in Vancouver this fall. All three stars are signed for “Breaking Dawn,” he said, meaning that Stewart and Pattinson will be dealing with the joys and woes of interspecies parenting and newly minted heartthrob Taylor Lautner will return as often-shirtless shape-shifter Jacob Black.
At the moment, screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg, who’s penned all the “Twilight” movies, is working on the “Breaking Dawn” script(s). “It’s a work in process,” Godfrey said in an interview Friday. “The issue [of whether there will be one or two movies] is not going to be resolved until we get the full treatment and see whether it’s organic. If it’s not organic, I don’t think it will be done, and if it is, it will be. It really has to do with how much level of detail from the books there is, with all of these new vampires that appear in ‘Breaking Dawn,’ the whole section about Jacob… It’s a very long single movie if it does become a single movie.”
Although there’s been a great deal of online chatter about whether Chris Weitz, director of the second and most recent movie, “New Moon,” would return to helm “Breaking Dawn,” Godfrey downplayed that possibility, saying, “I think everyone would be happy and excited if he came back, but I don’t think it’s going to happen.”

He and the other principals are formulating a list of potential directors, "but right now," Godfrey said, "we're just focused on the treatment and getting that right. At that point, we're going to see who's available and who's appropriate. It's such a complicated book because you have the emotions and the intensity of the love story -- so you need somebody who's just a wonderful director of actors -- and yet it's really complicated from an action and visual effects standpoint. They've got to have both tools in their kit."
A visual effects background might be particularly helpful when it comes to dealing with the character of Renesmee.
"I keep having visions of '[The Curious Case of] Benjamin Button' in my head," Godfrey said, referring to David Fincher's Oscar-nominated 2008 fantasy about a man who becomes physically younger as he ages. "It's certainly going to be visual effects in some capacity along with an actor. I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up being a full CG creation, but it also may be a human shot on a soundstage that then is used to shrink down. I don't know. We need a director. When we get a director, that director will need to come with a point of view of how they want to tackle it."

Source

Some thoughts on Breaking Dawn previously posted:

Twilight scribe...

My 'New Moon' balloon deflated...

After months of viewing trailers, spoilers, photo's, interviews and Youtube fan video's, I went into the 12:01 a.m. showing of New Moon with extremely high expectations.  Unfortunately, it didn't take long for the disappointment to set in. (egads! I said it!)


I'll start with Edward because, well, it's Edward.  I think his hair was way too flat, skin way too white, lips way too red and eyes way too orange.  Insignificant I know, but annoying just the same. Also, being that Edward's appearance in New Moon was limited, I felt a couple of the scenes he was in were rushed. (i.e.)  his reaction after speaking to Jacob and being told Charlie was making funeral arrangements.  That was the first physical scene he was in after he left Bella and felt that more time should've been spent on his anguish. (Crushing the cell phone in his hand just didn't work for me).  He's strong, I get it.  But what about his heart? I was expecting him to drop to the floor in agonizing devastation. I also thought his visit to the Volturri in his request for death, again rushed.  Where's was the dialogue as in the book? Two pivotal scenes, glossed over and brief.


I give it to Catherine Hardwick.  Her version of twilight may have not followed the book as did New Moon, nor the effects as spectacular as New Moon, but she captured and brought out the chemistry between Robert and Kristen.  In New Moon, I felt Chris Weitz failed to do that.  At times it  felt like Robert was reading lines from the script and found myself asking, "Does Edward even like Bella?". During most of the break up scene, he briefly looked into Bella's eyes.  Whereas Twilight, his eyes hardly left hers. That stare...gone.  (Still insignificant to many, but vital to the characters just the same).


There was no heart stopping moment between Edward and Bella (except the birthday kiss the night before the break up).  I felt the reunion scene at the clock tower fell short.  Where was all the footage of them wrapped in eachother's arms kissing that made it's way to the internet or youtube? That was another scene I felt was rushed.  The dialogue between Edward and Bella was limited and again, brief. That was a key scene that should've followed the book exactly.  Although the fight scene effects of Edward getting his ass kicked was worth the watch,  where was the intensity between Edward and Bella? 


Kristen Stewart, on the other hand, I thought did extremely well.  After watching her portray Bella in Twilight (most scenes her just shaking her head as if in disgust)  I never thought she would be able to pull off Bella's sorrow.  But she did.  Her scenes with Jacob had heart, chemistry.  Which, by the way, I felt Taylor Lautner owned the movie.  It was his and he ran with it.  Kudos to Taylor!


I also want to know what drugs Make-up/Wardrobe was on.  In "Twilight" all the vampires were gorgeous.  In "New Moon" I felt as if they were dressed much older than what they were.  Ex.  what the fuck was that garb Carlisle was dressed in for vote scene?  Ridiculous, but not as ridiculous as that poodle wig Jasper was sporting.  Seriously, didn't anyone from production say, "Hey wait a minute, he looks ridiculous"?


Ok so some may say I'm nit-picking.  So be it.  Like I said, I went in with high expectations.  I also didn't truly appreciate the job Catherine Hardwick did with Twilight until I saw "New Moon".  Would I want Chris Weitz back as director for "Breaking Dawn"?  At this point my thoughts are Summit would have to hire an extremely talented director to bring that mess to the big screen.  Do I think Melissa Rosenberg has the writing skills to make the transitition from book to the big screen and be successful? NO. And that's not dissing Melissa.  I think she tied "New Moon" together nicely.  She stayed true to Stephenie Meyers dialogue and I attribute that to the success of "New Moon." But I've said it before,  I think Breaking Dawn was ridiculously bizarre and I just think a script of that magnitude would not be best served written by her.


I will give credit where credit is due.  Although I think Chris Weitz fell short on capturing the chemistry between Robert and Kristen, he did a great job with the special effects.  If anyone really gives a shit, I give New Moon 3 stars and that's because I love the saga regardless!

Exclusive: Melissa Rosenberg on 'New Moon,' Edward's Proposal, and 'Breaking Dawn'

There is a common link between the sparkly universe of Twilight and the sociopath exploits of Showtime’s Dexter, and her name is Melissa Rosenberg. The screenwriter and Emmy-nominated television producer has been juggling the two franchises since 2007, which is when she scripted the first Twilight film from Stephenie Meyer’s novel. Following the film’s enormous success, Rosenberg became Summit’s go-to writer for the series, and she’s since written two sequels including this month's New Moon and next summer's Eclipse.
FEARnet spoke exclusively with Rosenberg from her home in Los Angeles, where she had recently returned from a whirlwind trip to Rome to unveil new footage for Italian Twilighters. Among other topics, Rosenberg discussed her favorite new scenes and explained how that proposal scene will be split between New Moon and Eclipse -- and that, if she were to write Breaking Dawn, the subject matter wouldn’t be a problem.
FEARnet: Summit seems to reward the Italian fans with juicy world-exclusive clips that the rest of us salivate over!

Melissa Rosenberg: They get a lot of clips - they saw a lot of the show! It was good; they were so receptive and wonderful.
Have you seen the final cut of New Moon yet?

I saw an early cut of it, yeah. Some of the special effects weren’t there, stuff like that. But I have to tell you, it’s funny because for writers, and for me – I often will dread a director’s cut. As a writer, you have already seen the movie in your head. And the movie in your head costs a gazillion dollars; you can’t actually make the movie in your head, but you’ve seen it. And so, a director’s cut is almost always a disappointment because it’s not what you’ve seen in your head. It can be a major adjustment, it’s not what's in my head but this one’s different, but as good.
When I saw Chris’s cut, about ten minutes into the movie I started smiling. I thought to myself, I get to put my name on this. It was just so thrilling. It’s really good. I have to tell you, in all sincerity, it’s really good.
I saw you last on a set visit to New Moon’s Vancouver stages, and you had just arrived to watch the dailies. You seemed really pleased with what you were seeing from the Volturi scenes in particular.
Yes, and that was on a sound stage. The big screen version really lives up to it. It just looks lush and beautiful; it looks like a big movie. And the budget didn’t increase that significantly. Harry Potter budgets are what, $150-200 million? This is half of that, at least.
You’ve added a few scenes to New Moon that weren’t in the book, like the one where Jacob gives Bella a gift of a dream catcher. Can you tell us about that?
Actually, I got the idea from a writer friend of mine. I was searching around for that moment... You had to establish the relationship between Bella and Jacob; he can give her gifts and Edward can’t. The sort of easy friendship with the two of them, and yet also, show that Jacob actually has feelings for her. He sort of casually presents the dream catcher, but really he’s shopped around for it for quite a while. I wanted it to be something that was special to him and his culture, and it was so thematic to Bella; the movie is laden with her dreams. Her dream life is a very rich part of the film. So thematically, it really blended well. I thank my friend for coming up with that.
What’s one of your favorite new scenes or extended scenes that you’ve written into New Moon?

One of my favorites is actually the end, when they go to Volterra and confront a couple of Volturi. In the book, the conflict in that scene is verbal; there is an attack on Edward by Jane, and it works in the book, it’s beautiful in the book. It’s never acted out; it never explodes. For the movie, because it’s a visual medium, I felt like I wanted to externalize that conflict more, turn it into more of a battle. So it’s the same scenario, it’s just enacted and externalized. We get to see an actual fight.
We see that fight between Edward (Robert Pattinson) and Felix (Daniel Cudmore) in one of the latest trailers, and with its slow-motion elements it looks great.
I’m telling you: Chris and his stunt guys and the DP are just fantastic. Daniel Cudmore, who plays Felix, did a tremendous job. I love Daniel Cudmore! Not only is he terrific in this role, he’s also just the greatest guy. Funny and charming.
In your script for Twilight, you wrote in a number of direct quotes from Stephenie Meyer’s book. Can we expect the same in New Moon and Eclipse?
There are definitely some quotes sprinkled throughout. In some cases I’m paraphrasing, but I do try to include as many as I can. It’s very important. It brings the flavor of the book into the movie, so I definitely try to.
Fans want to know: Did the proposal scene make it into New Moon?

The proposal comes into the end of New Moon, and that is the first proposal. Absolutely in Eclipse, the proposal when they’re on the bed, yes -- to me, that was a quintessential scene from the book. When Edward gets on his knees, with his mother’s ring, and she says yes -- that was one of the most romantic scenes that Stephenie wrote in all four books.
There are so many specific scenes and events in the Twilight books, it doesn’t seem like you could take them out and still remain true to the story.

Yes. There are several that are so essential to the storytelling that you absolutely must put them in.
Wyck Godfrey specifically said that if Breaking Dawn was made, it would absolutely be a PG-13 film, so it seems that staying true to that story’s specific events while making it suitable for younger audiences would be challenging.
Well yes, you have to know your audience. And... there’s no reason for it not to be. It could be PG-13.
Is there a sense that on the one hand, you have to temper the increasingly mature content in the Twilight scripts for a younger audience, but with Dexter you’re free to go as far as you want to?

Well what’s really true is that there isn’t a lot of tempering going on with Twilight. I don’t write the movies for a young audience. I write them for an audience of all ages. I write them for myself as an audience member; I’m the first audience the script gets, and it’s not going to be entertaining for me if it’s geared toward a young audience. You’re writing character and you’re writing emotion, and that is ageless. The major difference between the two is language and some graphic violence. If you took away the foul language of Dexter and you took away the actual... well, you see some bloody stuff in Twilight, too. No one is tempering anything.
As long as the characters’ arcs and the emotional story is genuine... I have to say, I don’t feel held back or restrained. It’s just not necessary to see gore; gore is much scarier if you don’t see it.
Obviously by the fourth book in The Twilight Saga, there will be subjects and events that do seem unsuitable for the younger side of the Twilight audience. How would you tackle that challenge?
If I were to be writing that, I think there are many things that probably are inappropriate, and there are probably other things that can be implied. I don’t think that it will be a problem.
You've been writing the Twilight films while also writing and producing Dexter. How tough has that been on your schedule?

Dexter is on hiatus now, but yes – the entire Twilight series has been juggled with Dexter. So the last three years have been busy, but I’m not complaining. I feel blessed. I am a little tired. [Laughs] October, actually, has been a break for me. I’ve managed to kind of futz around and do nothing.
Do you have any projects on the horizon that don’t involve Twilight?
At the moment, they are on hold. I am contemplating a lot of things, but I haven’t latched on to something yet. I want to choose carefully.
When you started writing, did you ever imagine that you’d be writing about serial killers and vampires and werewolves by now?
Really, you never know what you’re going to have to write about. Vampires, I had always hoped to write about. I’m a huge fan of the Buffy series; I tried to get Joss Whedon to hire me early on, on that or Angel, but that didn’t happen. So I was a fan of the genre. I hadn’t seriously thought about it, but once it was presented, it was like, absolutely. But I certainly never anticipated this kind of good fortune.

'Twilight' Scribe Will Return To Pen 'Breaking Dawn' & Summit Still Might Make It A Two-Parter

Melissa Rosenberg has got to be the happiest lady in the Twi-verse. She has just signed on, according to E! Online, to pen the screenplay of the final “Twilight” novel, “Breaking Dawn” — which, by the way, we still don’t know if it’s going to be in one or two movies.

According to E!, when they spoke to Melissa last week, she said “everything was still up in the air,” but their “Twilight” insider said Melissa's deal is done, though Summit has returned to the idea of splitting “Breaking Dawn” into two movies.

read the rest here.

...My take on the question mark that always followed talk of bringing "Breaking Dawn" to the big screen was that I was not alone in thinking the book sucked. (ducking)...I stand corrected.  The first 100 or so pages were true Stephenie fashion.  I thought the "wedding" was all that it should be. From that point on it was a downward spiral of 600 plus pages of some ridiculously bizarre shit.  I couldn't get past asking myself "WTF?"

I'm sure while penning Breaking Dawn during "Twilight" production, Stephenie Meyer had to have asked herself, "How can all this be successfully adapted to film?" I'll be the first to say that I'm a stickler when it comes to "sticking to the book".  But in this case, I hope Melissa Rosenberg has the talent and balls to make some changes that could give Breaking Dawn a rebirth of worth. (Note to Ms. Rosenberg:  Leave out the "imprinting" crap. That's just too creepy, really).

Now I don't mean to be sitting here beating up on Stephenie Meyer.  I love her love story. I love the characters. It's that simple. But, in my opinion, Breaking Dawn belongs to another storyline, Not Edward and Bella's.