In Which Lexi Talks About Breaking Dawn Part 2 (A.K.A. the Death of Literature and Death In Literature)

So I went to see Breaking Dawn Part 2 today yesterday with a friend, a fellow Anti-Twilighter. We were going as loltrolls and were prepared to be kicked out due to our inability to not comment on what we saw.

Guys. Holy shit. Guys. This movie. This... this movie...

I think my brain is broke.

Because I know someone might not want to be spoiled for the BIG FREAKING TWIST, here is a spoiler-cut.


Okay, because I was prevented from actually writing this right after I got home from it, I'm going to just stream-of-consciousness this until I make my point.

And again, I say:

HOLY SHIT.

So yeah, let's start with the previews before the actual movie. Of what I remember, there were two zombie films (World War Z, which my friend was very excited about, and Warm Bodies) and then there was THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE (there were cheers and clapping all over, which gave me hope... alas...) Then there was Now You See Me, featuring God Himself and the Hulk (Morgan Freeman and Mark Ruffalo, eff yeah!) And then there were the two movies clearly based off of teen lit series that were riding the Twilight wave: one was one for a story that looked interesting enough, an acceptable germ of an idea that certainly could have potential (Beautiful Creatures) and the other was freaking The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. I groaned aloud when City of Bones popped up.

So yeah. Then the movie proper started, with a very long, drawn-out credits sequence that showed red things freezing, in an attempt to be ~SIMBOLLICK~ about Bella's transformation into a Meyerpire (remember, they're unnaturally cold and frozen and hard, like an icy pop.) We open where the third arc of the book opens, with Bella waking up fully vamped out and finally equal to Edward. They make out for a bit, then go hunting. Bella nearly kills a mountain climber but resists at the last second and jumps off a fucking cliff face into the forest miles below, holy shit. Can you spell M-A-R-Y-S-U-E? Then, she goes and bags a mountain lion. Poor kitty.

After the hunt, Bella finally gets to meet her daughter, the unfortunately-named Renesmee. And guys. Guys.

Fucking Renesmee. Fucking Renesmee.

You wanna know something funny? Stephenie Meyer once said that she couldn't see Breaking Dawn getting turned into a movie (FOR GOOD REASON, HOLY SHIT) because Renesmee is an exceptionally special snowflake baby, and she didn't think CGI had gotten to the point where it could pull her off yet.

Guys, as much as I hate agreeing with SMeyer on this, she's right. CGI-Renesmee looks fucking creepy. She looks fake, so very fake, and her eyes are all dead and dull and blank. And to make matters worse, they keep using CGI-Renesmee until the third act of the movie! So we get two whole acts of creepy dead-eyed CGI child! I wanted to shit my pants!

And I kid you not, when they finally revealed CGI-Death Baby, people in the audience cooed. I shit you not.

Maybe it wasn't that CGI isn't good enough yet. Maybe the producers didn't devote enough of a budget to decent CGI. Wouldn't be surprised. Holy God.

Anyway, back to the story... or whatever this is, anyway. It's revealed that Jacob imprinted on the CGI Death Baby and Bella supposedly gets pissed off. Except for the fact that Kristen Stewart is a terrible actress, so... it doesn't really work.

The only character that shines in this movie is Leah Clearwater. She appears for maybe four scenes, is always in wolf form, and is more awesome than almost everyone else in the goddamn series. Bella backhands Seth into a tree, injuring him, and Leah is at his side in a second, rubbing up against him and whining before turning to Bella and snarling. Leah is the Best Big Sister ever, and what's nice to see is that the relationship between the Clearwater kids is actually much better in this movie. Seth and Leah clearly have a real sibling relationship, where they do care for each other. It's really refreshing, especially after seeing how badly Leah is treated in the books. Seriously, SMeyer, do you just hate her? Leah Clearwater is such an anomaly...

Anyhoodle, the movie's pacing is terrible, interspersed with unnecessary exposition and narration. I realize that the books were originally told in first person, but film is a visual medium. We don't need narration! It annoyed me so much, you guys. You don't even know.

So yeah. Pacing is terrible - I was shocked when we got out of the theater and I discovered that two whole hours of my life had passed while watching that trainwreck. I mean, seriously, this movie was the equivalent to marshmallow fluff. No substance whatsoever. I could have edited both parts of Breaking Dawn down into one movie and still had enough time to develop character... or whatever we've got here, because seriously.

Back to the plot... or whatever this is. So Bella and the Cullens decide that they have to leave Forks because she can't be seen now, or people will cotton onto the fact that Something Is Not Right Here and start figuring shit out. This is sledgehammered into focus when Bella's father, Charlie, refuses to give up trying to make contact and make sure Bella is all right. Plans are made to Exit, Stage Right, and they're taking Renesmee with them.

Jacob, being the obsessed pedophile that he's become, Absolutely Cannot Let That Happen. So he goes to find Charlie, reporting that Bella is alive and well, and...

...I shit you not...

He awkwardly strips in front of a horrified Charlie - probably to fill poor Taylor Lautner's contractual obligation to take his shirt off at least once per movie - and wolfs out in front of him, thus outing the supernatural world-within-a-world to him. So Charlie goes to see Bella and just says "don't tell me what I don't need to know" and proceeds to become the Hands-Off Dad that so many teenagers only wish their parents would be. Oh, and he gets a girlfriend, because PAIR THE SPARES. And the girlfriend is Leah and Seth Clearwater's mom, who was only just recently widowed BARELY A YEAR AGO. And that's pretty much Charlie's sendoff.

And then we get a montage of mundane vampire living, and Bella and Edward have sex. It's not even a really well-done sex scene. It's just... boring. Seriously. I've read fanfic porn better than what I saw. Gay fanfic porn. That did indeed include vampires sometimes. And sometimes werewolves.

Moving on. So we finally get to the fucking plot about three-fifths into the movie, when one of the Cullens' fellow "vegetarian vampire relatives" catches sight of Renesmee and incorrectly assumes that what she's seeing is a child having been turned into a vampire, which is illegal in the vampire world. She runs off to the Vampire Vatican - er, I mean the Volturi. In Italy. Which is totally coincidental to the fact that the Vatican and the seat of the Christian and Catholic Church is in Italy. Totally coincidental.

Guys, Meyer does not know how to do subtle. Seriously.

So the Vampire Pope Tribunal has now been alerted, and he and his Ambiguously Gay Duo buddies decide to go to Forks, taking for-fucking-ever to get there, holy shit. Alice, Edward's conveniently psychic-whenever-it's-convenient sister, gets a vision of them heading their way and the Cullens decide to gather their vampire friends from around the world to "stand witness" (MEYER, YOUR MORMON IS SHOWING*) and if necessary, fight alongside them against the Vatican Volturi. We get a ton of shallow, one-dimension characters that are basically walking stereotypes of the countries from which they are from - the Amazon vampires are running around in animal skins and look like Exotic Jungle People, holy shit. Problem is, most of these vampires are people-eaters.

And here's where I started getting mad. Guys, having "good" vampires is not impossible. I've seen it done well in both official media and fanfic. It's possible. You have two options: the "good" vampire doesn't eat human blood at all, but subsists on animal blood or a synthesized substitute. Or, you have human-blood consuming vampires who take it from willing donors or just eat bagged blood from bloodbanks. Or something else I haven't thought of. Psychic vampires? Nevermind.

Meyer proves herself a terrible person and a failure of a human being by entirely skipping over the fact that all the people-eating vampires are actually killing and eating people in the area to survive, instead of adhering to the Cullens' strictly-animal diet. Not only would that not be subtle at all - hello, de-sanguinated corpses showing up in dozens at a time in the Olympic Peninsula area? The FBI would be all over that shit, you dumbasses! But even so, it's the moral issue that bothers me. WHY ARE WE LETTING THESE "GOOD" VAMPIRES GET AWAY WITH HUNTING AND MURDERING AND EATING HUMAN BEINGS?! Yeah, they may not be credited characters, but they're still people with families and lives that were snuffed out because some random vamp needed a snack!

I... I can't dwell on this. It's fucking deplorable, especially since Meyer has stated that we're really nothing more than cattle to the vampires, we're nothing but dumb animals, like pigs and cows and chickens, nothing but meat to consume. And we should be glad because her vampires are such fucking gods. She has stated, over and over again, that she isn't "anti-woman... just anti-human."

Um, Meyer? YOU'RE A HUMAN, YOU DIPSHIT.

Okay. Moving on from that sack of shit. So yeah, all the vampires that the Cullens gather have special powers.

Depicted: what they were trying for.
Depicted: what they failed to portray.
Fuck you guys, these guys may be considered freaks, but at least they have regard for human life.

It turns out that there's a Vatican  conspiracy involving the Pope Volturi: Aro, played by the flawless Michael Sheen

Someone's looking FABULOOOOUUUUUUS!
(Pictured above: the only actor who really had fun with this movie. Seriously.)

is out to collect all of the special-powered Cullenses and any others he can grab. Because it's like Pokemon, you guys! Gotta catch 'em all. And it turns out that Bella has a super-special power, too. In fact, it's the Bestest Power Of Them All! She's a shield!

...uh, wait, what? Seriously, that's the most Awesome, Sooper-Speshul Superpower of them all? The ability to shield? The writers of Push beg to differ, SMeyer.

Still a better movie than any of these. Fuck yes.

So yeah, Bella starts learning how to stretch her shield around something other than herself, and everyone starts practicing fighting, and it's really kind of boring, and we get hints of characterization from the foreign/non-Cullen vampires, and seriously? I'd rather see a movie about them. Of course, I'd want it to be about their struggle to overcome the need to feed on humans, and so on...

But anyway, since Bella is Clearly The Most Specialest Of Them All, plus the fact that Edward and Alice have Sooper-Speshul Superpowers as well, clearly Aro is latching onto this whole Immortal Child thing as an excuse to get to Bella, Edward, and Alice and erradicate the Cullenses, that evil Catholic Volturi.

So Alice runs away, but not before leaving Bella a clue. Bella finds a note from Alice inside her copy of The Merchant of Venice (the story SMeyer tried to base Breeding Spawn Breaking Dawn on and failed at utterly) that leads her to a shady lawyer dude named J. Jenks, and I gotta ask:

WHAT THE EVER-LOVING FUCK?

It's revealed that Jenks has been doing business with Jasper Hale, Alice's Sealed-In-The-Temple husband for the past twenty years. And he's noticed that Mister Cullen does not age.

Um, guys? What about Keeping Up The Masquerade? You know, not letting people in on the fact that you're all fucking immortal vampires? You know, THE REASON THE VOLTURI HUNT DOWN ROGUE VAMPS. THE REASON THEY'RE ON THEIR WAY TO KILL YOU ALL?!

CONTINUITY, WHAT'S THAT?!

So Bella receives fake passports and ID's for Jacob and Renesmee, because Alice wanted to cover their bases and get The Most Important Thing To Safety if it came to a fight... Renesmee is Jesus Christ Sue, after all. So Bella sadly realizes that she and Edward may not get to live happily ever after with their daughter, and if I didn't hate Bella and Company with every fibre of my being, I might actually feel sorry for her. But I don't. Boo-frickety-hoo.

So the day comes when the Cullenses and their people-eating monster friends and all of the doormat Injun Werewolves (good god, the racist stereotyping is so awful in this franchise) have to go up against the power of the Vatican Catholics Pope Vulturi Vatican. There's this kinda stupid shouting match, the Catholics Volturi  Catholics concede that Renesmee isn't an Immortal Child, but since she's the First Of Her Kind, Clearly, they cannot say for sure what will come of her, and therefore She Must Die.

To which I say "HUZZAH, KILL THEM ALL!"

Then Alice shows up and offers to show Aro what the future will be like if the Catholics Pope Vatican Volturi Bad Guys Catholics don't change their decisions. Then she realizes that no matter what she does, Aro won't change his mind and kicks him in the face. Holy shit.

And that sets it off. First, Aro tells his flunkies to grab her and take her by force, making Carlisle (the Daddy!Vamp of the Cullenses) run forward to stop them. Aro fucking rips his head off, and IT'S ON LIKE DONKEY KONG.

What follows is the single-best moment in the entire movie franchise. It's even better than the action scenes of Eclipse. What follows is a fucking massacre of "good" vamps and werewolves versus "bad" vamps. There is decapitation  There is beheading. There is dismemberment. There are parts where we see the Volturi breaking the spines of the werewolves. Leah watches her baby brother die and flips the fuck out, and I felt for her! AND THEN SHE DIES HORRIBLY--

My precious bby!!

Characters that have been around since the beginning are killed brutally on-screen. There's a part where one of the superpowered vamps CRACKS THE CRUST OF THE EARTH AND SUMMONS FUCKING LAVA, THROWING TONS OF PEOPLE FROM BOTH SIDES INTO IT. DAKOTA FANNING IS FED TO A WOLF. BELLA AND EDWARD DECAPITATE ARO AND SET FIRE TO HIS HEAD. It's FUCKING AMAZING.

It's also not real.

pretty much this

It's revealed that the ENTIRE FIGHT SCENE was all just a vision that Alice was showing Aro, and if he kept on with his decision to fight the Cullens, he would have died.

I fucking screamed in rage and fury and pure WHUT.

So, thoroughly freaked out, Aro hesitates. Long enough for Alice to pull out her Deus Ex Machina Trump Card... another dhampir kid like Renesmee! And he tells the Catholics Volturi Catholics and the Cullenses and their witnesses that Renesmee will stop aging at age seven, look to be forever seventeen years old, can eat human food and blood, and is non-venomous.

And the Catholics Volturi Catholics throw up their hands, go "whelp! Our bad!" and go home.

THAT'S FUCKING IT.

Oh, and the status quo is maintained, everyone lives happily ever after, THE END.

HOLY FUCKING GOD, THIS MOVIE.

So when the twist was revealed, as I said before, I FUCKING SCREAMED. I had been into it up until that point, and then they had to go "nah-uh, it wasn't real!" and I... I just...

THIS IS NOT HOW YOU MOVIE, PEOPLE. THIS IS NOT. HOW. YOU. MOVIE!!!

For the record? I read the book. I've read all of them. I knew that it was technically supposed to end the way it did. But when I started seeing fighting and action, I had hope that the writers went "fuck this shit" and tossed the original ending in order to go with a better one.

And it would have been a better one! Compare Breaking Dawn Part 2 to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, where half the cast is killed off in a matter of a few scenes. Characters you know and love are mercilessly slaughtered by the evil Death Eaters, and it fucking hurts. You wanna know something? That kind of death is meaningful, especially in a narrative where the heroes' stakes are so high. Harry finds himself motivated to take on Voldemort himself and even sacrifice himself in order to save what's left of his friends and what's grown to become his family. I... I'm legitimately crying typing this, because in both the book and the movie, I cried at the parts where Harry watches his friends and family falling in battle for him, and the knife gets driven into both his chest and mine. Those deaths have significance, they have meaning. They have weight.

Breaking Dawn's lack of... literary death, for lack of a better term, is just so shallow and stupid and worthless, I can't even. Even if Bella and Edward didn't survive the slaughter, even if all the characters we've known since the beginning didn't make it out alive, it would still have been a better ending than what we got. You could have ended it on a note of Renesmee and Jacob, the only survivors, setting out into an uncertain future with no one but each other to cling to; a bittersweet ending with a note of hope.

BOOM. I just movie'd better than Twilight.

Okay, as for the movie overall? There are a few kinda humorous scenes (forced humor for me, because all I could hear was the klaxon siren blaring "MARY-SUE ALERT, MARY-SUE ALERT!!") and some unintentionally hilarious scenes throughout the movie. Michael Sheen as Aro is especially awesome, because Michael Sheen is flawless. His Aro is fucking batshit insane, and he makes the movie bearable.

I may state over and over again that Leah Clearwater is my favorite character in the series, but she legitimately is, because she is the character that everyone rags on and hates. Despite this, she is still Awesome. Her and Charlie, Bella's human father. And to some degree, Emmett. But those three are about it. And seriously, Charlie gets the shaft something awful. The writers can tell that he's being shunted aside and make it very clear that they can tell. It's heartbreaking.

In any case, those characters I mentioned? Barely feature in this film. It's all about Bella, Edward, and their Jesus Christ God Mode Mary-Sue Death Baby Renesmee. And we know it.

This movie is a fucking trainwreck. It's a hilariously ridiculous trainwreck, and I can't wait to see what the RiffTrax guys do with it, because it's so rife with potential riffs. And then there's that awkward moment when the child actress playing Renesmee is a better actress than Kristen Stewart, the lead actress.

I would recommend that, if you absolutely must see this movie, go see it in a theater full of Twihards. Watch their worlds break like something out of Inception. Troll if you must, just don't get kicked out before the Big Twist. And go to a matinee showing, so you spend as little money as possible.

And I end this rambling review, leaving you with this:

HOLY SHIT.

*the "LDS Sparkledammerung" series of pseudo-essays was written by Laura Stone of Hey Don't Judge Me, and if you haven't read these essays, you are missing out.