Hall H: The Twilight Saga Breaking Dawn Part 2 Opening 7 Minutes and Panel

Published on Jul 17th, 2012
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Written by Ryan Hamelin
RyanHamelin@TheCinemaSource.com

Another year, another Twilight movie. Honestly, I wasn’t even intending to be in Hall H for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 panel… but I wanted to give myself time to see the Disney footage from Frankenweenie and Oz the Great and Powerful before the press conference for those films. That didn’t end up happening, leaving my sole Thursday Hall H experience as the final sparkly vampire tale.

The panel began with the introduction of Stephenie Meyer, who, in turn, welcomed out Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner, and Robert Pattinson. Maybe it was just the vibe in the room, or perhaps the light at the end of the tunnel was finally in sight, but the actors appeared more relaxed and happy than I’ve probably ever seen them before. Stewart, in particular, was all smiles, joking and laughing with her co-stars and visibly relieved that this would be her last Con appearance as Bella Swan.

After a few cursory introductions, we were greeted with a pre-recorded message from director Bill Condon, busy in the UK doing the post-sound work on the film. He revealed that, instead of a handful of scenes, or a sizzle reel, he decided that he wanted to screen the first 7 minutes of the film for us. The twi-hards in the front of the room screamed. Everyone else looked bemused. The lights dimmed, and the movie rolled.

Bella wakes up feeling… different. I don’t know what it would feel like waking up a vampire, but for her, it gives her hyper awareness of her surroundings, demonstrated by a bunch of extreme close-ups of mundane things. Edward enters the room and embraces her, and the hug she returns is much too strong, comically causing him to wince in pain. I guess after 4 movies and a real life relationship, complaints of a lack of chemistry between the two have fallen by the wayside.

Edward takes her out “hunting,” which involves running really fast through the forest and, in one particularly cheesy sequence (the effects, in their defense, are supposedly unfinished), has Bella tackling a mountain lion in the air mid-pounce. Bella senses human blood and goes scurrying up the side of a cliff-face after an endangered mountain climber before Edward can talk her down, and eventually they find themselves on the path back to the house. This is where Lautner makes his first appearance, delivers some painfully bad dialogue about protecting Bella’s daughter from her, and ends by inviting her to meet the child.

There really wasn’t anything in the opening 7 minutes that would convince a non-believer to join the throng. The initiated appeared to enjoy what they saw, as well as the introduction of about 8 more of the actors from the film who took seats to the right of the leads on stage.

One more clip was shown about halfway through the panel involving the vampire family preparing Bella to meet her father and talking her through the little things she had to do to appear human like blinking, breathing, and moving slowly. It was a cute scene, but easily under a minute, and only served to showcase Stewart doing her trademark awkward glances. The Q&A really revealed nothing new about the characters or the actors experiences on set, and with the exception of an adorable 9 year old who had a question for Stewart, was pretty uneventful. One question for Pattinson asked if his Edward in this film could tell his Edward from the first film anything, what would it be? His cheeky response was, “Keep it in your pants.” It was only after the words were out of his mouth that he seemed to realize the average age of the Twilight fans in the room and went red with embarrassment as Lautner and Stewart teased him about his answer.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 will be released in November.

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