Can you believe it’s been 10 years since The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part Two made fans cry and critics laugh with its nutty vampire-werewolf fight scene? Eliza Janssen can’t, and will love the franchise’s climax for a thousand years.
In the decade since we saw the last of the Twilight saga, based on Stephanie Meyers’ maligned series of YA romance novels, the franchise became shorthand for the Worst Thing Ever. “Still a better love story than Twilight”, snarky commenters spat back at any screencaps of surreal or dysfunctional pop culture relationships. Leads Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart copped so much flack for their wooden performances that it’s frankly stunning they’ve been able to ascend to newfound arthouse and awards season acclaim in the short time since.
It can be argued that much of the vitriol towards Twilight and its sequels lies in a widely denounced of any media targeted towards young women seeking emotionally validating power fantasies. And hell, the first film is legitimately well-directed by Catherine Hardwicke, featuring a soundtrack that still slaps. But whether you were a Twihard or a gleeful hater of the emo vampire yarn, we can all agree on one thing: the series’ climax in The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn: Part Two gave us everything.
On November 15 2012, we piled into cinemas for the clumsy conclusion of the love story between human Bella Swan (Stewart) and peacoat-wearing vampire Edward Cullen (Pattinson). Copying the then-trendy box-office savvy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Lionsgate broke up the interminable final chapter of Meyers’ last book into two films to wring the last few bucks out of fan wallets. Part one saw Bella pregnant with a blood-sucking vampire baby, which is perplexing as the undead Edward shouldn’t really be able to ejaculate viable sperm. Anyways. Bella almost died during childbirth after Edward bit the baby out of her uterus with his fangs, and had to be converted to vamp lyf in order to survive.
Breaking Dawn: Part Two opens with shoddy scenes of Bella testing out her new and improved body, launching herself at a mountain lion as a tasty trail snack. Things only get more fucked up when she learns that, while she was between life and death, her simp werewolf bestie Jacob (Taylor Lautner) “imprinted” on her newborn baby Renesmee (the least vampiric, most Mormon mid-west name imaginable). He’s totally not a pedophile, guys: he’s just seen a vision of himself loving and protecting the ungodly vampire-human baby until it reaches the age of consent.
This should surely be enough drama to fuel a final feature in itself, but instead we get introduced to like 20 new characters when the villainous Italian vampire authorities find out about the illegal half-breed infant. Famous folks like Lee Pace, Rami Malek, and Maggie Grace show up in pale makeup and contact lenses to defend Renesmee from the ruthless Volturi. Michael Sheen is the baddie’s leader, Aro, in a performance that leaves fang marks all over the frosty Washington scenery.
His trilling soprano laugh when he first met Renesmee has to be seen to be believed. It’s the first sign of the bonkers-ness we’re in for, completely breaking the tension of the film’s big good-vampires-and-werewolves vs. bad vampires showdown. Edward’s manic pixie dream sister Alice (Ashley Greene) warns Aro against attacking Bella and Edward for their interspecies boinking, but he doesn’t listen: he and the Cullen clan’s dad Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) leap into the air and when they land, Aro is holding the beloved papa’s severed head. Carlisle’s face is slack with lifelessness—Aro’s is cheeky, impish; “did I do thaaaat?”
Fans. Lost. Their. Shit. The above video captures the crushed gasps and cries of Twihards seeing this scene, which was not included in the source novel, and realizing that any fan favorite could instantly get recognized. And oh, did they: a lesser Cullen’s head was karate-chopped off (good), werewolves went for Volturi jugulars and get tossed into cavernous cracks in the ice field (sad), and Edward flies around like he’s on goddamn wuxia wires. You can hear a very unearned Wilhelm scream. One elderly vamp cracks me up by whispering “finally” before getting twisted apart like a Christmas cracker. LMAO.
The kills are alternately hilarious and horrible, with bad vampires getting ripped apart at the jaws and Aro ultimately being decapitated as well. But as Bella approaches his lifeless body with a flaming torch, we zoom in on the reflection of the blaze in his eyes…and…
…return to the scene of Alice speaking with the Volturi leader. Showing him a vision—a fucking awesome, body-count-bumping dream sequence!!—of what’ll happen if he messes with our heroes. The cheers and shouts in the audience recording above capture just how mind-blowing the revelation was for those who thought they knew what was coming.
