The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Blu-Ray Review
Quick Stats
Year: 2012The Good:
The Blu-Ray has a fantastic look as the characters come alive on screen.The Bad:
There's no digital copy or DVD to make the package feel like a real special edition.The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part -1 delivered a fierce rendition of the text penned by Stephenie Meyer (who made a cameo in the wedding scene).
The cast of Twilight is back with Breaking Dawn – Part 1 and production was amped up for the two-part finale of this epic vampire saga as the producers brought in Academy Award winning director Bill Condon. Within its run-time, your favorite sparkly vampires and tribal werewolves have another battle on their hands, and this time it is an in-house affair.
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) are finally seeing the alter. An enchanting ceremony welcomes them into the world of marriage and the reception is spectacular. The newlyweds make their way to Isle Esme for a romantic honeymoon in paradise – if only the perfection could last. Happiness is in short supply however because it’s not long before they discover something that changes everything – Bella is pregnant.
Edward rushes his bride home, convinced that she is carrying a demon of some sort that will eventually kill her. The fast growing fetus is literally sucking the life out of Bella, but she is determined to give birth, and at the last moment, become a vampire. The news of the unknown comes as a threat to the safety of the town and the werewolves are forced to react. Bella and the Cullens are now the enemy, which sets a completely different mood from what we saw at the close of Eclipse. Jacob switches teams and steps out on his own as alpha of a new pack. He’s not sold on the idea of the baby, but he’s not ready to give up on saving Bella.
Things take a turn for the worse when the baby does some major damage when it announces it’s ready to join the world. Bella looks to be a goner but Edward doesn’t give up and before the curtain closes on this night everything will change.
For the first time, we see Edward and Bella disconnect, not including New Moon where they were still very much in love but separated, and it was tense. Jacob has finally found his reason for being and surprise, surprise – it wasn’t Bella. The werewolves and the vampires are at odds and the truce is void. Luckily, fans won’t have to wait long to see the final act come to life on screen. The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part -1 delivered a fierce rendition of the text penned by Stephenie Meyer (who made a cameo in the wedding scene).
The Blu-Ray has a fantastic look as the characters come alive on screen. Even the still above captured from the Blu-Ray version is captivating in the coloring and realistic features of the actors. It almost looks like Jacob is about to come through the screen. Although the film was shot exclusively in 2D, it has all the makings of a visually enticing product. The scenes looked absolutely mesmerizing and not just because of the scenery. The audio is excellent as well, coming in at 7.1 DTS-HD, with the Spanish version being underscored with only a 5.1 Dolby Digital track.
The disc includes several special features:
- 6-Part Making-of Documentary (viewable in both standard and Picture-in-Picture modes)
- Edward & Bella’s Personal Wedding Video
- Jacob’s Destiny (a short about his P.O.V.)
- Jump To feature (allows you to watch your favorite scenes over and over)
- Audio Commentary with Bill Condon
The options are a little lean with the ‘Jump To’ feature seeming kind of pointless with the ease of fast forward and ‘select chapter’, but it could be useful if you only want to see specific scenes, I suppose. The documentary is actually quite intricate, covering every part of the behind the scenes. It’s nice to see the mix of crew and cast discussing events that took place during filming, along with stories about key scenes.
The wedding video is adorable and includes messages from guests that ended up on the cutting room floor (I presume) in the actual film. Some of them were a bit cheesy and didn’t match the characters necessarily, while others were quite hilarious – especially those from her Forks friends. Bill Condon gives great insight and really feels like the right choice for the helm. Each film has had a new director, and acquiring such a credited director at Condon seems to fit with the progression of the story.
I recommend this Blu-Ray if you are looking for a film that looks great in high definition format. I saw the film three times in theaters and this version looks considerably more detailed. I would have liked to have heard commentary from some of the actors along with Condon, but perhaps that wish will come true on the final disc. Also, the disc only included the theatrical version and the special features with no DVD version or digital copy included. Aside from that though, this is a must buy for any Twilight fan.
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