My Eclipse review part 2 - Behind the scenes doco

03/12/2010 - UPDATE: This post was just pimped on TWITARDED. Like, my whole reason for even being in Twi-land. The holy grail of Twi-blogs. I am currently on my knees (not like that, durrrty girls) kissing LatchkeyWife's feet. If you're here because of her post, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

Me again! Two posts in two days.... aren't you lucky! I apologise in advance for how epic-ly long this post is, BTW. (and, if you haven't read the first one, click here.)

So, today I watched the six part Eclipse behind the scenes documentary - eighty-three minutes of awesomeness. I had to watch it twice, just to be able to bring you this post. I'm sure you'll appreciate the sacrifice I made for you. I wasn't gonna write a whole post about this but as I tweeted all the new fun things I learned, I realised I best consolidate yesterday's offering.

This post should be subtitiled "David Slade is a fucking genious."

 Naturally, there are spoilers ahead...

1. Introducing David Slade
This man is a fucking adorkable inspirational piece of awesomeness. For real. It's evident through all six parts of the doco that he kept the fans' interest and expectations at heart, and I personally think he delivered. Let's just leave the wig *issue* out of this, for now. 

2. Pre-production: Setting the stage
Actors' fight training FTMFW! Loved watching them with their aerobics classes, choreographed right hooks and karate kicks, etc. JRath and PFach look the cutest, I reckon - and of course there's hobo Rob (natch) who wears a beanie when working out. Sweaty much, Rob? Especially when he's running on the giant 'hamster wheel' in a full body harness. And boy, can these guys move! Kellan explains how hard it is to run as fast as you can without appearing to be breathless, given that vamps don't need to breathe. Tricky!

Then, we fast forward past some house building, mountain top setting etc... to the next interesting bit. The ring. The fugly bloody ring. SMeyer is interviewed, saying how it needed to be 'just so' and they show the two previous prototypes, which I thought were SO much nicer than the end product! Which, BTW, is 14ct gold with cubic zirconias.

3. The heart of Eclipse
So this is all about Bella and Edward and how they got this far. First we get a bit of a recap of Twilight and New Moon. Then SMeyer & MRose go on and on about Bella's choice, yadda yadda... to cut to the chase, this is the bit where Kristen and Rob are interviewed! Squee! Fairly similar to stuff we've seen them do in press junkets, nothing earth shattering. A couple of minutes in, Rob's velvety voice just melted me, FTR. Who even knows what he was talking about. Emotions for Bella and shit... While he's being inteviewed he has the shirt and tie from graduation on.... hawt. Oh yeah, sorry, about the doco... There's also some interesting stuff about Jasper and Rosalie's backstories.

4. The dark side of Eclipse
All about Victoria, Riley and the newborns. I learnt a fair bit about David Slade in this bit too, and how much his ideas influenced the outcome of the film and how closely he worked with SMeyer. Most interesting bit is BDH's idea to put on a 'little-girl voice' for Victoria. Nice. I love getting a chance to hear the actors with their real accents and (apart from Rob, of course) the greatest example is Xavier, with his Aussie accent, I have so much respect for how they put on different accents for characters.

5. Lights, camera, action
David Slade starts this section by talking about how epic Eclipse is and how it was a massive challenge. He describes lots of the themes, technicalities of colours, etc. We then progress through the film in chronological order with a few tidbits here and there. Highlights: the newborns all wore wetsuits under their clothes to try and keep warm when they were wet. But it failed, they were freezing. Kristen says that she and Rob laugh more in the serious scenes that when they're supposed to be 'light and funny'. Wyck reckons R&K are so comfortable in their characters now that they just 'zip on their Bella & Edward suits'. Ahh, yeah, that could be it. But I have a better idea about why they have such good 'rapport'...

Duing this whole section of the doco it keeps flicking on to 'Taylor time' a segment during which we see Taytay doing various random shit such as throwing a football, and randomly having David's assistant throw grapes into his mouth from a distance. On more than one occasion. Ohhkay. Cos that was neccesary. These guys must get REAL bored onset.

I didn't say he wasn't talented.

Then we move to the wolfpack at the scene at Emily's. Bronson was eating a piece of chicken, and for consistency, had to keep that piece of chicken for 25 takes. He knew it was his fault for choosing to eat chicken in the shot, but ended up being sick from too much. Ewww. Then there's some shit about the Volturi blah, blah, blah. Oh, and the next interesting thing. Taylor carried Kristen, for real, in that whole scene in the woods. ALL DAY. That deserves some credit. There was supposed to be some fancy seat thingy for her but it 'didn't look natural enough'. Poor guy!

Fast forward to the mountain top scene and we see some stuff about the winches and hoists for the fight. It's really well done and quite interesting. Quote of the whole doco, BDH: "Just had my neck bitten off by Edward Cullen. Sad day for Victoria, wonderful moment for Bryce Dallas Howard, with Robert Pattinson's lips on my neck... umm, I'm married." Brilliant. Lucky bitch.

6. Post-production: leaps in technology
This section goes over all the CGI, and fancy imagery shit. Interesting, but the bit I liked the most was how they did the 'magic carpet' running in the ravine scene, and also the fights. The highlight of the whole documentary, however, is 75 minutes in to the doco (if you 'play all') here we have.... Dancing Rob! He's off camera while the Cullens are fight training and he's goofing off with Kellan. Hawt. Had to watch that a couple of times...

Source

Not too long to go now before you all get your grubby little hands on your copy of the DVD... enjoy!

My Eclipse DVD extras review. Squee!

*SPOILERS* - natch, cos I'm a Spoiler h00r. But, you knew that...

03/12/2010 - UPDATE: This post was just pimped on TWITARDED. Like, my whole reason for even being in Twi-land. The holy grail of Twi-blogs. I am currently on my knees (not like that, durrrty girls) kissing LatchkeyWife's feet. If you're here because of her post, PLEASE leave a comment and let me know! Thanks!

So today was the day I've been waiting for for AGES. Like, months. Eclipse released!

Before I go on, I want to get it out of my system that for once, something Twilight happens in NZ before it does in the States. Please remember this has NEVER happened before. We don't have the cool merch, we don't have the twi-cons, the chances to even been in the same airspace as the stars etc, so let me have my moment in the sun here, peeps. I know you've all been sick of me tweeting about this, but hey, it's just this once...

I pre-ordered online some time ago, and I always get anything bought online delivered to my office, since I'm never home during the day. So I was waiting with baited breath when the courier arrived! Practically snatching the post from the receptionist's arms, I tore at the packaging. If only it wasn't 1 o'clock in the afternoon and a whole eight hours (I worked late today) before I could get home to fully appreciate the Precious.

I know you're all dying to hear my thoughts on the commentary, extended scenes etc. I've only watched once, with the importance of posting before bed tonight weighing heavily on my mind, but here goes nothin:

Commentary with Rob & Kristen:
Or, as Kristen says at one point... "The musings of R-Pattz in the commentary of Eclipse"

To clarify between their ramblings and mine, I've colour coded Rob's text in blue and Kristen's in purple.

Oh. My. God. Right from "I'm Robert Pattinson".. I was hooked. They played up some hilarious accents and talked smack the whole time. Right from "Xavier would make a wonderful hamburger" in the first scene, to Rob mocking a Southern accent in the meadow "You're gonna need that ring."

I've taken some quotes from the commentary and added my two cents worth. Hopefully this will give you an idea of some of the stuff they're on about and give you a taster for Friday when you can watch for yourselves.

"You do a different thing [different to Riley] when you get bitten by a vampire... and it's a LOT sexier."
Ahem... yep. We've seen the feathered hand, and we CAN. NOT. WAIT.

"What are you gonna look like when you turn into a vampire?"
"I'm gonna be really white... I'm gonna be...the best one!"
Hellz yeah you'll be a good vamp, but the BEST one, I'm gonna reserve judgement on that.

"That's a weird sideburn. I always have some kind of... follicle issue" 
Rob talks about his hair ALOT. Like, obsessively. Although, it is very nice hair. I can see his point.

This comment is followed by K discussing the fact that she feels she looks like Jacob in Twilight with her Eclipse wig on... whilst Rob compares it to Damien Marley!

Rob thinks the Jacob/Renesme imprint will be the best scene of Breaking Dawn. Really Rob, better than Isle Esme? I think I know a few people who may disagree with you there. 

"Why do you care if these two kids have sex?"
They get into a discussion about why it should bother the fans if Edward and Bella are bumpin' uglies or not, and Kristen gets REALLY deep. Seriously, love, it's fiction. And surely you know that everyone loves a lemon. Deal.

"I like that little bow in her hair"
What. The. Fuck. Surely I am not alone in hating on Alice's look at the party. Reminds me of the horror story that was Volterra Alice and the stripey grey tent. Ewww.

"Peter also uses his wig as a cereal bowl, it's completely solid"

This was fucking hilarious. They take the piss out of the wigs. ALOT. Although, strangely, they never talk about Jasper's, which I thought was weird.

Rob keeps referring to this movie being so full of kissing. So much kissing. He thinks he's a prude! Oh, no... bb. Pop into Twitardia, we can help you out with that shit. Maybe it's because he was self-conscious of talking about kissing Kristen... when we're all thinking what he's thinking. Or perhaps I'm overthinking. Gah.

During the bit when Jacob carries Bella through the forest, Rob does this hilarious impression laugh that sounds like Gargamel from the Smurfs, IMHO. Hilarious.

"I gotta hitch my leg and everything!" 
"The leg hitch scene? What are they talking about? Was it called that before the movie?"
You didn't know it was called the leg hitch scene? I really could educate you more on the series, Rob. In fact, hows about you come over to my place right now for a 'lesson'?

There is some heavy breathing and throat clearing between R&K during the leg hitch make out... followed by "let's see some of that chest hair". Nice line. They also discuss the fact that it's very awkward for them to watch and comment on the scene... oh really?

When Edward stops Bella taking her clothes off, you can tell that K really wanted to say something like "you cockblocking son of a bitch" but clearly had to watch her language. Then they lead into some deep 'power struggle' discussion... blah. It's about the smut guys, you know it.

During the 'Bella wipes her blood on the trees' scene, Rob goes off on this rant about this story reflecting real life, when "some little punk with no shirt gets all up in your business" and K just shoots him down. It's fucking hilarious. The boy can do a mean accent or two, fuck I'd love to see him to do stand up... and he does hate on Jacob a fair bit here, not that I'm complaining. You know my rule, no dogs allowed.

"I can kick his arse in two seconds. He's, like, the worst guy in the world."

Turns out Rob is a funny bastard, with the one liners:

"Kellan and the wolf, there's the sequel. that's gonna be a magical relationship."

"I don't need a six pack, or a wolf pack, just need my little wristband!" [referring to the cuff]

She giggles so much at things he says, it's so sweet and so fucking obvious these two are mad for each other. Talk about audio sexual chemistry. Good thing they were in separate places recording this, they may well have jumped each others' bones halfway through otherwise...

Did you know?

*Kristen filmed the whole 'third wife' sequence, complete with 'tan', and it was replaced. Rob never saw it and wishes he had.
*It was really hot in the tent scene, which made Kristen feel quite unwell as she was covered in so many layers for 'warmth'.
*The 'snow' on the mountain was made of slippery wet paper and they had to rearrange the choreography for the whole fight because everyone kept falling over.

Extended scenes:
There are six extended scenes - most, if not all of which have been floating about on the interweb. I've avoided them until now (!) but in my opinion, they were all cut in a good place, except 'We're creating an ahhhhmy' - Emmett has a rockin' line at the end of this one: "But, we're still gonna kick someone's arse, right?" LMAO. 

Deleted scenes:
There are two deleted scenes. One with Ange & Bella, talking about jealousy. Quite good, added some depth I think. The other is with Charlie & Bella after graduation - they did well to delete that one, IMHO.

I have yet to watch the six part making-of doco, but you can bet I'll be watching that sooner rather than later.

And... my Hunger Games boxed set arrived yesterday. It's a big ol' SQUEE fest around here right now. Good thing I've got a day off tomorrow to watch DVDs, lick my television, and read....

Hope you enjoyed my little round-up, and I look forward to hearing your impressions after Friday! xxx

UPDATE: You can find part two of my Eclipse review here.

P.S. I'm on a mission to get more blog followers. 31 of you amazing godesses already follow me, I'm hoping there are more lurkers! You know you want to follow too... go on... :)

Thank you

As many of you will be aware, New Zealand has this week suffered one of the worst tragedies in our history. 29 brave men were confirmed perished yesterday in our country's worst mining disaster in 96 years, leading to today, 25 November, becoming officially a national day of mourning.

May they rest in peace.

Today also marks the Thanksgiving holiday for many of my friends in the United States. I don't know a lot about your history in relation to this day - in fact, I know little more than it involves eating large amounts of turkey - but what I do know, is that today I give thanks.

I give thanks for my family and friends. Due to this wonderful community of bloggers, tweeters and lurkers I have a lot more laughter in my life and I thank you for being there for me. I thank you for welcoming me into this crazy twi-world and I thank you for your hilarity on a daily basis.
I don't want to be all sappy in this post (although I fear it may be too late) but it's at times like this, when you see how easily dreams can be shattered and lives ripped apart, that you appreciate what you have in your life, and I don't think we stop to appreciate how lucky we are enough.

So today, as we fly our flag at half mast and stop to think about the 29 families who will never see their sons/fathers/husbands again, we give thanks.

I especially thank she who brings me ice cream in my hour of need and watches bad movies with me. You know who you are.

Addit: I just wrote an entire post without mentioning the precious. Naturally, I give thanks for him too. :)

Farewell, Emancipation Proclamation [no spoilers]

Calling all fan fic h00rs! You may or may not have heard of a lil' fic called Emancipation Proclamation, or EP for short...

In my humble opinion, EP is one of the best fics, ever. I've been heard to say it's my all time favourite, but I tend to whisper that incase Fifty is listening.

So, the final chapter and the epilogue just posted in the last few hours. I haven't read them yet, I'm about to... but first, I just wanted to ask you all a favour.

For all the EP fans out there - would anyone like to be involved in an EP review/tribute post? I'd like to post something that tells the overview of the story - clearly not the juicy deets - but just enough to encourage people who aren't too sure whether or not they really want to read EP.

Kharrizzmatik has done an incredible job with this story and I know there's a few people out there who aren't too sure about starting it due to some of the themes discussed.

I've had a few people say they're keen in previous post / comment conversations, but would love for you to let me know on this post if you're in or not. I'll work on something over the next few weeks, and get in touch with you for your help then.

Thanks so much!

Happy Birthday Tongue-Twied!

This is one of a series of blog posts today celebrating kiTT's birthday. Surprise!

kiTT - of Tongue-Twied fame - has been nothing but encouraging to me since I stumbled upon the bloggy world and decided to start TwiKiwi. So this is my little way of saying thank you and taking part in a fantastic group posting!

Feel free to play along... the game begins here, and ends at with a special surprise for TT!

Answer the Twilight Trivia question and if correct, you will receive a clue to guide you to the next question.

So TT, without further ado, here is your fourth question:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

oh, and here's something else for you:

Courtesy of Robzsinger

Oh my!

In case it's not obvious, *SPOLIERS AHEAD*

So, I've been a little out of the loop a in the last wee while. I've wondered what to put it down to... work stress, long early summer evenings pulling me outside, and other RL stuff... and I've decided the main reason I haven't spent hours on Blogger of late is because I've been far too busy.

I've been trawling... trawling the internet that is, for ALL THE NEW ROBP0RN in the world! Oh yes, I am going full steam ahead as a massive...

Oh yes I am. I wasn't around for Twilight (the movie), when I fell down the rabbit hole it was already out on DVD. I saw New Moon the day after it came out (blasphemy!) and was kinda ho-hum... it wasn't until the buildup to Eclipse that I got all twitchy-palmed. I was a fence sitter when it came to Eclipse spoilers, I couldn't decide how I felt. I didn't go all chastity-belt, but nor was I actively searching spoilers.

Well, all that's changed now! With another YEAR to wait - how will we cope? - I decided I'd go all out. I've seen everything from airport shots (you'll note by now that my 'I don't know about the paparrazzi shots' standpoint has gone well and truly out the window) to that sneaky Brazilian video from the TV crew who broke in to the Isle Esme house. I don't approve of that, FTR. There's a big difference between long lens cameras from far away to actually breaking in to a closed set.

So, here are my highlights from the last week or so. I would love to share some awesome Jumping Rob manips of my own here, but as my technical skills are severely lacking, I'll leave that to your imagination. I would seriously recommend you go here, though, they're fucking hilarious. Twitter has gone insane with Rob jumping all over the place these past few days. This is one of my faves:

Stolen from here.

Firstly, how amazing is the Isle Esme location! I still maintain they should have come to New Zealand, and since I never miss an opportunity to skite about our amazing country, please picture shirtless Rob jumping here:

Abel Tasman National Park

But seriously, on to the real scenery now. I am really happy with the styling etc... might save the deets for a future post. Let's just observe and enjoy, shall we.

I give a crapsten, BTW. And how hot is her dress!

Hello, biceps...

Breaking Dawn sex walk FTMFW

Umm, Kristen? Look out behind you! *thud*

*this pic removed on 22/01/2011 after I saw other blogs were fined for using images of R&K at the waterfall*

Here, take this tissue and wipe the drool from your keyboard. What's your favourite BD spoiler so far? Are you a Spoiler h00r too? Embrace it... you know you want to...

P.S. Feel free to borrow my Spoiler h00r avi above - spread the good word!

What pushes your buttons?

I've been in a shitty-arse mood the past few days. I'm fairly sure it's a premenstrual thing (even if not, the excess chocolate and wine consumption can't hurt, right?) and every time this happens, thanks to the gods of the fucking lunar calendar, I turn into someone you don't wanna mess with. Not quite werewolf styles, but you get the picture.

So this week I got to thinking about all the things that piss me off in the world of Twilight. Trust me, there are plenty. I'm about as a big a fan as you can be - seriously, I love the saga, and everything it's introduced me to. For goodness sake, without Stephenie, I wouldn't have discovered the Twitards, and wouldn't spend every spare waking second attached to Twitter and Blogger and FFn....

Anyhoo I digress. I get a little ranty, you see. So here are a few things, in no particular order, that piss me right off - from the books, movies, fan fiction... but mostly movies. You have been warned.

1. Lack of continuity in the hospital scene in Twilight. I know that as a health professional I may be quite specific about these things, but surely anyone with eyes could see the issues with Bella's oxygen tubing going up and down everytime the camera shot to her. Seriously, one minute they're in her eyes, next halfway down her cheek. Now I have a lot of respect for Catherine Hardwicke, after all, we have her to thank for casting the Precious, but surely she could have sorted out something so obvious!

Continuity. It's NOT overrated.

2. Jacob's height. So Sparkly Jul already vented her opinions on this topic in this post, but I have to agree with her. I appreciate Taylor is a good fit for the Jacob character, and good on him for getting in shape as he did, but he's supposed to be gigantic! Says Bella, "I threw my arms around him instinctively, wrapping them around his waist and pressing my face against his chest. He was so big, I felt like I was a child hugging a grown-up." 

Surely, if they can make Elijah Wood and his mates look like four foot hobbits, and Hagrid the giant can be, well, a giant, they coulda magically made Jacob a little taller....

Jesus Jake, did you shrink in the rain?

3. Before I move on to this next topic, please let me make it clear that I have the utmost respect for anyone who writes fan fiction. I haven't ever tried writing a lemon, but I can only assume it's a very challenging task. I would like to sincerely thank all of your amazing writers, BUT, please let me get this wee gripe out of the way first. 

At some point, in every piece of fan fiction I have read, Edward, in the heat of passion, does something with his hands that pisses me right off - and not just through pure jealousy. Now there are PLENTY of things he does with his hands that I am very very happy with *ahem* but that's not what I'm talking about.  I'm talking about the circles. He either 'traces patterns', 'rubs circles', or similar, almost every time. I'm so over it! I'd love some variety here people!

You'd be amazed what else I can do with these puppies...

4. Marcus's lack of appropriate footwear. In New Moon, when Edward stands before the Volturi, Marcus doesn't have any socks on and it drives me wild. And NOT in a hot way, in a 'put some fucking socks on you imbicile!' kind of way. The dude has had thousands of years to learn how to dress himself and yet, no socks. No socks is on a par for evil with guys who think it is acceptable to wear white socks with black shoes and black pants. Let's not get me started on that one... I'll save general non-Twilight rants for another day.

Just as well your feet are hidden in this still, Marcus.

To get back to the point, Marcus really grinds my gears. The Volturi are supposed to be intimidating and worldly. The only thing I'd be thinking if I were in Edward's position would be that I could give Marcus some serious fashion advice. Which brings me to my next point. Why does Alice say nothing? She of the fashionista persona? Oh wait, she's got enough to worry about wearing that fuck-awful stripey grey number. Ewww.

You deserve to be strangled for that outfit, IMHO.

So yep, some shit pisses me off. And I needed to get it off my chest.

What grinds your gears about twilife?