Well, after being laid off from my regular job last week, I’ve decided to get back into doing extra work. After making sure I had all my photos updated and signing up with a fourth agency, I had my first day of work today on Grey’s Anatomy. I don’t watch that show (I think I saw one ep right after it started) but this was fun to work on. I’d thought I had gotten to all the major studios so far, but I guess not. As such, I wandered around looking rather lost until I finally made it to extras holding, after asking several people along the way. One thing that’s nice about doing hospital shows is the scrubs. They’re terribly comfortable, like pajamas. It’s too bad I can’t just wear them around normally. This time, I was not merely a nurse, either. I got a doctor’s jacket (which stated my name was J. Eberton M.D., though my ID badge gave a conflicting viewpoint) and blue scrubs, which I was told meant I was an intern. Hey, it kept me warm and made me feel more important, so I’ll take it. Extras holding was what looked like part of the hospital waiting area. Which was nice in that the chairs were arranged so that it was easy to have conversations. This is important, because chatting with the other extras is what takes up the vast majority of time. Fortunately, everyone was really nice. That’s one of the best things about doing extra work. The other extras are always so nice. It’s great to be constantly meeting all these new people. It very quickly gets to where you find yourself chatting and laughing with this small group of strangers as if you’re old friends—even someone as fairly shy as me. And everyone’s always so helpful in explaining and discussing things about the casting agencies, how things work on set, etc. Plus, you can hear some pretty interesting stories about what it’s like on shows. For example, I knew from the casting hotlines that both Two and a Half Men and Big Bang Theory don’t allow blondes on set. This is rather odd, is it not? Well, from what the extras were saying, there are different reasons for this. Apparently on Big Bang Theory it’s because the lead actress is blonde and had a huge ego and doesn’t want anyone upstaging her. On Two and a Half Men, apparently it’s because Charlie Sheen just got married. They say it’s not that he doesn’t like blondes, it’s that he likes blondes too much. Which is both hilarious and sad. “Sorry, you can’t work on this show because you might have sex with Charlie Sheen.” I admit, both of these reasons seem slightly far-fetched, but if you can offer a more realistic reason for the total banning of a certain hair color, I’d like to know. I ended up being used in two scenes for this episode, though I’m probably blurry in the background if I’m seen at all. The second was a simple walk down the hall, get something, walk back during a hallway dialogue scene with Katherine Heigle and some other people. Pretty standard. The first was just standing at an office counter looking busy with a chart so that there’s something in the background when a door opens/closes, if anything’s actually seen through the door. Nothing particularly exciting about either of those in themselves. But I was just so happy the whole time because I love being on set. It’s hard to explain exactly. It just makes me happy. Part of the fun is seeing the actors. As I said, I’m not a fan of this show, so that wasn’t exciting in itself (not like when I did House or Monk, for instance). Katherine Heigle was on Roswell, which I liked, but that still wasn’t all that exciting. I knew Sandra Oh is also on the show, so I wasn’t surprised to see her. From the way she interacted with some of the crew, she seems nice. What was really funny, though, was seeing someone I didn’t expect (because he’s a recent addition to the cast and, as I said, I haven’t seen it in some time). During that first shot, where I’m fake-note-writing, two of the actors come out of a room at the end of it (the scene is taking place in the other room). So while we were all standing around between shots, I noticed a tall, good-looking guy and thought to myself, “Hey, the redhead actor’s cute.” And so after several surreptitiously snuck glances at him for that reason alone, it came as quite a shock when I realized I recognized him, and I nearly laughed that I hadn’t caught it sooner. It was Kevin McKidd, the star of a show from a couple years ago called Journeyman which was sadly short-lived, but very good. (Really, such a good show.) Of course, he was blond in that show, which I’ll use as my excuse for not recognizing him sooner. And he’s Scottish, which is just . . . always worth mentioning. So then of course I had to force myself not to stare, though at one point he seemed to be blankly looking off in my general direction, so I gave him one of those fake not-really-a-smile smiles (you know, the kind that says, “I acknowledge your existence as a human, but that is all!” Haha, social skills for the win!), which he returned. Really, I do try to smile genuinely at people when I do these things, but I think at some point I’m afraid of being a bit too excited and smiling in a way that would freak people out. Those of you that know me well know that I don’t get freakishly excited about a lot of things, but like I mentioned, I really enjoy being on set. Even if it goes ten or twelve hours, I can still be bouncy from just being around the lights and the cameras and all the stuff going on. (I feel a bit like Guy Fleegman on Galaxy Quest. “I’m just happy to be here!”) Unfortunately, the shoot didn’t go into overtime (which would have meant we’d get paid more). I really wish this job paid more, because it’s super fun in many ways. But after such a long time of very limited social interaction, it is very nice to get out and actually talk with people and be around others. Oh, yes, and the episode number, for those that care, is apparently 5.23. I don’t know when it airs, but you probably won’t be able to see me anyway.

Sorry about the one big paragraph.  WordPress doesn’t like my formatting.

I went to see the Twilight movie today.  I had made sure to get my expectations sufficiently lowered before I went in, so I actually ended up enjoying it more than I thought I would.  It did a pretty good job at adapting the story, which is always difficult.  Some of the changes were actually improvements, I think, some were things I wasn’t crazy about, but most were things that I neither especially liked nor disliked.  At least there wasn’t anything that I felt especially cheated over having been left out, but that was probably because there weren’t a lot of specific things in the book that I was just crazy in love with (and most of the time if something I really liked was cut, it was made up for in a different scene).  I do wonder what it would be like for someone who hadn’t read the books, though, because, as with many adaptations, I sometimes found myself filling in the blanks and catching subtle things that people unfamiliar with the story may not have.

And now I’ll be moving into the realm of spoilers, so don’t read further if you want to be surprised.

First, a note on the cast.  For the most part, the people they cast don’t look much like the way I’ve imagined the characters in my head.  Jasper, Charlie, and Angela particularly looked so different that if I hadn’t been told who they were, I would never have guessed by looking at them (well, other than Jasper’s yellow eyes, that is).  One thing I find amusing in a slightly annoying way is that, of the three blond Cullens (Carlisle, Rosalie, and Jasper), all of them are natural brunettes.  Ordinarily this wouldn’t really matter, but unfortunately, to varying degrees, it’s somewhat noticible.  The eyebrows give it away, for one.  Carlisle particularly–not that his hair looks especially bad; it just looks as obviously faked as his skin and eye color.  As for the acting, I think they mostly did a decent job.  It was kind of hard to tell, as Alice, Jasper, Emmett, Rosalie, and Esme probably had a total of twenty lines between them.  Jasper had some nice intense looks, though, especially if you have read enough to know what he’s thinking.  Carlisle was the second-most used Cullen (in that he had more screen time than the others, but still way behind Edward), which was nice.  I think Peter Facinelli did a pretty good job.  There is something I noticed, though–something I noticed before going in with watching interviews and stuff, too.  Despite being, I think, 33 (ten years older than Carlisle should look, but the right age for what he’s “barely passing” for), there’s something very young about him.  I know it’s one of those things I can’t really explain very well because it’s more just an impression, but he just didn’t have the quiet, steady, but undeniable presence that I would expect from someone in his 300s.    He just didn’t seem much like a patriarch.  For a story where Edward’s the main focus, for Carlisle to actually appear to fill the role that he does, he’s got to really radiate authority and wisdom, and he just doesn’t.  That’s all just my impression, though.  I can’t really say anything bad about the performance, and I actually liked it well enough, but it just seems like maybe a different casting choice might have brought a little more to the role (though I heard that they almost cast someone in his 40s, and that would have been a travesty).

As for the humans, I thought most of them were great.  Jessica was just as vacuous as she should be (though maybe not quite petulant enough), and Eric, Mike, and Tyler (a trio so ethnically diverse it’s a little hard to ignore the obviousness of it) are actually really funny in their dorkiness.  Where in the book, all this attention from guys was just annoying and unrealistic, these three are so over-the-top that it just makes for good comic relief.  And Mike especially (played by Michael Welch, a young actor I’ve seen in various parts since he was a kid, including roles in Star Trek Insurrection, Frasier, Stargate SG-1, and The Invisible Man, which makes him the cast member I’m most familiar with), who in the books mostly comes across as creepy and annoying, is actually so adorable that I just can’t dislike him.  Charlie, unfortunately, is mostly wooden and emotionless, but admittedly Charlie is pretty low-key… though a bit more life in the whole Bella-storming-out scene would have been nice.  Billy and Jacob, on the other hand, were wonderful.  Billy was very likable and sufficiently mysterious, and there’s this moment where he and Edward pass each other in their cars and slow down to give each other such an antagonistic glare that it just cracked me up.  I was pleasantly surprised with Jacob.  He really did seem just about perfect, both in looks and in manner, and I really look forward to his expanded role in later films (though I am a bit nervous about it–it’s just not physically possible for him to make the change that Jacob does so rapidly in the second book [and I don't mean the turning into a wolf part], but I hope there’s at least some noticeable bulking up).

But of course, this is a story about Bella and Edward, so most of the other characters sadly aren’t in it enough to really even develop into three-dimensional characters, though I hope having four movies will help that some.  Now, as for Bella and Edward… Bella initially comes across as a much stronger girl than she seems in the book, and I think that’s largely due to the actress, Kristen Stewart.  Just the way she carries herself, and her rather low voice, seem to lend a maturity to her that was often talked about in the books, but which I never saw.  Unfortunately, this largely goes out the window when the whole “being in love with Edward” thing starts, but I saw it pick up again near the end.  Really, given how stupid and silly this character is, I think the fact that I bought her at all speaks very well of Kristen.  Edward was… not terrible.  He was kind of… well, just odd.  I’m not sure how much of this to attribute to Robert Pattinson’s acting, though, as the lines he was given were largely ridiculous.  Well, anyone who’s read the book should know how cheesy much of what Edward says is, and I was actually surprised by how many lines were lifted directly from the book (though I was more surprised to find that two of what I think of as big ones, “Do I dazzle you?” and the whole “Not her” bit, were left out entirely).  But there’s just something that seemed really forced about Edward–or rather, about Edward and Bella’s interactions.  I just didn’t buy this relationship, which, given that it’s the primary focus of and reason for this movie, is kind of a a problem.  The only time I bought it, the only time I saw any actual chemistry, was the final scene when they’re dancing at the prom.  That was it.  Everything else just felt so… well, forced.  Though this, of course, might easily be blamed on the fact that the relationship in the book wasn’t entirely believable either.

Now, a note on the pacing.  Maybe it’s because I’m less protective of the source material than, say, LotR or Harry Potter that I can appreciate the efforts made to tell the same story in a much shorter period by moving things around a bit.  Some sections are removed entirely, but mostly things are just shifted around or told in very short beats.  While this has the benefit of getting most of the story in there and staying fairly true to the book, it also means that everything seems to go at super-speed, and a romance which was unbelievably rushed in the book becomes jarringly instantaneous.  By the time Edward says, “I’m done trying to stay away from you,” it really doesn’t seem much like he’s tried to stay away from her at all.  And what initially looks like Bella’s natural curiosity about a strange (and cute) guy who first hates her, then is polite to her, then saves her life by stopping a runaway van with one hand, becomes “true love” at some point I must have missed and suddenly all credibility the character had with me is lost.  The threat from James happens really too quickly, as well.  One second they’re chatting politely and the next Edward is frantically driving away and telling Bella how James will stop at nothing to kill her.  Again, this happened pretty quickly in the book, but even that gave enough detail and time for it to be marginally understandable.

One thing I did think the movie did well was setting up the bad guys much earlier on.  It shows a couple scenes of them killing people, and some mentions of the effects of that, gradually, so that their appearance isn’t completely out of the blue.  One of these scenes involves the bad vamps killing an old friend of Charlie’s, which leads to Bella and Edward stopping by the station on their way home from Port Angeles (a change from the book), and Carlisle coming out and telling them what happened.  Here was one of those nice subtle moments where, if you’re familiar with the characters, is quite amusing.  Carlisle tells them, “He was attacked by an animal,” then immediately looks at Edward, and Edward reacts just enough that you  know that Carlisle followed up his spoken words by thinking, “It wasn’t an animal,” or somesuch.  This wonderful, understated example of the ease of communication between Edward and his family, which is a part of the unfinished Midnight Sun chapters that I loved, is a great little addition.

Speaking of parts I loved, I do have to say that the scene where Edward brings Bella to his house to meet his family is really awfully hysterical.  The adorableness of Carlisle, Esme, and Emmett excitedly cooking something for Bella, Rosalie’s overreaction to the news that Bella’s already eaten, Jasper’s creepy-eyed entrance as he tries to withstand the proximity of the human, the awkward/funny vampire conversation, and, most of all, Edward’s expressions through everything–there’s pretty much nothing in that scene that’s not made of win.

Just a few more random notes… The scene that was shown in some of the trailers, of Emmett confronting Edward about Bella at his car, is nowhere to be seen.  Hopefully this means there will be some deleted scenes on the DVD.  I really hate it when they put scenes in the trailer that don’t end up in the movie. … Watch for Stephenie Meyer’s cameo as a customer at the diner counter in one scene.  It’s not funny or anything, but it’s there, and I think that’s nice.  … When Edward was about to show Bella his sparkling, all I could think was, “This had better be awesome.”  Of course, it wasn’t.  I had read one review online (maybe Ebert’s) that said that the effect made it look like he was just really sweaty, and it totally, totally did.  This does not seem like an effect that would stop traffic, make women scream, and instantly cause such chaos in a crowded square that a hoard of vampires would swoop down for fear of their secret being revealed.  I really do wonder how they could possibly pull off the big climax in the next book if that’s all that it looks like (remember, Edward chooses this over lifting a car over his head or killing a bunch of people–it’s meant to be dramatic and stunning.  It’s totally not).  … Also, the scene where Edward has to suck the poison out is funny, what with Carlisle first having to keep Alice from pouncing on wounded Bella with what I recall as a kind of hilarious, “Come on, really?” look on his face, then the way he’s like, “Edward… Edward…” when Edward needs to stop because he’s gotten all the venom out and is killing her (which apparently Carlisle knows by magic, since he has no medical bag so Bella don’t get no morphine).  Although I do have to wonder yet again why he just didn’t do it himself, especially since in this version he’s not particularly doing much doctoring, just apparently keeping Bella’s femoral artery compressed with one hand, which he probably still could have done while sucking out the venom, and anyway, handing off that job to Edward would have entailed much less risk than letting him actually drink her blood.  Although I suppose the point is that Carlisle was asking Edward to make the decision whether to suck the venom out or let her become a vampire, but… meh.  Once again logic takes a back seat because Edward’s the main vampire.  Or maybe that’s just my preference for Carlisle showing.  (BTW, the flashback scenes of him biting Edward and Esme?  Yeah, totally hot.)

Overall, I thought the movie was quite entertaining, and often hilarious (sometimes intentionally, sometimes not).  It’s not as much fun as the book, but it does have the same mix of cheesiness and actual likability to make it worth watching, and I find myself quite looking forward to seeing the sequels.

Well, it’s been several weeks now since I finished the last Twilight book and I’m afraid I’ve just been lazy about blogging. But for the sake of completion, I really wanted to get my thoughts out about the ending. Bear with me if this is a bit vaguer than the previous posts, though.

As usual, this will contain spoilers.

The last half of Breaking Dawn returns to Bella’s point of view, starting with her transformation into a vampire. It then goes on to describe her first days in her new body, then everything goes on well for a while until Alice gets a vision of the Volturi showing up to pretty much kill them all. Then they scramble together all the vampires they know who will help them stand against the bad guys, but in the end it’s resolved peacefully and the Volturi go on their way. That’s the gist of it, anyway.

The first thing that I have to say about this section is that this is absolutely the best Bella has ever been. I’ve read some comments online where people have said that Bella becomes less easy to relate to after she becomes a vampire because she’s too perfect. I disagree. I think I’ve mentioned that I don’t find human!Bella particularly relatable (as I’m not a braindead, hormonal moron), so really just about anything was going to be an improvement. Although I think that the fact that she becomes a more grounded character is because of three things that happen at nearly the same time: 1) She becomes a vampire. Yes, that’s the obvious one. She loses her klutziness and, more importantly, stops getting in life-threatening danger every five seconds, because she’s now a super-powerful vampire who’s actually stronger than even the strongest of the Cullens (due to the whole ‘newborn vampires are freakishly strong’ thing). Which means that it would be especially hard to find anything that would actually be a danger to her, so for her to intentionally seek some out would be a challenge (although now would have been a lovely time to go cliff diving). 2) She becomes a mother. Really, I think this is possibly the most important improvement to her character. It redirects her focus away from single-minded devotion to Edward. Desperation to keep her child safe is much more understandable to me than desperation to keep safe a guy who is infinitely more powerful and better able to take care of himself than she was (as a human). Once the child, Renesmee, enters the picture, it just seems like Bella becomes more aware of the rest of the members of the family, and actually acknowledges the fact that there is more to life than being in love with Edward. 3) She’s married to Edward now, so the sexual tension is pretty much gone. Because when they get all hot for each other (metaphorically, of course, as they’re both like living ice statues now), rather than getting all angsty and going through the whole, “Oh, no, we shouldn’t. Oh, I can’t touch you,” etc., they simply have sex, then they move on to other things. Sure, a lot of people would say the breakdown of that tension ruins the heart of the story, but as that was never a part of the story I liked, getting over it was a relief. Actually, there’s a fourth reason, as well. 4) She’s over Jacob, so the love triangle aspect is gone. Again, some would complain about that, but all I wanted for those three from the beginning of New Moon was for everyone to just get along, so I was very pleased when they finally did.  So, yes, in my opinion, vampire!Bella is a far more sympathetic, far more rational, far more relatable character than human!Bella.

Another thing I really liked about this part of the book was the continuing abundance of Cullens.  Because, yeah, they’re cool, and I like reading about them.  And seeing them, from Bella’s POV, as her equals rather than as untouchable god-like figures was nice.  Also, we get to see a whole bunch of other vampires.  We’ve seen other vampires before, of course, but most of them have been evil.  Here we get a nice range, from the Denali clan (who are the only other “vegetarian” vampires, and call themselves the original succubi), to the various nomads, to the kind of hilarious ancient vamps that Jacob fondly refers to as “Dracula One and Dracula Two”.  I was surprised to find how much I liked many of these.  The element-controlling Egyptian lad, Benjamin, was very pleasant, Kate of the Denali was highly amusing, Garrett the nomad was just plain awesome, and all the others were a nice addition.  It was a great way to show us the wider world of this Twilight-verse.  Oh, and I’m now a total Kate/Garrett shipper.

There are a lot of other things I’d like to address, but I think I’ll save them for a different post in which I plan to address the major criticisms this book gets and share my take on them.  For now, I’ll just close by saying that Breaking Dawn was my favorite of the four.  It kept me engaged all the way through, it never frustrated me with characters acting stupid, and I was very pleased with the way it ended.  Which is far more than I can say for Deathly Hallows.

So apparently there’s no Stargate tonight (well, last night now, I suppose) because Ghost Hunters is taking over the whole night.  Which is sort of annoyingly ironic in itself, that my current favorite show is sort of being preempted by a show that I work on.  The really frustrating thing is that I just learned that Amanda Tapping (Sam of SG-1) was the guest investigator tonight.  Which would have been pretty awesome and kind of a thrill for a Stargate fangirl like myself… except that tonight, Halloween, is the live show, which means that I don’t have anything to do with it and it’s pretty much the one episode of the year that bypasses my station completely.  (And since I don’t watch finished GH episodes because the field tapes are far more interesting and enlightening…)  Grr.

Given that we had very little to do tonight, I kind of wish I’d found out she would be on earlier.  I may have gone downstairs to the GH offices to see if I could watch a bit of what was going on (I could probably have said that I wanted to help, as I heard that they were going a bit crazy).  Ah, well… woulda coulda shoulda, as they say.

(Spoilers)

Book two breaks away from Bella’s POV and is told from Jacob’s perspective. Admittedly, I was a bit leery of this. After all, Bella’s the one who’s suddenly pregnant. I figured she’d be where the action is, and where the Cullens are (and I’ve learned that how much I enjoy each book is directly proportionate to how much we get of the Cullens). I was pleasantly surprised. Turns out, Jacob’s voice is much more interesting to listen to. For one, he’s less whiny. For another, he doesn’t obsess over Edward and constantly talk about how hot he is. Yes, he does think a lot about Bella, but it has the sense of less obsession and more normal concern. Also, he’s a bit crasser, a bit more blunt… a bit more like a normal teenager. Being inside his head was, in a weird way, kind of a relief. It was also more fun in that there were other people inside his head, as well. He talked quite a bit with the other wolves in his head, and at times shared thoughts that went deeper than just words, which was interesting. And when Edward as there, it was interesting to have Edward respond to Jacob’s thoughts which only occurred in description, knowing as we do that Edward can hear everything he’s thinking. It seems like a bit of a timesaver, with Jacob not needing to voice his thoughts.

I was a little worried that it would all be about the pack and we’d miss out on actually seeing anything about Bella’s pregnancy. I was pleased to be wrong about that. There was some stuff with the pack, but it was quite interesting, and not too much. What pleased me even more was that Jacob finally made peace with the Cullens, going so far as to break off from the pack to join their side. I’d kind of been wanting him (well, all of them, really, but Jacob’s a good place to start) to do that since he first changed and started trash talking the vamps. The Cullens didn’t deserve to be thought so badly of, as they’d proven themselves nothing but trustworthy when it came to being around humans. It had especially irked me when Jacob spoke ill of Carlisle, who, as I’ve mentioned, is my favorite, and even more than the others deserved to be thought well of by the werewolves, as he’s never killed a single person in over three centuries of being a vampire (not to mention the fact that he had to figure out on his own how to survive without doing so, as there was no one around to help him when he changed). So, Jacob won major points with me when he began to acknowledge that Carlisle is actually a decent guy, and pretty much joined the side of his natural enemies out of respect for one who he knew didn’t deserve what the wolves were planning for them.

The interactions between Jacob and Edward were quite odd, but certainly dramatic. Bella’s insistence on keeping the baby, and her resulting extreme deterioration in health, set Edward’s nerves so on edge that Jacob literally wondered if he’d gone crazy. So really, it’s not so surprising, given that Edward would pretty much do anything to keep Bella safe, that he suggested that, if Bella wanted children so badly that she would die to have one, then Jacob could give them to her. Not that he was willing to give Bella up, of course. Merely that he would allow Jacob to impregnate her so she could have the children that he himself couldn’t give her, hoping that the suggestion would convince Bella to let them terminate the pregnancy that was killing her. Revolted as he was by this offer (which only further solidified his belief in Edward’s insanity), he was tempted enough by it to suggest it to Bella, who dismissed it out of hand. Twisted, yes, but perfectly believable, given the situations and characters we’re dealing with.

We got to see some interesting things about some of the other characters, as well. There was quite a bit of Seth, one of the younger werewolves and the only one thus far who was perfectly happy being friends with the vampires. I like Seth. He’s a good kid, and his easy acceptance of people who by rights he should loathe as much as the rest of his kind do, simply because they’ve proven themselves to be decent people, is very endearing. His enthusiasm and upbeat attitude is also somewhat irresistible.

Then there’s Leah, the only female werewolf, who, along with her brother Seth, joins the new pack that Jacob forms by breaking off to help the Cullens. She’s quite a different story than Seth. She’s bitter and heartbroken, due to being snubbed by Sam, the pack leader, when he imprinted on her cousin. She’s not a terribly nice person and so far has done nothing but make the other wolves’ lives miserable whenever possible, thanks to their mental connection. But her reason for joining Jacob is obvious enough that I knew it before she confirmed it, so one can hardly blame her. She does, at least, try to be a bit nicer to Jacob, knowing he doesn’t have to accept her, and even given that she still hates the vampires they’re helping. I can’t say I’d be particularly interested in reading too much more about her, or at least about her without the context of the others, but she makes an interesting addition to the mix, and listening to her and Jacob verbally spar is pretty entertaining.

There’s also a nice scene with Quil and Claire, the little girl he imprinted on.  It’s terribly sweet and helps to show that the imprinting isn’t really creepy at all, because while he doesn’t even see other girls any more (despite his earlier ladies man tendencies), he certainly doesn’t act in any inappropriate way toward the toddler.  This information is also important to keep in mind for the future, as it foreshadows Jacob’s fate.

Then, of course, there’s the Cullens. It was very nice to get so much of them. Even if there wasn’t quite as much Jasper and Emmett as I would have liked (they seemed to be gone much of the time), there was some nice stuff with the rest of them. Carlisle’s intellectual curiosity began to show through when he admitted that he tested Jake’s blood without his knowledge. I love that the vampire took someone’s blood without their knowledge… to test it, because he was curious. And Rosalie managed to be both cruel and caring at the same time. She was Bella’s main defender in keeping the others from hurting the baby (sometimes I got the impression she might literally rip someone’s arm off if they tried), though it was clear she cared only for the baby and not at all for Bella. Though, from Bella’s point of view, that technicality wouldn’t make much difference. They both wanted the same thing: for the baby to live. Rosalie was just sort of hoping, perhaps, that Bella wouldn’t survive so that she could have the baby for herself. It’s a bit disturbing, really, but entirely Rosalie.

The scenes between Alice and Jacob were very amusing. Where there was once nothing but animosity, there seemed to be growing a sort of grudging, teasing friendship. Mostly due to the fact that Jacob was too tired to fight her and Alice found the way that he blinded her visions peaceful (when compared the fuzzy vision she got around the unborn baby). But still, more evidence of Jacob’s growing comfort with the Cullens. After so much overt hostility and prejudice, it was very nice to see.

And sweet Esme, always trying to make the wolves feel at home, since they’d effectively been rendered homeless by turning against the other pack. Another great example of an atypical vampire. I felt rather insulted on her behalf when Leah dumped the food and clothes she’d sent into the river.

One thing that did bother me was the logic involved in having Jacob be the one to accidentally figure out what the baby wanted.  You’ve got a half-vampire, half-human baby, and it’s not letting Bella eat human food, so they’re both starving to death.  Gee, I wonder what it could want.  Let’s ask this house full of vampires that are caring for her.  Any ideas, guys?  No?  How about you, vampire doctor with centuries of experience?  Nothing?  Hey, 16-year-old werewolf, what do you think?  That’s right.  Blood.  Good doggy.  Now, I suppose if you wanted to give the author the benefit of the doubt, you could point out that sometimes the most obvious solutions are overlooked, especially when one becomes desperate.  It’s also possible that these vampires have become so civilized by not drinking human blood that the possibility of making a human drink human blood wouldn’t even occur to them.  Because I’d like to keep my stress level at a minimum, I’ll go with that.  But still… it’s a bit of a stretch.

Then there’s the birth scene.  That was just about the most gruesome, gory birth I could imagine without anyone involved being evil.  Really, it’s rather shocking for a teen book.  They absolutely could not film this scene with any amount of detail whatsoever without it being R-rated.  For one, there’s the nudity.  Bella’s clothes are quickly cut away for easier access (leading Jacob to remember how many times he’d pictured her naked and being revolted that this was how he finally saw her).  Then there’s the fact that she’s in excruciating pain the entire time, and with good reason.  She’s basically got a diamond-hard baby-pouch rolling around in her abdomen that has to be gotten out ASAP before the baby suffocates, which happens to hold a baby so strong that it cracked a couple ribs before Bella even went into labor.  And since it’s dying, there’s no time for anesthesia.  Then Rosalie slices her open with a scalpel, getting so distracted by the flow of blood that she has to be tackled and shuffled out of the room, pretty much leaving Edward and Jacob to deliver the baby and keep Bella alive as long as possible because, oh yeah, the doctor was inconveniently away at the time.
Then the baby breaks Bella’s spine and… well, it’s just really not a pretty picture.  Needless to say, the baby is delivered and taken away and Jacob leaves the room thinking that the woman he loves is dead.  So, naturally, he sets his mind on killing the thing that killed her, knowing full well that it will also result in his death and the deaths of probably at least a few of the Cullens… and that’s not even counting how the other wolves would respond.

So really, it’s a terribly good thing that Jacob takes one look at Bella’s baby daughter and suddenly his life revolves around her and he would do anything to keep her safe.  Because while this werewolf imprinting thing may be a nuisance in cases like Leah and Sam, it can occasionally be quite helpful.

The third book in the Twilight series is broken down into three “books”.  As the novel is about 750 pages long, I thought I’d review it by book, starting with the first and shortest.  There will, of course, be spoilers here.

The first book centers around Bella and Edward’s wedding and honeymoon.  It begins by showing us Bella’s new car that Edward got her, a ridiculously expensive, ridiculously hard to get car.  It embarrasses her.  Again, Bella seems really silly.  I couldn’t help thinking, “Yeah, you’ve got an inhumanly rich and handsome fiance who wants to give you the world.  That’s gotta suck.”  It is a bit sad not having her old truck there, though.  It was practically a character itself.

At least we got to see the reactions of her parents to the news of their engagement.  The way the last book ended, I was a bit worried that had been skipped over.  Charlie’s initial assumption that she was pregnant, while totally predictable, was also kinda funny.  What teenagers sit there and calmly tell the girl’s dad that she’s pregnant by beginning with, “We have good news”?

Jasper and Emmett showing up to drag Edward off to his bachelor party, which apparently was going to involve more mountain lions and grizzly bears than strippers, was rather amusing.  Actually, I’d kind of like to read about that little trip.  The idea of them sitting him down after killing some large predators and giving him what was at least in part a sex talk… is pretty funny.  Also, when Jasper peeked in Bella’s window, reassured her and winked before he left reminded me of that part of Midnight Sun where he initially wanted to find and kill her, which was the whole reason Edward started coming to her at night in the first place.  Oh, how things might have been different.

The story of the immortal children was interesting, and actually made perfect sense.  This idea of vampires freezing not only physically, but mentally, developmentally, at the age they’re at when they’re changed (a term I like far better than the overused ‘turned’) seems to be somewhat new.  In this world, with these rules, it seems totally natural that vampire children would be outlawed.

The wedding chapters involved a great deal of description of getting ready and the frills of the wedding than a lot of other people would have written.  Again, it’s indulgent.  But maybe that’s the draw of these books.  It’s fun to read about Alice dragging Bella off to get her ready, about all the hubbub about the day.  It’s a girly thing, I guess.  I thought it was terribly sweet that Carlisle was Edward’s best man, especially since that avoided the problem of which one of his brothers would he pick.  And if he’d had both Jasper and Emmett as his best men, given Alice being Bella’s maid of honor, it would kinda suck for Rosalie, being the one really blatantly left out.  It was also really sweet that Seth was there, that at least one of the werewolves wasn’t prejudiced against them and could be friends with the vampires.  That’s nice to see.  The description of Edward dancing with Esme afterward made me think, what would Edward’s human mother have thought if she’d known it would be another woman dancing the mother/son dance with her son on his wedding day?  Seems like that would hurt a little.  On the other hand, she’d probably have been thrilled just to know he’d get a wedding day, that she’d done the right thing in asking Carlisle to save him, even if it meant that Edward didn’t really even remember her.

Once again, we’re reminded that the Cullens are probably the richest people on the planet, and I think my suspension of disbelief on that matter is being stretched to the limit.  Not only do they have their own private island, which they seem to spend very little time in, but it’s got a cleaning staff and a really nice house with a plasma TV and more DVDs than a rental store.  Seriously, there’s just no explanation for that kind of excess.

Now, I don’t want to sound pervy, but… Meyer’s been pretty dang descriptive so far when it comes to Bella and Edward’s physical relationship.  She’s never shied away from giving us details, as evidenced by the 2-3 pages she spent describing a single kiss in the last book (although that was with Jacob, but still).  So why is it that when it finally gets down to them having sex, we’re given one of those scenes like in old movies where all you see is the guy sweeping the girl off her feet and carrying her to the bedroom?  There’s not even a reaction of any kind when he sees her naked for the first time.  I mean, come on, the story’s been building to this since some time in the first book and now Meyer’s decided to be coy?  Naturally, this is a book for teens, not adults, so it’s not like she could be completely detailed, but a bit more of what they thought and how they reacted in the moment would have been nice, and would have been more in keeping with how she’s handled things so far.

That said, Edward’s rather violent tendencies are pretty dang funny, even if all we get to see is the aftermath.  The whole pillow-biting and headboard-destroying is just… well, funny.  And the poor negligee… hehe… the term ‘bodice ripper’ comes to mind.  I do have to question Bella’s sense, though, being so willing to risk him slipping up rather than waiting the couple years after she’s changed for her mind to settle down back to normal.

Edward’s going into complete shock when he realized she was pregant was pretty funny, and I do wonder what was going through his head then.  I think a lot of people take issue with Edward’s immediate desire to abort the baby, but I have to say, it doesn’t bother me.  I mean, he knows far better than Bella how dangerous the baby is, that it’s not like a normal baby.  I’m not sure how he knows at this point.  It’s obviously not common knowledge that it’s possible for a vampire and a human to have a child, or he would have taken some precaution to make sure it didn’t happen.  I imagine there may have been some legends, some horrible stories of such a thing happening, about a woman getting pregnant by a vampire and then suffering a horrible, gruesome death.  Stories that no one really believed until it was too late.  And it’s been pretty well established that the most important thing to Edward is to keep Bella safe.  I’m not surprised that he doesn’t have the same instinctive reaction to protect the baby that Bella does.  After all, he can’t feel it moving inside him.  It’s not all that uncommon, as I understand it, for some men to not really feel connected to their children until they actually see them, and for someone as single-minded as Edward, it’s not surprising at all that he’s one of them.  For that matter, I can’t imagine it would be easy for any man to have to choose between the woman he loves and a baby he’s never even seen.  Though I have to think they didn’t exactly have a family meeting before deciding to go ahead with Edward’s plan.  I mean, Carlisle’s reaction makes sense.  He knows probably better than anyone how deadly giving birth to a vampire child would be for Bella.  And given the fact that he knows Edward would kill himself if she died, it pretty much comes down to an unfortunate matter of one life or two.  Besides that, I think he’d respect Edward’s wishes in this matter, knowing that it’s probably the only thing that would save Bella, that he couldn’t offer any other alternative.  He wouldn’t be happy about, though, and I imagine he’d still try to come up with some other option.  However, while he would go along with the necessity of it, I have to think Esme wouldn’t be all that thrilled with her son for deciding to kill his child, or with her husband for doing it, considering that she tried to commit suicide after losing her own baby.  And Rosalie, of course, would probably be infuriated that such a thing could happen in her own house (particularly since she’d likely care more about the child than Bella)–Bella was smart (for once) in calling her for help.  Jasper, practical guy that he is, would almost certainly support Edward’s decision, unless he thought for some reason that saving the baby was more worthwhile than saving Bella.  Of course, if he could sense emotions coming from the baby (and given the rate of development, that seems like a possibility), that would probably affect his view on the matter, as well.  I’m not sure how Emmett and Alice would react.  Alice would probably see the outcome, or possible outcomes, and that would affect which way she’d feel about it.  Emmett would probably also go along with Edward’s decision, but I think he’d be really depressed about it, because he seems like the kind of guy who would love to have a little kid around the house to play with and be a bad influence on.  That’s what I’m guessing, anyway.  Let’s see if I’m right…

(Warning: This post contains spoilers… as usual.)

Saturday I finished the third book of the Twilight series.  I didn’t have as many reactions while reading it as I did with New Moon, which I think is because it’s generally a less ridiculously silly book.  I believe I liked it better, though at the same time, the plot of it is less concrete in my mind.  New Moon is about Edward leaving and Bella falling in love with Jacob, but also about the birth of the werewolf pack and the threat posed by constant attacks from Victoria and Laurent.  With Eclipse, the action of the plot, the threat of the newborn vampires, was not quite as major as I might have preferred, and the drama surrounding the Edward/Bella/Jacob triangle seemed somehow than either her finding Edward in Twilight or her losing Edward in New Moon.  Maybe I feel this way because it seems like it’s been building to some kind of confrontation between Edward and Jacob, and old-fashioned vampire/werewolf throw-down, if you will, and it never came to that.  Of course, it’s a good thing that it never did, because it’s better that they get along, and one or both of them probably would have at least gotten hurt, if not killed.  It feels a bit like a gun that’s loaded, cocked, pointed, then set aside.  I suppose it could still come to that in the last book, but since they’re no longer fighting for Bella’s love, it wouldn’t have the same weight.

We do get a vampire/werewolf fight, though.  Even if it’s two minor characters.  We also get a vampire/vampire fight, though it moves so quickly that the POV character can’t actually see what’s going on to tell us.  But I was very disappointed we didn’t get to see the big fight that was going on away from Bella.  That would have been much more interesting.  For one, I wanted to see some of the other vamps fight.  At least we get that little training scene and get to see Emmett, Edward, Jasper and Alice spar.  However, it’s not that hard for me to imagine Emmett, Jasper, and Edward fighting, and I could guess that Jasper would fight a lot like Edward, so no real insights or surprises there.  It was very nice to see how Alice fights, but I’m equally curious to see Esme, Carlisle, and Rosalie fight.  That’s who I would much rather have seen, and why I kind of wish for once that Bella had been stupid and gone down to where they were fighting, so we could see what’s going on.

The stuff between the werewolves and the Cullens was always interesting, and I wish we could have gotten more of it.  After all, that was kind of the major tension for this book.  Usually when we did see it, it was mostly just Edward and Jacob.  I wanted to see the rest of the people interact.  I wanted to see some stuff between Esme and Emily, Quil and Emmett, and all the rest.  That’s one of the most annoying things about these books: everything revolves around Edward and Bella, when there are so many other (more) interesting characters to explore.  Actually, I have similar feelings about the Harry Potter books.

There are three issures I have with Meyer’s writing style which, while perhaps present in the other books, really stuck out to me in this one.  One is the fact that too many revelations rely on characters just suddenly having an epiphany, with no real logic in how they came to that conclusion.  Not only does that not make sense, but it’s kind of a cheat to have a character gain knowledge without earning it (from the character’s perspective, or in the sense of the story earning it).  Like when Edward is suddenly nice to Jacob because, for apparently no good reason, he just decided that would be easier on Bella.  Or when he just suddenly isn’t tempted by her blood any more, because he knows what it’s like to live thinking she’s dead.  For something that was such a central, critical conflict in the first story, to just dismiss it out of hand and not even tell us about it until months after he’s gotten over it is incredibly unsatisfying.

Another thing that bothers me is Bella’s reaction to Edward wanting to marry her.  It just doesn’t make sense.  She’s totally averse to the idea of marriage, and yet what is she afraid of?  She’s absolutely certain that she wants Edward forever, so I really don’t know why she’d have anything less then pure enthusiasm for his wanting to marry her.  This seems like just a plot device to draw out the story.

The third thing that bugged me was the way the issue of sex was dealt with.  First Bella tells her dad that she’s a virgin and doesn’t plan to change that soon, then not too long after, she’s practically begging Edward to do her while they make out on his bed.  Then Edward is adamant that they not because he’s afraid that he’d hurt her, then adds that he’s also concerned about breaking the rules and that doing so would hurt her chances of getting into heaven (basically saying that he doesn’t want to hurt either her body or her soul), and insists they be married before they “try”.  Then later he just goes, “Aw, screw it,” and wants to take her in the meadow… but then she stops him because apparently she likes the idea of getting married first now.  Now, Meyer is a Mormon, and as such probably has strong beliefs about premarital sex.  So I can totally understand and appreciate her desire for her characters to be married before having sex.  However… it seems as if she’s so afraid of giving her characters any sort of real moral beliefs that she sacrifices logical characterization.  If she wants her characters to have her morals, then she should give them her morals–but if they don’t, then she should allow them to act as their characterization dictates and not try to force something that doesn’t make sense.  Again, I’m glad that she has them wait, but I’d much rather they didn’t get so near the edge, and that they waited for the right reasons: because they wanted to, not just because the story necessitated they do so.

One other thing that bugs me, though not as much, is her tendency for characters to be way more verbally forthcoming with their feelings than people really are.  This happens a lot with Edward and Bella, but what really struck me was a conversation that Edward and Jacob had in which they’re talking very openly about their feelings and their love for the same girl.  It’s just not realistic.  People, particularly guys, just don’t talk that way.  And they especially don’t talk that way with another guy who is their rival not only in love, but in pretty much everything about them.

There was a lot of good entertainment, though.  The stuff between Edward and Jacob when they’re getting at each other, especially when they were being particularly vicious, was quite interesting.  The beginning of the chapter with their silly talk, where Edward has to sit by and watch Jacob snuggle with Bella in a sleeping bag because he’s the only one who can keep her warm, was actually very amusing.  The backstories from Rosalie and Jasper, as well as the Quileute legends, were all very enlightening and helped to make the world seem like a bigger place, and giving more focus to the other Cullens is something I’m always for.  Kinda makes me wish that Meyer would write a book about the Cullen family, starting from when Carlisle was human and going through his change, his suicide attempts and discovery of a lifestyle he could live with, his time with the Volturi, finding Edward, more about Esme and how they got together, the three of them meeting Rosalie while she’s still human, dealing with Emmett as a newborn, meeting the Quileute wolves the first time and making the treaty, integrating Alice and Jasper into their family, and everything else.  For that matter, I’d like to see more about what happened to them during New Moon, as well.  I have the strange desire to read New Moon from Jasper’s point of view: perhaps dealing with guilt over his almost killing Bella and basically being the reason they had to leave, him attending Cornell, how he felt while Alice was in Italy… could be quite interesting.

I hope Meyer gets over this hissy fit about Midnight Sun and gets back to writing about the Cullens soon.

(spoilers)

Chapter 24 -

- Heehee… Save a bicycle, ride a vampire.  *snerk*

- Wait a minute.  So he really had nothing to do with the voice in her head?  She was hearing his voice because… it was her subconscious trying to tell her he loved her?  … … … Excuse me.  I have to go piss off the Volturi now.

- No, seriously, it was because of love?  What the frell, Meyer?!

- So not only was Edward’s voice telling her to be happy not really Edward, but was in fact in direct opposition to what he was really feeling, since he was this close to racing to her and begging her to take him back.  Figures.

- Ah, well, it’s good to know he doesn’t think her opinion matters.  Or the opinions of his entire family.  As long as he really is the only one who knows best, I guess that’s all right then.

- Yay, Cullens!  Not that the werewolves aren’t fun, but really, it’s about time.

- LOL.  Vampire fist-bump.  Have I mentioned I like Emmett?

- Nice to see some things don’t change.
The boys: “Yeah!  Let’s all get ourselves killed!”
The girls: “What a bunch of morons.”
Esme: *glares threateningly at Carlisle*
Carlisle: *carefully not saying a word*

- Heh.  I suspect Jasper wants her to join them just so he doesn’t accidently eat her.

- Aw, more of Rosalie not being a total bitch.  It’s heart-warming, really.  Although…

- “I wish there had been someone there to vote no for me.”  Ouch.  Dude.  Carlisle’s sitting right there.

- Emmett is so freaking wonderful.

- Heh.  I love that she’s ready to do it right there.  And how exactly would she explain that to Charlie when she wandered home after three days after disappearing in the middle of the night?  Second thought, he’d probably go to the Cullens immediately after realizing she’s missing… then hear her screams of agony… and probably have all of them arrested.  Yep, great plan.  Unless, of course, they took her and took off, leaving him with no idea where his daughter went, probably thinking she’d been kidnapped, and again, knowing exactly who to go after, which would probably make it a bit difficult for them to go anywhere undetected unless they left the country.

- Immortality.  Quite the graduation present.

- “I’m nearly a hundred and ten.  It’s time I settled down.”  LOL.  Isn’t it, though?

- “Sure.  I’ll get my car.”  LOL!  Seriously, though, Bella wants two things: to have Edward forever and to be a vampire.  He just says that she can have both within the week if she wants.  She’s having a weird reaction to that.

Epilogue -

- “Where was his happily ever after?”  Oh, just give him your first born.  That usually pacifies the fairy-tale monsters.

- Hm.  So, the major villain of the story was not only not dealt with, but not even seen at any point.  Ah, well, I suppose that’s what the next book is about, eh?

(spoilers)

Chapter 22 -

- Is it just me, or does Bella spend an inordinate amount of time in other people’s laps?

- Bella’s really quite delusional if, after everything, she’s still convinced herself that he doesn’t care for her.  She’s like a little child.

- Heh.  Man, Christmas at the Cullens must be awesome.

- Yeah, I’m not really buying that Bella could stay awake that whole time when she’s exhausted.  In a darkened plane with no conversation to keep her awake, for, what, twelve, fourteen hours?  Yeah.  Not likely.

- “It doesn’t count until she’s conscious.”  LOL.  I like Emmett.  And it’s nice to see Rosalie not being a total bitch for once.

- Poor Charlie.  As if he needs any more stress in his life.
Charlie: “Bella!  What did you do to her?”
Edward: “We drugged her a little.  Haha, no, I’m kidding.  She’s just tired.  She hasn’t slept since Italy.”
Charlie: “Italy?”
Edward: “Yeah, she had to come stop me from getting myself murdered ’cause I thought she was dead.”
Charlie: “Why would you…”
Edward: “‘Cause she jumped off a cliff and nearly died.  It’s an honest mistake.  Jeeze, dude, don’t worry so much.”

Chapter 23 -

- Hahaha… I love that her first words upon realizing she’s dead are, “Oh, crap.”

- “Did you commit many murders while I was away?”  LOL.  What makes this line so great is his use of the word “many” rather than “any”.  Edward’s funny.

- Heehee.  Ah, loopholes.  They’re a vampire’s friend.

- They haven’t got a cover story worked out?  What’s wrong with, “Edward’s a vampire and he was gonna kill himself ’cause he thought I was dead (’cause our love is suicidal like that) and I had to rush to Italy to tell him I’m alive before he pissed off a bunch of ancient vampires and by the way they only let us go because we sorta promised I’d be made a vampire soon”?  I think Charlie would totally buy that.

- Finally he gets the Romeo connection.

- Yeah, Bella, for crying out loud.  How could you believe what he told you?  I mean, really.  It’s not like you clearly have some major self-esteem issues when it comes to him being with you.  It’s not like being so bluntly told by the person you love that they don’t want you any more would be fairly jarring and painful to anyone?  Sheesh, Bella.

- She’s putting her mortality to a vote.  Finally, something resembling rationality from Bella.  Or at least using something akin to reason to back up her own argument.  After all, the family really should have a say on whether or not they want her to join them.

- For the most part, this entire chapter boiled down to 21 pages of this:
Edward: “I love you.”
Bella: “I must be dead.”
Edward: “I love you.”
Bella: “I’m dreaming, then.”
Edward: “No, I just love you.”
Bella: “No you don’t.”
Edward: “Do too.”
Bella: “Do not.”
Edward: “Uh-huh.”
Bella: “Nuh-uh.”
Edward: “Uh-huh.”
Bella: “Well, fine.  But I still don’t believe you.

(spoilers)

Chapter 19 -

- And now Bella’s prepared to go all Juliet if they’re too late to save Edward.  Lovely.  Are these really the romantic ideals we’re giving kids these days?

- I love that Alice is getting impatient.  Surely Edward wouldn’t mind if Alice just did what they all know’s going to happen eventually, right?  Well, he could hardly argue, anyway.  All his excuses to reject Bella would be gone.

- LOL.  Bella practically yells “Bite me!” in a plane full of sleeping passengers, and in what is so obviously not a “screw off” tone.  So tactful, that one.

- Ah, yes, and we’re reminded that the vampires are also thieves.  Granted, this is an emergency situation, so one might excuse it.  But given the way that Edward fairly gleefully told Bella how Rosalie had once boosted a car for him, I don’t get the feeling that this is a rare occurrance.  Then again, considering what they go through to refrain from killing people, one could say that a stolen car now and then is a fair trade-off.

Chapter 20 -

- Seriously, where do the Cullens get their money?  I’m not buying this whole investment/stock market ploy.  I’m thinking maybe they steal more than just cars.

- If Bella is in the square and she knows Edward’s there and she knows she’s going to be late, why doesn’t she just call out to him.  Even over the throng, with his super-hearing, he’d hear her and recognize her voice at least long enough to hesitate.

- Ah, except she does, and he doesn’t.  So… are we changing the rules of his super-powers now?

- LOL!  Edward sees her and thinks he’s dead.  Despite the fact that he can still hear and see and feel just like before, and he’s in exactly the same place he was before she showed up.  And what exactly did Carlisle tell him dying was like, and at what point had he asked?

- “I don’t think I’ll be requiring your services today.”  LOL again.  Why does that remind me of the suicide booths in Futurama?  The Volturi: vampire suicide booths.

- Hm… given that they were in rather a hurry when they left, and that she got a big hug from Jacob just before taking off… wouldn’t the Volturi be able to smell werewolf on her (accepting for the moment that Edward is too distracted by the fact of her being alive to notice)?  And wouldn’t they have something to remark about that?

- Heh… ah, Edward’s going to be even less fond of Jacob when he finds out what happened, isn’t he?

Chapter 21 -

- “Dibs.”  Haha… oh, more vampire humor.

- Hee.  Aro’s fun.  He seems very Dumbledorish in his somewhat enthusiasm.

- Well, come on.  Aro must know from Edward’s memories that Bella’s not immune to Jasper’s influence, or to being seen in Alice’s visions. I suspect he’s really just a little sadistic. … Just like Dumbledore.

- “Just out of curiosity.”  Heh.  Also slightly masochistic, apparently.  This Aro is very amusing.

- Wow, that’s… heh… creepy.  I can’t help but feel particularly bad for the tourists who are taking pictures.  Because man, are they gonna be disappointed.