Wednesday was the first day of summer (well, technically Thursday was the first full day), and, for those of us who have been to Forks as many times as the young lady in the hilarious Time Warner television commercial, it was also Edward Cullen’s 111th birthday (and he doesn’t even need a magic ring to stay looking 17)! In honor of that auspicious occasion, Summit treated us with the “theatrical trailer” for Breaking Dawn part 2.
Check it out in the first comment box below if you haven’t seen it already. The trailer is widely available online (good thing, too, as the only movie I’ll be seeing in theaters for a while is probably one made by Pixar), and, as promised earlier this week, here are my thoughts, nit-picky and literary as they may be, on what we see, what we don’t see, and what we should be expecting.
Like the previously released teaser, the preview starts with the requisite helicopter landscape shot and Bella monologue, with her assertion that she is now “shiny” as a vampire, in the world where she belongs. After a couple of quick shots to establish that Bella and Edward are more in love than ever and that Jacob is solidly the non-threatening BFF, we’re thrust straight into the conflict of the second part: the looming confrontation with the Volturi. Irina, who was introduced in Part 1 at the wedding (contra to her non-attendance in the book), makes her visit to Volterra, and we see the Cullens go into full-on defense mode to protect Renesmee.
Nessie herself is seldom visible in this trailer, despite getting plenty of visibility in a recent Entertainment Weekly spread. Rather, we see her wrapped in baby blankets, or the back of her head as she jumps into Edward’s arms. Only a tender moment with Bella at the end shows much of young MacKenzie Foy, who is Nessie for most of the film (even the older versions of her in part 1 were digital permutations of Foy’s face to morph her to adulthood when Jacobs imprints on her and sees their future). Though she is the center of the story, and though Meyer herself often emphatically states how hard she fought for Renesmee as her story center, she is still shadowy, perhaps to emphasize the way her future will appear until the very end of the film with the timely arrival of Nahuel (he does appear in the cast list for the film, but no peeks in the trailer, though I suspect we’ll see him before the last five minutes). 
We do see several characters who are not readily identifiable. That is probably the immortal child Vasilii, created by the Denalis’ creator, Sasha, being taunted by Jane in a flashback that (along with Bella’s assertion that Nessie was born, not bitten, so she is not an immortal child) should explain the whole issue of the children and the Volturi response to them.
Though we see plenty of wolves, there is no mention of Jacob’s unique relationship with Nessie, which is hinted at in some of the recent photos, where they have a great big-brother little sister sort of tone set. Jake does get in his required smart remarks, including one about “a lot of red eyes” in the Cullens’ witness team.
Speaking of red eyes, there are plenty of shots of the gorgeous Mrs. Edward Cullen, including some that are probably of her visit with J. Jenks the lawyer. It does appear Bella’s eyes are pretty much golden by the end, which means she either is so awesome she doesn’t take a year to morph from the red, or, more likely, it just helps to show her as a Cullen, rather than a gradual change.
There are lots of group shots of the Volturi (nice black robes in white snow. Throw in the red eyes, and we’re alchemical all over!) and of the team of witnesses for the defense. We get many tantalizing glimpses of this bunch. There are the gorgeous (and appropriately terrifying) Amazons, wow! Hey, look, Stephan and Vladimir (in the background behind the Denalis and Garrett, I think)! Quick, when Edward is holding Renesmee, look to the right to see Garrett (who looks a little more grubby than I had imagined; I was thinking more Han Solo) chatting up Kate! There is Benjamin “doing the wave” to show off his mad skills (in Egypt, still, perhaps; Carlisle and Esme, and apparently Tia are all there, so this probably on Mom and Pop Cullens’ recruiting tour). He also gets one of the necessary, “We’re with you” lines, setting up the Allies of Forks against the Axis of the Volturi.
The scariest Italians since the Godfather movies also get plenty of screen time in the minute and a half trailer. Aro has a great line about how “imperative” it is to protect the big vampire secret. His tone and inflection are, to me, nearly identical to those used by Dolores Umbridge in her welcome speech in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, another great story about a band of misfits standing up to the supposed guardians of society. He also sports a fantastic jacket that he apparently borrowed off the band My Chemical Romance after they used them in their “Black Parade” video.
The music and the rapidity of the shots build to a big crescendo and the battle lines scene in which the groups stream toward each other. Of course, this doesn’t exactly follow the book, which never has a big climatic fight scene. Bella uses reason and her secret shielding weapon to prevent any big clash, but as we saw with the wolves versus the Cullens at the end of part one, there is apparently some “fight scene” contractual obligation at play here. All in all, it looks like a typical supernatural action movie, with only a few shots of the principal players that hint at the tenderness and complexity of the story. Of course, it does what a good trailer is supposed to do: it leaves us thirsting for more. Bring on November. I have my notepad ready.
Just to comment on the Pixar movie currently in theatres…. Brave was wonderful! And I think it fills a gaping hole in the Disney film history of not really exploring mother/daughter relationships.
Hey elizabeth I was curious..has the actor who plays Aro said the jacket is actually from My Chemical Romance or are you just drawing a parallel? Cause while they do look very similar his jacket doesn’t match any of the band members, the bars are too wide
Thank you very much!
I think Aro’s attire may hint at the fact that he is facing the Cullens in a military takeover capacity rather than a ‘just keeping the peace’ policeman role. Mind you, they only used two brands for the clothing line of the movie: gold eyes and red eyes alike, so it could just be that. Definitely the clothes have become darker with each movie. Robert Pattinson said in a recent interview published in Australia: “by the last one, with more and more money that became involved, there would be these contracts with clothes companies. And so if you look at the last one, every single vampire is wearing G-Star or Bellstaff, no matter which side they are on, (laughter) it’s crazy. And they all have the label on the side as well. It’s nuts. (Laughs)” ~ http://www.heraldsun.com.au/entertainment/movies/robert-pattinson-talks-breaking-dawn-part-2/story-e6frf9h6-1226500500912
Did you notice that in the Breaking Dawn films the Volturi have their own jewellery logo (just as the Cullens have theirs that Alice and Rosalie wear as necklaces, with the boys wearing theirs on armbands, and the wolves have their tattoos). You can see it at 0.39 and again, a closer look, in about two frames at 1.02 in the trailer above. It’s a stylised V with a shield and an ovoid blood red gem, but also looks rather like a goat’s head from a distance. Is someone trying to present the Volturi as evil Satanists rather than quasi-Catholics?
You said there is “no mention of Jacob’s unique relationship with Nessie” and you’re right for this trailer. But in the “final theatrical trailer” there is a moment when Renesmee, Edward and Bella all look at Jacob-wolf, and a close up of her looking at Jacob as he comes to stand with them in the pre-battle scene . And he snarls protectively as he walks with Bella and Renesmee to the fight (0.48). I think the father-figure or big brother role is probably right for this part of Renesmee’s development, following the imprinting pattern of relationships of Quil and Claire, as Jacob describes it to Bella in Eclipse. It is interesting to see how as Edward no longer needs to be Bella’s “protector”, which is the focus of much of his musing in the Midnight Sun manuscript, Jacob becomes Renesmee’s foremost protector (other than her parents).
I like the gold eyes for Bella at the end. Because she is at the end of her alchemical transformation at the end of this movie. It is interesting that so many people complain that Bella has little trouble with overcoming her natural thirst – Stephenie Meyer felt she had to explain this in her interview with Shannon Hale in the Illustrated Guide – when in an earlier book Meyer made it clear that Rosalie has also never consumed human blood and was even able to abstain when she violently murdered her fiance shortly after her transformation. Rosalie’s willpower (she tells Bella something like “I was determined never to taken any part of him into me”) is the critical factor in that situation as well. So a precedent had been set. Perhaps readers are so shocked because Jasper seems to struggle so much, even though he’s older than Edward. But Jasper had spent decades being fed human blood as a reward, positive reinforcement for behaviour that pleased Maria. He’s been conditioned by nurture as well as predisposed by nature to thirst for human blood. It seems reasonable that Bella, who has witnessed Edward’s struggles to not partake of her own blood, and has seen how the Cullens deal with their unwanted thirst (stop breathing and leave the room), would be a heck of a lot better at it than the average newborn who has no good examples to follow. I find it interesting that Meyer, a mother of young children, seems to heavily favour the idea of nurture winning out over nature in these books.