You think navigating a press junket after a personal controversy goes public is potentially awkward? Try braving throngs of journalists clamoring for an answer to The Twilight Saga’s curious “imprinting” storyline, as Taylor Lautner did today when the franchise-ending Breaking Dawn Part II press tour kicked off.
For the record, both parties in the reportedly reunited Robsten supercouple acquitted themselves ably and congenially in back-to-back press conferences as they discussed their four-year journey with the vampire franchise. [Mild spoilers follow, if you haven't read the books.]
But Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson aren’t the only Twilight kids who’ve matured as the worldwide phenomenon has turned them and their cast mates into global megastars. Twenty-year-old Lautner turned in a charismatic performance for the media horde, even as he broached the subject of his character’s eyebrow-raising attachment to a child in Breaking Dawn.
“It’s a fine line, and I was worried about it,” Lautner admitted of Jacob Black’s supernatural, (platonic — for now) love-at-first-sight connection to Renesmee, the half-human, half-vampire offspring of Bella Swan and Edward Cullen. (By comparison, Edward’s a century older than Bella, so in the grand scheme of things it’s not that bad….)
Played by 9-year-old Mackenzie Foy, Renesmee grows from infant to school-age girl in a superhuman span of time — and, in keeping with the story arc of the novels, Jacob is compelled by his Quileute legacy to instantly “imprint,” or attach, himself to her side in a manner that eventually will take on romantic undertones.
Lautner said he went to the source for advice about his concerns: Stephenie Meyer. “There was nobody better to ask about it than her,” he explained. “And she basically told me, ‘Stop overcomplicating it. Think here…
Full Story »
Given author Stephenie Meyer’s close connection to Summit’s Twilight films (she came onboard to produce the final two films), the vampire saga has retained a firm sense of authenticity even as scripter Melissa Rosenberg has tweaked and added details to translate Meyer’s vision for the big screen. But a new EW Breaking Dawn Part 2 preview teases a “pretty big shock” for fans expecting stark faithfulness to the series-ender. What could be more shocking than the all-out vampire/werewolf/baby-loving party that already is Breaking Dawn?
According to EW, who has a slew of new Breaking Dawn Part 2 images including the above look at Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson in happier, more undead times, Rosenberg changed plot elements in the film’s last act that had Pattinson going, “What?” (Seriously. That’s what he says he said.)
The good news is, Rosenberg didn’t act alone; she and Meyer supposedly conjured this maybe-huge, probably not-so-earth-shattering deviation together:
Even devoted readers of Meyer’s books are in for a pretty big shock in the final third of the film, when the plot strays from the last novel in a sequence dreamed up by Meyer and longtime screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg one night over dinner. “When I first read the script, I got to that part and was like, ‘What?’” Pattinson says. “And then I had to go back a page.” Still, even those averse to change will be more than satisfied, and probably thrilled, by how the series ends. The actors certainly are. Says Pattinson, “It does it a serious justice.”
The bad news (for now) is, fans have no idea how major or minor said change is. Since much of Breaking Dawn the novel is spent rallying for an epic final showdown between Edward…
Full Story »
