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The Twilight Saga Eclipse: Special Edition
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Summit Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Anthony Arrigo (2nd January 2011). |
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The Film
 I’m willing to bet that I went into watching “Eclipse” (2010), the third entry in the outrageously popular “Twilight” series, with more of an open mind than most. All I’ve heard since the first film, “Twilight” (2008), opened was how lame the series is, how the story is incredibly stupid, the acting is terrible and the special effects are third-rate. I had briefly entertained the notion of watching the first film and its sequel, “New Moon” (2009), before embarking on this latest installment, but my good taste got the better of me, so I figured a quick trip down Wikipedia Lane would suffice in getting me up to speed. It did, although I can’t say it helped much. I can honestly say that the film had me hooked for a good 3 or 4 minutes during the opening, but since that scene was essentially a “cold open” and none of the main players were in it, I don’t think that’s much of an endorsement. I think I made a valiant effort, all things considered, but the universal disdain for this series by anyone over 12 years old who lacks a vagina hits the nail square on the head; it’s simply terrible. I’m astonished that the latest two entries were able to muster summer blockbuster-sized opening weekends followed by grosses of around $300 million domestic. When you strip away the faux horrors of the vampire and werewolf clans (which barely encompass any of their ubiquitous traits to being with), you’re left with a poorly-written love story that teaches young girls it’s perfectly alright to play the helpless victim 24/7 so that the men you keep hanging on a hook in your life can be ever-vigilant protectors. I don’t have kids, but I can tell you I’d never want to have a tween girl on my hands who idolizes someone as vacuous and morose as Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). Since this latest installment hit a series high in terms of attendance and grosses, I can only see the problem as getting far worse before the series concludes and history can eventually sweep these should-have-been cinematic abortions under the rug. I don’t think I can fill a paragraph with the plot description because one hardly exists, but I’ll try. Bella spends 2 hours vacillating between loving Edward (Robert Pattinson), her sparkly, vampiric high school crush, and Jacob (Taylor Lautner), the hunky, ever-shirtless werewolf who seems to only own cut-off jean shorts and hiking boots. In between her constant, pathetic fawning there’s a subplot about a vampire, Victoria (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is heading to their small town of Forks, Alaska to get revenge on Edward for killing her lover in the first film. She’s creating an army of “newborn” vampire (it basically means they’re recently changed), which are hard to control and possess super strength, to fight the Cullen clan and Jacob’s pack of other, shirtless, cut-off jean short wearing wolves. I hate Stephenie Meyer for a few reasons (one of which is, in fact, because she spells her name dumb), but the biggest reason of all is her unprovoked raping of my childhood monsters. I’ll be the first to admit that there has been an absolute glut of piss poor vampire movies flung forth from Hollywood studios since Bela Lugosi rose from his coffin back in 1931, but that still doesn’t excuse the fact that they SPARKLE IN THE SUNLIGHT in these films. Even if we discount the fact that an aversion to sunlight is one of the fundamental rules of being a vampire that still doesn’t explain why they shimmer like a My Little Pony when exposed to light. I mentioned earlier that the film held my interest for a solid 4 minutes before it was lost completely. Do you know what moment did it for me? When we go from that opening to a shot of Edward & Bella having a friggin’ picnic (or something) in the woods and he’s sparkling like a dishwashing detergent. The vamps here don’t have fangs, they don’t look remotely menacing and they don’t even get all bloody & messy when killing each other. You know how the series gets away with that? They’re essentially ice inside, so when a fellow vampire gets his head ripped off the stump looks like a jagged, frozen block. Where’s the fun in stocking a film full of vampires and werewolves if they don’t do anything horrific? The werewolves fare slightly better, I suppose. Aside from the fact that they’re a bunch of per-pubescent, hairless, shirtless kids (this film is Victor Salva’s fantasy come to life), once they transform the design isn’t nearly as terrible. The CGI could use some more polish (and I’d expect it to look better considering the mint this series is making), but the fact that they become massive, fully-realized wolves, not just a man-wolf hybrid, makes for some great battle action. This isn’t a horror film. Not in the traditional sense, at least. The most horrific aspect of the story is the romance, which is the nucleus of all things here. There are long stretches of the film that are filled with constant back-and-forth exchanges between Bella & Edward and Bella & Jacob and Bella & Edward & Jacob, all having to do with her inability to decide who she loves. I realize Edward is a century old, but surely he recognizes that a high school student doesn’t know her ass from her elbow when it comes to making tough life choices about love, right? But, I guess he must be stuck in a constant state of suspended brain function because he sticks around and waits for her to sort it all out. I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere about a hundred-year-old vampire pedophile picking up underage girls. Getting the real shaft here is Jacob, the all-too-nice Indian werewolf who makes himself look like a doormat by allowing Bella to dump all over him anytime Edward is acting moody, but never gets any play despite wasting so much time listening to her crow on and on about how difficult her decision is. I think it’s fitting that the film’s producers insisted that no wolf genitalia be shown (seriously, this was requested) because sackless Jacob acts like he doesn’t have a pair. This twisted romantic saga only furthers the stereotype that women love the brooding, distant assholes of the world (Edward), while the nice guys who would do anything in the world for them (Jacob) are given a backseat. Not that any of the fangirls who fawn over these cardboard characters care, though. All they wanna do is giggle incessantly and wet their panties in a darkened theater every time Jacob waltzes in sans shirt. I figured the saving grace for this film would be new director David Slade’s take on the material. I don’t think the man is some magical Midas wizard capable of turning this shit into gold, but I think he’s got a great visual eye and his prior dabbling in horror proved he can make gory look glorious. I was tepid on “Hard Candy” (2005), though that’s mostly due to my dislike of anything Ellen Page stars in (“Inception” (2010) not withstanding), but I dug the hell out of “30 Days of Night” (2007). That film, based off the excellent comic series by Steve Niles, was deliriously gory, slick, and featured some striking imagery and cinematography. Even though we don’t get the gore here (in fact, I honestly don’t recall seeing much blood at all), Slade does manage to deliver a film that, while unquestionably vacuous, is great to look at. I can’t give him the all the credit for the visuals, however, since the principal cinematography was ably handled by Javier Aguirresarobe. He’s not a household name (and it doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue), but in addition to also shooting “New Moon” he was responsible for the look of John Hillcoat’s “The Road” (2009), giving the movie an austere, scorched-Earth palette that was both gorgeous and frightening. Here, Aguirresarobe shines brighter than anyone else on the cast & crew, helping to turn “Eclipse” into a film more beautiful than it has any right to be. I didn’t expect this movie to surprise me so much that I became one of the poorly dubbed Twi-hard fans, but I expected something that at least warranted all the praise and grosses this film series has been garnering. Although, to be fair, that praise is only coming from people who identify themselves as fans of the series, as most critics savaged it worse than a shirtless werewolf going after a vamp snack. I’d hesitate in calling the acting horrendous, though none of it was particularly good. Even though his character has the emotional range of a wet towel, I think Robert Pattinson is the strongest of the bunch. I have a feeling he’s got more talent in him than this series will allow, but time will ultimately be the deciding factor there. Otherwise, what we’ve got is a film full of uninteresting characters placed in extremely cliché situations that will only appeal to those who face similar circumstances, i.e. teenage girls. I truly feel for the men who are forced to make up the audience when dragged by their significant others, because these movies hold no appeal for us. There’s no eye candy, no carnage, no sense of tension or fright… just a bunch of shirtless, fangless dudes mugging for the cameras. I’ll pass.
Video
It pains me to say it, but the 2.40:1 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded image is virtually flawless. This is one of the finest images I’ve seen Blu-ray produce. Aside from a couple of brief shots that were slightly unfocused or soft, this is essentially as good as you’re going to find on the format. There’s simply no need to get into specifics here. If you want a live-action movie to show off as a demo disc for your friends, this is one of the best you’re going to find.
Audio
Not to be outdone by its visual counterpart, the film’s English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit is a perfectly balanced track that hits all the right notes. This isn’t an action film – it’s a romantic love story with some minor action elements, so most of what drives this track is going to be the music. Lucky for some of us score nerds, Howard Shore provides the tunes here. I’ve always loved Shore’s work, specifically his collaborations with two of my favorite directors – David Cronenberg and Peter Jackson. He’s able to write wonderfully subtle cues for intimate, small-scale films, but he can easily switch things up to tackle massive, full-scale epics (such as the “Lord of the Rings” (2001-2003) trilogy). He gets to mingle in both here, although the majority of the film calls for a more subdued approach while Bella whines her way through scene after scene with Edward and Jacob. Once the action kicks in, though, the track can really let loose with swelling musical arrangements and heroic cues to buttress the massive fight between vampires and werewolves at during the climax. There’s little for the LFE track to grab on to, but its subtle support of the film’s music allows it to fill out the track with some low bass rumblings that warm up the dynamic range. This being Alaska - full of forests and nature and all that – there are the ambient sounds of trees rustling, wind moving through branches, birds chirping - all the sounds that you’d expect to hear that aid in giving the soundscape a more robust quality. Dialogue is always clear and discernible, as well as being perfectly balanced. Many tracks lately seem to suffer from moderately balanced dialogue, but then things get VERY LOUD during any sort of action. “Eclipse” finds that equilibrium point and strikes a perfect balance between the two. A Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound track is also included. Subtitles are available in English for hearing impaired and Spanish.
Extras
It shouldn’t be much of a surprise that Summit Entertainment has packed this Blu-ray release of “Eclipse” with bonus features, including two audio commentaries, deleted & extended scenes, music videos, a photo gallery and more. But, what I do find surprising is that they chose to utilize a BD-59 disc, which features a Blu-ray on one side and a DVD on the other. These combo discs have proven to be less-than-popular among collectors, not the mention the fact that they were notoriously problematic during the heyday of the HD DVD/Blu-ray format war. I’d much rather studios stick with the Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack versus cramming everything onto one disc. SIDE ONE: BLU-RAY The first audio commentary with stars Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson is largely a waste of time. Unless you’re one of their underage fans, you’ll quickly be bored with the gaps of silence, mediocre anecdotes and uninteresting banter between these two. At times it seemed like Pattinson couldn’t stand being in the room. The same went for me. The second audio commentary with author Stephenie Meyer and producer Wyck Godfrey is slightly better. Meyer obviously knows her stuff, so she’s able to get more in-depth with the characters and their motivations than anyone else likely could, and Godfrey fills in with lots of notes about the film’s massive production. If you really feel the need to listen to a commentary for this film, this is the one I’d choose. “The Making of The Twilight Saga: Eclipse” (1080p) is a gargantuan 6-part documentary that covers every aspect of the film’s production and post-production. Viewers have the option of watching it via a picture-in-picture window as the film plays, or it can be viewed standalone in segments or all together with the “play all” function. The parts are: - “Part 1: Introducing David Slade” runs for 4 minutes and 35 seconds. The director, new to the “Twilight” series, talks a bit about what drew him to working in film, some of his past projects, and some of the film’s cast & crew talk about what it’s like to work with him on set. - “Part 2: Pre-Production: Setting the Stage” runs for 12 minutes and 27 seconds. Just as you might’ve guessed, this covers all of the production design work done to make the sets look as realistic and organic as possible. Work was also done to design the sets in such a way that the large battles that take place would be conducive to the environment created. - “Part 3: The Heart of Eclipse” runs for 14 minutes and 27 seconds. We all know what drives these films, and what drives the fans so wild – it’s the sappy love story. Here, author Stephenie Meyer talks about the different relationships in the film and how they’ve changed for this installment. - “Part 4: The Dark Side of Eclipse” runs for 8 minutes and 54 seconds. Focusing almost entirely on the character of Victoria, star Bryce Dallas Howard speaks at length about joining the “Twilight” team and the motivations behind her character’s quest for vengeance. - “Part 5: Lights, Camera, Action” runs for 24 minutes and 30 seconds. This is where we get some face time with the rest of the film’s cast, as they’re interviewed about their respective roles in the film while we’re treated to some raw, behind-the-scenes footage of the shoot. Ladies take note, here’s where you’ll find plenty of b-roll footage featuring shirtless, pubescent boys romping about on set. - “Part 6: Post-Production: Leaps in Technology” runs for 23 minutes and 8 seconds. Once principal filming has completed the real work on creating the visual effects and editing come into play. We get to see how many of the film’s effects were created, as well how instrumental Slade was in assisting the visual effects team realize his vision. There are several deleted/extended scenes (1080p) available to watch with optional audio commentary from directorDavid Slade for the following: An introduction from director David Slade precedes these scenes. He talks a bit about why the cuts were made and that he’s glad to be able to show them off here. It runs for 52 seconds. - “It’s Not Life or Death” runs for 2 minutes and 8 seconds, Bella talks to one of her friends about the jealousy between Edward and Jacob. - “I Can’t Wait to See What You’re Going to do Next” runs for 1 minute, Bella talks with her father after graduating high school. - “Just Keep the Window Closed” runs for 44 seconds, Edward tells Bella to shut her window if she doesn’t wish to see him that night. - “From Now On I’m Switzerland” runs for 1 minute and 21 seconds, Bella tries to remain neutral around Edward and Jacob. - “Someone’s Creating An Army” runs for 2 minutes and 10 seconds, more about Victoria’s plan is revealed. - “Bella, I Envy You” runs for 2 minutes and 7 seconds, Bela is reminded why being human isn’t such a bad thing. - “What Did I Say About a Low Profile” runs for 1 minute and 25 seconds, the newborn vamps have a hard time remaining inconspicuous. - “Jacob’s Thoughts Are Pretty Loud” runs for 1 minute and 12 seconds, Edward knows Jacob’s feelings about Bella. The disc contains a clip feature called “Jump To…” (1080p) which allows viewers to watch scenes featuring only their favorite characters. This is essentially a sizzle reel for young tweens to soil their jeans over their chosen heartthrobs. You can skip to either Edward, Jacob, The Love Triangle, The Cullens, The Wolfpack, The Humans, Victoria’s Army or Action Sequences. A photo gallery (1080p) contains 111 images set to music. They will slowly advance on their own, or you can speedily click through them using your remote. Two music videos (480p) are included for the following songs: - “Neutron Star Collision” by Muse runs for 4 minutes and 18 seconds. - “Eclipse (All Yours)” by Metric runs for 4 minutes and 20 seconds. The disc is BD-Live enabled, though there’s no content specific to the film available. SIDE TWO: DVD The only special features included are the two audio commentary tracks found on the Blu-ray. The DVD side of things opens with some bonus trailers for the following: - “Red” runs for 2 minutes and 27 seconds. - “Letters to Juliet” runs for 2 minutes and 37 seconds. - “Remember Me” runs for 2 minutes and 12 seconds. - “Twilight in Forks” runs for 1 minute and 3 seconds.
Packaging
The single-disc comes housed in a eco-case with a slip-cover that replicates the cover art.
Overall
Yes, it’s as bad as people have said it is. This was my first foray into the “Twilight” series, and I hope it’s my last. Poor film quality aside, though, the film looks amazing on Blu-ray and fans will be ecstatic with this release’s A/V quality and its wealth of bonus features.
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