Bill Condon as director

[sonylr]

well done BILL

[Tornado]

I was watching that video on the blog page where they talk to Bill about the movie. I was relieved that he recognised the association between BD and the many milestones in a woman's life, but I got a bit nervous when he started talking about BD as a horror movie. I guess it is, and that's why I really had trouble with that section of it when I read it.

I really hope it's not R rated, though, because I won't be comfortable seeing it - in the cinema, anyway - if it is. Hopefully they will keep it, if not to PG-13, then to the rating just above (I don't remember what that is in America), but not as graphic as R.

[smitten_by_twilight]

Pretty sure the ratings go straight from PG-13 to R. I think, based on what Bill and Stephenie and everybody has been saying, that they will keep it PG-13, so the big question is will they have to cut anything they don't want to cut. If you saw the same interview I did, you know that they just submitted the movie to the ratings committee .... keep your fingers crossed!

[Tornado]

I think they probably will cut it to fit PG-13. A lot of the audience is in that age group, so they'd be stupid not to.

Have you seen the clips from Comic Con yet? I have seen the wolf pack one, and I have to say I was disappointed. I thought the staging and acting was cheesy, and I'm not sure where they're going with the "Jacob's going to kill the baby as soon as she's born" thing. Is he just saying that? Is he really intending to do it? Is he not sure himself? I guess that they're hoping to keep us guessing, and maybe it's easier than explaining that that's his intention when he goes to kill Renesmee just after she's born, but I'm not sure it's a good position to put Jacob's character in. I don't like Jacob that much, but I don't think he's so evil that he'd pretend to be friends with everyone for a few days just so he can kill the baby. That seems to be taking his character to a level of deceit that I wouldn't have thought him capable of. It really lowers him in my mind.

[smitten_by_twilight]

Agree with you in concept about Jacob, but I haven't seen the clips, and I imagine people will be discussing that like mad even after the movie's released. I haven't had time to see any video - RL is kicking my behind - but am almost caught up and hopefully will see all the videos over the next few days. Maybe I'll just stay up all night tomorrow.

But as I read interviews with Bill and see them (did see that one interview with him, oops), I get more and more excited about having him direct the movie. He seems really respectful of the material and really into collaborating with the actors, and I think it's tough to get more than that. No movie ever lives up to the book if the book was written first (IMO - glad to entertain concrete examples to the contrary), but I find it enjoyable to SEE some things and enjoy them that way. Some thought and quality work appears to have been put into this one, and Summit seems to finally appreciate what they have.

[Tornado]

I was excited and hopeful, and thought Bill would do a really good job, but that clip thew me quite a bit. I'm hoping it came across as worse than it is because the quality of the clip was so bad, but I honestly didn't like anything about it. On reflection, I think the Jacob killing the baby angle could work, as long as they don't gloss over Edward's mind reading ability (he HAS to know about it). But the rest of it just wasn't up to my expectations. It reminded me of all the things I didn't like about Eclipse.

[Chernaudi]

Blame the screenwriter--on New Moon, Kristen, Rob, Taylor and Chris put stuff back in the script that Melissa axed, and Kristen and Bill had to do the same for BD--maybe the cast should've wrote the script, or Stephenie should've rather than just sit back and take story writer credit. The cast and director are supposed to act and direct the film, and not act as fan fic betas/editors.

[Tornado]

MR worked with Bill Condon when she did the script (I can remember several interviews where she said that he was giving her good ideas on staging and other things for specific scenes), so I don't think anything would have been taken out against Bill's wishes. I'm sure he and the producers signed off on the changes until they sat down with Kristen, who is a fan, and she had a different viewpoint, so they changed it to accommodate a fan's point of view.

[Chernaudi]

MR worked with Bill Condon when she did the script (I can remember several interviews where she said that he was giving her good ideas on staging and other things for specific scenes), so I don't think anything would have been taken out against Bill's wishes. I'm sure he and the producers signed off on the changes until they sat down with Kristen, who is a fan, and she had a different viewpoint, so they changed it to accommodate a fan's point of view.

Which probably shows how out of touch MR is with the fandom when she's writing the movies--they're for the fans, after all, not necessarily for her and her view points.

[Tornado]

That is true, but you'd think that if Bill had objected to her decisions he would have told her to put them back in himself. It wasn't like he didn't see the script before it was finished. Why suddenly change everything at that point? He had read the book himself, and he was in contact with fans, wouldn't he have known what to approve?

Not to mention, I know that MR did ask fans for what they wanted. She has a Facebook page, and started up a discussion board there, requesting that we go in and put down what we wanted to see in BD. So it seems strange to ask if she had no intention of listening at all. Perhaps other things came into play. I'd really like to know what things Kristen had put back in, actually, and whether they were small or large. It would be interesting to know. As usual, I'm intrigued to know what was in the original script, and what they actually shot. It's always fascinating to see that difference.