Forever is only the beginning

Rating: 10/10 (20 April 2015)

--WARNING! This review contains spoilers, if you haven't seen this film, you may want to before reading this review!--
Well, I have reviewed the first three films in the five-film TWILIGHT franchise, now it's time to continue with THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN. Before you read this review, I recommend you watch the first part of BREAKING DAWN before you read this review.
Now, let's get started.
PLOT
THEATRICAL VERSION
The first part follows the first half of the last book nicely: It follows Bella and Edward as they get married, have their honeymoon, until they learn that Bella has became pregnant. They return back to Forks and this causes conflict between Jacob Black and Edward Cullen, but they eventually work together to protect her because the wolf pack leader Sam, is against the baby and fearing that every human will be in danger, they try to destroy it.
Bella soon has the baby and names it Renesmee, but she dies soon after. Jacob gets all emotional and attempts to kill the baby, but he imprints on the child instead and tells Edward that he won't kill him.
This leads into a big and intense fight between the Cullens, Jacob and the other werewolves, in which Jacob responds to Sam, "Stop! It's over! If you kill her, you kill me!".
Edward waits until she dies to change Bella into a vampire, in which she turns into a vampire the next day before the film ends.
In a post-credits scene, The Volturi and their leader Aro receives a letter from Carlisle saying that Bella and Renesmee has joined their family, in which replies, "They have something that I want".
The extended version opens a little different than it does in the original theatrical version of the film. It opens with an invitation being sent by Carlisle to Aro and the Volturi about Bella and Edward's wedding, in which he kills a girl in his crew. The rest of the film follows the plot as the original version, but with a few new things.
I'm not gonna say I hate "BREAKING DAWN - PART ONE", but I will say the theatrical version was too short, but the extended version feels like it's 124 minutes long and that's a good thing because I thought that the original version was way too short and it did not focus on the story a lot more.
The extended cut really does give you more story, more character development and an alternate opening that was cut out in fear of an R rating.
One thing that was really cool to see that me and my sister LeeAnn did not see in NEW MOON and ECLIPSE was hearing the werewolves including Leah, Seth, Sam and Jacob talk and when Sam and Jacob argue, he says "I will not kill Bella! I AM THE GRANDSON OF EPHRAIM BLACK! I AM THE GRANDSON OF A CHEAP! I WAS NOT BORN TO FOLLOW YOU OR ANYONE ELSE!".
On top of that, we get to the one thing that almost threw me off and this was the birthing scene. Eventually, the birthing scene had a lot of controversy over because this was the most graphic thing in the book and this is why a lot of fans worried that the film was going to get an R rating, instead of the PG-13 rating, but they managed to show the whole pregnancy scene in the film from Bella's point-of-view. The film did actually get it's PG-13 rating from the Motion Picture Association of America.
Now, I get to the story. Out of all of the Twilight movies, BREAKING DAWN's two-part story is the most easiest to follow, but it is also the most emotional and darkest one in the series because the book is so dark and mature. I don't blame this story, but I think it's a very good thing to follow the story because if BREAKING DAWN was not into two parts and was released as a four to five hour long movie, me and my sister LeeAnn, who is a big Twilight and Vampire Diaries fan, would have fallen asleep because the film would have been too long, but as a movie presented in 2 parts, it is interesting and fantastic.
The musical score composed by Carter Burwell is emotionally powerful and memorable and the songs in the movie are really cool to listen to. The only two songs in this film that I like is "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri and "It Will Rain" by Bruno Mars and I did saw the video. It is fantastic.
Like I said in the first three reviews of TWILIGHT, the main cast is really phenomenal. The only new introduction in this film was Mackenzie Foy as Renesmee, who would later play in the 2014 film directed by Christopher Nolan, INTERSTELLAR.
Overall, THE TWILIGHT SAGA: BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 does get a little out-of-hand in some areas in the original version, the extended version gets a lot of stuff right and improves on everything from ECLIPSE and the first film.
THEATRICAL / EXTENDED VERSION RATINGS:
Because of the short run time and some of the good parts cut out, I'm giving the original version of BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 a 3.9 out of 10 stars.
The extended cut was a lot more great in terms of story, character development, music and pacing, so I will give the extended version of BREAKING DAWN - PART 1 a perfect score of 10 out of 10 stars.