‘The Twilight Saga’ Extended Editions Triple Feature Is Disappointing

If you are a Twilight  fan you may want to skip buying The Twilight Saga extended editions triple feature. A new review from Page to Premiere says that it is pretty disappointing.

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Are you a Twilight fan whose DVD/Blu-ray collection looks something like this?

If it does then you may want skip purchasing The Twilight Saga: Extended Editions Triple Feature of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse.  Why? Because you already own the Extended Edition material.

When Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Extended Edition was released two years ago Director Bill Condon was involved with the edit so the additional scenes were well edited into the film to make in flow seamlessly with appropriate musical cuts, and a look and feel that matched the rest of the movie.  Also, no deleted or extended scenes had ever been released for Breaking Dawn – Part 1 so the new footage was all-new to viewers.

Unfortunately all of the extending footage in this new Triple Feature collection has appeared as either deleted scenes or extended scenes on previous DVD releases; no new, never before seen footage has been added.  These Extended Editions are messy. The footage is unpolished and shoehorned into the film, which makes me doubt the directors’ involvement.  There are multiple bad edits where songs are cut in half by inserted moments.  In at least one case, a deleted scene is inserted in a different place than it was originally intended to be.

So what do you gain for each film?  I watched all three extended movies for an additional 16 minutes of material.

Twilight gains four minutes with its theatrical run time of 122 increasing to 126.  The added moments includes:

Edward, Jasper and Emmett hanging outside of the Volvo when Bella exits school on her first day and Emmett yells at Edward that “she’s not one of us;”Charlie and Bella talking longer at the Carver Café including Charlie defending the Cullen’s;additional dialogue in the meadow;the Carlisle and Esme deleted scene, which doesn’t take place after the “spider monkey” line as seen on the original DVD, but is moved to after Bella and Edward go up the stairs, but before they enter Edward’s bedroom;Edward’s bedroom scene is extended at the beginning where Bella comments on about how cool it is and looks at this pile of journals. She also tells a story about creating rain sticks with Renee later in the scene;Nomad make out session between Victoria and James while Laurent watches;and Edward makes a terrible joke about Charlie to Bella as they leave the Swan’s house on their way to the baseball game.

New Moon get the most additional footage of the three films going from a theatrical running time of 130 minutes to 137 minutes.  Some moments you could blink and miss them, but the scenes include:

extended scene of Edward talking about Jacob and his birthday gift to Bella in the school hallway on her birthday;extended scenes of Edward and Bella talking in Mr. Birdy’s class about the last birthday the Cullen’s celebrated and that the family is excited to do something fun and different in celebrating Bella’s birthday;Bella and Edward talk about normalcy in Bella’s truck as he drives her home after the birthday party disaster;Bella gets up of the ground to crouch below a fallen tree trunk to hide form the wolf when lost in the forest;Charlie carries Bella up into her bedroom and wraps her in a blanket after Sam delivers her home;after Bella receives the undelivered message for her email to Alice she goes back to sitting in the chair;Charlie’s neighbor, Bob, is getting rid of his motorcycles and talks to Charlie about the bikes. Bella comes outside not wearing a coat to go to school, and Charlie points out that it’s cold and that she’s running late again;Bella apologies for waking Charlie with one of her screaming dream and Charlie tells her that he understands what she’s going through because he went through a bad time when Renee left him;Charlie meets Bella at the front door after she returns from the Reservation after Jacob has changed. He tells Bella that Billy called to let him know that she and Jacob had a fight and that he’s here for her if she wants to talk;the Laurent scene is extended with a few additional snippets of dialogue;the scene when Jacob visits Bella in her bedroom also features additional snippets;Alice tells Bella that Jacob might be right – that Bella shouldn’t go to Voltera to save Edward because of the risk;and the scene where the Volturi deny Edward’s request features additional dialogue.

The Eclipse run time increases to 129 minutes from the previous 124 minutes.  The added moments are:

after Edward sabotages Bella’s truck so she can’t go to the reservation, the conversation continues outside the truck. Edward tells her that he understands if she’s mad at him and doesn’t want him to come to her room that night. We then see Bella in her room closing and locking her window before she thinks better of it and opens it;the Switzerland scene is extended with additional dialogue;a scene is added where Angela is in Bella’s room with what I’m assuming is a stack of graduation announcements around her (from the book). Angela and Bella discuss college and Angela’s take on Edward and Jacob’s rivalry and jealousy;additional dialogue is added to the scene where the Cullen men are talking about going to Seattle. Bella wants to be changed now so she can help, but Jasper says that she will be a liability as a newborn;Rose’s flashback begins with her telling Bella that she wanted a baby and she is seen holding her friend’s baby in the past;Riley’s speech to the newborn army about keeping a low profile is extended;a scene is added of Charlie and Bella walking outside and chatting after graduation.

There are no other extras on this set.  Each disc is just the Extended Edition of the film and the original theatrical release of the film.

The Twilight Saga: Extended Editions Triple Feature is available on Blu-ray and DVD today, January 13.

Read the rest of the review HERE

Source: pagetopremiere.com