Twilight Film Clip Unveiled At Comic Con

Summit Entertainent's Comic Con panel had segments for Push, Knowing, and Twilight. After Alex Proyas spoke for a few minutes about Knowing, Twilight was next, but even before the moderator could announce who was coming on stage, the audience erupted in the endless screams of pubescent females. It is difficult to understate the volume and ferocity of the piercing shrieks that filled the hall. Me, Vic Holtreman from Screenrant and Eve from Geeksofdoom (both sitting next to me) had to cover our ears to contain the aural damage.

The panel had Twilight's director, Catherine Hardwicke, and the author of the book the movie was based on, Stephenie Meyer. In addition, the major members of the cast came on stage, including Robert Pattinson and Kristen Stewart. The screaming continued, erupting over and over again whenever any question was answered, and in fact, whenever anyone on stage finished a sentence.

Early on Catherine Hardwicke introduced a clip from the film. The Twilight title card flashed on the screen and at this point, the screaming has reached a fevered pitch. You couldn't just taste the anticipation, you could hear it (if you could hear anything over the screams).

The clip was taken from near the end of the film. Bella (Stewart) opens up a door and sees a home video playing of her and her mother, taken years ago. Suddenly, James (Cam Gigandet) grabs her by the throat and slams her into the wall. He begins taunting her and takes out a camcorder to videotape the assault, presumably to give to Edward (Robert Pattinson). James starts roughing her up, throws her into a olumn, then appears to break her leg using only his super-powered hand. As his attack is just about to reach its peak intensity, Edward comes out of nowhere (the audience goes insane at this moment of the clip) and tackles James. The two have a fight that lasts a couple minutes, but a lot of it is spent throwing each other into things, while Bella is trying to stay out of the way. The clip ends.

My thoughts on this clip alone: A lot of hullabaloo was made during the roundtable and panel about how they used wirework for the action scenes, and no CGI. I can definitely testify that this is true; the action between the vampires is depicted using a combination of wirework, motion blur, and fast-forward cuts. The result seems like a fight scene that attempts to be a cross between The Matrix and the final fight scene from Blade 2...only made-for-TV. It's possible that this clip (not to mention the film) will be refined between now and the film's release, but at this point, I didn't see anything that can allow me to recommend the movie to non-fans of the series. As for the acting, while Stewart is lovely and talented in whatever she does and Pattinson didn't have much to do, I think even Cam Giganget himself would agree that he displays the same acting prowess he brought to Never Back Down. Make of this statement what you will.