The world may now be split into those who love Twilight and those who hate it (and it has to be said that the haters are far more vociferous and unpleasant than necessary), but it’s undoubtedly a phenomenon. New Moon grossed over $700 million towards the end of last year, and now it’s come to DVD.
The movie starts with Bella and vampire Edward in love and happy, but after a potentially deadly incident at her birthday party, Edward decides it’s too dangerous to be around her, and so he and the rest of the Cullens leave Forks and the heartbroken Bella behind.
Unable to come to terms with losing the love of her life, Bella starts putting herself in dangerous situations, because for some reason at those moments she feels as if Edward is there with her. Her only other solace comes in the form of rekindling her friendship with Jacob Black, who she’s known since she was young. However Jacob has some supernatural secrets of his own. In most films it would be a spoiler to reveal what these secrets are, but it shouldn’t come as even the vaguest surprise to anyone Moon that Jacob becomes part of a werewolf pack that has emerged amongst the Quileute Native Americans.
It’s quite a long film (130 minutes long, to be precise), which has the feeling of setting up a lot of stuff ready for the third and fourth parts of the series. While in the novel, the ending seems to slightly come out of nowhere, the film actually makes things seem slightly more climactic than they did on the page. The whole final act with Bella suddenly heading off to Italy to meet the fabled vampire royalty, The Volturi, still slightly comes out of nowhere but is well handled and looks gorgeous, and provides a welcome break from the increasingly complicated goings-on in Forks. Just don’t expect many of the film’s plot strands to be wrapped up with a bow when the credits roll.
The set-up of the story means that this is a film that’s unlikely to appeal to anyone who didn’t already like the first film. Indeed, with Bella spending much of New Moon being moody and depressed that Edward’s left her, she’s likely to annoy anyone who didn’t see the emergence of their love for each other in the first film (indeed she’s a little annoying anyway).
New Moon comes to the home in three different versions. There’s an extras-lite one-disc DVD version, plus feature packed two-disc DVD and Blu-ray edition. And it really is a good release, both for fans and those who like a look behind the scenes on movie. On the backstage front, things kick off with a lengthy and very informative six-part ‘making of...’ documentary called ‘The Journey Continues...’. It covers everything from the reaction to the release of Twilight to Chris Weitz taking over as director, through production and onto the movies release. With loads of backstage footage and interviews, it’ll keep any Twi-hard happy.
Most releases would think a six-part documentary was enough on the features front, but New Moon only starts here. There’s also more behind-the-scenes looks, such as ‘Edward Goes To Italy’, which focuses pm the filming of big crowd sequence that leads up to Bella and Edward meeting the Volturi. There are also a few more unusual and interesting bits and pieces. For example there’s ‘Fandinomium’, which tries to get to grips with the fan hysteria that’s built up around the franchise. While everyone seems to agree the fans are great and it’s a true phenomenon, no one seems to be able to quite put their finger on why people love it so much (other than women and gay men dribbling over Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner, of course).
Perhaps the most bizarre extras – but which suggest the people making the movies know their audience – are ‘Edward Fast Forward’ and ‘Jacob Fast Forward’. These are the movie, but with everything removed except the scenes involving either Edward or Jacob. With most films, doing something like that would be sacriledge to the artists’ intentions, but it’s just an acceptance that there probably people out there who just want to watch Robert Pattinson or Taylor Lautner all day and don’t want to bother with anything else.
Add to that music videos, deleted scenes, many more featurettes and even a sneak peak at this summer’s The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, and you have a very impressive feature package. Fans certainly won’t be disappointed as there’s hours of stuff to get though. It’s great to see a release like this, as in the last couple of years the special features on DVD releases have gotten worse and worse, with few packages that are actually as good as they look. Thankfully they’ve certainly gone to town on the New Moon two-disc DVD and Blu-ray releaes.
Overall Verdict: A movie that will more than satisfy Twilight fans, with a truly impressive features package on the two-disc release.
Special Features:
The Journey Continues: 6-part making of documentary
Death Cab for Cutie: "Meet me on the Equinox" Music Video
Anya Marina: "Satellite Heart" Music Video
Muse: "I belong to you" behind the scenes rehearsal footage Music Video
Mutemath: "Spotlight" Music Video
Fan Event Q&A with Robert Pattinson, Kristen Stewart, Taylor Lautner and Chris Weitz
Fandimonium - a look at the die-hard fans
Team Jacob vs Team Edward: the ultimate love triangle
Deleted scenes
Edward Fast Forward
Jacob Fast Forward
Interview with the Volturi
Introducing the Wolfpack
Becoming Jacob
Edward goes to Italy
The beat goes on: the music of "The Twilight Saga: New Moon"
Frame by Frame: storyboards to screen
Eclipse Sneak Peak
Reviewer: Tim Isaac
