Eclipse (film)

"It all begins... with a choice."

- Eclipse tagline

Eclipse is the third installment of the Twilight Saga film series based on Stephenie Meyer's novel of the same name. The movie was released on June 30, 2010. It debuted at the Los Angeles Film Festival, one week ahead of its official release in the U.S. The world premiere was on June 24, 2010 at the Nokia Plaza in Los Angeles. The film follows 2008's Twilight and 2009's New Moon. Summit Entertainment officially green-lit the film in February 2009. Director Chris Weitz was still committed to New Moon's post-production, as it was released only seven months before Eclipse, and so he did not direct the third film. Instead, Eclipse was directed by David Slade.

Principal photography started on August 17, 2009 in Vancouver, Canada and ended on October 29, 2009. The movie was rated PG-13 in the US and 12A in the UK. The film will be followed by Breaking Dawn: Parts 1 and 2 on November 18, 2011 and November 16, 2012.

Plot
"Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if I had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say it for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice."

- Bella narrating the opening line, by Robert Frost

The movie begins with a college student named Riley Biers walking out of a bar in Seattle at night in the pouring rain. As he enters an alleyway, he is knocked down a couple times by a dark figure and, in a desperate attempt to evade his attacker, takes off running. Unfortunately, he reaches a pier, where he hesitates to jump into the water; as he hesitates, Victoria catches up with him and bites his right palm, leaving a crescent-moon-shaped bite mark on it, and beginning his excruciating transformation into a vampire. It is later explained that Victoria chose Riley because he was from Forks, making his knowledge of the area important to guide the newborn army. Victoria is determined on destroying Bella in order to take revenge on Edward for killing her mate, James in Twilight. She plans to create an army of newborn vampires under the forceful control of Riley, while keeping herself hidden so Alice can't see her; she also seduces Riley to win his loyalty and dedication.

Edward and Bella are seen laying in their meadow, where Bella is reading aloud the poem Fire and Ice (included in the novel), and negotiating with Edward asking him to change her into a vampire, while Edward asks her to marry him first. She endlessly turns him down, because of her issue with teen marriages (Bella said her parents married right after high school, and ended up divorced). Edward says that in his world, it was the way one says, "I love you." Bella says that in her world, at her age, it was the way one says "I just got knocked up."

As the newborn army continues to grow, they are extremely careless in their feeding, much to the growing dismay of the people of Seattle, the Forks police (including Charlie, Bella's father), and the Cullen family. News headlines and columns about the murders and disappearances blanket the newspapers. Back in Forks, Edward and Bella discuss some of the complications of becoming an immortal vampire. Also, Bella makes the effort to keep in touch with Jacob Black, her best friend, but he refuses to return her calls. Charlie decides to un-ground Bella (she had been grounded for leaving Forks for three days to secretly save Edward from committing a suicide by revealing his identity as a vampire in New Moon) on the condition that she spends more time with Jacob and her other human friends.

Charlie is investigating the disappearance of Riley Biers, who was reported missing over a year ago. In the meantime, Edward suspects his disappearance to be associated with the newborn vampires in Seattle. Further proving his suspicions is the intrusion of Riley in Bella's room, in which he steals a red blouse with Bella's scent on it, in order for the newborns to recognize her scent. On one occasion, Alice has a vision of Victoria's return and Edward takes Bella to Jacksonville to visit her mother and to assure her safety, while the Cullens and the wolves chase her. The last chase ends with Emmett almost crossing into Quileute territory in order to catch Victoria. Paul stopped Emmett from crossing the boundary line, which resulted in a confrontation between the wolves and the Cullens, one that Jasper stops using his abilities to calm everyone down. Bella finds out about this during Edward and Jacob's argument, also discovering that Victoria is back, and follows Jacob down to La Push for a visit and to learn more about the incident. Although Edward fears for her safety, Bella convinces him that Jacob and the werewolves would not harm her. When Edward catches Riley's scent, he suspects that someone is making a plan and agrees to team up with the La Push werewolves to protect Bella and Charlie from the possible danger. From then on, Bella begins to spend more time in La Push. During one of these trips, Jacob suddenly confesses his love for her and forcibly kisses her. Bella, both shocked and outraged, angrily punches him in the face and breaks her hand by mistake (though Jacob feels no pain at all). After driving Bella home, Edward threatens to break Jacob's jaw if he ever dares to kiss Bella again without her permission, while Charlie comes out to stop the tension (obviously not knowing what happened), Jacob awkwardly explains to him that he kissed Bella without her permission and that she broke her hand while punching his face.

A few days later, Bella, Jasper, Edward, and Alice graduate from Forks High School and Alice invites the seniors to a party at their house. Jacob and his friends, Embry and Quil, crash the party and Jacob gives Bella a handmade carved-wolf bracelet as a graduation present moments before Alice catches a vision of the newborn army coming to kill them. The Cullens have a short discussion, and Jacob and Sam agree to join forces with the Cullens to fight off the threat of the newborn army. Eventually, Bella realizes that the newborn army has been under the secret control of Victoria. The Volturi have also been aware of this, but they decide to give the army a chance to destroy the Cullens.

Bella tries to get Edward to make love to her before turning her into an immortal being. Edward initially refuses, explaining that it is too dangerous, although he tells her that he wants to, but not yet. Eventually, upon realizing how much it means to Bella, he says that he is willing to try in the future as long as they are married first. Despite an aversion to marriage, Bella realizes that spending an eternity with Edward is more important to her than anything else and accepts his proposal, in which he presents her with an engagement ring that belonged to his biological mother. Edward is overwhelmed with happiness and embraces her.

As everyone else prepares for battle, Edward and Bella camp up in the mountains, where they are later joined by Jacob and Seth, to wait out the fight. Bella, being human, starts to freeze in the frigid mountain blizzard. Jacob warms up Bella, much to Edward's chagrin. During the cold night, Bella overhears a conversation, while sleeping, between Edward and Jacob, in which they temporarily forget their mutual hatred toward each other.

In the morning, Edward plans for Jacob to overhear him and Bella discussing their engagement, and he becomes distraught. He threatens to join the fight and get himself killed because he feels that Bella doesn't love him and that him being dead would be easier for her. When Bella begs him not to, Jacob demands a proper reason not to do so. In a desperate attempt to prevent his death, she asks him to kiss her and, while doing so, realizes that she loves him as well. However, she also realizes that her feelings for Jacob are not to be compared with her love for Edward. Edward finds out about the kiss by reading Jacob's mind, but isn't angry with Bella. Jacob still goes and joins the fight, promising that he'll be back, but eventually gets injured while trying to protect Leah Clearwater.

The Cullens and the wolves fight the newborn army and manage to kill almost every last one with their own numbers intact. Victoria and Riley manage to find Bella's hiding spot and a fight to the death ensues. Seth bites off Riley's hand, but is swatted away by Riley. Victoria's survival instincts start to make her leave, but Edward gets her to stay by taunting her about James. Riley and Victoria gain the upper hand and are about to kill Edward, when Bella distracts them by cutting her arm with a rock, using her blood to catch their attention. Edward uses the distraction to break free and Seth sneaks behind a hill, drags Riley away, and kills him. Victoria ignores Riley's desperate cry for help, only to die at the hands of Edward. Four members of the Volturi arrive to destroy what is left of Victoria's army, only to kill the one newborn who surrendered: Bree Tanner (though her name isn't mentioned). When Jane inflicts pain on her, the Cullens ask for mercy for Bree, but Jane nonetheless orders Felix to kill the newborn. They also discover that while Bella hasn't become a vampire yet, the date for her transformation has been set.

When Bella goes to visit an injured Jacob, she is welcomed by loud screams coming from the house, as Billy and the rest of the wolf pack (other than Sam, who is inside with Carlisle and Jacob) waiting patiently,though looking worried outsides. Carlisle comes out of the house and says that Jacob will make a full recovery. Billy and Carlisle then shakes hands, showing that they can now start to trust one another. After the treatment, Bella walks in to tell an agonized Jacob that although she does love him, she has chosen Edward over him. Heartbroken by her choice, Jacob reluctantly agrees to stop trying to come between them.

Bella and Edward go to the meadow, where she tells him the wedding has been handed to the care of Alice. Edward asks why she is trying to make everyone else happy when she isn't; Bella answers that she has always felt like she belonged in Edward's vampire world, by realizing that being in Edward's vampire world has made her strong, and realizing who she really is. Bella also decided to do things responsibly, by tying herself to him in every human way possible before becoming a vampire. They decide to inform Charlie about their engagement, which Bella declares as highly dangerous, and jokes that it's a good thing he is bulletproof. Edward responds to this with a smile, and gives her his mother's ring. The movie ends with Bella and Edward embracing each other lovingly in their meadow.

Behind the scenes

 * During training for the fight scene, Kellan Lutz accidentally punched Jackson Rathbone in the face.
 * The entire Cullen family cast had to vigourously train to keep themselves in shape and to make the fight scenes look realistic. Most of them did their own stunts/wire work.
 * During the scene where Bella returns to Emily and Sam's home, Bronson Pelletier (Jared) ate real chicken whilst the others chewed on bones. Bronson become quite ill when they redid the scene numerous times and each time he ate a new piece of chicken.
 * In the scene where Taylor has to carry Kristen, they originally planned to use a rig where Kristen would be sitting in a mould of herself and Taylor would push it. The effect was robotic and unrealistic so Taylor, for many scenes, had to carry Kristen for many hours, giving him very sore arms the next day.
 * Jackson Rathbone had to learn how to ride a horse to depict Jasper's past in the Confederate Army.
 * Between takes, Taylor Lautner often caught grapes in his mouth. He also played football with Kristen Stewart.
 * Director David Slade originally spoke against the Twilight series, stating that he wouldn't go near the franchise. Shortly after he was announced as the director of Eclipse, he quickly withdrew his previous remarks, claiming it to be a joke he was doing to promote some comedy shorts.
 * In the stories that Billy Black tells at the bonfire, the Third Wife was originally going to be played by Kristen Stewart. She did perform the scene but Slade and author Stephenie Meyer thought it had an unintentional comical effect.

Marketing
On March 10, 2010, Summit Entertainment released a 10-second teaser trailer and announced that the full trailer would be released the following day. The trailer also premiered two days before Robert Pattinson's other movie, Remember Me, on March 12, 2010.

Both the teaser and full trailer can be viewed here. The song playing in the background of the first trailer is "Calamity" by Two Steps From Hell. On April 23, 2010, Summit released one final trailer of Eclipse, which used the song "Underworld" by Two Steps From Hell as well.

DVD and Blu-Ray
Eclipse was released on DVD and Blu-Ray on December 4 in the US, December 1 in Australia, and December 6 in the UK.

Soundtrack
The Eclipse soundtrack was released June 8, 2010 and includes Neutron Star Collision (Love is Forever) by Muse, Stephenie Meyer's favorite band. She was very excited knowing that Muse would be on the soundtrack.

Score
The Eclipse score was composed by Academy Award winner Howard Shore, who replaced Alexandre Desplat from the previous film.