Twilight Saga: New Moon (2010) (2010)

WARNING: This edition DOES NOT contain all the special features available with the New Moon release. Summit did an evil, evil, manipulative thing with this DVD release and divided up the special features among multiple retailers.

On Amazon you have just the standard discs with a limited number of extras.

If you buy your version at Target, you get an extra disc with Deleted Scenes, Interview with the Volturi, Fandimonium, The Beat Goes On: The Music of Twilight, and Frame by Frame: Storyboards to Screen.

If you buy at Borders, you get extras including Extended Scenes.

And if you buy at Walmart, you get a Sneak Peek at Eclipse (which includes an Eclipse scene), Team Edward v. Team Jacob, Becoming Jacob, Introducing the Wolfpack, Jacob Fast Forward, Edward Fast Forward, and Shooting in Italy.

Summit's hoping you buy THREE copies so that you can get to see all the special features they divided up. Don't give them the satisfaction! Buy one and call it a day!

Amazon only sells the Blu-Ray 1-disc "Special Edition," with very limited special features if you want deleted scenes and more, you must buy the 2-disc "Deluxe Edition" from Target! If you're just a casual movie watcher (and this review isn't for the movie, but rather the Blu-Ray disc package) and are just interested in seeing the film, with some "making of" and music video-type extras, this edition is just fine. However, if you are (or are buying for) a more devoted Twilight fan, you will definitely want to purchase the "Deluxe Edition" with the second disc that is (to the best of my knowledge) only available at Target stores. It includes all the bonus stuff found on the Amazon version, along with these 2nd disc extras: Deleted Scenes; Introducing the Volturi Featurette; Frame by Frame: From Storyboard to Screen Featurette; Fandamonium: A Look at the Die Hard Fans; and The Beat Goes On: The Music of New Moon Featurette. The Amazon Special Edition has none of those, but costs $5 less. The "Deluxe Edition" also has a collectible film cell. I made the mistake of pre-ordering from Amazon without knowing that there would be two versions, so am forced to return mine to get the better version for the Twilight fan in my family.

Buy Twilight Saga: New Moon (2010) (2010) Now

Let me say, I LOVE the "Twilight" books. Like, REALLY LOVE them. I love to read, and I usually read the classics. I'm a Jane Austen, Elizabeth Gaskell, Bronte Sisters kind of girl. My friend insisted for two years that I should read "Twilight", but I kept thinking, "Teen vampire romance? Not my kind of book." Finally, this 29-year-old mother of three was on a flight by myself with some time to read, so I bought "Twilight". I absolutely DEVOURED it--I read one book a day until I had finished the entire saga in four days. Luckily, "Breaking Dawn" had just been released, so I didn't have to wait. The "Twilight" books are my absolute FAVORITE guilty pleasure--I love the fluff, the cheesy dialogue, the LOVE--all of it.

For me, "New Moon" really needed to redeem all that was wrong with the "Twilight" movie. After watching "Twilight" last year, I was SO disappointed. Catherine Hardwicke had just taken our beloved series and turned it into a made-for-TV movie. I laughed at all of the wrong places. How Bella and Edward fell in love was completely rushed. I could go on. Melissa Rosenberg butchered the book and everything that made me obsessed with it. Sure, "Twilight" was fun to watch because it was "Twilight", but the portrayal was so, so, so wrong on so many levels. My favorite book had been reduced to lines like "spider monkey."

WELL, "NEW MOON" JUST MADE UP FOR EVERY CATHERINE-HARDWICKE WRONG! FANS OF THE BOOK WILL ADORE THIS MOVIE. Edward actually smiles! The acting was SO much better, the visuals were stunning, and the dialogue was much, much improved over "Twilight". I honestly didn't want it to end. It stayed so true to the book we all love, and the little additions were perfect. I really felt like I was watching Bella on screen--Kristen Stewart was spot on. Every expression, every sad word was perfect. AND THEY SAID, "I LOVE YOU," something that was blaringly absent in "Twilight". Chris Weitz has made a stunning, gorgeous film that lovers of the book will adore! **I secretly wish he could remake "Twilight". This is what "Twilight" should have been!** This closet Twilighter was pleased beyond belief.

It seems like most of the critics' negative reviews have problems with the plot, the story, etc. Well, if you like the book and, therefore, like the plot and the story, you will love the film because Chris Weitz is true to the book beyond what I could have imagined or hoped for. This movie felt like it was made for the fans, so I can understand that if you're not a fan of the series how it may feel like a laboured effort to watch "New Moon". But if you love Bella and Edward **and even Jacob--Taylor Lautner was FANTASTIC in this!**, you will leave wanting more!

Chris Weitz for "Breaking Dawn"!

Read Best Reviews of Twilight Saga: New Moon (2010) (2010) Here

I wasn't expecting to like it very much but I found New Moon to be very nearly perfect, however I cannot speak to how the movie comes off to those who did not read the books. This movie is a gigantic improvement on Twilight. Thank you Chris Weitz! Can we re-do Twilight now?

This assessment includes, of course, accepting that the movie was 2 only hours long. We can argue around in circles whether the movie should have been longer, but in the standard 2 hours that it had, the movie covered everything that had to be covered. If you found yourself wanting more of a scene or an extra scene, what would you have cut to include it? I would have liked to see Edward smile more, see his sense of humor, and to have been reminded of how happy he and Bella were together up until the fateful birthday party, but alas there was no time. I will be very irritated though if we don't get a longer director's cut on the DVD.

My assessment also includes an acceptance of the source material as it is. The plot is the plot and if it's boring on screen to those who haven't read the books, I understand, but as a visual representation book, the movie was terrific. Also, as intriguing as Stephanie Meyer's characters are, there is sometimes a lack of depth to their thoughts and motivations which readers fill in for themselves. I thought that the actors did a great job filling in the details with the scenes that they were given which, in part, goes back again to the time restriction issue. Bella in the books is, to some degree, a blank canvas. While Bella describes Edward's every facial expression and tone of voice, she does not delve too deeply into herself as far as how others might see her. This is a choice that the author made and we are left with only what thoughts Bella chooses to share with us as readers (And I don't think that she shares everything with us). Kristin Stewart manages to give Bella three-dimensional life in this movie just as she did in Twilight. Kristin's Bella might not be the Bella that you have in your head but she creates a viable version of the character.

I, for one, did like the minor changes to the plot that were made. Most of them were done as necessity to summarize the plot, and I thought that they were well executed. One change in particular, however (the secret twist at the end) was a departure from the book, but I thought that it fit exactly with the direction that the story is going in. I actually thought (yes, this is blasphemy) that the end was an improvement on the book and a better set up for what is to follow in Eclipse.

Overall, the acting was much improved. Bella was still Bella, Edward was no longer shy and creepy, and our little Jacob was all grown up. Taylor L. was wonderful and captured Jacob's transition from a happy boy to an intense werewolf very convincingly. I was looking carefully for over acting from the three main leads but I didn't find any. At least nothing that was outside of the over sappiness of the books themselves. I actually found the blush worthy things that Edward says more palatable coming out of Rob's lips than I had when I had read them to myself. Here again is an actor breathing life in to a character and making those corny lines sound believable.

The supporting high school cast was still a bit silly but I think that the movie was playing to the younger crowd with them. There were things to laugh at but most were intentional and the book had it funny moments as well. However, the little house on the prairie scene (Alice's vision) should have been re-thought. That was painful and it didn't convey what it was supposed to convey anyway unless you happened to notice Bella's newly golden eyes.

Aro and Jane were great and Felix gets a bit more action than in the book, but overall the Volturi were not well-developed. The Cullens were barely seen and I didn't like Jasper's new hairdo but the story's not about them anyway.

I didn't like how the soundtrack was used in the movie except for a few songs that were well placed, like Possibility. Most of the others were fuzzy background pieces. And as a HUGE fan of DCFC and was very unhappy that their wonderful song was relegated to the second song over the credits. In my mind this song needs to be played dramatically as Bella runs wildly through the woods after Edward: EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING ENDS (Sing it with me folks).

The visual effects were great, not revolutionary but believable and that's fine by me. My only requirement was that the effects did not distract from the movie as they did in Twilight. This is not an action film.

So, in my opinion, the movie was well worth seeing.

Want Twilight Saga: New Moon (2010) (2010) Discount?

So personally I'm a fan of the Twilight books, and while this film is much better than Twilight (not that this is saying much), it still waters the novel down to the point where it's rendered a shadow of its "paper and ink self." I actually feel kind of sorry for Bella-the-book-character because her depression is portrayed as solely the result of getting dumped and, as several reviewers have already noted, is doused with all these teen angst themes when in the novel it's much more complex. She's a young girl who's always related poorly to most people, and Edward and his family are among the very few whom she feels on the same wavelength with; they've essentially become her family and she's already made the choice to become one of their kind one day, and when he leaves her she loses all of that and to her mind, it really is "like she had died." To me that makes her emotional state understandable within the context of her one-track mind and marked lack of cynicism, but of course all that gets glossed over in the film and it's just this blank character with no ambition other than to be with Edward in some way. What's more, Kristen Stewart's empty expressions through it all made me gag, but at least they were somewhat better there than in Twilight.

Still, I thought Taylor Lautner did very well in both films, especially for his age, and all of the actors playing the Quileutes more than made up for Bella's lack of acting skills. However Michael Sheen took the cake with Aro: he portrays the creepily manic, greedy, utter-know-it-all of the books to a "T" and for me his hysterical laugh when Jane failed to torture Bella with her mind was the best part of the whole movie. It has its good bits and its decent bits, but the script is crap and sounds even crappier to viewers unfamiliar with the novel, since for most of the cast the most clumsily delivered lines come straight out of it.

All in all, the film is an okay rendition of the book, but far too manipulated to suit the commercial preferences of ninth-grade girls to appeal to much of an adult audience outside the Twilight fanbase.