Leaving San Diego is hard. Not only because the city is quite literally my idea of non-humid-heaven-on-Earth and after 4 days I’ve grown rather used to watching Storm Troopers and Supergirls walk down the crowded streets, but also because it means The End has officially begun.
Forever.
Period.
It looms in front of us, a mere 121 days away.
Getting my geek on at Comic Con, hanging out with my Twifamily and getting to watch the first 7 minutes of BD2 was the epitome of that horribly clichéd word Kristen seemed barely able to believe she was using:
Bittersweet.
Despite all the twitterverse begging for hidden bewbie cams, there was no one amongst my group of crazies brave/stupid enough to bootleg the clip. It would have gotten our asses booted right out of Hall H and in all honesty Rob walked in with fully restored lion hair (somewhere angels were singing) and Kristen walked in with half her belly showing and I just lost all cognitive thought. I also don’t really have bewbies nearly large enough to hide a flip…
Now... Kristen looks like she coulda pulled off a bewbiecam at SDCC2012.... just sayin...
So to make it up to those who are surfing YouTube hourly for some sign of the holy grail… let me see if I can at least highlight some of the experience.
What do the folks sitting at home need to know first?
We’re all screwed. Totally.
If you didn’t bawl your eyes out when Flightless Bird played during BD1, then you
might have hope of surviving November. But if you were like me and wanted to fist bump Bill Condon with one hand while wiping your snotty nose and blubbering tears with the other… you’re fucked.
BD2 picks up
right where BD1 left off. Bella’s eyes. Vamped out. The first few minutes are not laden with dialogue. It isn’t needed to experience Bella Version 2.0. You want to soak her in. Her new skin. Her cheek bones. Her eyes. The way she moves. It all feels new.
Gone is the awkward, lip biting girl we’d come to know and love. Vampella is here. And damn, she still digs her man. One of my favorite passages in the book finds Bella struck by the realization she still
wants him in that purely
human way. We feel that within seconds.
I’m not gonna lie. It’s hot.
After all his stern, marbled staring in the previous 4 movies, we finally get to see Robward smiling and cracking jokes. You feel the weight he’s carried for so long has been lifted. Indeed, she’s still his Bella. Just less fragile. <Insert long happy sigh here>.
In my mind, Bill Condon is a master at giving us sweet little moments of pause within a fast paced storyline. The clip we saw moves quick, but we slow down to see their white hands reaching out for one another, her fingers trailing his arm. It’s innocent, but unbelievably sexy at the same time.
Remember the way Kristen stared into that mirror in BD1 soaking in the realization of what was inside her? We get another mirror shot – which might be equally as beautiful – this time the happy couple stares back at us. They’ve made it through hell and back. Full circle. Well… at least until the Volturi and the vampire org chart show up to ruin the day.
These small moments speak volumes and I find myself with passages from the book running through my head.
It’s pretty easy to see why Kristen has such fondness for the hunt scene. We saw the forest through Jacob’s eyes in BD1, now we get to see it through Bella’s. It’s one of those things my own mind’s eye struggled with when reading the books. Dew drops on spider webs. Flower petals in the breeze. Animals hooves crunching leaves in the forest. The bloodied knee of a human who doesn’t realize what’s lurking nearby. The attention to detail to show what the vampire world looks like is breathtaking and the effects are well done.
Kristen’s been waiting a long time to tell all the folks in pop-culture who’ve labeled Bella a weak, simpering fool they can go fuck themselves. Watching her bag her first mountain lion pretty much accomplishes that.
In my best Emmett voice: Badass.
Bill gave us the first 7 minutes to spoil us, but he cut us off before we’d be spoiled rotten. Jacob didn’t expect Bella ‘to be so you’. We faded to black right as he was about to find out she’s a whole different woman. “Since when do you care about Renesmee?’ Oh Jacob. We’ve been waiting a long time to see Bella hand you your lunch.
The final scene viewed in Hall H gave us a better chance to witness Bella’s new skills while she gets prepped for Charlie’s first visit. Kristen at vampspeed will make you giddy.
The Comic Con Q&A panel that followed the clip was pretty much what I expected it to be:
Small children, who I swear were forced by their moms to go to the mic, tried to act cute while asking painful non-questions. (Seriously? Some of those kids were pretty damn young. The movie is PG-13 people. Your little kids should be watching Disney princesses still not cottage vampsex.)
Someone felt the need to beg Rob for his name plate which he adorably signed and turned into a paper airplane.
And one or two fans actually managed to sneak in intelligent questions. That’s my shout out to you “What would your Twilight-self tell your BD2-self?’ Inspired questions bring about inspired word vomit. ‘Keep it in your pants’ indeed.
McKenzie Foy and her ‘big girl teeth’ pretty much stole the show. She is almost too beautiful to be real.
I found myself half listening to the cast trying to come up with non-dull answers to the same old dull questions. Instead, I just
watched them and found it impossible not to reflect on how much they’ve all changed since the first time they faced a Comic Con audience way back a hundred years ago when they unbelievably had no clue how huge this thing would be.
SDCC circa 2008.... they had no clue what was coming...
The cast that sat in Hall H Thursday morning outwardly appeared so different.
Polished, Prepared, Sophisticated.
Well ok, Rob is always gonna be Rob…it’s why we love him. Adorkably unprepared and, some said, wearing the exact same outfit he had on last year. Do you think he even washed it? Do we even care? No. I didn’t think so. Half the man’s head wasn’t shaved this year and the scruff was perfection – that’s really all we cared about.
I sat there staring like a stalker and kept picturing little Twilight-Kristen bouncing nervously and desperately trying to avoid having to speak. Mulletstew fidgeting and barely able to take her eyes off her man, who was inexplicably too far away. NewMoonRob constantly gripping his tresses in an effort to pull answers out of his brain.
2009.... eye sex.... *sigh*
Well… Ok. He still does that too. And it’s still delicious.
This year everyone’s hair was perfectly coiffed. Makeup had been expertly applied. Collectively, it looked like you could take a chunk out of the national debt if you tallied up the cost of the clothes they were wearing. The leather jacket Jackson had on looked like melted butter. I just wanted to run my hands over it. Nikki’s rock of a diamond couldn’t be missed and Kristen’s sneaks actually looked brand new.
So pretty...
I couldn’t help but observe all this and think of how far this road has taken them. How changed they are. Probably some for good and some for bad. But it’s not just their appearances and things their newfound millions can buy. They all wear
confidence with their designer duds. And they all talk about this ride they’ve been on with the reverence it deserves.
One of the most poignant moments happened at the end, as the long line of new vamps was introduced.
In part this was a standout moment to me because I am horribly biased toward loving that we pulled off a tumultuous roar for the incredibly lovable and oh-so-deserving-of everything-great-that-happens-to-him Erik Odom. You are
all about to be Team Peter. Trust me. We were all so loud even Rob did a double take and asked, ‘Who’s that?’
The new vamps were like shiny new pennies just off the press. You could feel their nerves a little bit. It was a full circle moment, with them standing there juxtaposed against the self assurance of the original cast. You wanted to cheer for them as they hop on at the start of this ride that truly has changed us all.
For those playing along at home... Erik is 2nd from the right... TeamPeterFTW!
For me, the most amazing part of this Comic Con experience wasn’t actually the clip. Or being 8 rows away from two of the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen. For me, it was actually feeling truly appreciated as a fan.
Before last Wednesday I
feared November. I don’t know if any of us have any idea what to expect. It’s going to be mammoth. We all know that. The plaza at LA Live is going to be the pilgrimage to Mecca for lots and LOTS of us. How will they manage the mob? How will the need for mob control not cut back on the experience for us?
The news of the horrific tragedy on Tuesday had me even more fearful. Keeping people safe has to be their goal, and I suspect after losing one of our own, tent city safety measures will have to rival boarding a transatlantic flight out of LaGaurdia. How will they balance safety and ‘access’ during a fan experience?
But Wednesday night erased a lot of my fear. Summit brought their A-game to Comic Con. Watching Erik Odom lead the entire cast of vamps in a long line toward Hall H Camp was like watching a home run ball leave the park.
Each and every cast member there that night took their time. If you weren’t screaming or carrying on, they stopped long enough to actually
chat.
You could feel the appreciation in the voices of the new guys. You could hear the sincerity in the voices of most of the Cullens…
(I said
most…. No, I’m not naming names
).
Stephenie Meyer went person by person. Staying late to ensure she signed and greeted every single fan. She joked with us about not being a good ‘camper’ herself. We thanked her for giving us ‘all this’. ‘The thanks is all mine.’
They get it. Summit. The cast. Stephenie. They get what this means to us. I don’t think they want to rob us of one single second of soaking this up.
I think they all want to soak it up
with us.
All that’s left to decide is how many tissues to throw in the bag with your tent.
I’ll see you there. I’ll bring an extra box. We’re going to need it.
To steal the words of my Team Jack sister, let’s not leave LA in November till we change that period to an exclamation point.
Forever!
<3 twopeas1pod
You can find previous insane twopeas ramblings here and at www.adventuresintwilighting.com
You can also hear twopeas and the @team_jack team give more reaction to the Twilight Comic Con 2012 experience on the Team Jack Podcast #38: 'Forever.' Found here: http://smodcast.com/episodes/forever/
The exceptionally sweet Erik Odom can be found at @erikodom on twitter & http://www.facebook.com/odom.erik on Facebook.
