The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn -- Part 2 twist ending

SPOILER ALERT: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN BREAKING DAWN—PART 2.

For months, we've been teased about Breaking Dawn—Part 2's "twist" ending. The movie follows Stephenie Meyer's book closely, up until the point where Alice (Ashley Greene) enters the climactic scene to defend vampire-human hybrid Renesmee's (Mackenzie Foy) existence. She presumably shows Aro (Michael Sheen), through her thoughts, that she knows there is no threat and thus Renesmee and the Cullens should be left alone. But then she realizes that it doesn't matter—Aro wants a fight no matter what. She mouths "now" to Bella (Kristen Stewart), who sends Renesmee off with Jacob (Taylor Lautner). Then Aro gives an order, and the Volturi guards take Alice away. Trying to protect his daughter, Carlisle (Peter Facinelli) charges after Aro. Sadly, the vampire-doctor loses his head to the Italian ruler, sparking the battle between the two sides. Many end up dead, including Jasper (Jackson Rathbone), Jane (Dakota Fanning), Caius (Jamie Campbell-Bower), Marcus (Christopher Heyerdahl), and Aro—who is killed by Edward (Robert Pattinson), and Bella themselves. However, right after Bella finishes the Volturi's leader off—the scene changes, and we're back to Alice and Aro touching hands.

Such trickery! Alice was just showing Aro what the future would have been if the two sides fought—because of Bella's super special mind shield, the Cullens and co. were on equal footing with the Volturi. A battle would mean losses for everyone.

The rest of the movie carries out much like Meyer's writing. Alice's witnesses—half-human/half-vampire Nahuel (JD Pardo) and his aunt Huilen (Marisa Quinn)—explain that Renesmee will reach maturity seven years after her birth and that she is no danger to the vampiric lifestyle. The Volturi leave, the Romanians are upset there wasn't a fight, the Denalis mourn the loss of their sister Irina, the rest of the vampires make their way home and everyone lives their "small but perfect piece of forever."

But was this really a "twist"? Not in my mind.

At the end of Breaking Dawn the book, Edward explains to the remaining vampires—the Cullens, Nauel, and Huilen—how they escaped the Volturi mostly unscathed.

"Alice gave Aro the excuse he needed to get out of the fight. If he hadn't been so terrified of Bella, he probably would have gone ahead with their original plan."

"Terrified?" I said skeptically. "Of me?"

He smiled at me with a look I didn't entirely recognize—it was tender, but also awed and even exasperated. "When will you ever see yourself clearly?" he said softly. Then he spoke louder, to the other as well as to me. "The Volturi haven't found a fair fight in about twenty-five hundred years. And they've never, never fought one where they were at a disadvantage. Especially since they gained Jane and Alec, they've only been involved with unopposed slaughterings.

"You should have seen how we looked to them! Usually, Alec cuts off all sense and feeling from their victims while they go through the charade of a counsel. That way, no one can run when the verdict is given. But there we stood, ready, waiting, outnumbering them, with gifts of our own while their gifts were rendered useless by Bella. Aro knew that with Zafrina on our side, they would be the blind ones when the battle commenced. I'm sure our numbers would have been pretty severely decimated, but they were sure that theirs would be, too. There was even a good possibility that they would lose. They've never dealt with that possibility before. They didn't deal with it well today."

Technically, Meyer DID describe a fight scene—one that COULD have happened, if things had gone differently. And that's exactly what happens in the movie—only director Bill Condon and screenwriter Melissa Rosenberg chose to show it, instead of just having Edward tell it.

What did you think about the "twist" ending?

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