This review is a tough one for me personally. I enjoyed both the book and the movie, however to me the movie seemed like a larger fan service with mostly back and forth between Jacob and Edward. In the book it seemed the same way, except for the fact that both parties put up a bigger fight and came off as equally overbearing and creepy.
To start off, we all know what has happened in the last book. Edward leaves Bella, Bella gets depressed, Jacob saves Bella from depression, Bella saves Edward from killing himself, and then they return and everyone lives happily ever after. Except for Jacob.
The book starts off with things supposedly back to normal. Charlie decides to un-ground Bella but wants her to hang out with people other than Edward since he still has a vendetta against him for hurting Bella in New Moon. The new conflict arises when Bella wants to go shopping with Alice in Seattle and Charlie reveals that there have been a string of murders there. Edward begins acting overprotective as he tries to ban Bella from seeing Jacob at all.
The book and the movie cafeteria scenes are almost exactly the same. Kids chatting, Alice has a vision, and then Edwards wants Bella to go visit her mother with the plane tickets she received for her birthday. Bella wants to visit Jacob, but Edward removes some piece of her truck to make it stop working so that she cannot go to the reservation. This is also creepy, as he has been gone for about six months and now he is back and basically putting her on house arrest from the guy who was with her for those six months or so.
Bella returns from her loving mother-daughter trip and Jacob and Edward fight because of Emmett crossing the treaty line during the fight against Victoria while Bella was away. Bella is upset with Edward for trying to control her and then keeping her in the dark about something that could mean life or death for her. This is where the book becomes far more effective than the movie. In the book, Edward is seen to be in some sort of physical pain during this scene. It is later revealed that Jacob had shown him in his mind the pictures of how broken Bella had been when Sam found her in the woods and the four months after. However in the movie this never happened, meaning that Edward never truly found out how hurt Bella was.
Edward becomes super overprotective and annoying in Eclipse book. He takes it upon himself that every time he leaves Bella to hunt, that she is put on house arrest with the other Cullen vampires so no one can come hurt her. This was just about skipped in the movie, although it was a big piece of Edward’s overprotective and almost creepy nature. Bella had a scene where she was at school while under this “house arrest/sleepover” with Rosalie and Alice and Jacob came on his motorcycle and helped her escape them. While on the reservation they had a long conversation about how how Bella wanted to be turned into a vampire, and Jacob says that he would rather her be dead than be one of the “bloodsuckers” and she returns forlorn to her house arrest with the Cullen sisters.
When Edward finds out that someone had been in Bella’s room, not too much unlike the movie scene, he does not team up with Jacob to find the vampire right away. Instead Jacob talks to Bella on the phone and then to Edward making a type of group protection plan for her. Jacob shows off his super fast healing skills, the campfire scene takes place even later, and then the movie seems to start being more like the book. Jasper tells his war story, and then big JACOB KISSES BELLA SCENE!
In the movie its a clearly unwanted kiss, she hurts her hand punching him, Edward gets all vampirey mad, Charlie calms it down, and Carlisle fixes Bella! In the book, Jacob is kissing Bella, she is pushing at him and he just keeps kissing her, until finally she stops fighting it and then he lets her go. Then she punches him and he continues to flirt with her and tries to blame her for the whole ordeal on the way home. This seems less like an unwanted kiss and more serious like almost an assault than it did in the movie. Not to mention Charlie in the book was less shocked that Jacob kissed her and he punched him and more congratulating him for getting the “girl”. Edward does threaten to kill him if he brings her back “damaged” again or tries to kiss her again but he is far more “deadly” sounding and dangerous in the book because he is quiet rather than trying to attack him.
Okay now we are at the part where it is the beginning of Alice’s party. In the book, Bella has figured out on her own that the army took her clothes because they want to come for her individually rather than for the Cullens, and she tells Edward thoroughly freaking him out before the party. Then during the party Alice has a vision, Jacob and Bella fight a little and then make up, and then they all group up because of the big fight.
Most of the rest of the book is the same so I will only focus on the big differences and similarities. Yes, the tent seen is just as cringe-worthy with overly-sexual Jacob and protective Edward. Jacob is seriously creepy in the second kiss scene, threatening to kill himself if Bella did not “kiss him properly” and respond to him making out with her. Then she finally gives in and kisses him back, kind of creating the simpler version shown in theatres. Edward was forgiving of the ordeal but Bella hates herself for kissing Jacob that way. After the big fight against Riley and Victoria, Bella goes into shock and Edward is afraid that she hates him now but she was just shocked by the overall event. When Bella finds out that Jacob is killed she isn’t as nonchalant as she was in the movie but she was very disturbed by the whole of the situation. She changes her mind when Edward offers to change her that night in order to not force the early marriage after seeing how thirsty the young female vampire who was killed by the Volturi was.
PHEW! I will DEFINITELY NOT be making a Movie VS Book for Breaking Dawn as long as this. I will probably just rate both at the same time throwing in little tidbits about each one. This one I had to do more comparisons on because I simply adored the book but the movie undermined many parts of the book. Overall, the Eclipse movie was a very abridged version of this important installment and that is why I have to give both the movie and the book separate ratings.
Movie: 2.5/5
Book: 3.5/5
Next Reviews: Twilight Breaking Dawn, Movie: Hidden Figures
Thanks for reading!