Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Eighteen

Having just finished Breaking Dawn, I can now say that I've read the Twilight Series (my current book, The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner, is kind of a side novel), and I've got some questions about the films.

1) Why on earth is Breaking Dawn being split into two films?

The first half of the novel focuses on Bella getting pregnant by her husband, and her best friend coming to terms with that. The second half of the book features a possible threat that builds and builds and is then removed by a Deus Ex Machina (basically a magic solution which solves all the problems without the help of the main characters). I'm just not sure how many people are going to want to check out these movies - my kids are pretty tired of the series right now, but that might be because my oldest is in University and my youngest has moved on to the Hunger Games.

2) Why is there so much interest in who is playing one-line characters in the films?

I get that a lot of people are interested in who will play Renesmee (Bella's hyper-aging daughter), as her role in the book is pretty big, but Irina (a vampire who has two lines)? or Riley (a fighting vampire from Eclipse)? Seriously, who cares which star will play these roles for 3-5 minutes of screen time?

3) Is there any way I'm going to see New Moon or Eclipse?

New Moon is in high demand at my library (currently over 200 holds) and Eclipse is out of theatres so I'm not exactly sure how I will get to see either film without shelling out $20 for New Moon or trying to illegally download Eclipse (which I'm very VERY against). I'll do my best to see these films, but it may get kind of tricky.

All right, next we're on to The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner.

Twilight of Bookmonkey: Day Fifteen

I'm now halfway through Breaking Dawn, the fourth and final volume in the Twilight Series, and I've got one big question.

How exactly are they making not one, but two movies out of this book?

Basically the series breaks down as follows for me:

Twilight: Girl meets boy - boy is vampire, vampiric baggage nearly kills girl

New Moon: Feeling bad, the boy leaves - girl freaks out, finds out best friend is a werewolf and emotionally abuses him, then runs away to save vampire boyfriend who abandoned her

Eclipse: Vampiric baggage from first book rears its ugly head threatening all, vampire and werewolf (who are natural enemies) make up to protect girl, Twilight baggage is destroyed, promise of vampirism for girl is made, werewolf runs off into the wild

Breaking Dawn: ...Ummm...well, there's some...Unneccessary padding...

To be fair, maybe something will happen in the second half of the book, but so far its a lot of nothing, and when I say a lot, I mean it; the first half of the book is as long as the first book in the series and not a lot happens. The couple gets married and have a kid, the werewolf comes back and is conflicted... really I'm finding it difficult to think of exactly how this becomes even one film, but apparently they're breaking it into two - pretty weird if you ask me.