Twilight: Breaking Dawn had the potential to be a cinematic event that could rival the final entries in the similarly mᴀssive blockbuster adaptation series, but after being split in two, the story suffered immensely in the cinematic version. The fourth and second-to-last film in the franchise, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 is arguably the weakest film in the Twilight series for a wide variety of reasons. The movie even officially ranks as the lowest-scored film in the series on RottenTomatoes.com, sitting at a putrid 26% critical rating and 60% audience rating.

The story of Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 picks up in the wake of Edward and Bella finally getting engaged, with the clumsy Washington girl officially choosing the brooding vampire over the muscly werewolf Jacob. A huge complication arises when Bella becomes pregnant with Edward’s child not long after their marriage is consummated, creating an unprecedented situation in the vampire world with a potentially ᴅᴇᴀᴅly half-vampire, half-human baby gestating in Bella’s womb. Ultimately, these events result in Bella being turned into a vampire herself, with the act being the only way she could possibly survive the ordeal.

Splitting Twilight’s Final Book Meant There Wasn’t Enough Movie For Breaking Dawn Part 1

Part 1 Had To Find Ways To Fill The Empty Space

Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 was particularly criticized for its pacing issues, and rewatching the film today, it’s quite easy to see why. The story simply doesn’t have enough meat on the bones to sustain a feature film, feeling loaded with filler slice-of-life moments as Bella and Edward enjoy their honeymoon. These extended scenes of marital bliss have the unfortunate side effect of highlighting just how little chemistry Kristen Stewart’s Bella and Robert Pattinson’s Edward have when their lives aren’t being threatened by one of the Twilight series’ many villains.

Despite feeling slow and laden with filler, Twilight: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 also somehow feels simultaneously rushed. After mulling about Bella and Edward’s wedding ceremony and honeymoon for what feels like too long, her life-threatening pregnancy and the vast amounts of exposition regarding vampire babies in Twilight whip past at a breakneck pace. It’s clear that these story issues are a result of the unnecessary splitting of the book Breaking Dawn into two parts, and the adaptation surely would have been stronger as a single cohesive movie.

By splitting Breaking Dawn into two parts, with the bulk of the Cullens’ final confrontation with the Volturi taking up the majority of the second half, there wasn’t much story left for the first installment. While Edward and Bella’s marriage is a big moment that holds a ton of narrative weight in the story, it simply isn’t enough to take up the entire first act of a film. Much like the majority of the Twilight films, the conflict is also introduced quite late into the story, with the werewolves’ sudden need to mercy kill Bella and her new child.

What Could’ve Been Cut To Make Breaking Dawn Work As One Movie

The Book Had Plenty Of Fat That Could Have Been Trimmed

For all the problems doing so caused, it’s understandable to see why the filmmakers may have wanted to cut their adaptation of Breaking Dawn into two pieces. After all, the combination of Edward and Bella’s marriage, Bella’s dangerous pregnancy, the birth of Renesmee, the introduction of the hidden supernatural world to Bella’s father, and the final conflict with the Volturi make for a dizzying number of elements to juggle in one film. Adapting Breaking Dawn in a single straightforward film would easily result in a 3+ hour runtime, something most blockbusters in the 2010s would want to avoid.

The Twilight series could have easily manufactured an elegant solution to this problem without awkwardly dividing up a story that may have been too jam-packed for a single film, but wasn’t nearly substantial enough to sustain two feature-length releases. Ideally, a lot of details from the book that made it into the Breaking Dawn duology could have easily been cut without losing too much from the overarching plot. Deciding what elements to leave on the cutting room floor is never easy for a book adaptation, but Breaking Dawn has some obvious candidates.

First and foremost, Edward and Bella’s extended honeymoon and vacation in Rio de Janeiro could have been glossed over far more quickly, and unnecessary scenes like Bella telling Jacob she plans to sleep with Edward could easily strip down the plot of the first part. Where the second Breaking Dawn entry is concerned, the horde of non-Cullen vampires that are suddenly introduced to help with the Volturi don’t realistically need to be there, as interesting as they are. In reality, only the half-human Mapuche vampire at the end would need to be introduced.

A single Breaking Dawn movie could follow a brisk three-act structure. The first act would consist of Bella and Edward’s marriage and Bella realizing she’s pregnant. Act two would begin with the turning of Bella over the course of her pregnancy and the birth of Renesmee. Finally, act three could culminate in one last confrontation with Aro and the Volturi. As cool as it is, the final fakeout dream sequence battle is also largely a pointless scene that could be cut as well, if necessary.

Splitting The Final Book Into Two Movies Was A Trend At The Time

And An Extremely Lucrative One

The Twilight saga was far from the only book adaptation series of the 2000s and 2010s to split their final book into two separate parts. Most famously, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was successfully split into two separate films, and The Hunger Games also followed suit a few years later. In both cases, the choice to rake in the box office hauls of two spectacular finales rather than one was a lucrative one. But considering the comparative dense overarching narratives of both of those book series compared to the Twilight series, it also made more sense.

Joining in on this trend was certainly a financial win for the Twilight films, with both movies raking in a combined 1.5 billion dollars against relatively unᴀssuming budgets. However, artistically, this decision only served to muddle the final chapter of the films’ story with an awkward point of separation, with the first film of the pair remaining particularly affected. Twilight: Breaking Dawn may have been much stronger as a single movie, were it not for the financial appeal of a split and the lucrative business incentives.