Today, The Sun Sentinel.com has a great Behind The Scene – The Twilight Saga : New Moon article. We get an insight of how the Edwards’s apparition is shot and Chris Weitz vision for New Moon.

Robert Pattinson is having an Obi-Wan Kenobi moment. Inside a soundstage where “The Twilight Saga: New Moon” is shooting, the lanky English heartthrob stands in front of a tall, wide green screen murmuring a tender admonition, “You promised me nothing reckless.” Motion capture cameras hurtle toward him across a length of track affixed to the stage floor, while a team of technicians studies his stance and the tilt of his head.

The plan is to digitally insert Pattinson, who plays swoony good guy vampire Edward Cullen, into a scene that was filmed much earlier—one in which he appears as an apparition to his costar, Kristen Stewart, cautioning her headstrong character Bella Swan against hanging out with some unsavory-looking biker types. For the effect to work, Pattinson’s image will need to be dropped in at exactly the right position, so despite the cast and crew nearing the end of a very long early May day, perfectionism is still the standard. …

…..During post-production on (Golden) “Compass,” concerns over the story’s take on organized religion and its grim ending caused studio New Line to take control of the $180 million movie.

The film earned only $70 million domestically, though it fared better overseas, and Weitz still despairs that he was unable to faithfully execute Pullman’s vision. (New Line declined to comment for this story.)

“It’s one of the great sadnesses of my life that it didn’t turn out the way I intended it,” he says.

“New Moon,” a story about surviving the ultimate heartbreak and loss, is Weitz’s chance to heal his wounds and find a new creative path. It’s a path that winds through the gloomy forests of the Pacific Northwest and the Italian village of Multipulciano. The last three days of the shoot will happen there, but before then, Weitz needs to complete the complicated camera maneuvers that will enable him to transform Pattinson’s Edward into a spectral vision. …

..Godfrey points out that “Eclipse” is darker in tone than the stories that precede it and more action-packed, making Slade the right choice.

A bigger question mark hangs over what is the most adult entry in Meyer’s series, “Breaking Dawn.” Godfrey was mum as to specifics, saying only that everyone involved fully intends to make what would be the fourth movie. (The Web site imdb.com lists “Breaking Dawn” as in development with a tentative 2011 release date.)

“We’re shooting ‘New Moon,’ prepping ‘Eclipse,’ doing all the marketing—it’s a little overwhelming to really think in a detailed manner of how we’re going to crack this, but we have every intention to,” he said of “Dawn.”

It’s now July, and in only a few days, Weitz will face 6,000-plus screaming fans as he unveils some never-before-seen footage from “New Moon” at Comic-Con International in San Diego. At last year’s convention, months before “Twilight” was released,” the delighted squeals were nearly deafening….

Read the complete article here.

Remember Twilight Tuesdays on MTV.. apparently we’ll be getting New Moon Mondays now. Well its not actually called New Moon Mondays and neither its on MTV. It’ll be called Twilight Weekly: Spotlight on Reelzchannel.com. Full story here.

REELZCHANNEL announced today the launch of a new weekly series, “Twilight Weekly: Spotlight,” as a cornerstone of the network’s extensive on-air and online coverage of the hugely popular Twilight movie saga. Hosted by REELZCHANNEL’s resident Twilight expert and correspondent Naibe Reynoso, the new series is sure to galvanize the legions of diehard movie fans by giving TV viewers and web users the inside track on all of the latest news and info leading up to the highly anticipated fall movie sequel, New Moon. “Twilight Weekly: Spotlight” premieres in its Monday primetime slot beginning August 10, 2009 at 10:00 pm ET.

Wow!! Its a shame that Larry Carroll of MTV won’t be doing it anymore. He did a great job with Twilight and knew what the fans wanted to know! Nonetheless, I can’t wait to see Naibe Reynoso do her coverage and exclusives as well!

Apparently a Twilight fan have taken to cliff diving in order to emulate what the Wolf Pack and Bella did in the book/movie New Moon. The Twilight Examiner’s Amanda Bell has a story on it.

A recent press release from the Quileute Nation has highlighted a very disturbing set of recent events. According to them, one Twilight fan took anticipation for The Twilight Saga: New Moon a little too far. Says the release, “A Twilight fan visiting Quileute from Georgia was rescued from an island they surmised could be the location where the main character Bella Swan goes cliff diving in the 2nd book of the Twilight saga New Moon.”

Read it here.

UPDATE: It’s Aishah here, and i bet you guys are dying for more New Moon stills. Here’s one from LA Times!

On the Set: ‘New Moon’ on the rise

“I don’t know if you can get used to it,” the baby-faced Lautner says of the ardor the series inspires. “We have seen the passion and dedication in the fans. We wouldn’t be here without them, but they’re everywhere.

Due to overwhelming and unprecedented demand, Chop Shop/Atlantic Records have announced a new release date for THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON ORIGINAL MOTION PICTURE SOUNDTRACK. By far the most anticipated soundtrack of the year, the compilation will now be released this Friday, October 16th, four days earlier than originally scheduled! If you have pre-ordered the album, you can expect it to arrive on that date or shortly afterwards.

In addition, we would like to exclusively announce that in the physical CDs, the booklet folds out into a poster! The image is below. Make sure to head out on Friday to get your copy of THE TWILIGHT SAGA: NEW MOON Soundtrack!

If anyone here hasn’t seen the first Twilight film, then you really needn’t read any further if you plan on seeing this movie. If you aren’t a hardcore vamp groupie, and are on the fence, I’ll save you some time. Skip this one completely and wander at random into any other theater at the cineplex and you will have a better time than I had. For the rest of you, I’m skipping all but the most basic synopsis, because you probably have it written into your daydreams. Last time, wobbly, vacant-eyed teen Bella got all goo-goo over even more vacant-eyed and self-absorbed (though the series want to sell it as self-posessed) Ed Cullen, part of a local vampire clan. Their chaste courtship in the first movie was the stuff that narcolepsy is made of. I’m at a loss to think of a film with a less lively couple of lovers at its center, and I’m counting that scene of the snails mating to classical music in Microcosmos.

Stewart and Pattinson, both fine in smaller supporting roles in other movies, simply don’t have the dramatic energy or vitality to deliver the heat or conviction necessary to make anyone–save for the most easily swayed–want to follow them. Some claim that the innocence of their relationship hampers that flame. Nope, not at all. See Kiera Knightley and Matthew McFayden in Pride and Prejudice or Abbie Cornish and Ben Whishaw in the recent Bright Star to see burning passion and commitment without carnal action.

In fact, the relationship with Bella and Ed doesn’t come off to me as innocent, but more than a little creepy. First time through, Ed says “You are like my heroin” and Bella, little more than a blank slate, fawns over him for it. He’s creepy, controlling, and even his selflessness, exemplified in this movie by sending her away from him forever because she makes his family crazy(all that warm white girl blood I guess), could be interpreted as shifty indecision. We know he will be back, and that Bella will probably be waiting.

Ed wants her out of danger. Even though they are parted, whenever she finds herself in a scrape, he appears to her as an Obi Wan-esque ghostly image. When she figures out what triggers these supernatural Skype moments, she starts seeking out danger and adrenaline rush so she can dial up her brooding, surly beau. Seriously, Bella, he dumped you. Stop trying to get his attention with idiocy.

Left alone, it isn’t long before she’s attacked by some of the vampires from the first movie and then rescued by her American Indian bud, Jake Black, who has clearly spent the summer on the 300 diet before being reunited with Bella. I suppose its a spoiler of sorts if you live in a cave, but Jake, and the rest of his ‘clan’, are werewolves; he’s just recently discovered that special time in a boy’s life when he starts changing at will into a large CGI Alsatian. Jake takes his shirt off, Bella stares at him, and thinks “It’s been awhile since I’ve pined for a grumpy, emotionally-inacessible monster”. Yea, thats pretty much it. Plenty of ‘will they/won’t they’ moments, but not anything that made me care eitherway.

For a movie with vampires and werewolves based on a fantasy series that is overwhelmingly popular, you would expect much more to actually happen here. Even Chris Weitz’ heavily truncated last adaptation, The Golden Compass, had more going on in its passages than this tepid loaf of half-narratives and paper cut-out characters. I didn’t miss Edward, but his absence makes this film even more arbitrary than the last one. Moon doesn’t work very hard to make us think Jake and Bella have a chance, and Bella can’t be bothered to understand his lycanthropy in the same we she accepts Ed’s vampirism. She may like washboard abs, but not as much as men the same color as the washboard. As for Edward, he goes to meet a coven of elder vampires headed up by Dakota Fanning and Michael Sheen. Eventually, the whole movie has changed setting and the characters are all racing around Italy looking desperately for a plot that matters.

As I’ve said before, I’m no Twilight fan, but I take no pleasure slagging on the series simply because it is popular or it happens to be the kind of story that usually sits best with 13 year old girls. The truth of it is that Moon isn’t very interesting and a lack of actual reprecussions or consequences for the character’s actions, as well as a very simplistic and silly view of teenage obsession, renders it almost negligent as entertainment for the younger crowd. As a heroine (not the kind Ed likes) Bella is pathetic, her taste and approach to men eerily echoing the same kind of behavior that lands real world women in abusive relationships. Wietz, nor anyone else working on the film seems to see this, preferring instead to assume it is just a lightweight fantasy. The truth is that New Moon is far, far less than that; it’s training wheels for brooding angst.

And, now, what I hope is a clip from the alternate DVD ending: