It’s hard to believe that it’s been three years since the start of the Twilight films and we still have one year to go before the Saga concludes.  I was looking back at images from the films the other day as I wrote the Breaking Dawn What Plays When post and was amazed to see how much each of the actors have grown over the years.  What’s even crazier is that many of you actually grew up with the Twilight Saga.  You probably read the books early on and then grew with the films throughout high school.

This realization lead to a fun little project that looks at the evolution of Edward, Bella and Jacob and the growth of Rob, Kristen and Taylor.  Below are morphs of each of the Twilight characters as they appear in various forms in the Twilight Saga movie posters.  I hope you enjoy them, it’s amazing to see the evolution of these characters.  Feel free to share them and use them as you wish!

I’ve done a lot of posts on the music of Breaking Dawn lately, part of that is due to the fact there have been plenty of opportunities, another reason may be that I love the soundtrack so much that subliminally, I am just looking for reasons to write about it.  Earlier this month I shared about Spotify’s exclusive streaming of the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack and mentioned a number of bonus features that came with it.  One of those features was commentary from Alex Pastavas on each of the songs on the Soundtrack.

For those of you who have followed my Twilight writing for a while, you may recall that Catherine Hardwicke did a similar feature for Imeem soundsessions in 2008, which sadly no longer exists and now I’m left kicking myself wishing I had done a transcript of her commentary.  Because of that, I decided to create transcripts of the Alex Pastavas commentary for our readers.  Below is her commentary for each song transcribed for your enjoyment.

Endtapes – “One of the first submissions that we received for the Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn movie was a song called Endtapes by the Joy Formidable.  This Welsh trio wrote such a beautiful song for us.  It has such exuberance and such depth that I can’t imagine a better way to start the soundtrack.“

Love Will Take You – “Love Will Take You by Angus and Julia Stone was a beautiful lilting, sort of mournful and yearning song we use within the body of the picture.  This brother and sister duet from Austrailia has done really well in the past few years and we couldn’t be happier that they contributed to the soundtrack.”

It Will Rain – “I know so many of our Twilight fans will be familiar with Bruno Mars.  He really needs no introduction.  I remember the first time I heard the demo for It Will Rain, and it seemed like the impossibly perfect song for Breaking Dawn.  A beautiful love song and a perfect ballad for the wedding.”

Turning Page – “Sleeping At Last is actually Chicago based Ryan O’Neal.  His song is really interesting because we actually use it twice in the movie.  It’s a beautiful love song and we use the instrumental version only for a key scene and also later in the picture we reprise the song with the vocals.”

From Now On – “From Now On was written by an American rock band from Tennessee called the Features. [It] has such exuberance and such joy, and actually we found many places that we were able to use it in the movie and settled on the very best one.”

A Thousand Years – “We are so lucky to have a Twilight fan like Christina Perri contribute a song to the soundtrack.  A Thousand Years, written specifically for the movie.  It’s a beautiful ballad, it tells the story of Twilight in such a beautiful way, and all the producers and director were very excited to hear it.”

Neighbors - “Brookly based, indie artist, hip hop artist, he’s so amazing he’s sorta indescribable, Theophilus London contributed a song called Neighbors to the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack.  The song has elements of rap, It has, you know, a beautiful melody line and I love the way we used it in the picture.”

I Didn’t Mean It – “Our second brother and sister band,w hich is very unusua, is a band from Los Angeles called the Belle Brigade.  These two come from an interesting musical lineage.  Their grandfather is actually John Williams, the very important and renowned film composer.  I love this song.  I Didn’t Mean It has such swagger.  It’s so beautifully fierce and I couldn’t be happier about how it’s used in the picture.”

Sister Rosetta – “Sister Rosetta by the Noisettes is an interesting contribution to the Twilight Saga.  It’s the first time we’ve actually had a band re-record a song that was previously released, but they did a very special version for us.  The song, so memorable that we could never find anything that worked as well.”

Northern Lights – “Northern Lights by Cider Sky contributed a beautiful wedding reception song to the Twilight Saga.  This is a collective of song writers who came together specifically to create a song for Twilight.”

Flightless Bird, American Mouth – “So much to say about Iron and Wine and so important to the musical template and point of view for Twilight.  This is another song that’s making it’s second appearance in the Twilight Saga.  We of course used it during the first movie, during the very important prom scene.  Sam Beam came in and saw the movie and sat down with Bill Condon and he created this very special version for Twilight fans specifically.”

Requiem on Water – “Imperial Mammoth is an indie rock band from Los Angeles.  They contributed a song called Requiem on Water and Bill Condon, it was one of the very first songs that we submitted for Bill to look at and it was a song that he always, always loved and I’m, we’re, so happy to introduce a band like Imperial Mammoth to the Breaking Dawn fans.”

Cold – “Continuing our tradition of duets, you know we’ve had Beck and Natasha Khan, we’ve had St. Vincent and Bon Iver, for Breaking Dawn we’re thrilled to have Aqualung and Lucy Schwartz create a song specifically for Breaking Dawn.  The song is called Cold.  It’s beautifully mournful and touching and dark in the way that only a Breaking Dawn song could be.”

Llovera – “We’re especially lucky to have a contribution from Mia Maestro called Llovera.  It scores a beautiful moment in the picture and not only is she an important artist, but an actor in Breaking Dawn as well.”

Love Death Birth – “And finally our last track on the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack is a beautiful contribution by Carter Burwell.  Carter of course scored the first movie Twilight, and is back again for Breaking Dawn recreating his beautiful themes and important score for the movie.”

The commentary in my opinion was less than stellar and lacked any sort of depth.  It was mostly, here is this song this is where we used it.  I would have liked to get more insight into why it was chosen and how the songs were selected.  If you’re not sure when some of the songs play, be sure to head over to my Breaking Dawn, What Plays When.. post for a breakdown of when each song plays during the film.  Also, if you wish to listen to the commentary you can listen to it on Spotify.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 had another chart topping weekend coming in again at number one in the box office thanks to the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S.  But while it continues to reign supreme at the box office, it came in number two this morning with the announcement of the top ten most searched movies on Microsoft search engine Bing.  Beat out by Tom Cruise’s highly anticipated Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn was the number two most searched movie on Bing in 2011 according to Bing’s Top 2011 searches.

A great year for sequels, Breaking Dawn beat out popular sequels like The Hangover 2, Pirates of the Carribean: On Stranger Tides, and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2.  Interestingly enough, though the film did well among overall movie searches, not a single Twilight actor or actress appeared in the top searches for 2011.

The other day I shared that Spotify was asking fans to create Bella and Edwards wedding playlist.  At the time the only song included on the playlist was Iron & Wine’s “Flightless Bird American Mouth (Wedding Version)” from the Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Soundtrack.  However, it would appear that the “fan created” playlist has become “fan influenced” at best.

When they first posted the playlist I added the song “Feel It” by Jackalope to the playlist because it was featured on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack I created for the book.  At the time I added it, it appeared on the playlist with a handful of other songs.  However, Spotify posted an update on the playlist this morning and it would appear that my song, and a number of other songs that were added previously have gone MIA.

Spotify thanked fans on Facebook by saying, “Here is the marvelous Wedding Playlist of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 that all of you have created!”, but sadly it’s not exactly the playlist that was created by their fans.  In fact if you look at the playlist now the only user who has added tracks to Edward and Bella’s Wedding Playlist is “spotifyusa”, which leads me to believe that Spotify is filtering the list in some way, which means ultimately this is a Spotify playlist that is influenced by fans.  Not to mention all of the tracks were added yesterday, and the opportunity to add tracks started on Wednesday.

What do you think of the situation?  Did you add a song to the playlist that didn’t pass Spotify’s approval process?  Below is the playlist as it appears at the time of the writing.

Music has always played an important roll in my love for the Twilight films as well as the books.  Earlier this week I posted my Breaking Dawn What Plays When.. post, the fourth in a series of posts that explores when songs from the various Twilight soundtracks play during the film.  Earlier this month I shared that music streaming site Spotify was offering streaming of the Breaking Dawn Soundtrack with some bonus features, and if that wasn’t enough Spotify is now working with Twilight fans to create the ultimate wedding playlist for Edward and Bella.

This morning Spotify posted an open invitation on Facebook for Twilight fans to help them create Bella and Edward’s Wedding Playlist.   Spotify kicked off the playlist with Iron & Wine’s “Flightless Bird, American Mouth (Wedding Version) and at the time of this post that’s all they’ve got.

What songs would you have liked to during Edward and Bella’s wedding party?  Head over to Spotify and add your picks to the playlist.