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When Bella is your role model, you're doing it wrong.

Kim Hollis: The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1 became the fifth largest opening weekend of all time as it opened to $138.1 million, slightly behind New Moon's $142.8 million. Its global take of $283.5 million is a franchise best to date. Give us your thoughts on all things Twilight.

Bruce Hall: There's not much to say about the numbers. Impressive. Very impressive. As for the rest of it, I could certainly make fun of the hordes of gangly, awkward teens, lonesome tweens, emotionally stunted housewives and other questionable people who came out this weekend to support the film. In a way, I suppose I just did. I won't lie. I hate Twilight; I think they're terrible books, I think they're terrible movies and I think that the franchise as a whole in no way contributes a single useful thing to the betterment of the human condition.

But it makes people happy. Lots of people. All too often these days when we see that many people gathered together for something they're living in tents in New York's Central Park or being shot at in Damascus. Not to get all heavy on you here, but it's an increasingly ugly world out there. Anything that makes this many people squeal with delight can't be all bad. Boy, I suppose that quote will come back to haunt me one day...

Matthew Huntley: Twilight's popularity--be it the books or the movies--still astounds me. And since I'm not the target audience, I've simply accepted I'll never understand its appeal, just like I'll never understand the appeal of most WB/CW shows, daytime soap operas or reality television (I think these and Twilight generally share the same fanbase). It's just not for me. With that said, given its popularity, I'm not at all surprised by its box office numbers, though I'm thankful it didn't beat the far superior (in my opinion) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part II, even though Breaking Dawn, Part II still has a chance.

And despite Twilight not bettering the human condition like Bruce said, I'm grateful that it at least injects the box office with some much-needed vigor. We all wish its quality was just as high as its box office figures, but hey, we'll take what we can get. And on a critical note, I did see the movie, and while it is slow, moderately boring and poorly acted (the usual characteristics for this series), it did show signs of loosening up a little and actually being entertaining. Granted, they are small signs, but at least they're there. Who knows, maybe the last movie will be recommendable.

Brett Beach: I worked my way through the films of Twilight, New Moon and Eclipse, but have no desire to see BD 1 or 2, even with very purplish plot points and one of the more unconventional pregancies and births in cinematic history. With what little I know of the plot of the last book (i.e. from the Wikipedia link), it seems as if the truly exciting stuff (wedding, honeymoon, bed-breaking body-bruising honeymoon sex, vampire baby being born) is all in this installment. What's left for the final two hours? I think that the fact this essentially held, but didn't add to the midnight and weekend grosses of the last two installments shows that the audience hasn't grown, and unlike a Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2, I can't imagine a huge return of people now sitting on the sideline, just because the next one will be the last film. Still, near $140 million is a huge figure. There is nothing about it to sneeze at, not even a small a-choo!

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