Breaking Dawn Makes EW’s Best of 2012 Behind the Scenes

Melissa Rosenberg talks about the battle scene specifics as part of EW’s Behind the Scenes series

I always write out battle scenes, not because I think that they’re going to shoot the action sequences as I write them, but because we need to know who dies when, why they die, how they die, who kills them, what is the emotion of the moment. Ultimately it lands with the director and the stunt coordinator; I took it as far as I could on the page.

The way I approached it was, who would be the most shocking to kill? Because the first death initiates the battle, it has to be someone who everybody cares about. And because they’re all there for Carlisle, it made sense that he was the one. Well, actually, the first one who is killed in reality is Irina. But the whole company doesn’t actually know her — Carlisle, they’ll go to battle for. And you also want, like, who’s going to be the most satisfying to kill? Who have been the various nemeses? So everyone kind of gets a moment. Of course, Bella and Edward had to be the ones to kill Aro. That was the ultimate, and that they do it together felt really right. I really wanted to see Bella just rip his frickin’ head off. [Laughs]

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