Can We Make Sure Breaking Dawn Doesn't Suck?

New Moon may not have been the best movie of the year, or last week, so here are a few tips for improving future Twilight flicks

All fan hype aside, New Moon was bad. Real bad. Will that fact be taken into consideration at all while they make the next films of the franchise? Will they aim to improve?
—Pique Santos, via Facebook

Of course not.

When you make millions of dollars in the first eight seconds of a sequel's release, you don't change a thing. You keep the heroine as much of a doormat as she's always been and the hero as immortal and upset about that fact as ever. Eclipse has already wrapped, of course, but Breaking Dawn has yet to start shooting, and there is always room for improvement, even in a fiction series that seems utterly perfect to any girl under 16.

Here are my suggested improvements for the movie (or two, or three, or however many they make), humbly submitted hereto for Team Breaking Dawn.

And yes, sorry, THERE ARE SPOILERS, for those who have not purchased Breaking Dawn and lovingly stroked it to death...

Lose the werewolf-on-baby love story.
In the book, Jacob falls in love with a baby soon after it pops out of mother Bella. Jacob apparently doesn't want to romance the baby right there, but it's his soul mate, all right. For some vague reason I cannot quite put to words, the movie should probably lose that bit. You are welcome, Taylor Lautner.

Two words: Stunt casting.
Cast Angelina and Brad as the elegant European nomad vampires. You know it makes sense.

And while we're at it...
Why not try Megan Fox as the accuser Irina? She does, after all, have to get dismembered by a pack of angry vampires. If not, hey, this is a chick franchise, what about you, SJP?

Hire another director.
The best movies know when to stray from book source material and when to stick to it. New Moon director Chris Weitz got much praise from fans for sticking to the book, but that doesn't mean he made a good movie. In fact, it means he made a pretty mediocre movie. I'm sure Peter Jackson (heck, or even Tim Burton or Kathryn Bigelow) would know exactly what to do with that part in Breaking Dawn where Edward and Bella have sex so crazy that she passes out. And when in doubt, add a hobbit.

Rethink the genre.
Michael Sheen steals the screen whenever he's on it as Volturi vampire Aro. Make the honeymoon and pregnancy part of Breaking Dawn really short, and the Volturi trial part of the story really, really long. Make it a courtroom drama if you have to; bring in a resurrected vampire Matlock if you must, but do it.

An all-Dakota Fanning cast.
Forget that vampire who can grab someone's skull and kill with the touch of his hands; everybody can kill with their hands. Put in another little girl vampire who can make you feel pain with her eyes. You can never have too many Janes. Given how interesting Dakota Fanning was in the three seconds she was in New Moon, heck, all the Volturi vampires should be Dakota Fannings.

Or you tell me. What would you do to bring the best possible Breaking Dawn to the big screen? The comments are yours.

(Originally published Dec. 5, 2009, at 11:02 a.m. PT)