The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1 (2011)

The full plot of Breaking Dawn Part 1 runs from a forest wedding to a violent birth and a newborn vampire opening her eyes. Bella and Edward marry among the Cullens, Bella's family and friends, and a group of vampire guests. Jacob dances with Bella, then storms off when he learns she means to be intimate with Edward while she is still human.

The couple honeymoon on a private island off Brazil, where they spend their first nights together. Bella soon finds she is pregnant, and the baby grows at an alarming speed. Edward is frightened for her and wants to end the pregnancy, but Bella insists on keeping the child.

They return to Forks, where Rosalie Hale guards Bella and the family worries over her failing health. Jacob learns of the pregnancy, and the wolf pack decides the child is a threat that must be destroyed. Jacob breaks with the pack's leader and leaves to protect Bella, taking Seth and Leah with him.

Bella grows weaker and only improves when she drinks blood. Once Edward can hear the baby's thoughts, he softens and comes to love it. Bella goes into labor, and the delivery is violent and nearly kills her. Edward turns her into a vampire by injecting venom into her heart, while Jacob, believing the baby is dead, wants to kill her but instead bonds with the newborn daughter, Renesmee. Bella wakes up with red eyes as a vampire.

The ending of Breaking Dawn Part 1 explains itself in three steps: Bella survives the birth only because Edward changes her, she wakes as a vampire, and Jacob's bond with Renesmee stops the wolves from harming the baby. Edward injects venom into Bella's heart as her body fails, which is why the film closes on her waking with red eyes as a vampire.

Why does Jacob not kill her? He believes the baby is dead and moves to attack Bella, but the moment he sees Renesmee he bonds with her. In practice, that bond removes the wolf pack's main reason to hunt the family, which sets up the tension in the next film. Away from the Cullens, the Volturi learn about the child and about Bella's change, so the threat now comes from outside Forks.

In my opinion, the film ends where it does because it is only half a story. Part 1 spends nearly all its time on fear, a pregnancy that looks like a death sentence, and then answers it in the last minutes, while the consequences are left for Breaking Dawn Part 2. It could be argued that this makes the finish feel abrupt, but the fear is resolved and the danger is only moved. If you want to see how the books handle the same events, Twilight books vs movies compares the two.

The structure also pays off a promise the saga has been making for three films. In Eclipse, Bella is already asking Edward to turn her, and here the change finally happens, but in the worst possible way: on a delivery table, with Edward driving venom into her heart as a last resort. Compare that with New Moon, where the Volturi were the distant danger in Italy. Here the post credit scene, with the Volturi receiving Carlisle's letter about the wedding and Bella's transformation, brings them to the family's door. Part 2 then opens exactly where this one stops, with Bella waking as a newborn and Irina misreading Renesmee from a distance. One nice irony is that Jacob, the character most hurt by the wedding, is the one whose imprinting protects the family. That reversal is, to me, the smartest piece of plotting in the film, because it turns the pack's threat into a shield without a single line of explanation.

Yes, Breaking Dawn Part 1 ends with a short scene after the credits roll. The Volturi receive a letter from Carlisle that reports the wedding and Bella's transformation, and their leader remarks that the Cullens still hold something he wants. Nothing else happens on screen, but the scene moves the story from the island and the delivery room to Italy, and it signals the conflict that Breaking Dawn Part 2 picks up. If you are watching at home, stay for the credits to catch it.