"The Miracle of Life," that now-retro video show to confused and sometimes shocked middle school students in sex ed classes across the country, has largely been the only reference point for the machinations child birth for tween audiences, montages on MTV's "Teen Mom" not withstanding.
That's about to change -- and if they thought their 80s-made educational film was unsettling, tweens better brace themselves for some vampire birth.
The birthing scene in "Breaking Dawn," the final book in Stephenie Meyer's "Twilight Saga," features Bella finally producing her Edward Cullen-fathered vampire baby, Renesmee. It's a graphic scene in the book, but words and images are far different beasts, which makes one wonder just how faithful the Bill Condon-directed film will be to the book in that regard.
According to Robert Pattinson, it'll be just as potent.
"The birth scene is so different from everything else in the movie. For a fantasy series it goes quite far. It's hardcore, it's graphic. There's no other way to do it. It was fun," he told the audience at Comic Con on Thursday (via HitFix.com).
"You never really get to play Edward in a way that he's literally so aware of his own helplessness," he added (via Moviefone). "Either he's completely in control or pretends he is, but here there's no on else around, and there's nothing he can do and he's just desperate. Normally when that happens, Bella comes in and saves the day. But Bella isn't there ... he's totally annihilated by the situation"
Kirsten Stewart, the laboring mother-to-be in question, went into more detail.
“She’s literally choking on blood she’s been drinking, literally out of her mind. It was always in my head that she’s been able to fight harder than anyone because of that little bit in her, literally," she laughed (via Movieline). "And at that part I got to play with having venom run through your veins and start to feel the hell that that is, and that’s after a moment of sheer exuberance of looking at your baby for the first time.”
That should please Meyer, who repeatedly emphasized her desire for the movie to match the book's intensity.
"I'd love to have the birth scene be every bit as awful -- I know it freaked people out, but for those of us who have been through childbirth a couple times, it is a scary, terrifying experience," she told MTV News last year. "This is just taking that to an exponential power, and I love going there."
Stewart said that she had a hard time with the actual child, once it was in the flesh and walking.
"I couldn't pick up the kid sometimes. We had Mackenzie Foy, who is an amazing little kid. Like the coolest kid ever," she said (via PopSugar). "Smarter than me in a lot of ways. Then we had these other girls to play the younger version of Mackenzie. They're all great, awesome kids, but I'm awkward, I can't handle that. I look ridiculous picking them up, they were bigger than me in some cases!"
For much more from the panel, click over to HitFix.com and Movieline.