Check Out The Freaky Animatronic Baby Cut From 'The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2'
I'd imagine that just about everyone who saw the final Twilight movie wondered why scenes featuring baby Renesmee used a CG infant. I certainly did. Despite being part of a weird film that caps off a weird series, that digital baby seemed way out of place.
That solution to putting the character on screen wasn't always the plan. Producers commissioned an animatronic baby to use for The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2, and even filmed a few scenes with it. But the thing was so unsettlingly odd that director Bill Condon cut it from the picture. How creepy is the doll? So much so that everyone on set dubbed it "Chuckesmee," after the demon doll Chucky from the Child's Play films. See some wonderful footage below.
This comes from Yahoo, via Badass Digest. It's great. Where was this for Halloween? This thing deserves its own film.
Now it is time for questions.
Why did no one say, WAY BEFORE this doll made the journey to set, "hey... this might not work"? There are always effects attempts that don't quite work on the day, and that can be difficult. But this doll would have been the product of months of design, fabrication and testing. How did it go through that whole process? It's a drag to see so much effort wasted; maybe Condon was so busy designing the genuinely impressive battle scene that acts as the action climax of the film that he didn't realize doll wasn't going to fly.
Condon told EW last year,
Chuckesmee was a giant misfire on all fronts. Truly, it was one of the most grotesque things I've ever seen. It was a horror show! There was one shot where I call, 'Cut!' and suddenly she turns her head and mechanically stares right into the camera. It was incredibly disturbing.
This clip comes from the Twilight Forever blu-ray set.