“One of the most entertaining aspects of the new “Twilight Saga: New Moon” DVD and Blu-ray is the audio commentary from director Chris Weitz and his editor Peter Lambert.

During their long and funny conversation, Weitz makes a humbling revelation about one of his few regrets in the movie: the infamous moment where Aro (Michael Sheen) looks into Alice Cullen’s mind (Ashley Greene) and see the future fate of our hero Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). What was meant as a dramatic reveal that Bella would become a vampire, and thus satisfy Aro’s wishes, drew unintentional laughter as audiences observed Bella and Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) seemingly skipping through the forest in slow motion.

Speaking to Weitz earlier this week, the director laughed about the moment and admitted that he discovered the mistake a bit too late.

“I think it could have been less than an Arcadian fairy tale running through the foresty movement and more of an abstract at Kristen flash on her face,” Weitz says of what he would have changed. “That would have avoided laughter, which wasn’t only heard at the premiere where there are cynics and jaded Hollywood types, but the most packed fan screenings.”

1.) How nerve-racking was it to know you had to relocate several location for New Moon?

A.) It was really nerve-racking because I thought people would notice and be upset, it was a puzzle to get it just right. The outside of the school is all CGI, we built the stairway for the school and took stills. In the Cullen’s house I also tried to show different rooms in the house to add to the feeling of the house. When Taylor was traveling during Twilight a fan gave him a hand-carved Native American ornament. We used that ornament in Jacob’s room in New Moon.

2.) I know Edward’s car is now a dark silver, but was there any reason for the change?

A.) Availability. Volvo wanted to introduce a new car into the series, instead of the older model. So they provided a newer model, brown Volvo. Immediately we knew it had to be repainted, and chose a dark, non-shiny, black colour. It added more to the first Edward scene in the movie, the feeling is upbeat but the colour of the vehicle adds to the danger lurking.

3.) How did you decide to shoot the scene where the months are passing by, considering the books only name the months that pass?

A.) We originally thought we could use a blank screen with names of the months passing but felt that it was best to portray depression visually. CGI was used and the windows were covered by green screen. We used a robotic camera for revolvement to mimic the original hand camera as much as possible. I’m not sure if you noticed but with each revolvement the room changes, there are less pictures of her friends and the room gets more sparse.

4.) I really enjoyed the added scene with Victoria swimming towards Bella. (The book hints to the orange colour the water was reflecting, in a later revelation by Bella.) How did this scene come to be?

A.) Well, the orange coloured water wouldn’t have looked right in the scene so we put her in the water visibly. That scene was difficult because we wanted to film her swimming towards Bella but it had to be at a distance. If it wasn’t at a distance fans would wonder why Victoria didn’t just get her in that short scene, but at the same time it had to feel threatening. That was all shot in Vancouver in a swimming pool, we had the actors underwater with four or five frog men with air tubes for security purposes. We also had green screens in the water surrounding the actors so we could CGI in all the particals in the water. Theres actually a program to add in all of the floating debris and colour differences in the water after filming. Kristen had a cold at the time and was scared of drowning. We had to force her to stay in the water. [laughter] But Rob was more comfortable in the water, hes had to shoot underwater scenes in the past. [Harry Potter]

New Moon director Chris Weitz spills the beans on a few things he hid in the film – exclusively in this week’s Entertainment Weekly. Some clues include hidden wolves, vampire elevator music, an element to Bella’s baggage, speed tricks, the answer to what Jacob says to Bella before he almost kisses her!

I also read that you had instructed Kristen to do that scene one way and then got a wet suit on and got into the water yourself and realized it was an impossible way to tackle it.

Rob had done this underwater work in one of the Harry Potter movies, so he was relatively comfortable doing things at the bottom of a pool. In order to get this shot right, we needed to get a top shot of Kristen as Bella sinking down in the ocean. The best way to do that is to have Kristen at the bottom of a 12-foot pool weighted down, just sort of floating there immobile. And Kristen was already expressing a bit of concern about deep water, and I told her, “12 feet isn’t that deep!” [Laughs] I decided to go down there in a wet suit weighted down and I started to panic.

I thought, “Holy crap, this isn’t fun at all!” and realized Rob actually had some guts and that the rest of us should really stay up towards the top of the pool. We adjusted it so we could make our shot sideways and it looks just the same as a top shot. And Kristen had a cold that day, so that was the last thing I was going to do — put someone with a cold at the bottom of a 12-foot pool with weights in their pockets. That didn’t seem like a wise move.

Entertainment Weekly has a great interview with Chris where he talks about the movie reviews for New Moon and opening weekend.

What was your biggest fear going into [opening] weekend?
I didn’t have any particular fears. The tracking numbers were enough to indicate that I wouldn’t be letting the studio down. But if one could imagine their biggest fears, it would be complete rejection of the movie, by the fans. What I’ve realized over the last week is I won’t necessarily get good reviews for this movie. Having swallowed that, this was made for the fans, and if you don’t get it, then you don’t get it.

Did the negative reviews surprise you?
Nothing surprises me in terms of reviews. Having been a reviewer myself, there are only two ways to spin this story. You can either be the one guy who says this is a great movie, or more likely, take a more jaundiced view of the whole thing. And given the media blitz that has accompanied New Moon, it’s rather unsurprising. I do wish there was more appreciation for cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe. I think he’s a genius and I think he made something beautiful.

A lot of fans say they like the movie more than the book, that New Moon was their least favorite book in the series.
New Moon takes a lot of time to read and you have a lot of time without Edward in the picture. And here in the compressed scenario of the movie, there is less time without RPatz. And the fact that Taylor [Lautner] does such a great job, to the reading audience who’s been very skeptical of him, here he is in the flesh, and it’s quite something.

Read more at EW.

Chris Weitz talks to MTV about what we can find on the New Moon DVD:

Judging by the insatiable appetite of Twilighters, they’ll be filling DVD stores in the first quarter of 2010, eager to glimpse the deleted scenes Weitz plans to unveil for the first time.

“There will be probably about 20 minutes of deleted material,” he explained, promising some meaty footage. “It really is good stuff and a bonus for the fans.”

Among this bonus footage could be several moments MTV knows were shot but did not make the final “New Moon” cut, including:

» A scene with Rachelle Lefevre as Victoria driving to Forks in a car, snacking on a dead human. It was one of the final moments the actress filmed as the nomadic vampire.

» A scene with the human characters eating Burger King.

» Another scene with the humans, this time with Justin Chon and Michael Welch expressing jealousy over Edward’s car.

» More scenes with the Volturi in Italy.

» An extended cut of the scene where Mike Newton quotes Shakespeare to Bella in the Forks High parking lot; in it, he does a Marlon Brando impersonation.

» Scenes alluding to the ongoing breakup between Newton and Anna Kendrick’s Jessica.

Already counting down until the DVD! All of this sounds amazing!

Read more HERE!