Fix M. Night's "Signs"

Cafe Society
21

Me, fixing Signs:

INT. STUDIO EXEC’S OFFICE - DAY

An immaculate, but fun, studio office. Piles of heavily read scripts on every surface. Behind a large desk, littered with more scripts, toys, and imported Coffee Crisp candy wrappers, sits the head of the studio, ANAMORPHIC. Maybe late 30s, hard to tell, roguish good looks and a dueling scar across his chin that just adds to his style and sense of mystery. In one hand, he holds a cup of coffee, and in the other, a new script.

Sitting across from him, on a plush leather couch, is M. NIGHT SHYMALAN. Shyamalan looks nervous, and is sweating heavily. He can’t seem to make himself comfortable on the couch.

Anamorphic drops the script carelessly on the desk in front of him.

ANAMORPHIC
So M., read your new script over the weekend. Yeah… this isn’t going to work for us. What else you got?

Shyamalan’s face falls and we:

FADE TO BLACK.

22

I think it’s a fantastic fanwank as well, and that explaining it in-movie would be a disservice - but it doesn’t help the movie stand on its own any. It does make it more rewatchable for me, though.

23

Say what you will about about “Signs”, but when his daughter asked, “Why don’t they have girlfriends?”, I laughed so hard I missed the next 10 minutes of the movie.

24

I can see someone suggesting something akin to it, at the right moment. Graham is reasonably well educated, for instance; he may know about passage rites. In the scene in which he and his brother are watching televsion alone, he could comment that the aliens may be engaged in such a passage rite rather than outright invading, and add on that they might also intend to exterminate humanity rather than conquer it.

Another way to improve the movie: add in Jodie Foster somewheres. Why? Because she’s freaking Jodie Foster, of course.

25

Preferably nekkid.

26

My apprecation for Foster is not dull sublunary lovers’ love, sir. It is not absence of attire which hath elemented it.

27

The thing you have to realize, is that the aliens aren’t really aliens. They’re bogey-men. Maybe these particular bogey-men came from outer space in a rocket, but that doesn’t matter. They aren’t biological creatures that act according to their particular natures, they’re beings that wish to terrify humans. The don’t come to earth to collect water, or conquer the world, they are here to terrify us and give us bad dreams. This is why they hide behind doors, or can be defeated by a particular ritual, like dousing them with water.

28

Easy. Make them seven feet tall, with dreadlocks and a laser-sighted shoulder-cannon.

Best. Predator. Sequel. Ever! Who doesn’t want to watch Joaquin Phoenix go to town on a Predator armed only with a baseball bat?

29

Water isn’t poison.

Flouride and chlorine, however, are.

Bingo.

Like others, I think the nater of what beats the alien is really quite beside the point; the fact that they’re hurt by water was perhaps a poor choice but if changing it to “chlorinated water” or, hell, orange juice or milk helps someone buy the plot, meh, change it.

30

The thing is, the idea that the invaders/raiders/whatever are extraterrestrials is something the characters assume because of their cultural baggage (which everyone has, of course). They could be supernatural creatures of one sort of another, or persons from an alternate universe, or time travellers, or persons from Porlock.

31

I wouldn’t change anything, except have it be established at some point before the ending that the aliens are really, really stupid. Like an alien Idiocracy.

32

i like signs well enough but the water is a huge speed bump for me. i mean… it falls from the freaking skies. it’s in the air we breathe. if you land from space you’re twice as likely to hit a giant pool of acid than dry land. our very own bodies is three-quarters of the stuff. it’s in our blood, our houses..

very distracting stuff.

now if they had shown it on the TV, and then have it all poof go away the second mel regains his faith? that leaving the audience to wonder “was it or wasn’t it?” and “were they aliens or demons?” then… sure. i can handle an unresolved movie - at least i can handle it better than the fact that water is corrosive and that a minor league has-been single-handedly clears out a farm crawling with aliens with a single at-bat and the strange coincidence of last words of a dying sister.

33

I like that. There would have to be a few switches in the script (M. Knight’s character says something about the aliens staying away from the lake), but I would buy that. Of course, that wouldn’t save the people in undeveloped countries, or people out in the country who are on well water. But if you can buy naked aliens equipped only with venomous fingernails, then you can buy just about anything.

The “water is poison” thing never really bothered me too much. Maybe water vapor in the air just merely stings, but the aliens didn’t count on liquid water being so painful and the dumb humans quickly realizing that they were so sensitive to it. But then you have to wonder how different their world is from ours…if they can breathe oxygen, then it’s highly likely they’d be familiar with water in all its various forms. Their metabolisms would be odd if they breathe oxygen while not generating poisonous water as a by-product. You just have to put ALL of that out of your mind, I guess.

I didn’t like all the coincidences, though. I know that was the whole point of the movie, but still. “Swing away”? Is that something people say to encourage people up at bat? Why would that be the wife’s last words? I know, I know. Brain misfirings. But a little too pat for my liking. She’s gotta be in the chain of coincidences to make everything snap together, I realize, but I would have preferred her parting words to have been less weird.

I didn’t like the way she died, either. They couldn’t have found a more dignified way for her to croak?

And just once, I’d like to see a movie involving a geeky boy that does not involve asthma. Seriously. I know the boy almost dying and then being saved is what makes the father come back to his faith, but I sure wish they had picked another disease. If I have to see another movie with a boy (it’s always a boy) gasping on an inhaler, I’m going to throw something.

I liked the final supper scene, even though that was very unrealistic. Cooking all that food would have taken all day, I’m thinking. And did they go to the grocery store to get all the ingredients? With all those aliens ruttin’ around? I think not! But I guess it was a good way of showing how panicky the father was and how much he loved his family. You just can’t think too much during that scene.

You know what would have been even better than a bunch of glasses of water and a bat? A gun! But that wouldn’t have required the seemingly random chain of events leading up to the alien encounter. It would have been more realistic, though. Or maybe not. Despite being out in the country, maybe they just don’t believe in having guns in the house. I know I would have driven out to that cop’s place and asked her if she could spare one, just till the alien mess went away, but maybe that’s just me.

Alright, I’m done trashing the movie and not offering any good ideas! I like alien movies, and I felt like this was a sly trick to draw me into a schlocky drama instead. I like dramas, don’t get me wrong, but combining the two genres in this fashion didn’t work for me. I like my science fiction “pure,” and I don’t like movies where you have to overlook significant plotholes to appreciate the message. It’s weak writing masking as spiritualism. IMHO, having so many weak spots indicates you’ve chosen the wrong framework to hang your message on. The movie would have been better if the bad guys had been evil humans instead of aliens. But that wouldn’t have as cool.

34

Yeah, that’s a very common expression.

35

My first reaction when I read the thread title was “Easy. Have the daughter drinking Jack Daniels and leaving half-filled shot glasses around”.

36

The water thing basically ruined the movie for me, but if it weren’t water, it would be something else equally stupid, because the aliens were a complete non-threat. If Joaquin had had a shotgun instead, it would have been just as effective – probably more so, really – at removing those aliens from the house. They were like zombies, only less menacing. If they’ll stand there long enough to let someone smash a cup of water at them, then what couldn’t you kill them with.

If aliens are going door to door to root out humans, I want them to at least have watched Delta Force.

37

I’ve NEVER ever heard it, and I grew up going to Milwaukee Braves games (point is, I’ve been around a while). Maybe “Hey, batter batter, swiiiiing, batter, batter!”

I tell ya, if those were my wife’s last words, I’d’ve been shaking her: "What? THAT’S the best dying message you have? How 'bout “I love you? Or “Tell the kids to go to college” or “Reconnect with your faith, honey.” Okay, that is IT-- you do NOT get to die until you say something meaningful!”

38

It’s something a coach tells a batter - not a taunt or cheer from the crowd.