# I finally saw The Village this weekend **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 7, 2005, 3:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818 "2005-02-07T15:54:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 2:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/21 "2005-02-08T02:30:51Z")
Yikes… formatting faux pas in above post. One cannot report one’s own posts, so please do so if you think it’s important enough. I mailed a mod about it. ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/22 "2005-02-08T02:45:50Z")
I find Shyamalan’s stories refreshing and his films technical masterpieces. Really enjoy all of them. A respite from the same-old- hollywood -same- old. Admittedly, his movies do have a tendency to be anticlimatic after starting so strongly with Sixth Sense. He should have saved his best for last. The Village was a bit weak… I had deduced the “twist” by the first revelation of “Those who must not be Named” (The claw and arm shocker). I believe he could have fooled me a bit longer if the creature had been more subtle. The creature design was good but just a little too unnatural/contrived. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/23 "2005-02-08T02:48:54Z")
Why did the trailers and pre movie advertising make it out to be a horror movie? ---
**Author:** ![Terrifel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c68b51/32.png) [@Terrifel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Terrifel)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 3:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/24 "2005-02-08T03:41:54Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > I still don’t think you can buy enough land and bribe enough people to keep all the planes away. > > It’s Pennsylvania! It’s not like they were hanging out in rural Montana! I take it that you haven’t seen **Signs** , then. Not that there was anything in that movie that made even a tiny sliver of sense, but…even disregarding every other flaw, how can you hope for anything resembling a plausible storyline from a filmmaker who thinks it’s reasonable that aliens invading Earth would be allergic to water? Plausibility doesn’t enter into Shamalyan’s films, dude. Don’t set yourself up for disappointments like that. I saw the movie **Signs** for free, having recieved a complimentary pass to an advance screening. Fortunately, no one did me a similar favor for **The Village** , and the trailers for that movie amply convinced me that it would make no more sense than **Signs** , so I still haven’t seen it. At a Halloween party last year, someone constructed an elaborate costume depicting the mysterious hell-muppet from the movie. which if they had chosen to do for the “secret-appearing” antagonist of any other movie, would probably have made me intensely annoyed at their thoughtlessness. Instead, I simply felt validated and relieved. (Somewhat OT, but…at the aforementioned advance screening of **Signs** , there was a woman sitting a few rows ahead of me who screamed really loudly every time there was anything even slightly alarming on screen. Once I lost interest in the actual movie, I began to pay closer attention to her behavior, and I noticed that in many cases she was actually anticipating the movie’s scares, screaming a second or two before anything scary happened. Since this was, after all, an advance screening, it seemed strange that she apparently was able to anticipate the movie’s shock moments with such accuracy, and I began to suspect that she was a “plant,” to give the impression to the attending reviewers that the movie was scarier than it actually was. Is this SOP for movie studios screening supense/horror films, or did that particular movie recieve special treatment in this regard?) ---
**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 3:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/25 "2005-02-08T03:57:56Z")
> [@NattoGuy](#): > > What irritated me the most was the way they talked… . “What manner of spectacle has arrested your attention so splendidly?” ---
**Author:** ![vivalostwages](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/d07c76/32.png) [@vivalostwages](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/vivalostwages)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/26 "2005-02-08T04:00:43Z")
Man, that looks even worse in print than it sounded in the movie! It’s a wonder someone looking at the script didn’t go to M. Night and say, “Who are you kidding with this crap dialogue?” Or maybe they did. ---
**Author:** ![BobT](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e8cbc/32.png) [@BobT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobT)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/27 "2005-02-08T04:48:24Z")
The only good thing I’ve taken from “The Village” is referring to people I dislike as “Those of Whom We Do Not Speak”. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/28 "2005-02-08T12:05:51Z")
> [@Nightwatch Trailer](#): > > Right, but do you really think it’s plausible that > > NO plane (or other modern flying apparatus) ever comes close enough, being off-course or in ignorance of the no-fly zone, to been glimpsed at all? Or even heard? If I heard the roar of an engine somewhere overhead or nearby I would be intrigued. > > To me this was just the latest of Shyamalan’s dreck. I disliked _Unbreakable_ and _The Sixth Sense_, loathed _Signs_ with a passion…but I think _The Village_ might be the worst of them all. I was so happy when I saw that _The Village_ only made about half of _Signs_’ gross…at that rate pretty soon no one would want to finance Shayamalan’s projects. I can only hope the trend continues. Yeah, it only grossed $256M worldwide and was the 15th highest grosser (WW) from 2004. Who wants to get behind crap like that? ---
**Author:** ![Edward\_The\_Head](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ce73a5/32.png) [@Edward\_The\_Head](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edward_The_Head)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 1:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/29 "2005-02-08T13:17:12Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > The original settlers had made the decision to never go back. > > I still don’t think you can buy enough land and bribe enough people to keep all the planes away. > > It’s Pennsylvania! It’s not like they were hanging out in rural Montana! You don’t have to bribe but one place, the FAA. Just have them chart a no fly zone and people will stay away. You don’t want to be caught in a no fly zone. I kind of liked the movie, I was able to just watch the movie, though there were a couple of things I didn’t like, overall I thought it was interesting. ---
**Author:** ![Eats\_Crayons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/278dde/32.png) [@Eats\_Crayons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eats_Crayons)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/30 "2005-02-08T13:31:33Z")
> [@Reeder](#): > > Why did the trailers and pre movie advertising make it out to be a horror movie? Roger Eberts theory on trailers: The trailers reflect the movie as the studios _wish_ it had been made. Kinda like, the owner of a local video store (great staff, idiot owner) has taken a lyrical, slow-paced love story of two women called _When Night Is Falling_ (it really is kind of like a quiet fairy-tale in tone) and he has it shelved in the “suspense/thriller” section because he thinks “it will rent more” there. ---
**Author:** ![Elret](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Elret](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elret)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/31 "2005-02-08T13:57:37Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > I saw it recently and thought it sucked. I had figured out most of the “surprise ending” as soon as I saw the date on the gravestone in the first few minutes. I don’t remember that, what was it? ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/32 "2005-02-08T14:48:21Z")
> [@BobT](#): > > It’s Pennsylvania! It’s not like they were hanging out in rural Montana! 😕 I met a guy on a hiking trail in rural Pennsylvania who was from the area. I asked him what brought him there (he mentioned growing up in New York), and he said he had gotten tired of it all, got out a satellite photo of the US taken at night (where you can see the lights of civilization), and put his finger on the darkest spot east of the Mississippi. Smack in the middle of Pennsylvania. > [@mike1dog](#): > > Why didn’t one of the original settlers go? That was always my question. Because by sending someone from the next generation who would (a) not be able to know what was really on the other side of the wall (or even know they’re inside a wall), (b) be frightened beyond belief of life outside of the village and (c) be able to communicate that fear, the elders have ensured that life as they knew it would go on for at least another generation. From the villagers’ perspective, Bryce Dallas Howard would have absolutely confirmed (a) the existence of the creatures and (b) the awefulness/scariness of life outside the village. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/33 "2005-02-08T14:58:13Z")
Geez, talk about flogging a dead horse. I basically liked the film. I think the ‘no-fly zone’ is just a nit-pick. The film is about how these people choose to respond to violence. The ‘Village’ is a symbol. Argueing about how it couldn’t be actually done is to miss the boat completly. However the stabbing scene was one of the best sequences of film ever put down. It really was masterful. ---
**Author:** ![Stonebow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Stonebow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stonebow)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/34 "2005-02-08T15:11:56Z")
> [@Zebra](#): > > Geez, talk about flogging a dead horse. > > The ‘Village’ is a symbol. Argueing about how it couldn’t be actually done is to miss the boat completly. > . While I share your opinions about the nitpick, I disagree about the larger issue- we must be able to suspend our disbelief in order to enjoy the movie. Everything that rings false, everything that makes me say ‘wtf?’ lessens my experience of it. Every time I have to wonder in what universe the action is happening is a failure on the part of the writers, director, or actors. ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 3:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/35 "2005-02-08T15:30:38Z")
I agree with you and I think basically the films reach exceeded it’s grasp. And you are spot on with your view that it would have been great in a shorter form. There was one scene where the ‘elders’, or people who knew the truth, acted afraid of the red marks even though there was nobody in the room who was’nt in on the deal. This made no sense to me. But going down to what the film is trying, and failing, to say. Has ‘America’ become so protectionist and isolated that it really harms itself? Do we simply act out of fear of the unknown and based on that fear, wish to make the unknown to be the never learned? Many people talk about how great those simpler times were better but were they really? To me, if you want to talk about The Village, this is the sort of thing to be saying. ---
**Author:** ![Harborwolf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/c89c15/32.png) [@Harborwolf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harborwolf)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/36 "2005-02-08T16:13:04Z")
To me, even the worst M. Night movie is ten times better than most of the other crap being shoved out the sphincter that is Hollywood. He’s one of the few directors whose movies I will see based on his name alone. They always seem well paced and carefully made. Doesn’t hurt that they tend to look beautiful either. ---
**Author:** ![Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/9dc877/32.png) [@Nightwatch\_Trailer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nightwatch_Trailer)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/37 "2005-02-08T17:49:46Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > Yeah, it only grossed $256M worldwide and was the 15th highest grosser (WW) from 2004. Who wants to get behind crap like that? I know it made a lot. My point was that it didn’t come close to the over $400m gross of Shayamalan’s previous project. I’m hoping that’s a sign that his popularity is dropping, but maybe I’m being overly optimistic. ---
**Author:** ![jsc1953](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/5daacb/32.png) [@jsc1953](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jsc1953)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/38 "2005-02-08T18:18:05Z")
I still don’t understand the thing about the color Red. Even suspending all disbelief, and working within the context of the script… Why was it necessary for the elders to instill a mindless fear of everything red? Just because the boogeymen wore red? It seems really superfluous, and doesn’t seem consistent with the larger goal of keeping everyone inside the village and non-curious about life beyond their borders. But I still liked it. It would’ve made a good Twilight Zone episode. In fact, I think it _was_ a Twilight Zone episode. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/39 "2005-02-08T18:37:28Z")
> [@jsc1953](#): > > I still don’t understand the thing about the color Red. Even suspending all disbelief, and working within the context of the script… I think it was just a convenient way to delineate the two worlds. Red is bad, yellow is safe. The safe color is as important as the bad. > [@Elret](#): > > ``` > I don't remember that, what was it? > > ``` The camera showed the date to be in the early 1900s, and it seemed too deliberate to be inconsequential, so I thought, this has to be modern times and these folks have set up an artificial community. ---
**Author:** ![Selkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bbce88/32.png) [@Selkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Selkie)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2005, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818/40 "2005-02-08T18:39:06Z")
I think the film makes a lot more sense if one views it as an [allegory about post 9/11 America](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=269294). On that level, a lot more makes sense than if you view it as a strightforward thriller. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-finally-saw-the-village-this-weekend/288818.md?page=3)