# The Village (revisited) \[SPOILERS\] **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [September 25, 2006, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079 "2006-09-25T16:21:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/21 "2006-09-26T13:54:05Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] And I’m the only Doper who liked it, so the rest of the thread will be full of hate. [/QUOTE] Actually, I love the movie. The ending is not exactly mind-blowing, but it is cool and I for one didn’t see it coming. I like Shaymalan movies for the way he directs: the deliberate pacing; the reserved, mannered performances he gets from his actors; the gradually building tension. Shaymalan knows how to tell a good story, and I love how carefully crafted his films are. I can see how the holes in his plots frustrate people, but I see his movies as fairy tales about elemental fears and emotions; trying to figure out where the lamp oil comes from is beyond irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/22 "2006-09-26T14:03:15Z")
> [@](#): > > trying to figure out where the lamp oil comes from is beyond irrelevant. Clearly a fundamental difference between us. If someone presents me with a mystery or a fantasy in which reality is askew, it bugs the heck out of me if it’s not well thought-out and consistent, at least to the point of eliminating obvious howlers. This is why **Signs** really annoyed a lot of Dopers, and why I had problems with **The Village**. even though i love other aspects of Shyamalan’s work, these are deal;-killers for me. On the other hand, when it all hangs together, I’m in awe. Probably because it’s so rare. (Doc Ostrow:[A creature that can take 30 Billion Electron Volts without disintegration] is a physical impossibility. It would have to be made of solid nucear material. It’d sink of its own weight to the heart of the planet…It must have been _renewing_ its structure from microsecond to microsecond. – Forbidden Planet Damn! _That’s_ the way to do SF and the unknown) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/23 "2006-09-26T14:10:27Z")
[QUOTE=Hampshire] I enjoyed it a lot. Even though I knew how it ended about a year ago. I was even fooled when Noah got a hold of one of the monster suits and was chasing her through the woods. I thought it was either a figment of her imagination or an elder trying to steer her in the right direction cause she was lost. [/QUOTE] This brings up one of my tips for folks setting up utopias. If you’re going to have a utopia, and you’re going to have scary monster suits in the utopia, and you’ve got a mentally retarded, violent son, and you’re going to lock up your mentally retarded, violent son in a cabin, be sure to store your monster suit in that cabin. Nothing bad could possibly come of this plan. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Autumn\_Almanac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d26b3c/32.png) [@Autumn\_Almanac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Autumn_Almanac)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/24 "2006-09-26T14:17:55Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] Clearly a fundamental difference between us. [/QUOTE] Probably. 😃 I do really admire a well-constructed fantasy world that stands up to scrutiny; but I’m also quite willing to forgive holes in the right circumstances. Dissecting the plots of _Signs_ or _The Village_ for inconsistencies strikes me as abut as useful as dissecting the plot of “Goldilocks and the Three Bears” for inconsistencies. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/25 "2006-09-26T14:21:48Z")
[QUOTE=CalMeacham] I don’t put down 19th century enguineering at all – I;m a frequent visitor to Old Sturbridge Village and the like. It’s not a question of ingenuity – it’s a question of resources. Only the largest cities had regular streetlights back then, because only they had the resources of the entire countryside to call on. An individual village couldn’t support enough fuel to put up a bright light every 300 feet or so around the Village perimeter 365 days a year. I don’t buy it. And I seriously doubt if they would use up as precious a resource as any sort of edible oil for the purpose. [/QUOTE] How about the correct answer is “who gives a shit about gas lamps”? It’s a movie. Yeah, the twist at the end was fairly predictable. But it was a decent story nevertheless and that’s what counts. Now if I were the director, I would really throw a freakin twist in the end there. Like the village is actually part of a futuristic zoo or the monsters are actually real and wipe out the village or everyone in the village is a robot. Something that leaves the audiance saying “what the fuck!?” ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/26 "2006-09-26T14:59:47Z")
[QUOTE=WhyNot] And I’m the only Doper who liked it, so the rest of the thread will be full of hate. [/QUOTE] What the hell am I, a mongoose? :: experimentally lunges at passing cobra, misses, gets bitten on the hand :: Nope, not a mongoose. But I also liked The Village, and I agree that the movie is more enjoyable if you go into it not expecting a great revelation a la The Sixth Sense. I think more than anything else it’s an (admittedly sometimes heavy-handed) fable on the current situation with the war on terror. Now if you’ll excuse me I’m getting a little dizzy and my left hand appears to have swollen to the size of a grapefruit. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/27 "2006-09-26T15:03:02Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] Heh. All I have to say is - DON’T SEND THE BLIND GIRL INTO THE WOODS BY HERSELF, YOU IDJITS! If they had just had a valid reason for doing that, I might have been able to enjoy it. As it was, I got all hung up on that and never got beyond it. [/QUOTE] But at least you got to mutter “you miserable cowardly cocksuckers” at her two companions when they abandoned her, miserable cowardly cocksuckers that they were. And don’t get me started on her father, either. If I ever meet him through some bizarre transuniversal transport thing, he’s getting \*such \* a beating. I don’t think you’re supposed to like the MCCs who send the blind redhead into the woods. Or, for that matter, her father. We’re meant to judge them poorly. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/28 "2006-09-26T15:04:19Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] It’s not that I think Blind people are helpless. Og knows I know that! But generally blind people follow the same route every time, etc…and it’s not about the blind girl. It’s about the cruelty of a society who thinks THEY are the moral ones and yet they can condone and justify this particular cruelty. I can’t forgive it. It bothered me every second she was in the woods. And they are sending her to a completely brand-new place. As for not seeing any of it, that was stupid too - blind people haven’t lost all their senses, and I would think she would have heard it. When she meets the ranger, isn’t she walking on a paved road? Wouldn’t she wonder what it was, why it felt different? [/QUOTE] Did I mention that [spoiler] you’re meant to think that the Elders are scum? And that they’re a Bush admnistration allegory? [/quote] ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/29 "2006-09-26T15:46:37Z")
[QUOTE=Autumn Almanac] Actually, I love the movie. The ending is not exactly mind-blowing, but it is cool and I for one didn’t see it coming. I like Shaymalan movies for the way he directs: the deliberate pacing; the reserved, mannered performances he gets from his actors; the gradually building tension. Shaymalan knows how to tell a good story, and I love how carefully crafted his films are. I can see how the holes in his plots frustrate people, but I see his movies as fairy tales about elemental fears and emotions; trying to figure out where the lamp oil comes from is beyond irrelevant. [/QUOTE] This is about how I approach M. Night’s movies, too, although I’m a little more insistent on some basic level of realism. I was totally blown away by _The Sixth Sense_, a well-crafted ghost story with both a heart and a mind. Good stuff. _Unbreakable_ had its moments, but was not as good as its predecessor. _Signs_? Meh. I was ready to like it, but couldn’t get over the water-allergic aliens coming to a place like Earth. Haven’t seen _The Lady in the Water_ and, judging from the reviews, I haven’t missed much. I was willing to suspend (most of) my disbelief with _The Village_, and thought it hung together pretty well. Great atmosphere and interesting premise. My biggest question was whether the village was big enough (i.e. had enough genetic diversity) to keep going beyond a generation or two. I still kinda doubt it. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/30 "2006-09-26T15:58:33Z")
[QUOTE=Elendil’s Heir] This is about how I approach M. Night’s movies, too, although I’m a little more insistent on some basic level of realism. I was totally blown away by _The Sixth Sense_, a well-crafted ghost story with both a heart and a mind. Good stuff. _Unbreakable_ had its moments, but was not as good as its predecessor. _Signs_? Meh. I was ready to like it, but couldn’t get over the water-allergic aliens coming to a place like Earth. Haven’t seen _The Lady in the Water_ and, judging from the reviews, I haven’t missed much. I was willing to suspend (most of) my disbelief with _The Village_, and thought it hung together pretty well. Great atmosphere and interesting premise. My biggest question was whether the village was big enough (i.e. had enough genetic diversity) to keep going beyond a generation or two. I still kinda doubt it. [/QUOTE] I thought of that too, but I don’t think it’s a valid criticism. Do you really think William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, & the other elders had given it that much thought? Again, I don’t believe we’re meant to think well of the elders. They were dreamers in the worst sense: they thought they could turn back the clock to an idealized time and in so doing shield themsleves from all unpleasantness, all the while forgetting that the past wasn’t nearly so wonderful as their dreams made it, and that the evil in the world comes from inside people’s hearts, not from an external agent. They were always just one bad winter or other incident from things going south. ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [September 26, 2006, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079/31 "2006-09-26T18:50:40Z")
I knew zero about it-- hadn’t even heard of it when we rented it at the suggestion of a sibling (we’d been out of the country for a year) and I liked it a lot. It started off feeling like a fairy tale being narated (so suspension of disbelief was easier-- I never got the feeling that this was supposed to be the REAL 18th century so lamp oil be damned). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-village-revisited-spoilers/374079.md?page=1)