# What M. Night Shyamalan movies do you like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 24, 2005, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415 "2005-01-24T15:43:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**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:** [January 26, 2005, 9:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/61 "2005-01-26T21:59:10Z")
[Hmm…in this interview, he doesn’t wet himself at all](http://www.bbc.co.uk/films/2004/08/11/m_night_shyamalan_the_village_interview.shtml) > [@](#): > > How conscious are you of needing a surprise twist in each of your movies? > > The surprise for me is, I didn’t have it in the last movie [Signs], and people think I did have it. That’s the way stories come to me, they come to me very naturally like that. If this was a story about me and someone else, I would be withholding information about them immediately. The negative thing about the twist is that it’s all people are occupied with; all the gentleness in the movie is being overshadowed by the flashy cousin in the sequined vest taking centre-stage. I approach it as a novelist, in terms of saying: “I’m writing my next murder/mystery.” Agatha Christie can write 30 of them, but this is a very different artform. **I love my stories being multi-layered, and coming at it from different angles, so that you don’t understand the film’s true emotional motivation until the very end.** It isn’t about a plot reveal but the true emotional expression at the end of the picture. See, the way he describes it here, I think it would’ve been great: I think there was a great movie buried in _The Village’s_\* cheats and non sequiturs, and this is a good description of it. I wish I could find the previous, extremely smug interview that so annoyed me. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2005, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/62 "2005-01-26T22:52:30Z")
I really liked _Sixth Sense_ I kinda liked \*Unbreakable \* I was bored through _Signs_ I didn’t see _The Village_ ---
**Author:** ![Miabella](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ccd318/32.png) [@Miabella](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miabella)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2005, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/63 "2005-01-27T15:15:21Z")
I’ve seen all 4 movies and enjoyed them all. 1. _The Sixth Sense_- I really enjoyed this, but I don’t think it has stuck with me. 2. _Unbreakable_- I think this may be his most interesting piece. Nevermind the twist at the end (which I thought was pretty cool, btw), the whole family dynamic of people who have just grown cold and given up was realistic and moving. I think I’m going to rent this one again this weekend. 3. _Signs_- I thought that most of the movie was very scary and suspenseful, and I loved the characters as well. I did think the last 10 minutes were a bit lame, but that’s not enough for me to indict the entire movie. 4. _The Village_-I just saw this one for the first time last night. I had been eager to see it when I first saw the trailer, but then I read all the awful reviews and accidentally got spoiled. So I wasn’t expecting much when we rented it. However, I ending up liking it despite all that, and I believe that I would have liked it more if I hadn’t been spoiled. It was a strange little movie, but I still think it was interesting and entertaining. ---
**Author:** ![Askia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Askia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askia)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2005, 5:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/64 "2005-01-27T17:53:16Z")
**Moody Bastard** and **mazinger\_z.** Once I began realizing this movie was exploring superhero mythos from a real world POV, I probably began deconstructing the movie even while I was watching it. To me, _ **Unbreakable** _ isn’t really about the birth of a superhero so much as it is an exploration of what creates a super-villain. The reveal at the movie’s climax after all, has to do with the revelation of Elijah Price being the twisted, singular mastermind behind the Philadelphia disasters and (in his mind) validating his place in the world. Some new information reinforces my feeling that the ending was deliberately abrupt. According to the Tivia section [imdb.com](http://imdb.com), _ **Unbreakable** _ was originally planned as the first of a trilogy. Had I known this earlier, i might have been a little more charirtable in my opinion about the movie’s ending (It still sucks, but I could have lived with a delayed confrontation between Dunne and Price.) Unfortunately, the film’s lackluster success all but guarantees there won’t be any follow-up films. But I do wonder what other aspects of superhero mythos Shyamalan would have explored had the trilogy happened. Costumes? Kid sidekicks? Team-ups? Rogue galleries? Secret headquarters? The mind reels. ---
**Author:** ![Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dfb087/32.png) [@Scoundrel\_Swanswater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scoundrel_Swanswater)\ **Post date:** [January 27, 2005, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/65 "2005-01-27T18:28:49Z")
I thought I had read the same somewhere, but understood that he didn’t want to literally make a trilogy, just the first part of it. I don’t think he ever really intended to make the second and third installment. I myself had no problem with the ending. Maybe a bit abrupt, but it is the first part of a non-existant trilogy. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![maikai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/53a042/32.png) [@maikai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maikai)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/66 "2005-01-28T03:15:51Z")
> [@](#): > > Aliens who travel millions of miles to attack a planet that mostly posionous to them This didn’t bother me. The way I figure it, if there’s no water on their home planet they wouldn’t know that it will harm them. That’s just an assumption, of course. ---
**Author:** ![Trunk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@Trunk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trunk)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2005, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/67 "2005-01-28T12:16:45Z")
> [@Left Hand of Dorkness](#): > > And can you explain to me why there was both a lack of a smithy and a lack of modern-style tools that would preclude the need for a smithy? They were using old-fashioned tools, the type that wear out and break and dull easily, the type you need to have a blacksmith around to fix. How do you know they didn’t have a blacksmith and a forge? ---
**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:** [January 28, 2005, 1:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415/68 "2005-01-28T13:50:05Z")
> [@Trunk](#): > > How do you know they didn’t have a blacksmith and a forge? I don’t: I was responding to **Whynot’s** statement that there was no smithy. Even if there were a smithy, you’re still not going to have a sustainable community without some source of new metal, and probably without a source of coal to fuel the smithy (I know you could do it with wood, but that gets even more difficult). I harp on this point because it’s where my ideal change would’ve happened to the movie: I think that everything else should’ve been the way it was, except that the characters should’ve been prominently using modern tools, with brand names visible in close-up shots. The movie would’ve then switched from having a “Guess what–IT’S IN MODERN TIMES! BOO!” twist to having a “What the hell’s going on here?” vibe. And I would’ve much preferred the latter. Daniel [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-m-night-shyamalan-movies-do-you-like/286415.md?page=3)