Signs was awful. It had plot holes that you could sail the entire Sixth Fleet through with plenty of room to spare.
Let’s see, there are aliens, and despite having the ability to somehow fly across 100’s of light years of space, all they do when they reach planet earth is hide in cornfields and peoples closets and jump on peoples roofs???
Right.:rolleyes:
And how come no one else seemed to be freaked out or “attacked” except Mel Gibson’s family?
All Signs did was give more false ammunition to the AssHats who go around bleating and screeching that plot circles are really signs that aliens are trying to contact and talk with us.:wally :rolleyes: :wally :rolleyes: :wally :rolleyes: :wally :rolleyes:
ftg, I’m curious as to whether you knew there was a surprise ending going in. I enjoyed The Sixth Sense immensely and was completely blind-sided by the ending in large part because I had no idea there was going to be a surprise; in fact I really didn’t know much about the movie at all. I hate when I go into a film knowing there’s a surprise, because when I sit there looking for it, then yes, it’s pretty obvious.
I loved the mood and pacing in Unbreakable, but I saw the ending coming a mile away. I thought the part when he intervenes in the home invasion was particularly well done. I had mixed feelings about Signs, though, and it felt like he had to strain to get the plot points to fit together.
Signs is wuite easily the worst movie. Ever. the aliens in alien look better than the aliens there, and they were made maybe 10 years ago! and everything else is stupid! the aliens are morons, and if these guys are demons, I expect at least ONE blast of Fire From Heaven. And if the kid is an angel, she’d look like a giant nudist with six wings and a flaming sword or the giant sphinx from hell!. And I swear. if god killed my wife to say “Pic.Up.And.Swing.Away.”, screwed up my first kid’s head so badly so that she’d probably drink once every six vigintillion years, nearly killed my other kid twice in around 24 hours and sent an alien invasion to my house, when I die, I’d give god a Cosmic kick to his Cosmic nads, put some Cosmic sugar in his Cosmic car, Cosmically screw his Cosmic harem and put god’s Cosmic heart patterned underwear on a Cosmic flagpole for the Cosmic population of heaven to Cosmically see!
I admit that Signs had a lot of problems. The “water” thing probably being the worst. I was able to suspend my disbelief long enough to enjoy the movie, even if I needed a weight belt and had to lift with my knees to do it, but I can understand why a lot of other people had problems. I have to say, though, that none of your criticisms make any sense:
Wrong. They fly hundreds of light-years to come to this planet and kidnap tens of thousands of humans for some nefarious purpose the movie never reveals. This was explicitly stated in the movie on more than one occasion.
Wrong again. Remember the footage of the alien at the Mexican birthday party? Remember Mel’s brother hiding in the closet watching TV? Remember all the reports, after Mel’s family repel the invaders, of the wide-spread carnage the invasion caused?
You mean “crop” circles, right? Okay, have you (or anybody else) ever heard anyone anywhere using this movie as “evidence” that crop circles are a genuine extraterrestrial phenomenon? This is really reaching for something to complain about. Hell, the movie even makes a point of saying that “earlier” (ie “real”) crop circles have been completely debunked as fakes. Even if there are some flakes out there who think Signs somehow vindicates their bizarre theories, it’s hardly the film’s fault that a bunch of weirdos can’t tell that it’s fiction.
I found it “Hitchcockian” in Shyamalan’s masterful use of sound and camera movement to create a mood of overwhelming dread. Even Signs’ harshest critics admit that, before the disappointing denouement, the film was a near-perfect exercise in style and mood. As Roger Ebert (not one of the film’s harshest critics; he gave it four stars) put it in his review,
I loved Signs, plot holes and all, because the plot holes were entirely secondary to the point Shyamalan was trying to make, which was about the character’s relationships and the dynamics of a family after a terrible tragedy. Unfortunetly, the plot holes were so big that most people got hung up on them and never made the leap to realizing that the plot is not what this movie is about.
I’m willing to bet that “five minutes” into The Sixth Sense, we were still in Bruce Willis’ bedroom and no one had been shot yet. So how it’s supposed to have been “really clear” by then is beyond me. Did you watch the movie with a copy of the script in your lap, by any chance?
Welcome to the SDMB, hebesphenomegacorona. I’d have to say your post is one of the most incomprehensible pieces of gobbledy-gook I’ve ever seen here, but your passion and overuse of the prefix Cosmic- sent me away smiling.
I’ve liked all three of his films, though I think Sixth Sense is the most consistently overrated one. A well-executed feature-length Twilight Zone episode, which is a good thing, but still a little baffling in the intensity of the praise. (Almost as baffling as the phenomena of people whose tastes don’t align precisely with my own. Life is full of mysteries.)
I suppose the reason to hate him would be that all artists, of all calibers and styles, owe you, personally, the obligation to produce things that you, personally, will enjoy. And when they don’t do that, well, they’re just asking for what they get. They should be on their knees, thanking you.
I hated The Sixth Sense. Why am I alone in this? Fine, I’ll let that one slide since I’m outnumbered a jillion to one. But Signs? Signs??!?!??! SIGNS?! It was awful! Watching the movie was pure damn torture. I’ve never so badly yearned to have my have melted off with hydrochloric acid. Gah!Warning Link contains major spoilers but I’ll be damned if it’s not spot on.
To have my have? Err, I’ve never so badly longed to have my face melted off. I would have paid good money to have my eyes gouged out too. I wish I were exaggerating.
I thought The Sixth Sense was excellent and that Unbreakable was very good.
Signs however, stank. I reject the idea of the alien invasion being a McGuffin. The invasion was not ‘incidental’, it was brought up again and again and again and played a major part driving the story along. It was not introduced briefly and then dropped like a Hitchcockian McGuffin.
I fail to see how the mistaken identity in North by Northwest could be seen as something that can be dismissed once the film starts rolling. Just like the invasion in Signs, it’s the basis that triggers every event in the movie, and it keeps on playing a major role. It’s a McGuffin in the sense that it’s the thing around which the events in the film revolve, but you don’t just ‘forget’ that it’s there.
That said, I loved the 6th Sense, I loved Unbreakable, I hated Signs. But I think Shyamalan is one of the most accomplished directors of the past years (in the ‘popular’ genre, anyway), who should just have a few really savvy people around to tell him when he’s going overboard as a screenwriter.
I’m a fan. After Unbreakable and Signs, I find Sixth Sense to be his weakest work. I’m glad it came out first though, if it got Unbreakable green-lighted.
I hated it when I first saw it, mostly because of the bad ending. While the end still grates on me a bit, I’ve grown to love the guts of the movie. We tend to think of superheroes as X-Men, or Spidey, or the granddaddy Supes. All flash and pretty costumes. Unbreakable is still to me the best superhero movie yet. I loved the thought of the most powerful among us living as one of the most lowly. I felt Unbreakable could happen, maybe has happened, and I find that thought wonderful. As a comic book/cartoon fan the movie gave me what I’ve wanting for years - a live-action film that treated the heroes as people and not just powers.
And Signs wasn’t about the aliens. Hell, the aliens weren’t even aliens, in the Macguffin sense. They were demons. Personal demons.
Oh, don’t use that excuse. That’s no reason to have a sloppy plot that’s basically an infinite amount of plot holes strung together. A plot net, you might say.
The Sixth Sense’s ending was very predictable. From the moment Willis was shot, I knew he would be dead the entire movie and reliving scenes of some sort for the rest of the movie. How did I know that one would ask? I saw Jacob’s Ladder. The Sixth Sense ripped off the premise that the protagonist was dead for the entire movie and living out the rest of his life. The movie was still good but I saw it coming. I didn’t read any reviews and went in hoping to be surprised also. Jacob’s Ladder was a superior film and much darker.
