-That first section? The establishing scenes? Little shots of people being in the village? That sweet shot with the two chicks sweeping that porch, when the twirl around? Night was so in love with that sweet little flourish–the pirouettes with brooms and skirts, that he expects us to believe that it takes two women to sweep a porch the size of a kingsize bed. This sets the tone: Shyamalan will expect you to swallow ANYTHING he wants to feed you in service of taking the path of least resistance to a foregone conclusion.
-If you’re gonna seal yourself and a bunch of other hippie friends into a cult compound for ever and ever and ever, make sure you have enough bowler hats and striped gingham for the next three generations, but DON’T bring any medical supplies. Otherwise the director would have to come up with a better plot.
-The quickest way to get kids to mess around in a shed is to call it “the shed that shall not be used.”
-Say you’re the father of a blind girl. You’re about to tell her something important that will probably disturb her. You don’t want to freak her out. Here’s what you don’t say: “Try not to scream.” THAT’S what you say when freaking out the audience is far more important than anything that’s really going on onscreen.
-“I cannot tell you in words.” Um, howbout these words: “There’s no such thing as the baddies in red. We made them up to keep you kids in line.” Unless your focus as a director is a lazy way to freak out the audience again. Don’t find a smart way to do it, just go with your first idea, no matter how outrageously lame it is, like “I cannot tell you in words.”
-You’re in a watchtower. You hear a noise. You look down the hole in the middle of the platform and see a bad guy. What do you do? You close the trap door and sit on it, spinning around, in case it comes up the outside and over the open sides of the platform, right? Wrong. You close the door, and scoot all the way to the edge of the platform, with your back to the exposed open wall. Why? Because that’s how the camera’s placed; no other reason.
-M.NS set up Howard’s character as somewhat mystical: she’s blind, but not really: she sees differently, but she sees all. She has some limited psychic power then. Good: M.NS is setting this up to be important to the plot: something about her power is going to drive the plot twist, right? Wrong. He just put it in for texture; has nothing at all to do with the story. He sets us up for an SFish twist; Carrie or something; but then we see that he just did that so he could make those scences a little more atmospheric.
-It makes PERFECT sense that a hippie cult from the seventies would speak in phrases such as “what is your meaning?” :rolleyes:
-“Where will we hide this extra monster suit?” “Let’s hide it somewhere that makes sense.” “No; let’s hide it somewhere that’s convenient to the plot!” “Good idea!”
-“Let’s see. Do I, as director, want to squeeze in my increasingly obnoxious cameo in a way that makes sense, or is cleverness more important? I’ll go with cleverness; people will forgive me, even though it’s pretty damn unlikely that if you can see my face in the fridge door, I’m not gonna see the guy stealing medical supplies a few feet from my face, especially since I’ve made it clear that my character is a suspicious micromanager. I’ll also stock the fridge with a hospital’s worth of medications that can only be used by a doctor, because we hire only MDs at this godforsaken security guard shack.”
-Let’s make sure that everyone wants to leave the blind chick wandering alone in the woods. Especially her father. And lets make sure she gets back home unharmed, wandering blindly in the trackless woods.
-The ivy-covered “wall” that the girls finds at the end of her journey bounces back from her touch like an upended trampoline: it’s very clearly a wire fence of some kind. No problem. But wait, here she is on the other side, and no! it’s a brick wall.
there were more; I’ll rack.