'the village'

[Generally Contrary]

I thought Signs was rubbish.  Absolute rubbish.  I did really enjoy Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense, but Signs seemed, to me, to be aimed at the contradictory Creationist/Alien Abduction mass of middle America.  It was a dumb film, and there is no way for me to soften that point.

[Devons Daddy]

seen it,

GOOD

lots of clues. which are all so apparent in the end.
overall see and enjoy

[LARF]

General - the thing with Signs is this - if you don't empathise the film most people don't like it.

[Floyd-the-k]

Then Signs turned out to be a huge hit, so critics couldn't slam it as hard as they wanted

that depends on the critic. One of my favourite reviewers slammed it for (amongst other things) the aliens, who can be destroyed by water, travelling across the universe to a planet that is 70% water and the way that these otherwise technologically advanced creatures can be stopped by a simple locked wooden door....I haven`t seen the film but it seems to have blown.

yours remembering that Independence day was both a huge hit and one of the worst movies ever made

[ESCUBRIA]

Who ever said the aliens were technologically advanced?

[Mr D]

The writer? When he had them master interstelar space travel? 'member?

[ESCUBRIA]

But how did they master "interstellar space travel"? This could have been a natural ability for them, we saw no ships, only "lights", for all we know they could have been produced by something completely other than what we know as technology. Don't presume what is not stated. The aliens could have travelled in some more unusual way than we can understand, that is why it's vague. We see no landings etc... only that they have arrived. These aliens may live in space fow all we know, thay may be able to survive in many environment.

You are just relying on cliche to explain the aliens when that is not what the film is about.

[Generally Contrary]

No, that's not what the film was about.  But it was still dumb.  The main message of the film was 'have blind faith, everything is proceeding according to benevolent but unknowable plan.'  An obscurantist, anti-intellectual message.

[Mr D]

We are told, very specifically, that ships are hovering over the major cities. Then they go!

[ESCUBRIA]

The newscaster calls them "ships" but all we see are lights, so we really don't know what they are.

And the message of the film is you either believe or you don't, it never truly states that what happened was prearranged but that  these things can be purely subjective as in the assembling of a fragmented message from his wife to him, the trick is that he came to believe this himself but it still could be just the subjective connections he makes of the message from his wifes warning.

How is faith anti-intellectual?, faith has been "scientifically" thought of as a survival technique for humans since any kind of belief was born. Belief, whether of any religion, has always had some pragmatic benefits about everyday living. Belief is not always about a God or a plan or even benevolence but that you can survive. Today we rely more on science, good or bad.

[Mr D]

I found it anti-intellectual in the sense that it seemed to encourage us not to question events, just to accept them and believe in the 'higher purpose'.

Come on, they were ships. I know, silly point to return to, but... What the smeg made the crop circles?? How would humanoids who seem to breathe air survive in deep space??

I didn't find it silly that they couldn't open a locked door though... It's entirely possible their civilisation had moved beyond things like that, and they were advanced to a level we can't even imagine.

[Bico]

I may have to watch Signs before I can comment on specifics, but while faith in and of itself isn't mutually exclusive when placed alongside science, Signs seems to be suggesting that blind faith in a nebulous 'plan' is preferable to asking difficult questions.
Faith of any measure (or worth) can survive a few difficult questions posed by science, and because of the way the bible has been changed through the centuries to accomodate/hoodwink new cultures into accepting it, some people would say that asking questions is essential to keeping the right-wing leanings of the clergy of any major religeon on their toes.
Of course, Mel Gibson is a homophobic, fundamentalist catholic (yes, that's right - the Pope isn't right-wing enough for some people, apparantly) with questionable opinions (at best) where the jews are concerned, so a movie that glorifies the slave mentality of blind faith over intellectualism isn't really that surprising.  Now I'll HAVE to watch this - if only to be able to continue to slag it off on the board.

Faith - good.
Blind faith - bad.

[paulvonscott]

"Signs doesn't have a sodding twist!! C'mon people!! It JUST has an ending. Unbreakable had one, but wasn't the focus of the story. The Sixth Sense was the only film he's made so far where the 'twist' affected the entire film."

Heh, but they do all seem to be 'revelation' movies.  Whther you think the ends are twisty or not, M Night is just filling in time till he can spring his surprise on us.  Once you have the revelation, then you just kind of feel deflated.  

I saw Don't Look Now a while back and I knew the main spoiler beforehand, and it was much more rewarding than Sixth Sense.

[Priv8eye]

'they get hurt by water'

Actually if watch M Night's movies he has a thing about water, its Bruce Willis' weak point in Unbreakable as well.  

[Art]

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Sixth Sense spoilers (like anyone doesn't know)
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Maybe it's a childhood spent trying to second guess the end of futureshock style tales, or perhaps having seen a bunch of films with basically the same "twist", but I had the Sixth Sense figured out from the moment that Bruce Willis was, um, quite blatantly shot and killed. That?s about five minutes in. I still enjoyed it though, so I'm not sure it totally hinges on that.