• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

M. Night Shymalan's New Sci-Film (Written By GARY WHITTA)

Status
Not open for further replies.
S

SCULLIBUNDO

Banned
I disagree with all those that say his latter films were shit because he's a shit writer.

M Night did a great job writing Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and Signs. He also did a great job directing them.

He dropped the ball in both departments on pretty much every film since then. The writing on Lady in the Water and The Village was shithouse, but his directing flair was still there. Then he got lazy with his direction and never seemed to recover.
 
J

jett

D-Member
This guy has been making crap for nearly 10 years, getting progressively worse each with each new movie.

hype meter for this thing is at dangerously low levels
 
S

SilentProtagonist

Member
Angry Fork said:
The scene where he see's the alien on the roof out the window, the nighttime scenes in the crop field, the part where mel gibson tries to see under the door with the knife, the basement near the end, when they see the first images of tons of lights on TV across the world, meryl in the closet seeing the home footage of the alien, the conspiracy tin foil hat jokes etc. there's tons of great stuff.

So much tension and lots of payoffs. I find cornfields and farmhouses to be terrifying on their own let alone amplifying it with a shitload of creepy imagery + music. The 'har har plothole earth 75% water' argument against this movie never resonated with me. Even if this was overlooked by M. Night there are plenty of reasons a civilization could come to earth and either A. not know water hurt them or B. decided to come anyway because they needed to/wanted to/didn't care etc.

I don't care much for the priest stuff though. I'm atheist and anti-theist so none of it connects with me but I liked the rest of the movie a lot. I really feel like M. Night is a master of atmosphere and tension. People don't give him enough credit for it, or it's just not the kind of thing they enjoy. I love stuff like Paranormal Activity for example because of it's simple, real-feeling nature, but lots of people think it's boring/stupid. M. Night does a similar kind of "horror" imo which isn't horror it's just really thick suspense/atmosphere/tension.
Click to expand...

The daughter was always talking about how the water tasted funny, so I kind of assumed there was some chemical in the water that the alien was reacting to/was allergic to (think, kinda like War of The Worlds).
 
S

scar tissue

Banned
Whitta x Shyamalan...yes, I think that might be the worst possible combination ever.
Stupid plot twist(s) is/are practically guaranteed.

The twist in Book of Eli was up there with the worst that Shyamalan has to offer.
 
H

Hulud

Member
How come everyone on the internet seems to love this Gary Whitta guy? Book of Eli was mediocre until the plot twist made it terrible.
 
R

RevDM

Banned
Gary, sorry if it has been mentioned before, but I know you're an avid Gaffer. Did you throw in any inside jokes or plugs for us?
 
B

Busty

Banned
If Gary Whitta turns up at the premier for this film without his one year old child in his arms we will know that it's a massive disaster and a huge bomb in the making. He won't want to subject his offspring to the sheer volume of fail.....







....,who are we kidding? All you so called film 'aficionados' criticising Whitta are going to turn up opening day regardless when you all see the 'sweet CG' on the film's Superbowl trailer. Kudos to Gary for doing well for himself. :) Have at it man.
 
F

Fersis

It is illegal to Tag Fish in Tag Fishing Sanctuaries by law 38.36 of the GAF Wildlife Act
Tell M. Night that i dont care what people say i greatly enjoyed The Happening.

COME AT ME JETT! COME AT ME! >_<
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
Night has posted the first image (kinda) from the movie:

g51Xq.png


This is Tom, my prod. designer standing in a redwood tree that has fallen over and split. This is one of our locations in N. Cali.
Click to expand...

http://www.whosay.com/mnightshyamalan/photos/114194

Headed to Philly later this month to tour the set, excited to see some of the stuff they've built!
 
Z

ZackieChan

Member
Just curious. Did Gaghan write the first draft, and you're rewriting? Or the other way around? Or are you working on it together? IMDB has you both on there.

Super cool either way.
 
A

a Master Ninja

Member
Sci-fi with fallen redwoods...wait just a minute...oh God it's worse than we could have imagined!

Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan have teamed up to make a sequel to Caravan of Courage and The Battle for Endor, thereby completing the Ewok trilogy! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
 
G

Gary Whitta

Member
a Master Ninja said:
Sci-fi with fallen redwoods...wait just a minute...oh God it's worse than we could have imagined!

Gary Whitta and M. Night Shyamalan have teamed up to make a sequel to Caravan of Courage and The Battle for Endor, thereby completing the Ewok trilogy!
Click to expand...
Fuck, the twist is out of the bag!
 
A

alterno69

Banned
Late congrats Whitta, for the record i enjoyed and own Book of Eli in BD, can't wait, i still have faith in Shyamalan, loved his movies until The village, Lady in the water was just weird and the happening was entertaining and funny in not a good way.
 
M

Margalis

Banned
I feel safe saying that Whitta's next twitter battle with some D-lister is going to be more entertaining than this.

This is Tom, my prod. designer standing in a redwood tree that has fallen over and split. This is one of our locations in N. Cali.
Click to expand...

Happening 2 confirmed! "Just when you thought it was safe to uh...stand in some mild wind!"
 
V

VariantX04

Loser slave of the system :(
Man some of you guys are just mean. Tone it down, nerds. The Book of Eli wasn't the best it could have been but the fact that a GAF member wrote the damn thing is enough to make me support the shit out of it. Bought the blu-ray too (just missed out on the Whitta autographed copy). Keep at it, man. Regardless of which director decides to shit on your original take, you've got my support if that counts.
 
K

Kai Dracon

Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
Smelly Tramp said:
you know what, sue me but I actually LIKED the village
Click to expand...

Same here. I think The Village is a fantastic film. It's NOTHING like Lady in the Water or The Happening. It also has his iconic visual direction in full swing.

I think the problem with it, is that "the twist" doesn't come off the way people expect and the payoff of the film is NOT supposed to be about the twist. It's a character piece, and a study in how people try to cope with living. You have to be able to get into the mood to appreciate it, and the mood is quiet, cold, damp... it's as uncomfortable as life in the era the titular village represents.

Its writing is also very good if one realizes the intentional artificiality of it. That the adults in the village talk in an awkward, obviously constructed manner is because they're trying to. They're trying to recreate a bygone era that they themselves don't know about firsthand. To condition the children.

I suppose the film is very easy to take wrong at first glance.
 
T

thecouncil

Banned
Kaijima said:
Same here. I think The Village is a fantastic film.

I suppose the film is very easy to take wrong at first glance.
Click to expand...

its a great movie. great music, wonderful acting, beautifully shot. id like someone to watch this whole scene and tell me it in some way contains bad acting or bad writing: http://youtu.be/Dc0_zXwAHj8

"the world moves for love. it kneels before it in awe." - what a wonderful line.

people were really taken out of it by the bad marketing (wasnt a horror movie) and the twist that they knew was coming, but it is a pretty great story overall. and the final line and cut to black with the music. wow.

its actually my favorite movie of his and i too thought it was all stupid when i first saw it. but the 2nd viewing is when you really settle in and understand how great it all is.

as far as the topic goes, im hesitant on any new film. 'lady in the water' is actually good too, but 'the happening' is just odd. maybe intentionally so, but still, its nothing like his previous works. i never saw 'last airbender' but it isnt an original story of his, so im not too keen on seeing it ever, really.
 
O

Odrion

Banned
The Happening is pretty awful. Oh yeah, the Last Airbender too.

Man Gary, you are lucky. I wish I got to meet Will Smith, let alone two.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Here’s The Official Plot Synopsis For M. Night Shyamalan’s GLASS
2
60
12K
Mister Apoc replied
M. Night Shyamalan's 'Glass' Adds 'Unbreakable' Actors
2
50
6K
Grifter replied
Hollywood should feel ashamed of themselves...
46
2K
iconmaster replied
'Spider-Man' Developers Want More People to Know How Games Are Written
Game Dev
17
2K
Enjay replied
  • Locked
M. Night Shyamalan Announces Split Sequel Glass for 2019
0
2K
Kaladin replied
Top Bottom