With Glass coming out on the 18th January, M. Night Shyamalan aims to prove yet again that he’s known for more than just botched or confusing films – With this, we decided it would be apt to pay homage to the (in)famous director by discussing our favourite (Or least favourite) bits in the legendary collection of M. Night Shamalan’s works!
Will J
My first experience with M. Night Shyamalan‘s long and storied career was perhaps his greatest work, a true masterpiece, a beautiful adaptation of one of my all-time favourite cartoon. I speak, of course, of ‘Avatar: The Last Airbender’
Where to start with this trash? Was in the atrocious acting? The mispronunciation of practically every character’s name? The uncanny CGI and set design that made the whole production look like an amateur stage play? Or was it the fact that the film completely ignored the single biggest draw of the cartoon- that being, the fast-paced magic system which allowed for thrilling battles, replaced with what can only be described as “a series of dance-offs vaguely near a rock”?
M. Night Shyamalan’s utter disrespect for the source material here has discouraged me from ever watching another one of his movies, and I’ve never lost sleep over that fact once.
Will A
Oh M. Night you’re a man who just can’t be consistent can you. Sometimes you’re a master of the craft and others you’re a hack who just throws a twist in to try and confuse people. What ever shall we do with you. Well if it’s up to me I’m ignoring everything you do because I’m just not a fan! So with that in mind my LEAST favourite thing the king of self indulgent cameos has ever done is the “shock twist” in The Village.
…Oh my god it was the present day all a long and the Village is hidden away in a private reserve to hide from the problems of modern life?! Wow!!! Amazing! Have an Oscar you clever little bastard. Oh wait. That’s a stupid way to end your family as does literally nothing for the overall plot. You still suck.
Joe
Whilst I may not have the greatest impression of the infamous director (Primarily for absolutely ruining Dragonball’s emergence into Live Action), I do have some amazing memories of at least one of his films, Avatar: The Last Airbender. Warning as this may get a bit soppy and sad near the end.
Avatar: The Last Airbender was always a favourite of mine growing up, following Aang, Katara and Sokka’s adventures through the various elemental nations in their quest to get Aang as close to LV99 in his four elemental skills like a bizarre session of Runescape – Just this time, M. Night Shyamalan decided to pull a Runescape 2012 cinematic ad bait & switch and bring us something we were hoping to recieve – a high quality live action rendition of TLA – but instead giving us an absolute trainwreck of a film in his rendition of TLA.
So cut to 2010 where me and my (Now late) dad decide to just roll up and indulge in a bit of my own fanboying – I hadn’t seen anything about this film, so I was in awe… Until a simple quote shattered any sense of mine or my dad’s immersion in the film. It went a little something like this:
“Katara…… I always knew that you were a Bender…”
Note that the original series had intentionally avoided using the shorthand “Bender” for any sort of Firebending, Airbending, Waterbending or Earthbending purely due to the childish jokes that would spawn.
I still wonder to this day how we weren’t kicked out of that cinema for laughing our asses off. Love ya pops.
Javier
‘What a twist’ springs to mind when I think of Shyamalan… But when I think back to all of his movies I like so many – I especially loved Split, one of my fav movies of 2016; things that really stand out though are 2 things.
1) The aliens in Signs freaked the fuck out of me, bare in mind this came out when I was 12 and it was way more terrifying than I expected, I specifically remember spilling drink everywhere when a dog barked, and when the alien runs past a hedge… Scawy.
2) The other thing is the twist at the end of The Village, I remember getting to the end and really being like ‘woah holy fuck didn’t expect that’.