[carmenjones_82]

 I love all his work.  And I was even posting a countdown to its opening on another forum.  I even took the day off work to go see the first showing of this!  But I was greatly disappointed in this one, and it was blatantly obvious that the rest of the theatre was disappointed as well, as everyone made disgruntled comments and sighs when that final  shot goes from the eagle in the night sky>>>to<<<<<< Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.  It's almost like..........."for real? That's it?"

Ya know?  In the 6th sense ,you'd never imagine that Bruce Willis' character was dead.  
In Unbreakable, you'd never imagine that Sam's character was really behind what is presumed terrorist acts in his search for a super-hero.
In Signs, you would have never guessed that water would be the demise of the aliens and the daughter being obsessed with leaving glasses of water laying around all over the house, would actually save them all.
In the Village, you'd never guess that they were really living in a secluded environment in modern times.  
In this film.... there was nothing that really made me say  "wow, didn't see that coming".  

IMO, this film was more like let's see if she gets home.  1hr 50 m later, she does.  I guess I'm disappointed because I'm just used to expecting the unexpected with his films and to me this film was highly predictable; all the way from the little boy from Wife and Kids being the interpreter to Freddy Rodriguez being her guardian.  I kept waiting for something to throw me for a loop but nothing did.  

I'm prepared for y'all to jump all over me for my personal opinions but tell me this...Out of all of his films who would rate this movie above any of his other films?  

 i registered to say this :

the movie had alot of meaning to it ,everything made sense to me ...
i see a bunch of people "not getting it " and thats the main reason they didnt like it ...thats not a good reason to put this movie down.

out of all his movies i liked this one the most , my fave was unbreakable.

also the ending i thought was spectacular.

typically any movie would show the next day and all the characters doing ok blah blah blah , this film lets u go , right after the goal of the movie has been reached.

 

[okokokok]

 It seems some people only like M night movies because of the twist endings is all I can say.  It's a shame because he has SO SO much more going for his films.  I sometimes wish none of his movies had surprise endings so people were'nt just looking and waiting.  The actual coming of the eagle in this film is so much more jawdropping and amazing then any of his endings or twists im my opinion, and I adore all his films.  Did you think there should have been more at the end of E.T.?  Ya know, the spaceship comes and takes him away leaving Elliot looking into the sky?  And i didn't hear any disgruntled people in the 3 times I saw it and 2 of the showings many people clapped at the end.  

[Wags]

 I've seen LITW twice now, and here are my thoughts on some of the messages in the film: (SPOILERS LIE AHEAD!)

When it is revealed that Paul is not the guardian, he sits there with Story and says something like "Where are the Tartutic? Where's the justice? Why isnt he being punished?" And that really stuck with me, because I found it to be an allusion to the murder of his family.

And then Mr. Leeds constantly watching war coverage. And when the healing doesnt work, he says something like "I wanted to believe there was something special amongst all this awfulness." And then things kind of clicked with me then.

In a sense, this movie reminded me of Unbreakable. Samuel Jackson's character has a line in there that says something like "These are mundane times. And people are losing hope. It's hard for many people to believe that there are extraordinary things inside themselves, as well as others. I hope you can keep an open mind."

This is the state people are in these days. We find it hard to believe extroadinary things like Narfs, Scrunts, and Tartutics because we believe things like this arent possible. We only believe in realism, with little tolerance for the fantastic. Our minds aren't open.

And so we don't believe in such things as Guardians, Healers, Guilds, and Symbolists because we don't believe people can do extroadinary things like that anymore. And among things like war, death, and nuclear threats, can magical things like this really exist? Is there still good left in this world?

Story said when the Great Eatlon comes, the universe would line up and reveal we are on the right path. All the various ethnic people gathering together to get a complete stranger home shows that while things are not good between people these days, there is still hope that we all can get along to accomplish something.

And of course, when they discover Reggie is the guardian, it shows that no matter how odd people think you are, or how worthless you may seem, everyone has a purpose.

I loved this film.  And I get chills everytime, right from when Reggie is revealed to be the guardian, to when the Great Eatlon takes story away, and the choir chimes in, and we see everyone gazing in awe at it. Man, what A great movie.  

[Dr Malcolm Crowe]

 Wags, I totally agree with you and all of your points! This is an amazing movie, I mean truly magnificent! It is a crying shame that this movie is oddly getting negative reviews and not making a lot of money. Sad thing is that I can see something like Miami Vice getting just the opposite reaction, which would be a real travesty. I have lost all faith in critics and the movie going audience of our generation. I know I keep on saying that, but it's how I feel.

[Dr.Hill42]

 To me it seems like the people who are left with empty feelings at this movie are waiting and looking for clues for a big "twist ending". Its a bloody shame. If I were to ever do that I wouldn't feel ashamed in the movie, I would leave feeling ashamed and embarrassed that I wasted 7 dollars on a movie I didn't absorb.

[SexualSuspect]

[okokokok]

 I'm also mostly worried that he won't have the freedom to do what he wants if this movie fails at the box office, which it seems as though it is.  But technically, Disney didn't their back on him right?  I read that they said "here's 60 million, make the movie you want"  but they didn't like the idea and he felt he couldn't work under those conditions. Is that incorrect?

[bakerbread]

[okokokok]

 

when the lady comes and does her thing, she saves him by "pulling" him out of his self punishment, hence saving his life.

She also saves him in that he again becomes a doctor in a way, as being the healer.  It seems like that's why he fights trying to be the healer, because he is too afraid to go back to his old life, old life of being a doctor.  I imagine him even going back and being a doctor again after Story leaves.  Not only that, but I just imagine Cleveland coming home to his murdered family and holding his wife and kids in exactly the same way he holds story, and that's all just too close to home for him.  

[nick10]

 I went to the cinema not expecting this movie to be a " scary or a haunted " movie..but as the reviews said..it was more of a fantasy type of movie..

can some one please tell me about the story that was told at the beginning of the movie ..i went in late and just saw half of it..the story had something to do about " the sea people" and humans..

1.what did that story have in connection with the nymph foretelling Night's future?

2. what was the importance of the film critic's character? was he just there to mislead us?

3.what was the little kid doing reading those cereal covers?

although i liked the movie because of the story ..i felt that the characters werent natural enough..there was something lacking.....the movie doesnt convey the story so convincingly...what i like about his movies are that it is unique..these are stories no one has ever thoguht abt ..its original stuff...

is he the successor to the great stephen king??

i wish he had stretched the movie a little bit more..it was only 1.15 !

[okokokok]

 The story at the beginning basically says that at one point in time, we had a relationship with the "sea people".  The see nymphs spoke to us and inspired humans to do things that would help the world. But humans eventually stop paying attention to them and become more greedy and more interested in possesing the world. War ensues between humans and so on.  We lose our connection with these "Sea people". Then the sea people started sending the narfs to where humans reside to try and inspire us again.  

The critic doesn't just mislead us, he misleads the people in the movies as well.  And it's not that he only mislead everyone, it's the manner in which he misleads us all.  The movie critic is thematically relevant as he basically is the opposite of Cleveland in that he doesn't like to "learn" things.  He is close-minded.  He also represents the idea that things aren't always as they seem, and one should not presume to know anothers intentions.  

The kid was the symbolist.  They talk about it for about a minute just before the show him reading the boxes. They talk about it quire abit in other parts of the movie as well. He was able to use the cereal boxes as a tool to decipher what needed to be done by everyone, the same way his dad was trying to do with the crossword puzzles.

[nick10]

 Hi thanks for the reply....at the end of the day the viewers were left to interpret the moral of the story..but they were just waiting for the final shock or "twist" which never came...

is it true that the nymph had come just to foretell Nights (the writer's future)..if it is so..its a bit unconvincing..

critics are being too harsh on their reviews..they just dont like any non conformity...they are all pondering over manoj's future..but i hope he never stops making films

[okokokok]

 No.  Story's purpose is to inspire M Nights character.  She came to inspire him to continue writing, as his book will become an important factor in future events.  That's her only purpose as far as the fairytale goes.  Telling him his future didn't effect anything.  Technically, the movie would have been over right after Story and Vick(Nights character) saw each other, since that is all that has to occur for the inspiration to happen.  The scene where Story tells Vick his future wouldn't have even happened.  But the fact that she is a madame Narf is the reason she doesn't go home that night, because the scrunt is willing to break the rules to kill a madame Narf.