Just saw "Signs" today...don't really know what I think...it had it's moments but I left feeling something was lacking...I think the theme and the plot were too far at odds...both lacked...

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>Just saw "Signs" today...don't really know what I think...it had it's moments but I left feeling something was lacking...I think the theme and the plot were too far at odds...both lacked...</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Wow, we agree. I d'loaded and watched it, and it get's a resounding "meh", like so many other films this summer. Really, the plot was there, but nothin' really happened. It was based almost entirely on the audience having a fear of alien invasion. From the looks of the box office numbers, a lot are</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>You sorry assed lame-brained smurfs have no taste. Don't you realize this guy is like India's version of Alfred Hitchcock? I'm through with you sorry lots...And now I'm pissed because you made me use "lots" to refer to humans....</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>GAAAAAA,! It's amazing how badly you people here totally missed The Point of the movie. The Point was NOT the alien invasions. That was merely the backdrop....Surrounded by bad taste...I'm moving to Europe...no wait, that'd be jumping from the kettle into the fire....</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Excuse me, Mr. Ebert, I apologize for my idiiocy. What was the point, then?</div>

[Nev]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>i agree with all of them. he's not hitchcock. he's a nice guy and a filmmaker with heart.</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>I didn't miss "the point", hence my saying the plot and the theme were too far at odds...focus on the one took away from the other leaving numerous holes...even if it isn't about an alien invasion, he made way too many mistakes regarding that part of it...</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>He's go a ways to go to be compared to Hitchcock...I liked the movie, I knew what he was trying to say, the camera work and pacing was incredible, but he was extremely sloppy in the handling of the plot device he was using to convey his theme...</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>To start off, it's wrong to say the plot was based on the fear of an alien invasion when the aliens' intentions were not made clear. Heck, it wasn't even known if there really any aliens at all for half the movie. So by saying the plot was "based almost entirely on the audience having a fear of alien invasion", you're saying you knew from the very beginning that there were definitely aliens and their intentions were definitely hostile. Well, most of us aren't brilliant enough to jump to that conclusion so soon, so please, excuse <i>our</i> idiocy. :)


The Point was about how some profound outside event affected a family, how a (F)father's faith was constantly tested, and how a family deals with this event. The Profound Event could have been a flood, a nuclear blast, or a famine and The Point never changes. In this case the Profound Event was aliens. On another level, the film was about M. Night bringing out emotions simply through skilled camera work (no special effects), but that flies over the head of you cretins...CRETINS I tell you! All I hear is "WHAAAAA, why he no show aliens going ID4 style on our asses! WAAAAAA! What a boring movie!"

To the human species, I say bah humbug!</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>What mistakes? He hardly even mentioned them....(since we're posting spoilers in headers now :) )</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>...we have these vastly intelligent aliens who decide to steal humans from a planet that is about 70% water, which will KILL them, aliens that can't break into a simple house or learn our languages, but can travel across the universe, cloak their ships in the sky and shoot poison gas out of their wrists...aliens that are physically weak but decide to invade us on foot, no weapons, and make as much noise as possible in this attempt to steal our bodies when they could have easily done it without anyone knowing about them...you can say he was trying to keep the aliens mysterious, but I saw it as him making the aliens utter retards in order to set up his suspense without really thinking things through...

...I wasn't expecting Sagan or Asimov, but it was obvious to anyone that he really didn't put half the effort into the alien part that he out into his camera work or his theme of faith. I was entertained and shocked and scared, but 5 minutes after the credits started I said, "those aliens were really fucking stupid..."</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>When you get to the end of the film, you really see that the "family struggle" was the real centerpiece of the story. Unfortunately, it's done VERY poorly, so the movie becomes about alien invasion and how a particular family deals with it, albiet a family that has dealt with a tragic loss. SO much time was spent on building the actual alien invasion thing that the whole effect of the "profound outside event" becomes somewhat cliche and lame. Yes, the Gibson character's faith has become nearly non-existent, yes it's affected his family, but I really didn't give a shit because a) so much time was spent building up the invasion angle that they didn't spend the real time on the subtlties of that storyline and just used lots of cliches in dealing with it (child with health problem, distant child, struggling father/mother...like we haven't seen any of this before) and b) the most time was spent on the alien invasion thing and how they dealt with it, THAT was what became the main point of the film until the very end. It wasn't about his wife's tragic death, that seemed more like a break in the "true" storyline - the invasion - rather than the true underlying storyline.

Either way, the movie was not done very well. Flat plotline, boring characters, no ending, and sterotypical characters. Austin 3 and Blade 2 I might have been (very) disappointed in, but there's enough good about them that I'll get the DVD's used. This one I'm passing on completely. I've very happy I didn't pay money to see it</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I barely stayed awake to the end...</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>

...we have these vastly intelligent aliens who decide to steal humans from a planet that is about 70% water, which will KILL them, aliens that can't break into a simple house or learn our languages, but can travel across the universe, cloak their ships in the sky and shoot poison gas out of their wrists...aliens that are physically weak but decide to invade us on foot, no weapons, and make as much noise as possible in this attempt to steal our bodies when they could have easily done it without anyone knowing about them...you can say he was trying to keep the aliens mysterious, but I saw it as him making the aliens utter retards in order to set up his suspense without really thinking things through...

We know nothing about the aliens, except what we see through blurry, tiny TV snippets. Nobody knows <i>why</i> the aliens are here. Maybe they're desperate and this planet is their best choice. Maybe a somebody put a virus in their fruit loops. Who knows? The point is, we don't know anything about the aliens or why they're invading earth. Anything you assume about their supposed "vast" intelligence or anything else is pure speculation.

All that's important is they're here and they want a piece of our ass. That's it. Period. End of story. No fancy explanation. No breakdown of their socio-pcycho-econo-techno-strata. This isn't E.T., Close Encounters, Aliens, Independence Day or any of a million other alien films. We <i>don't know</i> why they chose to invade Earth. And you know what? That's OK. It adds a very interesting hue to film (apparently too interesting of a hue), but it's really not central to the real story or what the film is about.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '><b>Link:</b> <a href="http://resonatorsoft.org/tows/cgi-bin/r ... 60.html</a>

Judging by this reply, you had not the slightest clue as to what I'd say. I'll refer you to my response to EsquE....</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>I never once said we had to know all about the aliens and their motivation in order for this to be a movie about alien invasion. Have you ever seen Close Encounters? You don't even see a hint of the aliens until the very end. And that movie was WAAAY better in terms of the human element dealing with the concept of invasion (since that's what they spent the whole film doing), except in Signs, we know they're hostile fairly early on from all the news reports and they show the aliens halfway through, where in Close Encounters, you never really know anything about or see the aliens. That movie was all about the characters and people, MUCH more than Signs could ever hope to be. That's what made Encounters a classic and why Signs is just another alien invasion film with a contrived human element story rather than a pivotal one. It doesn't matter what the director/writer was trying to do, that's what he ended up doing. Shamalyan should have taken a hint from Speilberg on this one since the movie was trying to be a modern day Encounters (you can't deny that one) but failed miserably</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>...all the set-up they gave the aliens (the crop circles made overnight, cloaked ships, the speed and agility they moved with) and the radio broadcast they listened to before coming out of the basement that explained what the aliens were doing (harvesting people). I see where you're coming from, but if that was his purpose then he gave us too much, and in doing so made holes that he never filled in...if the aliens were as mysterious as you seemed to find them it would have worked...it would have been brilliant...but for me, they gave enough info that the "why's" needed to be filled in because without those answers it didn't work. Too many contradictions were left laying on the floor and the aliens appeared as if they flew in on the short bus...</div>

[Chockboard]

<div style='font: ; text-align: left; '>He didn't have to go into huge detail about the motives or reasons WHY the aliens invaded Earth. Like Ish said, maybe they just wanted a piece of human ass and maybe they were desperate.

But the little details that weren't addressed detract from the movie as a whole and keep it from being truly great. I could overlook all the other stuff Esque pointed out if ONLY they wore waterproof suits. Or told us WHY they didn't have waterproof suits, like sensitive skin, ANYTHING.

I realise that the point of the movie was about faith, and not about an alien invasion. But the alien invasion is an integral feature of the plot, and it was handled sloppily.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>We only know what these people know, therefore <i> we have a very limited view of what these being can do or what they're capable of </i>. Jeff Goldblum isn't here to tell us that the aliens have a weakness in their shields to Apple computer viruses ala "Independence Day". There is no scientist telling us that harmonics are a universal communication language ala "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". And this is where Signs dramatically differs from those movies (or any other alien movie) in that we don't have any experts telling us why the aliens are here. <i>They simply are</i>.


This farm family has the viewpoint of the average person, not the expert who's been monitering them from day one. These are <i>farmers</i> not scientists and they don't have any scientists friends to explain everything to them. All they know is what they see with their own two eyes and what CNN tells them. <i>That is it</i>.

And it's this key point that is central to the brilliance of the film and that's why many movie fans funamentally <i>cannot</i> grasp it. People have been trained to think that you simply <i>cannot</i> have aliens in a movie without an explantion. It's axiomatic. M. Night challenges this. He did the same thing with super heroes in "Unbreakable" and people <i>didn't get that either</i> You cannot have super heroes without capes and tights. That's also axiomatic.

M. Night spins tradional thinking on its head and that's fundamental to his brilliance, IMO. But a lot of people cannot grasp this yet.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>We only know what these people know, therefore <i> we have a very limited view of what these being can do or what they're capable of </i>. Jeff Goldblum isn't here to tell us that the aliens have a weakness in their shields to Apple computer viruses ala "Independence Day". There is no scientist telling us that harmonics are a universal communication language ala "Close Encounters of the Third Kind". And this is where Signs dramatically differs from those movies (or any other alien movie) in that we don't have any experts telling us why the aliens are here. <i>They simply are</i>. This farm family has the viewpoint of the average person, not the expert who's been monitering them from day one. These are <i>farmers</i> not scientists and they don't have any scientists friends to explain everything to them. All they know is what they see with their own two eyes and what CNN tells them. <i>That is it</i>. And it's this key point that is central to the brilliance of the film and that's why many movie fans funamentally <i>cannot</i> grasp it. People have been trained to think that you simply <i>cannot</i> have aliens in a movie without an explantion. It's axiomatic. M. Night challenges this. He did the same thing with super heroes in "Unbreakable" and people <i>didn't get that either</i> You cannot have super heroes without capes and tights. That's also axiomatic. M. Night spins tradional thinking on its head and that's fundamental to his brilliance, IMO. But a lot of people cannot grasp this yet.</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>We only know what these people know, therefore we have a very limited view of what these being can do or what they're capable of . Jeff Goldblum isn't here to tell us that the aliens have a weakness in their shields to Apple computer viruses ala "Independence Day". There is no scientist telling us that harmonics are a universal communication language ala "Close Encounters of the Third Kind".

And this is where Signs dramatically differs from those movies (or any other alien movie) in that we don't have any experts telling us why the aliens are here. They simply are.

These are farmers not scientists and they don't have any scientists friends giving comfortable and convenient explanations for everything. All they know is what they see with their own two eyes and what CNN tells them. <i>That is it.</i>

And it's this key point that is part of the brilliance of the film and that's why many movie fans fundamentally cannot grasp it. People have been trained to think that you simply cannot have aliens in a movie without an explantion. It's axiomatic. M. Night challenges this. He did the same thing with super heroes in "Unbreakable" and people didn't get that either You can't have super heroes without capes and tights! That's also axiomatic.

M. Night spins tradional thinking on its head and that's central to his brilliance, IMO. But a lot of people can't quite wrap their minds around it yet and it throws them for a spin.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>But it's what EsquE and I have been saying all along: whatever his intentions were, the implementation was poor-ass. Whether it was him or the studio execs forcing him to do it, it still was poor ass and destroyed the movie. BTW, the same shit you said is what was said about Close Encounters</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>If they had cut out the CNN parts it would have worked, just like Unbreakable did, which I thought was brilliant because it was so self contained...I stand by my opinion, and my ability to "grasp" movie plots and themes...</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>Since we haven't talked directly about the movie, did you think it was a modern-day Close Encounters?</div>

[EsquE]

<div style='font: 10pt Garamond; text-align: left; '>...they just feel different...a lot of themes carry over but they were really handled in almost completely opposite ways. Close Encounters lacks the intensity of Sighns whereas Signs lacks the grandeur and polish of Close Encounters. Encounters was really about the aliens and first contact, whereas Signs was about human nature and faith...they used similar means to tell the story (human reaction to an outside influence), but the points in the end were vastly different...I hope that made sense...</div>

[G-man Joe]

<div style='font: 11pt "Fine Hand"; text-align: left; '>It has a bit more relation to Night of the Living Dead than Close Encounters.</div>

[Zeus]

<div style='font: 9pt ; text-align: left; '>It did, I just feel that they are highly similar spiritually and that the only difference is cultural (1970 vs 2002)</div>

[Ishamael]

<div style='font: 14pt "Sans Serif"; text-align: justify; padding: 0% 15% 0% 15%; '>Definitely.</div>