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GreenCine Movie Talk
	Star Power Discuss the people who make what we watch.	59

M. Night follows Bollywood tradition
	Topic by: hamano Posted: February 12, 2007 - 7:57 PM PST Last Reply: February 15, 2007 - 1:32 PM PST

author	topic: M. Night follows Bollywood tradition
hamano	post #1  on February 12, 2007 - 7:57 PM PST   Bollywood films are somewhat well known for appropriating plots from Hollywood films and films from other countries as well. For example, the recent films Zinda! and Main Aisa Hi Hoon were copycats of OLDBOY and I AM SAM respectively. Well, I was doing a little YouTubing, and I found out that Indian-American director M. Night Shyamalan is following in the tradition of the land of his birth. He ripped off his one great film from a kids' TV show called "Are You Afraid of the Dark" for chrissake! AYAOTD episode: The Tale of the Dream Girl -- the inspiration for The Sixth Sense.
woozy	post #2  on February 12, 2007 - 10:41 PM PST   > On February 12, 2007 - 7:57 PM PST hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- > AYAOTD episode: The Tale of the Dream Girl -- the inspiration for The Sixth Sense. > --------------------------------- Funny... I don't remember any 50's Rock 'n Roll classic called "Middle-aged Psychiatrist Angel"... Of course, there's the movie "Unbreakable" where Bruce Willis thinks he's a human being and discovers in the end he's a comic-book superhero... That's a *little* like discovering you're the lyrics to a sappy 50's rock ballad.
Battie	post #3  on February 13, 2007 - 1:49 AM PST   Dunno. I kinda doubt there's been a truly "original" movie or book since the 1980s. Maybe before then. :P
hamano	post #4  on February 13, 2007 - 4:42 AM PST   > On February 13, 2007 - 1:49 AM PST Battie wrote: > --------------------------------- > Dunno. I kinda doubt there's been a truly "original" movie or book since the 1980s. Maybe before then. :P > --------------------------------- Yeah, but I was showing this episode to the kids and there WAS an eerie good bit of the story elements "borrowed" for 6th Sense. Watch it sometime if you have 25 minutes. If I was an in-house lawyer I'd have generated some kind of legal action just to cover my butt, if licensing hadn't been negotiated. M.Night has gone on record as saying he saw this episode before he wrote 6th, so maybe they DID pay something.
woozy	post #5  on February 13, 2007 - 10:18 AM PST   > On February 13, 2007 - 4:42 AM PST hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- > > On February 13, 2007 - 1:49 AM PST Battie wrote: > > Yeah, but I was showing this episode to the kids and there WAS an eerie good bit of the story elements "borrowed" for 6th Sense. Most noticibly are the way the boy talks to his mother and/or his boss and they are distant and cold but not so much to the extent that we realize they simply don't see him. (In particular the scene where the boy says "good night, mom" and she walks up the stairs is almost identical to the scene where Bruce Willis in the waiting room says something to the boy's mother and she turns and walks away.) A ghost story where the main character is dead but neither he nor the audience/reader know it at first is probably nothing original. However dropping the hints in other people's dialog and interaction which have those specific dual interpretations and framing are probably more than incidental. However, the bit about the car stalling on the railroad track and her running back for her school ring.... what the heck was *that* about? That'd make an inticing bit of "telephone" trivia. Go from "Teen Angel" to "The 6th Sense" in one step...
Catullus	post #6  on February 13, 2007 - 10:48 AM PST   I dont know but I thought Unbreakable was one of the worst movies ive ever seen. I thought 6th Sense was ok but extremely overrated and Signs was no good at all either. Lady in the water looks absolutely horrible and I can say safely that I will never watch it, same goes for the Village. I dunno I just think hes a horrible director and can't believe he gets paid big $
Catullus	post #7  on February 13, 2007 - 10:51 AM PST   and also out of the three movies Ive seen there has to be a surprise twist at the end that somehow is supposed to make the movie all worthwhile, Ive heard about the ending to the Village as well and its the same thing. I mean its a gimmick and not to mention if you have the smallest modicum of intelligence you will either see it coming from a long long ways away or you will simply choose not to watch his movies in the first place. I mean if the films were actually good they wouldn't NEED a surprise twist at the end anyway.
underdog	post #8  on February 13, 2007 - 1:39 PM PST   You should hear Mystery Science Theater's (and Rifftrax's) Mike Nelson's comments on M. Night, in an interview I did with him recently. (It'll be up on our site soon.) Echoes what you just said. He's a good candidate for a future Rifftrax. Meanwhile, I heard M Night's next project is a live action version of the American-ime series Avatar The Last Airbender (which I kind of enjoy, actually). The name may change from Avatar because James Cameron is making a film called Avatar, too, and he was first (neener neener!) The prospect of either appeals to me about the same. But even less appealing is news of this fairly hardy project. Barf.
hamano	post #9  on February 13, 2007 - 2:10 PM PST   I really liked The Sixth Sense. It had Micha Burton and Toni Collette in it... I gotta say I quite enjoyed it. Unbreakable was fun at the beginning, but I can write a better ending than that! I think M. Night's output since then has pretty much failed to make more of an impression than Stuart Little, so if the cleverness of 6th Sense was derived from the "RL Stine X Twilight Zone Lite" kids show I gotta say it's pretty disappointing. Let's hope he gets his head screwed back on right, and his vision clears. Or maybe he should direct some musicals...
woozy	post #10  on February 13, 2007 - 6:47 PM PST   I guess I ought to put a 6th sense and "Are you afraid of the dark" *SPOILER* up. So *SPOILER* > On February 13, 2007 - 2:10 PM PST hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- >>... so if the cleverness of 6th Sense was derived from the "RL Stine X Twilight Zone Lite" kids show I gotta say it's pretty disappointing. I wouldn't say so. The whole movie is about the kid seeing dead people and what he goes through. It'd have been creepy and gripping enough without the "twist ending". The whole movie sans "twist ending" had nothing whatever to do with the AYAOTD episode. The "twist ending" that Bruce Willis, himself, is dead is merely an ironic punctuation mark. It's a *good* ironic punctuation mark and makes perfect sense as the kid sees dead people. But even the "twist ending" isn't derived from the AYAOTD episode as ghost stories where the hero is dead but neither he nor the audience knows it aren't unique. I'd be the obvious clincher to a movie about a boy seeing dead people, just as "Soylent Green" is people is the obvious clincher to a movie about over-population and the resulting food shortages. (But then again, maybe he got the idea of the kid seeing dead people from the episode). What *does* seem derived from the episode is the manner in which the living (don't) interact with the dead and how the dead (and the audience) misinterpret it. Hmmm, defending both M.Night and hamano... pretty out of character for me...
Battie	post #11  on February 13, 2007 - 10:04 PM PST   I don't know. I like M. Night's films. They have what most American films don't, a sense of awe and wonder. That, "I can't believe this is happening," coming from the characters. (Not that *I* can't believe it's happening - they can't.) In Signs, for instance (which I honestly loved), the family is stuck inside their home, no clue what's going it. It's the same sort of thing that was praised in War of the Worlds, only on a grander scale. (In WotW, Tom and his family kept coming across the aliens while the aliens were killing everyone. In Signs, once they knew the aliens WERE there, they had to wait to see what would happen.) There's also often a certain lack of heroism in the grand American sense (I'm going to save everyone, despite the enemy being bigger/badder/tougher/more technologically advanced/etc). It seems to me a lot of people don't like the hokey, feel-good endings that often reaffirm life/faith/etc. We're such a cynical society. I watched Lady in the Water (which wasn't bad, unless you hate hokey, feel-good moments) and had the feeling I got when I watched old Disney movies when I was a kid. (Now Disney films and others like them have all these messages about tolerance, acceptance, friends, yada, yada, yada.) But it was a flawed film...I just liked the story a lot. :P I just don't get why everyone seems to hate his films. I admit that The Village wasn't great, but it's definitely nowhere near the top of my "Worst Films Ever Seen" list. On the other hand, wasn't a big fan of The 6th Sense OR Unbreakable.
hamano	post #12  on February 14, 2007 - 12:44 AM PST   > On February 13, 2007 - 10:04 PM PST Battie wrote: > --------------------------------- > In Signs, for instance (which I honestly loved), the family is stuck inside their home, no clue what's going it. It's the same sort of thing that was praised in War of the Worlds, only on a grander scale. > There's also often a certain lack of heroism in the grand American sense You're right about the "everyman" aspect, and for a good while both Unbreakable and Signs had me in their grips. But the over-reliance on the quick twist ending, a punchline as it were, a la Sixth Sense, just doesn't WORK every time. I think M. Night is a bit confused about the mechanics of how well the ending worked for Sixth Sense, and repeated the wrong parts for Unbreakable, Signs and Village. I think a good comedian knows that repeating a similar sort of punchline won't assure that one joke is just as good as the next one. If you were telling a bunch of "knock knock" jokes, you can't start with the BEST one then move on to less clever ones. You have to order them so each subsequent one is more clever and unexpected than the preceding one, with maybe a stinker thrown in every now and then to throw off the listener's rhythm. But M.Night basically told his best "knock knock" joke first, leading to flop sweat ever since. He would have been better off moving on to other kinds of jokes and going back to "knock knock" jokes later, but fear of failure can lead to the kind of career he's had.
underdog	post #13  on February 14, 2007 - 10:44 AM PST   I actually liked, or appreciated Signs, too - until the end. Which was absolutely ludicrous. But up until then it was a very effective thriller, well paced. I agree with Hamano, it's the overreliance on the trick ending. These can be satisfying (I am sort of embarrassed to admit that I liked the one in The Village, even if it rendered the rest of the story kind of silly in retrospect), but makes me wish he could do one without it, let the story unfold without any gimmicks attached. It's almost like he's addicted to it, a trick ending junkie.
hamano	post #14  on February 14, 2007 - 1:05 PM PST   We could have a contest to write better endings for M.Night films! That would be fun, and pretty easy, too. Hindsight is 20/20...
Battie	post #15  on February 14, 2007 - 6:08 PM PST   Hmm, yeah I get that and you're both right as far as the endings go. But since I saw Signs before The 6th Sense...teehee. Lady in the Water sort of did have a trick ending, too, but not quite on the scale of Signs or The Village. I think. Though, I guess, the ending was closer to the Signs ending now that I think about it. Freaky. But I still like his movies. X)
Catullus	post #16  on February 14, 2007 - 8:53 PM PST   Theres irony in the fact that if I went to one of his movies and a real ending would be more surprising/shocking than any trick ending :P
hamano	post #17  on February 15, 2007 - 8:20 AM PST   That's EXACTLY it, Cat. M.Night's forgotten that you still need a REAL ending that resolves the drama in a satisfactory way, in addition to the O Henry ending. 6th Sense had both... even if the Bruce Willis character was alive the story of the kid would have ended with pretty good closure.
woozy	post #18  on February 15, 2007 - 1:32 PM PST   > On February 15, 2007 - 8:20 AM PST hamano wrote: > --------------------------------- > That's EXACTLY it, Cat. M.Night's forgotten that you still need a REAL ending that resolves the drama in a satisfactory way, in addition to the O Henry ending. 6th Sense had both... even if the Bruce Willis character was alive the story of the kid would have ended with pretty good closure. > --------------------------------- *SPOILER* I agree. Normally an "O Henry" ending like the 6th's sense would be surperflous and distracting. It'd be as if at the end of Jaws they discovered the shark was a robot made by an evil scientist. However as the movie was about a kid who sees dead people it'd be fitting that'd we'd discover the hero had been a ghost all along. However I think that as the 6th sense was a creepy thriller about a boy being harassed by evil things and the "Are You afraid of the Dark" was a ghost story about one particular ghost of a pretty girl they are disimilar enough to say one wasn't based, inspired, or ripped off from the other. The O Henry twist ends both of the well. For the 6th sense it's only a capper. For "Are You aftaid of the Dark" however it's entire resolution. Hence it serves very different purposes. And, although it'd take a bit of research to determine the first story with "The hero's dead!" ending I'm pretty sure it pre-dates both by at least a century. What *is* ripped off is the method of the teasing and hint dropping (people ignoring hero) in both. Or so it seems to me.