Stop Letting M. Night Shyamalan Make Movies!
Hey Hollywood, you’ve got to smarten up. Stop letting M. Night Shyamalan make movies. He’s not a bad director, but he has a habit of taking a perfectly good story and then completely making a train wreck out of it.
I’ve been looking forward to watching this movie for months! The trailers and buildup to the launch date made it look like a great movie — even if it is a kids movie.
Then, thanks to the power of Twitter which I now check before spending money on a movie, I saw that the trending topic for “Last Airbender” had an incredibly negative attitude towards the movie. On top of that, the movie got a 8% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. To keep this in perspective, 2 Girls 1 Cup, the disgusting, viral porno that made the rounds on the web last year got a 18% on Rotten Tomatoes (Since removed from their rankings).
When people are saying things like “With all of my heart I discourage you from seeing this movie. Go see Karate Kid. Go see Killers. Go see (I cannot believe I am saying this) Eclipse. Just stay away from this movie.” You know that the movie sucked.
M. Night has a history of making crap movies. He broke into the scene with the 6th Sense, which was in my opinion a great film. I didn’t mind Signs, or Unbreakable, however, when he started putting out horrible crappy films like The Village, The Lady in the Water, and (worst) The Happening, you have to really wonder how this guy keeps getting work.
One aspect of all this that I find increasingly interested is the roll that social media is playing in movie marketing. Film studios can no longer BS their way into your wallet. People can easily spread the word about how awful the movie is and –hopfully– warn their friends so that they don’t go waste their money.
Question of the post: Do you like M. Night Shyamalan’s work?
personally i think Nickelodeon should take their name from helping to create that movie, I think its the worst movie Nickelodeon has ever helped to produce. Just get rid of it. I feel sorry for M.. Night’s daughter, since she has to go through all the rage of her father’s misfortune. but seriously, become a better director or get your fucking ass out of New York and California
Jon – Ditto! I was a big fan, watched all episodes on Netflix with friends and felt really nerdy in the process. I loved it. When I found out that M. Night was directing, I got annoyed and my first thought was that it would suck. However, a -usually reliable- source told me that M. Night was only directing and not writing the script, so I was looking forward to it. It wasn’t really until recently that I found out that he wrote, directed and even helped produce the film. I won’t be seeing it in theaters.
Josh – In general, you’re right. People are always going to have bias against something that you MIGHT enjoy. However, recently, Twitter trends and RT reviews have been spot on for movies and are a good predictor for how I’ll feel about the movie. If anything, I’ll watch the film when it’s out on Netflix or on DVD, but otherwise I think people are becoming more discerning when it comes to the movies they go to see in theaters.
Also, for his work, yes, it might be creative, but in general, I’d say it leaves most people disappointed. I saw a funny comment about M. Night and comparing him to Ed Wood, which I feel is pretty spot-on! :P
I’m actually a huge fan of the actual Nick cartoon (Avatar). When I heard they would make a live action movie, I figured it would suck….when I heard that M.Night was going to direct it, I knew it would.
A real shame, as the source material is brilliant, and probably the closest thing there is to a american anime.
I tend to not pay attention to the ratings people give movies or their opinions, if a movie looks interesting to me I’ll watch it. I’ve had people tell me that a movie was terrible only to find that I actually really enjoyed the movie and another movie was amazing only to find that I wasn’t a fan. The Last Airbender had me with their first trailer and I’d rather spend the money to see it (that doesn’t necessarily mean in the theater, I could wait and see it on demand or on Netflix, where I would still be paying to see it) and draw my own opinions.
From the movies of his I’ve seen, 6th Sense and Signs were decent (I wouldn’t pay to see them and only watched them because they were on regular cable); The Happening I thought was a great movie and I’d pay to watch again (that may be because Zooey Deschanel is in it).
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