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[George_Chickens]

But how in the fuck did Shymalan manage to make both that and shit like Signs and After Earth?

It's not too uncommon, actually. My buddies and I call it Uwe Boll syndrome, where a wholly 'incompetent' writer/director reveals themselves to actually be competent and completely capable of making a good, even a great movie, even though they usually stick with terrible cash-ins and tax writeoffs.

[Neonivek]

Hmmm I find there to be an interesting contrast between two shows I watched and loved.

Life with Bonnie and "The Annoying Orange Show" (the TV show... not the web series)

I love both of those... but with Life of Bonnie I immediately knew it wasn't popular, everything was stilted and weird and frankly the only thing that kept me in it was Bonnie's charisma (and a few other characters). Annoying Orange, however, I was surprised that people don't just dislike it... they HATE IT!

Why do I like the Annoying Orange TV show sooo much? Like... I actually think it is pretty clever a lot of the time.

[Kot]

What can you do with the organs? I thought you produced bionic ones?

I sell them. Organs are my secondary export. A properly harvested prisoner is easily worth 6k. They're also useful if I really need a limb but haven't manufactured the mountain of components, steel, and plasteel needed to make an advanced bionic.

Also, it's good surgery training.

You monster, you could be doing so much worse.

I usually let them keep their heart and release them back to their people so that they learn what happens when they fuck with me.  Tell them stories of the colony that will take their children in the night and the organ factories.

I also generally build underground.  Bugs aren't that big of a problem when you have combat realism and shotguns.

I never tried releasing people after I harvested both legs. Not sure how that would work.

Ah, one further point to the horror of my settlement. All of my people are in full hazard suits and masks.

II just checked in and saw the Rimworld discussion on previous page. For some reason I assumed you were a doctor or something, and then I took the first few sentences literally and seriously and scrambled for context, but holy shit those were pretty hilarious few seconds.

[Steelmagic]

This is a rather silly wtf, but I just watched Unbreakable. Fucking amazing movie, I've no idea why I never heard of it, etc etc.

But how in the fuck did Shymalan manage to make both that and shit like Signs and After Earth?

Like, how? Unbreakable's one of the best directed movies I've ever seen - the use of color that actually has a point, the way a lot of the shots are framed, the camera angles, the foreshadowing, the music (oh the music), the twist ending which was actually good ... the fucker made a superhero origin story as good as, or maybe even better than, Iron Man, something like 15 years before the whole superhero movie thing started blowing up the box office.

I just can't reconcile that fucking amazing direction in the movie with ... Signs. After Earth. Last Airbender. How the fuck were those all made by the same guy?

This is actually all just part of his plan. The ultimate twist. A real-life twist, he's actually a great director.

[scriver]

But how in the fuck did Shymalan manage to make both that and shit like Signs and After Earth?

It's not too uncommon, actually. My buddies and I call it Uwe Boll syndrome, where a wholly 'incompetent' writer/director reveals themselves to actually be competent and completely capable of making a good, even a great movie, even though they usually stick with terrible cash-ins and tax writeoffs.

Except it's more that but reversed. If you watch Shyamalan's early work like Unbreakable and Sixth Sense and you understand why we was praised as such a great director back then. I think he probably let it get to his head  and that's why the quality dropped so much in his following movies.

Let's call that the George Lucas effect. One individual gets gets the full credit for what is actually the result of a combined effort of a group, proceeds to get his ego inflated until he thinks he can do in a handwave what was previously done carefully and diligently to make sure everything was fine before completing it.

[Lord Shonus]

I think it was more of the "Sherlock Holmes" effect. Shyamalan hit one out of the park with The Sixth Sense, and that became what he was known for. This tied him very close to that sort of movie - horror/suspense with a twist ending, typecasting him. To make matters worse, the very fact that he was typecast as such a director meant that everybody know to look for the twist, necessitating him to get trickier and trickier twists - that generally made for very weak films.

[overseer05-15]

Airbender doesn't have an excuse though. At least the effects were good.

[Comrade P.]

Airbender doesn't have an excuse though. At least the effects were good.

Firstly, we don't talk about that movie, and secondly, they weren't compared to source material and considering available technology for their making. Need I seek the earthbenders scene where like five benders lift a single boulder and fly it slowly over the ground to illustrate my point graphically?

[Loud Whispers]

Eyeball tattooing

[Putnam]

Airbender doesn't have an excuse though. At least the effects were good.

Firstly, we don't talk about that movie, and secondly, they weren't compared to source material and considering available technology for their making. Need I seek the earthbenders scene where like five benders lift a single boulder and fly it slowly over the ground to illustrate my point graphically?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpgbZcHk_A

[Descan]

The answer to being typecast as "the guy with the twists" isn't "Make shittier twists," but "stop using twists." :I

[Loud Whispers]

But that would be a good twist, which he can't do

[Comrade P.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RpgbZcHk_A

Much obliged, colleague, for providing Exhibit 1.

Counter-exhibits 1 and 2 provide an overview of proper portrayal of earthbending.

Following them are counter-exhibits 3 and 4 that give an overview of proper firebending portrayal.

My belief is that those counter-exhibits prove extensively that live-action portrayal has failed to convene all the awesome there was to portray.

[Reelya]

Be more awesome if the sound was muted. I can never get used to American style cartoon voice acting (with only a few exceptions). It really feels to me like they have a "for kids" talking down to the audience thing in their heads.

[misko27]

I feel like I want to go with the Nostalgia Critic on the Airbender movie (my sister made me watch that Nostalgia critic episode; she loves him): It was just too focused on minutiae and exposition instead of all the things that made the original series great, like humor, and character relationships (and awesome bending fights). It was precisely the sort of thing a fan might put out: dedicated to the material, but not in a way that shows that the fan actually gets why they like it so much. There's exposition trying explain everything, but without convincing the audience that they care about anything that happens in the first place.

And that is the problem. Whether you're aware of the show or you're not aware of the show, the movie is all explanation with no humanity. Why do you think they waited twenty minutes of the film to ask him his name? Because that's not what was most important to Shyamalan. The identity? Who gives a shit? It can't be nearly as important as explaining... and explaining... and explaining... and explaining...

In addition to the incredibly weird decision to just not make the fight scenes as cool as possible. I mean wtf? That's such an obvious gimme it's mind-boggling. When you can't do a better fight scene than a children's show, there's a problem.

But even watching those fight scenes again, I'm struck by how in addition to being cool, they are also pretty funny (except Azula vs. Zuko, but that's the series finale so that's obvious). It really was a funny show.

Be more awesome if the sound was muted. I can never get used to American style cartoon voice acting (with only a few exceptions). It really feels to me like they have a "for kids" talking down to the audience thing in their heads.

I was like 10 when I started watching this (note: I actually have no clue how old I was when I started watching this), so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯