Signs vs. Phantom Menace (spoilers)

dylan
dylan Posts: 453
edited August 2002 in Music & Movies
After watching Signs last weekend, I was really impressed, but I just couldn't put my finger on something. It was suspenseful and funny at the same time, interesting story, great acting, and overall I really liked it. For some reason it reminded me of when I got out of the Phantom Menace (haven't seen Clones yet), on the flip side, that overall I was just disappointed. Here's my conclusion: I enjoyed Signs more because it left more up to the imagination, and it relied on the viewer thinking about the story rather than beating them over the head with more and more CGI. The beauty of Signs pointed out the flaws in the Phantom Menace.

At the point in the movie where Phoenix explained that bird had hit the space craft, he described it vividly and got the viewer involved by having us picture what that would look like. Lucas would have had a $3 million blue screen/ animatronic bird hitting the wall and falling in slow motion to the ground.

The sound of the aliens circling the house and trying to get in scared the crap out of me, but I didn't need to see them once to get that feeling. I didn't need to see a monstrous clay and computer composite of a hideous alien to get scared.

Don't get my wrong, I like big budget action/ sci-fi extravaganzas as much as the next guy (grew up on Star Wars), but I have to single out Lucas for dropping the ball recently and Shymalan (sp?) showing a different view of how a movie can be made (with some help from Hitchcock maybe, how about those opening credits??). We do need all these kinds of movies, but for me personally, this was a nice change of pace. Maybe Clones will change my mind, but I doubt it. At least if he dropped writing all the dialog I might be a little happier...

As Dennis Miller would say, that's just my opionion, I could be wrong.
Post edited by dylan on

Comments

  • mark k. anderson
    mark k. anderson Posts: 18
    edited August 2002
    I very much agree with your comparison. SW:E1--TPM (or is it SW--E1:TPM??) was so loaded with CGI I could hardly stand to look at it. "Clones" in my opinion wasn't much better. Now that Lucas has his hands on a cinema grade digital camera, we can expect to see more Playstation type of graphics in the third prequel. Blah. (Still, to George Lucas' credit, he is not making the movie for me. Rather, it's for the next generation of kids who are far more interested in X-Boxes than playing a game of kickball in the corner lot.)

    M. Night Shyamalan actually delivers what all the critics claimed was in "The Blair Witch Project"-- terror without visuals, using sound and imagination.

    Spoiler Alert:

    A good example of how Shyamalan creates tension and fear in the audience was the home video footage of the scared kids at a backyard party. The prep was the ominous warning from the anchorwoman about the footage, then the jerky movement panning across the shrubbery where we can't really see anything. The audience strains at the screen much in the same way the character does in the movie. We are glued, anxiously awaiting the sight of something horrifying. Then, in the last few frames, a goofy looking stereotypical alien lumbers across the screen. In any other movie, this would have produced laughter and ridicule. But, with the way Shyamalan serves it up, it gets screams and gasps. I loved it!

    I also liked the message of the movie and the humor throughout. Is it groundbreaking work? Perhaps not. But, a nice refreshing film that does what $100M in CGI can't.

    mka