The Village:
Shyamlan always does a brief 1-scene role in his movies, it has nothing to do with depicting him as the savior!!!!
About wearing old century cloths,(#12) those r easy to tailor without heavy machineries. u need to bring jeans and skirts from outside world, if u want the characters to look smarter and sexier!
When u know that its a story with twist(s), u will still half expect the beast to be real even after the elders assure about the beasts being fake!
Its also easier for young people to travel long distance rather than elder ones. And the blind woman was the best person.
Shyamlan’s storytelling is awesome, but its not necessary that all audiences will get it. some people will always open a site like this!

Planet of the Apes:
There is not just 1 theory for time travel effect. Think of the movie “deja-vu” where Denzel goes back in time, saves the day and the girl. So he now doesnt have a reason to time-travel in the future and he will not even meet Kilmer and co. Then did he actually save the day? well, he did. if u go back in past and cut an arm of your younger self, according to 1 theory, your older self wont lose an arm. coz, that time u r 2 separate entities. …. yes, nobody knows. so chuck this discussion.
The ape-raham Lincoln statue sucks anyway.

Learn the difference between opinion and fact.

That being said, some of the stuff on this list is better researched than others, i agree with the “opinions” shared concerning Boxing Helena and Signs, though countless people have said similar things before.

two of my favorite endings ever..

Matt-
Thanks for sticking to the specifics in your comment, too. It’s great when people can act maturely and air their disagreements. However, I do believe I laid out very good arguments for each of these. In “The Village,” what I was referring to were the possibilities of planes flying overhead or any other random intrusion of modern life that would completely blow the cover. (I remember there being a mention of changing flight patterns, which is so ridiculous that it further points out why this twist is a joke.)

The Village is an excellent movie, which needs to be recognized for the genre it is- drama. The script is beautifully written, and has a lot of greater meaning besides the literal. M.Night (while I was dissapointed with the Happenning) is always good at creating bigger pictures and messages. I think people went into the movie expecting it to either be scary or assuming they could figure out the twist because they knew he’d give one, and when the twist was revealed everyone thinks they called it. I doubt thats the case but even if one of your many guesses was the correct twist, it is an excellent film that is horribly unappreciated. I love that M. Night put the twist in the middle of the movie because the second half changes all of the circumstances and another story begins.

Neither of these films should be on the list, and you shouldn’t be able to put your opinions out there without good arguments. Saying you don’t like the way M.Night worked himself into the Village is irrelevant to what your article is supposed to be about.

So…you guessed it right at the start, then?

No, thought not.

You can call it lazy cinematography if you want, but if you didn’t get it, you didn’t get it, and therefore it worked as a twist. The very fact that, with hindsight, you’ve been able to identify it as a commonly used theme, and yet the vast majority of viewers were stunned off their asses when they dropped it, makes it even better, in my book - talk about hiding in plain sight.

Also, I’m glad someone mentioned that Darabont screwed with Stephen King’s ending for The Mist - it’s always been my favourite of his short stories, and while the movie ending certainly had impact, I felt it was a little too jarring and bleak, and didn’t really fit with the atmpsphere of hope that the rest of the film exuded. That said, I love an unhappy ending - no-one seems to like doing those any more.