M Night Shyamalans Signs

analysis
#1

I’m on an M. Night kick.

  1. Does anyone remember an article that mentions Signs and Dramatica? Seems like it said something like “who cares about God when there are aliens right there?” Can’t remember if it was on NarrativeFirst or Storymind or where I saw it, but I can’t find it now for anything.
  2. Anyone have thoughts on the Concerns for Signs? At first I was looking at the presence of aliens as a possible Universe/Situation, but that seemed to fall through pretty quick. Here’s where I’m at currently:

MC-Graham Hess(Mel Gibson)
Mind: lack of belief in God,
Memory-the memory of a random coincidence the led to the death of his wife

IC-some mixture of Graham’s wife and God
Universe: the wife is dead for most of the film and is dying in flashbacks
Past-an accident from the past has changed the way Graham sees the world

OS-what’s going on? Who are the aliens and what do they want?
Understanding-understanding why the aliens have shown up, understanding how to defeat them

RS-not sure of a good gist-y way to say it, it would be something about how to look at seemingly random events
Conceptualizing-graham and God are separated over an inability by Graham to see the bigger plan. When he realizes that things happen for a reason and there are no coincidences, they are reunited.

#2

Cool! My guess would be that Signs is more complete than Unbreakable because I remember it a heck of a lot better.

It’s been a long time since I saw it (i.e. in the theatre when it first came out), but I think your Concern quadrants may be on the money because in my memory the film feels heavy, like Arrival.

Are you sure about the IC? How are those things pushing him to get over the death of his wife? They sort of sound like more illustrations of the MC throughline. Could the brother or kids (or a combination of them) represent the IC throughline somehow?

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#3

No, I’m not sure about the IC. I don’t know why I didn’t go with Ray Reddy or whatever his name is. The guy that ran over the wife.

I’m not sure hes getting over the death of his wife so much as make sense of the world again. Trying to see how “random” coincidences tie together.

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#4

I would argue that the wife is the IC for these reasons:

  1. Her death is the cause of his crisis of faith.

  2. His constant recollection of her death keeps threading through the story.

  3. His ultimate recollection of her saying to him (as she’s dying), “Tell Merrill to ‘Swing Away’” is an event that transcends space and time which provides the critical bit of advice they need in the final OS showdown with the alien. Perhaps her being on the edge of death seems to have offered her some connection to intelligence well beyond the limits of space and time. Perhaps this transcendence of events (i.e. How could she have known then what is needed now?) makes him believe in God again? Or at least some greater inteligence spanning across space and time? It’s been awhile since I saw the movie and I don’t recall if, in the end, his faith is restored or not. I seem to recall he was putting his collar on again at the end. Am i right?

  4. So ultimately his wife, in the moments before her death, provides him the key information needed to influence both the outcome of the OS’s final conflict with the alien (“tell Merril to ‘Swing away’”) and the outcome of the MC’s crisis of faith (There must be some intelligence greater than we are and spanning space and time; Otherwise how do you explain how she knew what was needed in the OS final conflict, an even occuring long after she was dead?). To me that strongly suggests she is the Influence Character.

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#5

Ah yes. Those are some of the reasons I said the wife! Really, though, the IC on this one perplexed me. Maybe some handoffs going on? I don’t know,

#6

Perhaps hand offs to the daugher and son? Perhaps the daughter’s irritating habit of leaving glasses of water all over the house, which also turns into a critical solution within the final showdown, along with the son’s severe asthma, which ends up protecting him from the Alien’s poisonous spray, are both examples of an “everything happens for a reason” or “there is a wisdom to everything that happens” outlook–this might offer Hess more evidence to regain his faith in a divine intelligence?

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#7

I think the two biggest are the wife and the guy that ran over her. I don’t know why the IC in this one seems so difficult to pin down to me. I don’t feel like there’s anything missing in the story. It definitely feels like that perspective is covered. I’ll have to watch it again, I guess. But tonight is Sixth Sense night, so…

#8

So earlier today I was trying to think of what a problem of The Past would look like and suddenly, without me meaning to think it at all, a thought went through my head. “Signs has an MC Concern of The Past”.

It’s weird because I haven’t thought of this movie again since the last post on this thread. My first thought was “That’s right, it does have an MC Concern of the Past”. My second thought was, “Wait, didn’t I think before that the MC was in Mind?” So I thought about it for a few moments and the following Storyform came to me, seemed pretty obvious, in fact. It was pretty neat how it came to me, and i’m pretty confident in it so I decided to share.

I was going to do a full analysis, but I think it’ll be a while before I get to that. Anyway, here’s the Storyform that came to me.

STORY ENGINE SETTINGS: “Signs”

CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC RESOLVE: Change
MC GROWTH: Stop
MC APPROACH: Do-er
MC MENTAL SEX: Male
OC RESOLVE: Steadfast

PLOT DYNAMICS:
DRIVER: Action
LIMIT: Optionlock
OUTCOME: Success
JUDGMENT: Good

MAIN CHARACTER
(Graham Hess–Mel Gibson’s character)
DOMAIN: Universe
CONCERN: The Past
ISSUE: Fate vs. Destiny
PROBLEM: Chaos
SOLUTION: Order
FOCUS: Thought
DIRECTION: Knowledge
UNIQUE ABILITY: Prediction
CRITICAL FLAW: Suspicion
BENCHMARK: The Present
SIGNPOST 1: Progress
SIGNPOST 2: The Future
SIGNPOST 3: The Present
SIGNPOST 4: The Past

SUBJECTIVE STORY
(Seeing the big plan–“Everything happens for a reason”)
DOMAIN: Psychology
CONCERN: Conceptualizing
ISSUE: Circumstances vs. Situation
PROBLEM: Self Aware
SOLUTION: Aware
FOCUS: Inequity
DIRECTION: Equity
CATALYST: Situation
INHIBITOR: Interpretation
BENCHMARK: Conceiving
SIGNPOST 1: Conceptualizing
SIGNPOST 2: Being
SIGNPOST 3: Becoming
SIGNPOST 4: Conceiving

OBJECTIVE STORY
(Alien Invasion)
DOMAIN: Physics
CONCERN: Understanding
ISSUE: Interpretation vs. Senses
PROBLEM: Chaos
SOLUTION: Order
FOCUS: Inequity
DIRECTION: Equity
CATALYST: Senses
INHIBITOR: Circumstances
BENCHMARK: Learning
SIGNPOST 1: Learning
SIGNPOST 2: Doing
SIGNPOST 3: Obtaining
SIGNPOST 4: Understanding

OBSTACLE CHARACTER
(Colleen–Graham’s wife)
DOMAIN: Mind
CONCERN: Memory
ISSUE: Truth vs. Falsehood
PROBLEM: Speculation
SOLUTION: Projection
FOCUS: Inequity
DIRECTION: Equity
UNIQUE ABILITY: Evidence
CRITICAL FLAW: Interdiction
BENCHMARK: The Conscious
SIGNPOST 1: Memory
SIGNPOST 2: The Subconscious
SIGNPOST 3: The Conscious
SIGNPOST 4: The Preconscious

ADDITIONAL APPRECIATIONS

GOAL: Understanding
CONSEQUENCE: Conceptualizing
COST: Memory
DIVIDEND: The Past

REQUIREMENT: Learning
PREREQUISITE: Conceiving
PRECONDITION: The Conscious
FOREWARNINGS: The Present

#9

And just because…here’s where I started the full analysis.

CHARACTER DYNAMICS:
MC RESOLVE: Change
Graham looks for order in the idea that “everything happens for a reason” as he prays that his son is unharmed by the poison due to his asthma attack.
MC GROWTH: Stop
Graham needs to stop blaming God and focusing on the chaos and what has happened so that he can see the order and why it happened.
MC APPROACH: Do-er
Graham shuts off the television, takes his family to town, visits Ray Reddy, boards up the house, cooks everyone want they want for dinner.
He is not good at cursing and prefers not to be in that way, but does so while chasing after the alien in the yard (he and Merrill believe it to be one of the Wolfington(?) Brothers”
MC MENTAL SEX: Male
He explains things linearly to Merrill. (Paraphrasing) “Some people will see those lights and think it’s just a coincidence, some will see them and think they mean something.” Merrill asks “Which type are you?” and Graham says “Are you comforted?” Merrill says “Yes,” so Graham says “Then it doesn’t matter.” The thinking is “I gave you an explanation to comfort you. If you are comforted, the goal is achieved.”
He doesn’t try to balance life with the aliens, but looks at how to keep them out of the house—“they seem to have problems with pantries”, “I hear they don’t like water”—or defeat them.
OC RESOLVE: Steadfast
Graham is influenced by his dying wife’s words to speculate that telling Merrill to “swing away” actually meant something and can help defeat the alien.

PLOT DYNAMICS:
DRIVER: Action
Graham’s wife is run over causing him to decide to abandon his faith.
Graham and Merrill wake up to the kids screaming when they discover the crop circles in the field causing them to decide it must be Lionel Prichard and the Wolfing Bros.
Graham sees the alien on the roof of the barn and he and Merrill decide to run after it to chase it away. Then they decide to call the cops.
All the hysteria about crop circles and they decide to shut off the tv. I forget what, but I’m pretty sure something happens that causes Graham to decide to take the family to town.
LIMIT: Spacelock
Lock an alien in the pantry, board up the house, pour water on them,
OUTCOME: Success
The aliens are defeated and driven away from earth when the people understand that they can be defeated.
JUDGMENT: Good
Graham is happy that his family is safe and turns back to God.

OBJECTIVE STORY
(Alien Invasion)
DOMAIN: Physics
Being invaded by aliens causes fear and uncertainty,
CONCERN: Understanding
Understanding why the aliens are there leads to a realization that the aliens aren’t going to be friendly
ISSUE: Interpretation vs. Senses
text
PROBLEM: Chaos
Waking up to crop circles causes conflict, the dogs acting funny leads to Bo being attacked and one of the dogs killed, falling asleep while driving leads to Grahams wife being run over, swinging at everything leads to Merrill having the highest strikeout record and not being in the major leagues.
SOLUTION: Order
Using Merrill’s record-breaking bat and abilities along with Bo’s pattern of leaving water glasses on the table allows them to kill the alien.
FOCUS: Inequity
They look to the inequity of Graham’s wife being killed and yet Ray living. They see an imbalance in the appearance of the lights. Graham looks at how he believes God isn’t there for him and leaves the church.
DIRECTION: Equity
When the wife dies, Merrill moves in to help Graham. People keep referring to Graham as Father. Ray moves to the lake because he hears they don’t like water.
CATALYST: Senses
The alien being bothered by water leads to Merrill being able to hit the water glasses into it to kill it.
INHIBITOR: Circumstances
Thinking the nerds are cooking things up, or believing the lights are a coincidence and meaningless keeps anyone from moving toward understanding what’s going on.
BENCHMARK: Learning
Growth comes through learning about all the crop circles, learning there are aliens, and learning about the aliens and that they are probably hostile, and learning how to defeat them.
SIGNPOST 1: Learning
The Hess family learns about the crop circle in the field and that the dogs are acting funny.
SIGNPOST 2: Doing
The Hess family shut the television off and go to town.
SIGNPOST 3: Obtaining
The Hess family try to survive the night in the boarded up house, try not to be captured by the aliens.
SIGNPOST 4: Understanding
The Hess family has to understand how to kill the alien and that there’s a reason the son has asthma.

MAIN CHARACTER
(Graham Hess)
DOMAIN: Universe
Graham doesn’t see meaning in the universe.
CONCERN: The Past
When Graham’s wife died, he abandoned his faith and left the church.