# Unbreakable (2000)



## Tabitha (Jul 12, 2002)

Starting thread - back later to chat it up!


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## tokyogirl (Jul 13, 2002)

though i didn't like this movie that much the first time around, the second time around i loved it.  especially when i got to see all the bonus stuff on the dvd.  excellent film.


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## Dave (Jul 13, 2002)

Never heard of it, but I have some free DVD rental vouchers to use, so please tell more.


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## Shaun (Jul 13, 2002)

Basically its about a man (played by Bruce Willis) that discovers that he is unbreakable when he is the lone survivor of a train crash. Following councils with a new found friend he begins to become a hero. I know its something along those lines, I'm sure someone else can give you a better description. (or you can try www.imdb.com)

I saw it when it came out and wasn't to thrilled with it. I thought it was alright, but too predictable and not very memorable. I might hire it again later to see that extra stuff on the DVD.


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## Tabitha (Jul 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by Dave _
> *Never heard of it, but I have some free DVD rental vouchers to use, so please tell more. *



It was M Night Shyamalan's follow up to "The Sixth Sense".  The plot revolves around Bruce Willis' security guard character slowly discovering that he perhaps has some superhero-style special abilities.
Samuel L Jackson plays a comic book collecting mentor to Willis.

The film draws heavily on various comic book mythos, and makes some very subtle connections.  As a long time comic book reader I enjoyed the central premise of the tale (what if these stories were true?), but I think many viewers were uncomfortable with this idea.

Critics (as I remember) were fairly impressed, although the film did not live up to the reviews for The Sixth Sense, and the box office proved much weaker.  The movie might have been more enjoyable, and more successful had the editor been given a bit more leeway - my main complaints were the interminable silences between characters - Willis and his wife (Robin Wright Penn) being the main offenders.

Other than that I found it to be very enjoyable - I just bought it on dvd, so I will be watching it again tommorrow and might be back with more reflections.


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## tokyogirl (Jul 14, 2002)

i think the main problem with how well the film did was the way it was promoted.  there was nothing in the previews about comic books whatsoever and i think for a lot of people, like me, it kind of threw them off a little.  i totally wasn't prepared for it, and that's what a lot of the movie is about.


one cool thing, for me anyways, was the stuff with the director afterwards (on the dvd).  for those of you who don't know about screenwriting a screenplay is basically like a stage play, except a lot more to do with scenery and character attitudes (things that couldn't be seen from the stage).  this means that a screenplay must have 3 acts.  act 1 you set up ALL the  important characters and introduce a problem.  act 2 you add to the problem and find out more about it and the characters.  and finally the movement into act 3 happens when the character decides to take action and try and solve the problem. then of course there's the resolution.  the director/writer was originally going to do a typical superhero movie, but do it more real life.  start out with the person finding out about it in the first act, and by the third act they have a big showdown with the bad guy.  the more he got into it the more he decided to change it.  instead he took just what would normally be the first act, the guy finding out about his powers, and made that into the whole movie.  it still has three acts of course, but no big fight scene at the end.  instead the main character must chose whether or not to accept this whole 'superhuman' junk.  whether or not he will play into it.  it's really cool.i like the way the director did it.


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## Tabitha (Jul 14, 2002)

> _Originally posted by tokyogirl _
> *i think the main problem with how well the film did was the way it was promoted.  there was nothing in the previews about comic books whatsoever and i think for a lot of people, like me, it kind of threw them off a little.  i totally wasn't prepared for it, and that's what a lot of the movie is about*


A lot of films have that kind of false advertising - I recently saw "Changing Lanes", which is sold via the advert as a chase-thriller movie, but when you sit down to watch it, you find it is all about the choice we make and how they affect our futures - more of a moral tale than an action movie.

To be honest, I can't really remember how Unbreakable was advertised, but I feel compelled to agree with you on this point as I had really been looking forward to seeing the film and was totally taken (pleasantly) by surprised when I discovered the comics theme....


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 15, 2002)

A very good film with brilliant acting by both Bruce Willis & Samuel L. Jackson, definitely worth watching as it's a modern day view of super heros


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## tokyogirl (Jul 16, 2002)

it was promoted more like it would be completely about him not getting hurt ever.  there was NOTHING about comic books or the like.


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 16, 2002)

True, but comic books do in a way play an important part in the film as they help Samuel L. Jackson's character come to realise what Bruce Willis' character weakness is towards the end of the film


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## tokyogirl (Jul 19, 2002)

i know!  they should have put something about that in the promos.  just at least a little something about comic books.


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## Tabitha (Jul 19, 2002)

Were there references to superheroes, even?  I don't think there were...


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## tokyogirl (Jul 19, 2002)

nope.  they main just played some scenes of the train wreck and him with the doctor with overlays of the doctor's voice (the whole 'you don't have a scratch on you') and SLJ's voice (the whole 'single survivor and he is unharmed' bit)


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## Tabitha (Jul 19, 2002)

Yeah, I think I remember now - the implication was more that there was something 'special' about him, not really that he was invunerable _in particular_.


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## tokyogirl (Jul 19, 2002)

exactly.  totally misleading.


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## Tabitha (Jul 20, 2002)

False advertising probably made me like this movie more in the end.  I bet it got a lot more bums on seats than it would have if they had presented it as a superhero tale.


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 20, 2002)

Too true, but it worked though!


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## tokyogirl (Jul 21, 2002)

not for me it didn't.  it took seeing it a second time, which i had to be forced to do, before i liked it.


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## Tabitha (Jul 21, 2002)

At least it grew on you in the end.  But I agree that false advertising can really ruin things.

Do you think you could really go through your life not noticing that you had the invunerability that WIllis' character had?  I mean, never to get paper cuts or stub your toe, all the little things that we take for granted - how weird would it be if they just didn't effect you?


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## tokyogirl (Jul 21, 2002)

i don't know.  he just really didn't seem like the kind of person to pay attention to that kind of thing.  i mean, he obviously couldn't bring it up with his wife that easily, after faking the injury.  he already freaked her out when asking if he's ever been sick.


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 21, 2002)

It sure would be weird not ever being sick, cutting yourself etc.

I just don't think I could go through my life not noticing it as I'd actually be abit concerned about it


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## tokyogirl (Jul 23, 2002)

yeah, i think i would have noticed too.  i was just thinking: do you think it could have happened to a woman?  cause uh, you know....


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 23, 2002)

You never know tokyo, it could well have


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## Tabitha (Jul 26, 2002)

> _Originally posted by tokyogirl _
> *yeah, i think i would have noticed too.  i was just thinking: do you think it could have happened to a woman?  cause uh, you know.... *


I take it you are talking about the fun and games that are menstruation?  Lovely topic!  It is a natural process of the body, so not harmful in the same way as being stabbed, so I think it could have happened to a woman without her noticing, same as Bruce.  Although a woman with those powers going through childbirth might be interesting.

Does Bruce's character feel pain?  I know he doesn't get sick and is pretty much invulnerable - but does he feel pain?  Did you ever play the card game knuckles?  Or give your friends chinese burns for fun?  Surely people would take notice if you were able to play these games without bleeding or noticing the pain?


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## tokyogirl (Jul 26, 2002)

i know, that's why i was thinking he probably does feel pain, because if he didn't at all he would have noticed by now.


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 26, 2002)

True, but unilke the rest of us, it heals up quickly & so the feeling of pain proably isn't so intense either


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## tokyogirl (Jul 28, 2002)

that's what i'm thinkin.


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 29, 2002)

That must be strange to feel pain & then it goes a way


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## Dave (Jul 29, 2002)

*Unbreakable 2*

If I had Sky Movies I could watch Unbreakable right now, tonight!

*Shyamalan Mulls Unbreakable 2 *

Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan told SCI FI Wire that he originally wanted to do a sequel to his superhero film Unbreakable, but thought better of it when critics and audiences reacted lukewarmly to the movie. "I would have, but I just didn't feel enough love," Shyamalan said in an interview while promoting his next movie, Signs. "That's the true answer. Most people won't give you the true answer. I just didn't feel enough love."

Shyamalan added that he was a bit surprised by the negative reaction to the movie, which starred Bruce Willis as a reluctant hero. "I was mostly surprised at the lack of the acknowledgment of what at least we aspired to do, [which] was to do the classy, non-fighting [non-Green-] Goblins-on-the-roof version [of a comic-book story]. Spider-Man was the goblins on the roof. I liked Spider-Man a lot. And my favorite part of it was the first hour, again, becoming Spider-Man. That's what I like, and that's what I wanted to make a movie of. And yeah, I have other ideas for Mr. Glass [Samuel L. Jackson] and Bruce's character, but ... ."

Asked if he might be persuaded to do a sequel, Shyamalan said, "I don't know. There's a lot of [fans], like when we had the first screening of Signs, these Unbreakable fanatics came out in force. And I was like, wow. They all came out. They came out with the DVDs and the posters. I was like, holy moley. And there was one Sixth Sense DVD there. And everybody else was Unbreakable. And I was like, wow. I guess there is a little cult thing going on. But that was really sweet. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe." 

Samuel L. Jackson told SCI FI Wire he would reprise his role as Mr. Glass if director M. Night Shyamalan ever makes a sequel to Unbreakable. "I'd love to do that character again," Jackson said, joking, "I'll do him with a haircut this time."


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## Bayleaf48 (Jul 30, 2002)

Be interesting to see IF ther is a sequel or not as the film's ending did kind of leave it open for 1!


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## Dave (Aug 8, 2004)

I finally watched this and really liked it. I agree that the comic book references are fundamental to the plot. The enigmatic Dr. Xavier-like Elijah Price character, played by Samuel L Jackson, has theories that are interesting but unlikely IMHO. He proposes that comic books simply continue the ancient use of pictograms to tell stories, and that these stories have always concerned superheroes who protect the rest of us mortal beings. The problem with that is that early comic books told boys-own jungle adventure stories, space adventure stories and detective stories, and it wasnâ€™t until the 1940â€™s and 1950â€™s that they began to deal exclusively with the superhero genre.

But hero vs. villain stories are very basic. In a world full of injustices, people will want to believe that there is a higher power on the side of the little man and who fights for your corner against all evil.

I liked the slower parts of the film; dealing with what it would be like if you discovered that you were indestructible, a subject of another film about that time _Fearless_ with Jeff Bridges, who walked away from an aeroplane crash unhurt.

I liked the way that you were unsure if Elijah was crazy or not in that yes-no-yes way all through the film, then just when he is proved correct at the end you discover the real truth.

Samuel L. Jackson says that he would be happy to resume the role in a sequel, but since Elijah was locked up in a home for the criminally insane I'm not sure how that would work. It never presented a problem for comic book characters though.

David Dunn is a real superhero name, in the tradition of Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne and Peter Parker, but he really needs a stylist to help with his costume.


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## tokyogirl (Aug 9, 2004)

True that, but maybe this time we could avoid some of the spandex problems......

Also, just because comic books started out telling stories of everything from mysteries to abridged Shakespeare doesn't mean they didn't evolve into a genre that could pass down the tradition of hero stories.  Back to caveman days, stories started about a hunt - how big the kill was.  Add a little exageration and embellishment and you have your first forms of hero stories.

Additionally, not only have there been plenty of ways for comic book villians to escape asylums (Arkum Asylum might as well have a revolving door), but people in real life are released from asylums all the time.  Once we fill them with some meds and say they are 'cured'.


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