YMMV / Glass (2019)

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• Ass Pull: The much-maligned Ancient Conspiracy. It isn't foreshadowed at all in any of the films unless you count the nebulous description of Century Comics #117 from Unbreakable — "That's where this group, the Coalition of Evil, tried to ascertain the weakness of every superhero" — and is regarded by some as wholly unnecessary to the film, since the mental hospital staff were already perfectly suitable antagonists without that angle.
• Audience-Alienating Ending: This movie is this for the "Eastrail 177 Trilogy", with the divisive ending revolving around a twist that had no foreshadowing beforehand resulting in the anti-climactic death of all three major characters, with David Dunn's death via being drowned in a puddle met with the most outrage.
• Awesome Music:
  • The second trailer starts off with an instrumental version of the widely loved Unbreakable theme.
  • David & Elijah, a Dark Reprise of the Unbreakable theme, benefits massively from combining both the industrial atmosphere of Split with the iconic theme from James Newton Howard.
  • Origin Story, the central theme of the film, notably used heavily in the emotionally charged climax and ending.
  • Brick Factory is notorious for being essentially a remix of both the Overseer's theme from Unbreakable and the Beast's theme from Split, creating a fascinating contrast perfectly suited for their fight scenes.
  • The music playing while Glass snoops around the hospital during the shift change appears to be based at least in part on the Blondie song "Heart of Glass."
• Contested Sequel: Fans are...split on the movie, some liking it and seeing it as a good sequel, while others hate it and feel Shyamalan has fallen back into his Mandatory Twist Ending habit especially with fan favorite the Overseer suffering an unceremonious death in a puddle.
• Critical Dissonance: Currently, the critic score on Rotten Tomatoes lies at a negative 36%, while the audience score is at a decent 67%. The film was also a commercial success, grossing $247 million on a $20 million budget.
• Cry for the Devil: The death of Mr. Glass and the Horde is a big Tear Jerker despite what both did.
  • While she is a gaslighting member of an evil Cape Busters society, Dr. Staple clearly does what she does in order to prevent the super-powered people from needing to be executed by her group, is remorseful when they still end up being killed, and has a complete breakdown when her sole justification for why they needed to die is rendered obsolete by Mr. Glass' actions, so it's easy to pity her.
• Epileptic Trees: The fact that Split was sold as a separate project and its connection to Unbreakable was a twist, some are wondering if this film will reveal other Shyamalan works are part of this growing universe. See also WMG.
• Fan Nickname: The nickname "Eastrail 177 Trilogy" has showed up here and there for the Unbreakable-Split-Glass trilogy, since that train accident is the common element impacting all the films. It became Ascended Fanon with the Compilation Re-release Blu-ray of the trilogy◊.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • After Brightburn presented itself as a fellow 2019 film that would demonstrate Beware the Superman, it seems the Ancient Conspiracy might have picked the wrong movie to be in.
  • Some people were disappointed Casey didn't have more of a hero story after her captivity in Split. Despite being filmed before Glass, The New Mutants would eventually have Anya Taylor Joy's character Illyana go through a similar plot, stuck in a health institute with a ambiguously evil Doctor watching over them.
• I Knew It!:
  • Ever since Split, quite a few people predicted that Kevin's father died on the same train that David was on.
  • Shyamalan's Creator Cameo here confirms that his previous cameos in the trilogy (as Dr. Fletchers' building manager in Split and as the stadium drug dealer in Unbreakable) are the same character, which was theorized when Split came out.
• Magnificent Bastard: Mr. Glass, as per the norm. See here.
• Moral Event Horizon: The Ancient Conspiracy crosses it at the same time it reveals itself; by cold-bloodedly drowning the Overseer even though he's never done anything but try to stop Mr. Glass and the Horde's rampage with as little collateral damage as possible, and wasn't even particularly uncooperative as a patient. What's even more worse is that David's son Joseph was forced to watch it happen and being unable to intervene.
• Narm:
  • We get a brief shot of the Beast galloping on all fours like, well, a beast. Maybe it's because the shot is so short, but he looks faintly ridiculous kicking his 'back' legs out like that, a bit like a frog.
  • One of the punk teens early on threatens the Overseer with "We're gonna Salt Bae your ass."
    • Though, this could swing right back into Narm Charm when David and Joseph spend the entire scene afterward making fun of this.
  • The Overseer getting drowned in a puddle, of all places. Yes, water is his weakness - but a puddle?
  • The significance that characters place on comic books can get rather Narmy, especially when someone cites "Did you know that in the first Superman, he couldn't even fly? And Metropolis was actually New York!" as convincing evidence that superpowers are real. Of particular note is the exchange between Glass and his mother near the end, which doesn't work very well with the tone of Glass dying:
    Mr. Glass: Oh, Mama... this is not a limited edition. This was an origin story the whole time!
  • Many find the entire premise of the ancient, 10,000 year old Cape Buster conspiracy completely ridiculous, both due to how out of nowhere it comes and that despite being able to suppress the existence of superhumans worldwide to such a degree everyone believes they're fictional they somehow managed to let the Overseer run around fighting crime for 19 years without him even knowing they existed.
    • This is alluded to in Staple's final exchange with the Overseer; it's because he's been spending the last 19 years running around only doing minor vigilante heroism that he was left alone. It was not until The Horde appeared and raised a risk of a public confrontation with The Overseer that the conspiracy finally had to act.
  • Footage of the climactic battle is leaked online to reveal superhumans to the world. Unfortunately the Overseer and the Beast have very restrained and visually unspectacular powers; there isn't much about the fight that couldn't realistically be faked, so it's difficult to believe doing this would break the masquerade.
• Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
• Sequelitis: Early critical reviews have stated that the film is overall a major letdown from its predecessors. While fans have initially received it better, even many who liked it feel it's an inferior sequel to the previous two, with most citing the notorious Ass Pull Plot Twist and ending as bringing the rest of the film down.
  Rotten Tomatoes critics' consensus: Glass displays a few glimmers of M. Night Shyamalan at his twisty world-building best, but ultimately disappoints as the conclusion to the writer-director's long-gestating trilogy.
  • Lee of Cinema Wins, well-known for his positivity, said he didn't like it, which is something he had never, ever said about any film, no matter how obviously terrible it is, before then. That said, he also said he didn't hate it either, positioning it as average at best.
• So Okay, It's Average: This tends to be the most common opinion of the film held by fans. Honest Trailers lampshades this by, rather than putting it in the "Oooh, what's happening?" category of good Shyamalan films or "Uh, what's happening!?" category of bad Shyamalan films, describing it as a "Well, that happened" film.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Due to the film focusing on the Overseer, Mr. Glass, and the Horde, Casey doesn't get as much screen time as the others, and what she does get is mostly spent in service of the Horde's storyline. A bit disappointing, considering that the previous film suggested that she already had the potential to become a hero herself.
  • There was a lot of mileage in making Dr. Ellie Staple the Anti-Mr. Glass; a Nurse Ratched-esque psychiatrist with a severe case of Tall Poppy Syndrome. Who - either through personal tragedy or something deeper - tries to "keep order in an insane world." Price representing empowering fantasy to Staple's representing oppressive mundanity. Instead, she's revealed to be member on a clandestine order of ancient Cape Busters — a twist that had almost no foreshadowing and seemingly came of out of nowhere.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • Oddly enough, the major thrust of the film might have been better off if it was an original movie not building off anything else, so there could be a genuine question of whether the powers were real rather than just waiting for the side we know is right to be proven right.
  • A good many viewers have said that they were quite looking forward to the clash between the Overseer and the Beast at the skyscraper that was being built up by Mr. Glass, and were immensely disappointed that this showdown never happens because they all die before it can.
  • Also, the Ancient Conspiracy of Cape Busters actually could have been a serviceable twist for many had it actually been foreshadowed beforehand. Imagine if tertiary characters like police offers or hospital orderlies had actually been shown to have the black clover tattoo throughout the film, making what it means a mystery, or if Mr. Glass had dropped cryptic clues about a villainous union that the audience might think refers to him teaming up with the Horde until realizing that he's actually talking about the secret society upon a rewatch. This could have gone a long way in making the ending more acceptable to many, since as it stands the Ass Pull nature of the twist is the ending's biggest offender.
  • The twist might have also worked better if the Cape Busters were not an ancient affair and more of a recent development. That way, instead of believing an Ancient Conspiracy took out people with godlike powers back in ancient times where some of the most advanced weaponry might be a bow, arrow, and a spear (and when having such abilities might make people worship you as a Son of Zeus or something similar), you would be able to have modern governments and agencies trying to conceal the truth about a potentially recent superhero phenomenon with the help of Modern Battlefield Weapons. Ironically, it originally WAS a secret government division during the initial shooting of the film, but had to be changed in post-production reshoots due to concerns about it coming off as a "Deep State" conspiracy theory.

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