The Alien's Achilles heel was *not* water. It was -Holy Water-. Verified by Word of God. "That's what I did with Signs. That was a story about a war between Heaven and Hell. The aliens were demons and the people's dead loved ones were angels. That was why I had them pray several times in the movie. It was about faith.
So the water that killed the aliens was holy water?
(He laughs). Most critics just didn't get that. "
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... that's nonsensical and completely at odds with what happens in the movie.
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It could be representative of holy water. It can't be actual holy water, because most tap water in the United States isn't blessed.
Also the quote you're using is from a parody interview in Something Awful. He didn't actually say that.
Look, maybe the word of god didn't actually confirm that the "aliens" were demons, but everything in the film has a biblical or demonic reference. Even the crop circles have a historic precedent,albeit a highly obscure one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing-Devil
Now maybe it is just a case of Epileptic Trees, but this interpretation does make more sense given M. Night's portfolio, and it makes the film way less ridiculous. The bird hitting the invisible ship is difficult to explain but it could be a weak reference to Matthew 10:29. Also many "natural" sources of water can be interpreted as sacred or "Holy" if you assume that any religious type person can bless water. Again its kind of a weak reference to hang a hat on, but if you give non-Judeo-Christian holy people equal power against demons or demon/devil like beings it becomes much less so. As for the glasses of tap water i guess they just got blessed somehow cuz Gibson did it 'shrugs'
Edited by Hellweek
I only saw this movie once, and while was struck by the whole obvious stupidity of the "vulnerable to water" bit, when I attepmted to explain the plot to my wife years later, an interesting theory arose in my mind: Perhaps the aliens aren't aliens. Perhaps they're demons. Perhaps they're not vulnerable to water, but in fact, vulnerable to HOLY water. Like drinking water that's been sitting in the house of a holy man, even one who's turned his back on God, (but not really), for an indeterminate length of time, and the water has been blessed simply by his presence. I don't recall the film completely, and I'm not going to pay to see it again, but if I recall correctly, there's no mention that the aliens are vulnerable to water anywhere else in the world. If I DO recall correctly, the finale goes straight from the boy's recovery, to Mel Gibson suiting up and going out to be a priest again. Perhaps he's not going out to just save souls, perhaps he's suiting up to go be a kick-ass demon slayer. Kind of puts it in a new light.
The movie says that the way to fight the aliens was "discovered" in the middle east. The announcement is on the TV, made after the invasion's more or less defeated, so if it didn't work in some places it might've been mentioned.
There's also the earlier note in the movie that the aliens weren't putting their crop circles near places with a lot of water, so it seems more likely that it's just mundane water that does them in.
Well so much for that idea. thanks for the info.
So now it sucks for me again.
One thing that's always been on my mind is, "What if the planet the aliens came from had no water?" Basically, it'd mean that they're not stupid for coming to a planet that's covered with water, but more they didn't even know that water did that to them in the first place.
As far as I recall, there's nothing that indicates that they knew they were weak to water.
What if we traveled hundreds of light years to get somewhere and the planet was 60% covered by a substance that we've never seen before? Oh well, get down there without any protective gear or weapons and kick some butt! Nope, still doesn't make sense.
I'm with the demons and holy water theory. A devout minister seems to me like the kind of person who would bless the farm's new well, in effect making all the water that comes from it holy water. The news says a 'primitive method' to drive off the invaders was found in the Middle East a place with a relatively scarce amount of water but knee high with priests and imams. It doesn't even say what the method was, it could have been chanting prayers at them for all we know. And if the invaders were only harmed by holy water, all you need is a holy man to bless the water before shooting it at the aliens, it doesn't mean that the method wouldn't work everywhere, it's just an extra step in the process.
We've discovered water 12 billion light years away, and we haven't even left our own solar system. If we can discover stuff that has been around since almost the beginning of time, we're already superior to the aliens who don't even know what they're allergic to that exists throughout the universe.
Seems to me that this is a movie that's pretty bad if you take it at face value, but can become amazing with WMG.
Look, maybe the word of god didn't actually confirm that the "aliens" were demons, but everything in the film has a biblical or demonic reference. Even the crop circles have a historic precedent,albeit a highly obscure one:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing-Devil
Now maybe it is just a case of Epileptic Trees, but this interpretation does make more sense given M. Night's portfolio, and it makes the film way less ridiculous. The bird hitting the invisible ship is difficult to explain but it could be a weak reference to Matthew 10:29. Also many "natural" sources of water can be interpreted as sacred or "Holy" if you assume that any religious type person can bless water. Again its kind of a weak reference to hang a hat on, but if you give non-Christian holy people equal power against demons or demon/devil like beings it becomes much less so. As for the glasses of tap water i guess they just got blessed somehow cuz Gibson did it 'shrugs'
Shouldn't some of these tropes go under YMMV? Such as:
-Creepy Child (I never thought of them as creepy, but now that it's mentioned I guess Bo kind of is, though she's actually less serious than Morgan is).
-Easily Forgiven (easily? Hardly! Graham is obviously still distraught over it, as his crying when Ray apologizes and his staring at him from the pizza place show- plus, as Graham is a decent person and was a practicing Christian before, forgiving was mandatory with his faith and he probably still does it out of habit.)
-Idiot Ball (DEFINITELY. After seeing so many intelligent, thoughtful discussions here, I can't believe not even one person has made arguments pointing out many things incorrect about this trope being here. I expected more discussions to be here, like this: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1815862/board/thread/215606054?d=215607240#215607240 It seems really obvious that in times of desperate need, a race would care less about the dangers they'd face when fighting for survival. Have humans not done this since the dawn of time?)
I could go on. It seems the cliche Shyama-hate has sort of taken over this page and thrown objectivity out the window.
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None of the tropes listed is YMMV. If said tropes are misuses, simply remove them (with a explanation in the edit reason). If you are interested in put an YMMV banner in them, give a look in the "Pages that need the YMMV banner" thread in the "Projects:Long Time/Perpetual" portion of the forums.
Edited by 216.99.32.44
Far be it for me to disparage the hollowed name of the Nostalgia Critic, but it seems a lot of the complaints about this movie's lack of logic can be traced back to his rant (included as a Video Example) about the pantry door.
My first issue with this is that there seems to be some resulting confusion that the aliens can't even open closed doors. This is not the case, as we see them turning the knob and nearly opening the door to the basement at the end of the movie before Graham and Merrill are able to block it.
It is true that they can't get past locked and/or barricaded doors. This isn't really all that remarkable, though. Human beings have mastered technologies like planes, tanks, spacecraft, machine guns, bazookas, nuclear bombs, etc. Still, if you locked Oppenheimer in a closet, he'd be just as screwed as the aliens in this movie.