M. Night Shyamalan: How the Real World Twisted on the Master of the Twist

The degree to which AI can mimic reality has rapidly increased and becomes more hyper-realistic by the minute.

I don’t know what to think of this.

I live an exhausting workaday life.

Writing is not my job.

I write out of love for writing, whether it be reviews, philosophy, prose, or poetry.

I’ve got a backlog of films on a list I haven’t got around to watching.

My reviews—or perhaps it would be better to call them film ruminations—are not advertisements for the latest box office offering.

They are thoughts on some of the films I find the time to watch.

Recently, I finished M. Night Shyamalan’s strange but delightful superhero-themed trilogy which started with 2000’s Unbreakable, surprised us by continuing with 2016’s Split, and wrapped up with Glass in 2019.

The thing about being the master of the twist is people don’t always like the twists. Unbreakable and Split were much beloved by fans, but Glass wasn’t as well received.

These three films, however, are well worth watching because the three actors around which they center—Samuel L. Jackson, Bruce Willis, and James McAvoy—deliver tour de force performances.

Especially McAvoy, who is beyond outstanding.

So I’d encourage you to watch them before reading further, as I am going to spoil the ending.

Just stop here and go enjoy the many twists and turns in this series. I sure did.

***** * *****

Whether you’ve returned to finish the article or you never left, here are my—hehe—Rominations:

What I find myself dwelling on after finishing the series is how the ultimate finale—the final twist—has recently been rendered obsolete.

Glass understands that there is a shadowy organization trying to control super-powered humans, and he foils them by masterminding a battle between two super-powered beings and leaking footage of it onto the world wide web.

2019 was only six years ago, and it was only in this time and place in our recent history, when the film was made, that the ending could have worked.

If we were inundated with footage demonstrating the seemingly impossible now, in 2025, we would easily assume it was a deep fake, an AI rendering. Everyone’s social media feeds are already overrun with such nonsense.

It struck me like a punch in the gut from Superman:

We really can’t trust anything we see on the internet. Anything. At all.

This means that the press as the fourth estate is completely useless as a tool for keeping the authorities honest.

The media track record was never great—*ahem*, reference Operation Mockingbird—but at least the images burned onto actual film had to happen in front of a camera. They couldn’t just be conjured from an AI prompt.

When the establishment obliviously sent journalists into Vietnam thinking they would be boosting morale for the war by reporting the glorious exploits of U.S. soldiers, they got depictions of napalmed children, disillusioned young men, and a burning monk instead.

By the time the footage aired it was too late. Justifiable outrage ensued.

We’re quickly reaching a stage where the tech can be used to fabricate an exact, convincing narrative.

Even if something they don’t want us to see gets leaked, it can easily be written off as a fake.

Mr. Glass, the Mastermind in Shyamalan’s trilogy, would have to consider a different tactic for exposing those who control the masses.

Video of superhuman feats would be no more convincing than Stephen Hawking tumbling down the halfpipe.

Anyway, forgive me for getting distracted.

The movies were good.

I mean, this is just a Movie Romination, right?

Sure it is.

So… enjoy!