Revealing mistake: When Ivy is running along the path in the woods, right before she bumps into the wall there are two large tree branches lying in her way. She shortens her steps and hops over both of them, even though her walking stick never touches them and she should have no indication that they're there.
The Village (2004)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan
Starring: Sigourney Weaver, Brendan Gleeson, William Hurt, Adrien Brody, Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard
The villagers don't live in 1897, but the present. The village is actually a project devised by wealthy John Walker (Elder Walker). The village elders all suffered tragic losses in their modern lives. To escape violence, they started a village inside a wildlife preserve, walled off from society. The elders masquerade as the monsters to keep the younger and unknowing members within village boundaries. Lucius Hunt is seriously injured and needs medicine. The elders have sworn never to return to the 21st C, so Elder Walker sends his blind daughter, Ivy for the medicine. Surviving a perilous trek, she meets up with a security guard patrolling the preserve's perimeter. He gets medicine for Ivy, and she returns to the village still knowing nothing about the outside world and believing she has killed a monster who tried to attack her. The guard was unaware people were living inside the preserve.
M Night Hater
More mistakes in The Village
Lucius Hunt: [reading a letter to the elders.] My mother is unaware of reasons of my visit today. She did not give her consent or consult me in any form. The passing of little Daniel Nicholson, from illness, and other events have weighed on my thoughts. I ask permission to cross into the forbidden woods and travel to the nearest town. I will gather new medicines, and I will return. With regards to those we don't speak of, I am certain they will let me pass. Creatures can sense emotion and fear. They will see I am pure of intention and not afraid. The end.
Trivia: When the floor is torn up and Noah has escaped, there are bird feathers everywhere. Next scene when Noah is in the hole and there are bird feathers everywhere as well. Toward the beginning of the movie when Ivy, Noah, and Lucius are at the resting rock, Noah pulls berries out of his pocket. Attached to the berries momentarily are feathers, they fall to the ground almost unnoticeable. I believe that possibly MNS wanted to give the hint that Noah already had access to the monster costume. It is also possible that Noah picked them up in the woods when he found the berries. I am leaning toward the first explanation.
Question: What is the significance of the dead 7-year-old boy in the opening scene of the movie? Does it have anything to do with the 7-year-old mentioned on Shyamalan's newspaper?
Answer: I had a thought about this. The main elder let his daughter go to get medicine because he loved her. That was not supposed to be allowed to happen, but he made an exception because it was for his daughter. I wonder if the boy that died at the beginning could also have been saved by outside medicine. So, was the main elder OK with this boy's death but couldn't bear his daughter's fiancé to die?
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Answer: No, they establish early in the movie that the boy died of a disease. The reason Lucius keeps requesting permission to go to the town to get medicine is to prevent someone else from getting the same thing. They are very effectively cut off from the outside world. The purpose of the newspaper report and radio news heard in the guard shack is to lend credence to their motives for establishing the village (ie, to escape a violent society).
Gabbo