January 21, 2019

How M. Night Shyamalan Rejects the Modern Superhero Movie with ‘Glass’

WARNING! The following contains major, MAJOR plot spoilers for M. Night Shyamalan’s Glass!!!

Glass hit theaters this weekend and besides tying together a trilogy that began with 2000’s Unbreakable (and continued in 2016’s Split), it is also a meta love letter to the superhero/comic book genre in general.

Looking at today’s oversaturated market (not that anyone is complaining, myself included), audiences can get caught up in massive CGI spectacle and forget the rich roots from which their favorite characters whence came. Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan rejects this in favor of asking what essential elements make up a story about beings with extraordinary abilities? What comic book tropes show up again and again across different properties, whether they’re published by Marvel or DC, turned into movies by Disney or Warner Brothers?

In that vein, Glass is also a commentary on the modern superhero flick, plainly stating that no matter the IP, a cinematic comic book production can be boiled down into very distinctive cliches. But while that formula can be used over and over again to much financial success, Shyamalan simultaneously shuns the idea of a shared universe, which has become all the rage at major studios these days. He does not set up another, deciding to kill off David Dunn/The Overseer (Bruce Willis), Elijah Price/Mr. Glass (Samuel L. Jackson), and Kevin Wendell Crumb/The Horde (James McAvoy) in one fell swoop.

Despite Price being right about superheroes all along, the universe in which he lives is not about Avengers and Justice League-style groups of do-gooders and villains. Rather, there is an age-old system in place that actively seeks to undermine any such things. The mysterious organization tasked with dissuading or, if necessary, killing those with special gifts is the very embodiment of the director’s rejection of setting up a self-perpetuating machine of future installments and crossovers.

The twist is even more deliciously ironic when you realize that Shyamalan expertly plays on our expectations by pulling a Chekhov’s gun early on with the Osaka Tower’s grand opening. Our Pavlovian-trained minds instantly paint a picture of a final, epic showdown at the location as soon as it’s announced near the start of the film, but the newly-built structure is merely a red herring, giving credence to the old phrase, “when you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me.” All in all, it’s a neat storytelling about-face, but also one that shows just how -cookie cutter our entertainment can be, just how easily we are satisfied with run-of-the-mill superhero platitudes.

There is no traditional “clash-of-the-titans” fight sequence, or even a happy ending for Dunn, Price, and Crumb—not something you’d expect after 20 years of setup. After all, this is the age of Infinity War/Endgame preparation, where pieces are meticulously placed upright over the course of an extended period of time like some legendary game of chess. Paradoxically, however, Glass still the faintest whiff of a wider universe, should the director ever feeling like returning to it.

By the end of the film, Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson)—revealed to be a member of that secret and conspiratorial cabal—discovers, to her ultimate horror, that Elijah was filming the final standoff between Dunn and Crumb. Moreover, Price then had it sent out to the public, thus undermining the organization’s efforts to prevent the world from learning about the “gods” living within it.

The footage is eventually posted onto the Internet by David’s son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark), Elijah’s mother (Charlayne Woodard), and survivor of the Horde, Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy). While all three sit in the bustling 30th Street Station, random people begin to watch the footage online and Mrs. Price declares the start of a new universe. As the camera pulls back and up, we’re meant to surmise that any one of those individuals in the busy train terminal could be a secret superhero, just waiting for actual proof of their abilities.

Now, this is Mr. Shyamalan having a little fun at the expense of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, where Nick Fury (also played by Jackson) brought together the Avengers. Where Fury has lived to tell the tale many times over, Elijah Price (who, cinematically speaking, came before Fury) will never get the same chance—his “cross-pollination” so-to-speak is posthumous. And while Fury introduced Earth’s Mightiest Heroes to each other, Price introduced them to themselves. Fury wanted to protect the Earth, but Price wanted to protect the very idea of a hero or villain (aka the idea of a human being’s full potential). Unlike Fury, he did not want to create an organization, he wanted to bring one down.

This comes back to the assertion that Glass is about exploring the quintessential tenets of the comic book genre in general. Does that mean Shyamalan has also crafted an indictment of studios that have placed dollar signs and mass productions over these core principles? Is he trying to say that they have, like the film’s secret organization, “destroyed” superheroes and what they stand for with extreme prejudice?

Maybe. On the other hand, I love all the Marvel and DC films, so who in the hell am I to say?

In any case, Mr. Glass points out, this is an origin story, the very beginning of a group of people about to discover their true destinies and no longer beholden to a power that seeks to eradicate their supernatural talents. Price, Dunn, and Crumb were simply pawns (albeit disposable ones) in a plan to make that happen; they were not the characters meant to launch a major shared universe.

The real beauty of it all is that we don’t need to see the aftermath of Price’s plan. Yes, heroes and their opposites will begin to crawl out of the woodwork, but aside from Joseph, Casey, and Mrs. Price, who else is there to care about? No other major players (besides Staple perhaps) can carry a brand-new franchise and that’s just the way the director likes it. He’s not interested in setting up an epilogue like the MCU and DCEU—the glaring absence of a post-credits sequence underscore that point.

But like I said, there is a rich playground for Shyamalan to play in if he ever wants to revisit it. To quote an oft-used comic book cliffhanger, “THE END?”

Glass is now playing in theaters everywhere.