Wayward Pines' producer M. Night Shyamalan says his trademark plot twists aren't 'thin and meaningless
Across his body of film work, director M. Night Shyamalan has built a reputation for unexpected plot twists.
Arguably, it was best executed in 1999's "The Sixth Sense," with varying degrees of success in subsequent films like "The Village" and "The Happening."
While some may see the director's plot twists as gimmicky, Shyamalan said that he doesn't see them as "thin and meaningless."
"It is all a continuation of character's awareness for me," the director explained on a recent press call. "If I put myself in the shoes of a main character and that person is learning more about their world, more about their situation, that feels very organic to me. Things aren't right, I'm feeling clouded, obscured. I'm feeling like suffocated, why, why, why, and getting those answers feels very organic. It's an increasing of our main character's knowledge."
In his first television venture, Fox's "Wayward Pines," Shyamalan used the same technique to spin the series 180-degrees on its fifth episode.
He promises that Thursday's sixth episode will continue to provide answers after revealing that the citizens of "Wayward Pines" are the last living humans of their kind. Outside the town's borders, hundreds of years had passed while they were kept in a cryogenic sleep by a visionary scientist. Meanwhile, humans de-evolved into powerful and fast animals referred to as "abbies," short for "aberrations."
"For me, Episode 5 and 6 are the answers episodes," Shyamalan told reporters. "Then for me, post-that, is the 'Oh my God, how are we going to deal with what we know now?'"
FoxHumans de-evolve into "abbies," short for "aberrations" on Fox's "Wayward Pines."So, what can fans of "Wayward Pines" expect now that the big plot twist is out?
Shyamalan says there are moral questions that need to be answered.
"There's a thing that we take for granted, because there's so many of us right now that freedom and lack of rules or flexibility of social environment is a given-that's a right," Shyamalan said. "But, if there was only X number of us, does one of us get to jeopardize the group? Well, no that couldn't be allowed, right? Those kinds of freedoms couldn't be allowed because there's so few of us, so we're going to have to make really stringent rules."
Later, Shyamalan added, "You can assume it's not going to be warm and fuzzy."
Watch a preview of Episode 6 below:
"Wayward Pines" airs Thursdays at 9 p.m. on Fox.