Come spend a year anticipating J J Abrams's SUPER 8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NECsrx7VC3I

dude I dunno if you should be fucking with ***TOP SECRET*** material

huh

Oh right, Cloverfield 8

Is this the "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls" prequel we all needed?

i will be there opening night in one year because i love the idea of this guy doing late '70s spielberg, but fuck an entire year of the hype machine is slowly gonna kill it for me :(

Aw yeah.

Okay the new teaser is out and was the best 30 seconds of the superbowl today.

Love the vintage John Williamsish score and mustachio'd cops making wtf faces at ceiling. The vibe is so pure I wonder if kids too young for the nostalgia factor will still check it out.

Abrams talks a bit:

http://herocomplex.latimes.com/2011/02/06/super-8-j-j-abrams-2/

i will be there opening night in one year because i love the idea of this guy doing late '70s spielberg, but fuck an entire year of the hype machine is slowly gonna kill it for me :(

Gotta say this has been actually handled pretty well so far.

haha as soon as i read myself saying that i thought "you idiot you totally got this wrong"

yeah i didn't even know this existed until today

I like that you can tell Abrams is thinking in that interview "If only once-a-year Comic-Con hype was all you needed to do."

great interview. Love the bit about Spielberg wanting to do a "divorce" movie and making E.T.

wow that teaser was awesome!

that's one of those teasers that almost makes you not want to spoil it by seeing the movie

I'm no Abrams fan by any means but this is pushing a lot of my buttons
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtn5dm9uYi8&feature=player_embedded

Yeah, I find myself getting really excited for this, but I have a feeling it can't possibly live up to me expectations.

so im pretty hyped for this. love love love coach taylor.

still never seen anything jj abrams that i liked, tho.

i do like steve spielberg. wish john williams was involved.

that's one of those teasers that almost makes you not want to spoil it by seeing the movie

― My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic (Princess TamTam), Sunday, February 6, 2011 11:44 PM (4 months ago) Bookmark

based on what im hearing from reviews, this could be the way to go

love love love coach taylor.

This is my main motivation going in.

That trailer had a real touch of the M. Night Shyamalan about it.

which is to say spielberg at a generation's remove, yeah

That's straight 100% Spielberg imo, which has always been Abrams' ambition anyway.

yeah, the crane shots at the beginning, the drew barrymore-esque love interest (?), kids blazing thru on bmx bikes, ffs. 80s spielberg all the way.

If Cloverfield was his Close Encounters/Jaws, this is definitely his E.T. (with a dark side?).

Cloverfield is the only thing he's done that I really love and he didn't even direct it. But I still have faith in this!

Oh wow, I don't think I ever realized he didn't direct Cloverfield. (I haven't seen it since it was in the theaters, though.)

he didnt write cloverfield either! just slapped his name on it

Well that dirty so and so...

I believe Abrams came up with the "concept" for Cloverfield and in fairness it was obviously his name that got it made.

sort of funny how we're still so firmly stuck to the idea that the director and perhaps the writer are the true and sole "authors" of a film, while the producer is just this moneyman suit. in some cases, this seems way off base (since we're talking about spielberg, e.g., poltergeist).

Yeah but Spielberg actually did direct Poltergeist

i agree w you, but tobe hooper gets the screen credit. SS was supposedly just the producer.

I think that was something of an anomaly, i mean Hooper wanted his name taken off the picture iirc. But yeah, i'm sure there are plenty of movies where the producer has a huge influence and i'd say Cloverfield is probably one of them.

^ yeah, that was my point

sort of funny how we're still so firmly stuck to the idea that the director and perhaps the writer are the true and sole "authors" of a film, while the producer is just this moneyman suit. in some cases, this seems way off base (since we're talking about spielberg, e.g., poltergeist).

― And the piano, it sounds like a carnivore (contenderizer), Wednesday, June 8, 2011 6:21 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark

oh i definitely dont think that producers are empty suits, and abrams was certainly one of key figures in the development of this picture - i think it was his idea to begin with, anyway. i was really just concurring in a roundabout way with johnny's surprise at finding out that he didnt direct it, because i was also convinced that he did for a pretty long time.

producers do a lot of stuff. spielberg's an interesting example because he's had a huge producing career and his level of involvement has varied wildly with different projects. sometimes he's a major creative force, sometimes he's just a guy who puts his name on something to help get it made. i do get the impression that abrams is more formidable as 'brand' & as a salesman than he is as a creative entity.

producers (and the prod supervisor) basically made the movies at big studios in the '20s, '30s and into the '40s, from writing to editing to reshoots. Most of the mainstream Hollywood directors now are marketers, so not nec. (tho Spielberg and Ap*t*w would be among those who obv have input)

I'm probably setting myself up for huge disappointment, but I'm really excited to see this movie. Mostly because the trailers remind me of the first time I ever saw Close Encounters. I was home sick at about age 10 and was watching bits of it between dozing off, so I ended up with this weird impression of certain scenes and images rather than of the movie as a whole. These images stuck deep into my brain until I finally saw the whole movie through a couple years later.

The NY Times Abrams profile is good. Having Spielberg producing means that it's an homage to his 70s movies instead of a steal.

This was a letdown, sorry to say. Definitely more Spielberg-via-Shyamalan than real deal Spielberg.

I'm probably setting myself up for huge disappointment, but I'm really excited to see this movie. Mostly because the trailers remind me of the first time I ever saw Close Encounters.

Ditto.

Love the poster

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmgn84tGsW1qzass3o1_500.jpg

set in the late '70s, right? I might go to a budget matinee just for that factor.

Somewhere out there is Super 8 footage of me shaking a fist at the Nixon White House.

Set in 1979 and most of the period references are presented sans smirk.

what is this movie about, then

xpost Tho I'm sure you'll appreciate a punchline aimed at disco's expense.

sold!

can't see that actor and not think of that horrible tv show Early Edition

I am still mad there was never a Goonies-themed flume ride

For the record I do not hate The Goonies and don't really understand how anyone could hate anything that fun. That said, it's no E.T..

The Goonies is no The Room.

the goonies is also a movie aimed at 11 year olds

I have never seen The Goonies.

it's no andrei rublev

Andrei Tarkovsky is no 11-year-old

well he's not anything now

I share all of ENBB's emotion for E.T. Just thinking about that movie makes me well up a little.

And PFFFFFLLLBBBT to Goonies haters. I agree 100% that it is no E.T. but it is fun and great and I have rewatched it many more times than I care to admit.

E.T. was the first time I heard someone use the word "penis" in a movie

in a pejorative sense

I was busy seeing stuff like The Brother from Another Planet when I was in junior high and The Goonies was out. Never seen it.

toot toot

idg why they had joe commune with the alien in this at the climactic moment--the alien was a total asshole up to that point.

jj abrams seems to think he should be doing action/adventure/espionage/scifi/suspense movies and tv, but i think what he is really good at is melodrama + domestic realism tbh.

spent most of the movie wishing i was rewatching e.t. i will do that asap.

i love coach taylor btw

also the lil fat director

also omg ron eldard! what ever happened to him? dreamy imo

Like Matt Zoller Seitz sez:

But there are other, more specific references. Like Spielberg in "E.T." -- and pretty much any fantasy or horror director with a smidge of common sense -- Abrams keeps the "Super 8" creature shrouded in shadow or strategically hidden by foliage or bits of architecture, then gradually reveals it. But his direction also leads viewers to believe that the creature is brutish and menacing, or at least creepy, even though it is later revealed as highly intelligent and essentially benevolent. (E.T. is nonviolent to his core, but the tormented alien in "Super 8" has been abused by government scientists since the '60s, is way pissed about it, and has a right to be.)

i guess

Yeah the communication between joe & alien seemed a little forced. Like he's cocooning & chowing down on humans left and right and then...I don't really get the connection. I mean I get it, and I like the idea, but it's just so fast and DING! everything's better now, bye Mr Alien...it felt tacked on. Or yeah, they spent too much time building up the monster to be A and then suddenly reveal him to be B but there's no time to build B so [music swells] THE END

Avatar also was about threatening but ultimately highly intelligent and essentially benevolent aliens.

I don't know, I mean, lions and bears will eat people if they want, but I don't harbor any ill will toward them for it. I don't really get the complaint.

wk how old are you?

the whole thing about the science teacher being with the alien even if he would die made me wonder if the alien could recognize the kid through his relation with the science teacher. and when the kid talked to the alien it felt like he should of been saying "you want to go home (and I could even help you)" but I don't think he ever mentioned that. and because the kid didn't say the most convincing things to assure his survival, I'm a little surprised the alien let him off so easy and maybe the alien just had a soft spot for the kid being so compassionate and pure or whatever

*spoilers all up in this thread*

it was set up pretty clearly that the alien was smarter than us and was cool with ppl until the evil labcoats probed him or whatever we do to aliens. So being more intelligent than us he probably recognized that Disney kid /= Labcoats. The real problem is that the alien design was straight out of Avatar's blocky creature playbook.

It seemed very Transformer-y to me. I did like the dog/king kong qualities in the face, the breath blowing the kid's hair...but I kept expecting it to make robotic movement noises (I didn't even like those stupid fucking movies either, it annoyed me that I kept having them in my head while I was watching this)

I was busy seeing stuff like The Brother from Another Planet when I was in junior high and The Goonies was out. Never seen it.

― 27 Dresses, 13 Assassins (Eazy), Friday, June 17, 2011 12:54 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark

sweet brag bro

Like Matt Zoller Seitz sez:
But there are other, more specific references. Like Spielberg in "E.T." -- and pretty much any fantasy or horror director with a smidge of common sense -- Abrams keeps the "Super 8" creature shrouded in shadow or strategically hidden by foliage or bits of architecture, then gradually reveals it. But his direction also leads viewers to believe that the creature is brutish and menacing, or at least creepy, even though it is later revealed as highly intelligent and essentially benevolent. (E.T. is nonviolent to his core, but the tormented alien in "Super 8" has been abused by government scientists since the '60s, is way pissed about it, and has a right to be.)
― Shart Shaped Box (Phil D.), Friday, June 17, 2011 2:35 AM (6 hours ago) Bookmark

Like Spielberg in "E.T." -- and pretty much any fantasy or horror director with a smidge of common sense -- Abrams keeps the "Super 8" creature shrouded in shadow or strategically hidden -- boring cliche. it worked in 'cloverfield' but here it felt like a self-conscious by-the-book thing. everyone knows you're not supposed to show the creature, so JJA doesn't.

lil disney kid knows or thinks he knows that the alien has been abused, but the girl, whom the alien has cocooned and will probably kill, doesn't. whatever: the telepathic communciation bit and the pat 'now the alien is free i've got over my mother dying three months ago' were just cheap -- even i can see e.t. trounces this movie sentimentality-wise.

also omg ron eldard! what ever happened to him? dreamy imo

― horseshoe, Thursday, June 16, 2011 9:26 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

haha, i was definitely contemplating the return of american-tim-roth-guy during the movie

lil disney kid knows or thinks he knows that the alien has been abused, but the girl, whom the alien has cocooned and will probably kill, doesn't

+ implication the girl is abused (at least emotionally) at home

boring cliche. it worked in 'cloverfield' but here it felt like a self-conscious by-the-book thing. everyone knows you're not supposed to show the creature, so JJA doesn't.

yeah, pretty much. how you handle the monster should depend on what you intend to do with it, 'reveal it as little as possible' shouldnt be treated as bible law - in a case like this, where we're supposed to feel bad for it in the end, it's undercut by the fact that the movie hasn't allowed us to get to know the monster! people forget that the reason we didnt see much of the shark in Jaws is because spielberg had no confidence in the monster - when he saw this crappy special effect being dragged around by a speedboat, he was just like 'jesus i cant let the audience get a look at this piece of crap' - and it worked for Jaws because the audience already freaking knows what sharks look like, we can fill in the blanks. that kind of thing works for a movie where the monster's only job is to terrify people, but not one where you're supposed to buy into a sensitive 'hes just so abused ;_;' moment.

The short commune scene was weak but the scare scenes were fun and the monster special effects were good. The monster was never my main focus of the film. The real climax was when the kids reunited with their fathers. I still give the movie a solid A.

Princess OTaM OTaM

I really really liked this. I could complain about the last 10 minutes or so, but, nah, the rest of the flick kept me so thoroughly entertained that it seems like nitpicking to pull it apart at that point.

i liked this because it had a good cast and the smalltown domestic stuff was really good but the entire last third or so was p much garbage for all reasons listed itt

i did really like the zombie movie that played over the end credits tho

I don't know if I'd even hate on the last third, just maybe the last ten minutes. I thought the monster reveal was done a LOT better here than in Cloverfield at least. As a lot of people have pointed out, its pretty much impossible to live up to audience expectations when the monster gets revealed and I thought Abrams did an admirable job. I really wish this might kind of set the template for summer popcorn movies though, because I like this so much better than the fast-cut fight, fast-cut fight scene, chase scene, repeat formula of like Transformers or whatever. The kids were well cast, there were some genuine lols that didn't feel forced, actually suspenseful at a few points - pretty much what I want when I go see a summertime blockbuster flick.

for chrissakes the pirate is named ONE-EYED WILLIE. I MEAN COME ON.

― strongo hulkington's ghost dad, Thursday, 16 June 2011 17:31 (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

HOLY SHIT HOW DID I NEVER GET THIS BEFORE?

Nice look at some of the effects work in the movie: http://www.studiodaily.com/main/news/headlines/An-Explosive-Train-Wreck-and-a-Trick-of-the-Light-for-Super-8_13257.html

Who would've thought filming two kids walking in front of a movie projector would be so tough?

This was pretty good, though like many here I felt there were a lot of bad decisions in the last half hour -- in many ways it seemed rushed at that point, maybe a necessary price for the pleasantly easy-going pace of the rest of the movie. i mean i'm into the way they include this whole multi-scene arc of dad breaking out of military prison, getting himself to evac zone, picking up elle fanning's dad, and getting back into down -- even though this has no relevance to the plot, there's this nice moment at the end where dads are hugging kids and kids are all "we love you dads so we're going to allow you to feel like you rescued us even though we kind of did it ourselves and all you did was show up, but nice job, seriously guys, we appreciate the effort"

re alien -- reason for cocooning people totally unclear -- this is the kind of unexplained creepiness I usually LIKE from JJA (e.g. Cloverfield) but it didn't fit with this movie where creature has explicitly presented backstory. would have liked to see more done with the mindmeld -- e.g. are we to understand that, even after the alien leaves, its psychic traces are imprinted on them as they were on the science teacher? that's a nice gloss on the "coming of age" movie -- that coming of age consists of having slimy alien mental patterns forced into fusion with your own.

liked also that alien basically didn't give a shit about people, just wanted what it wanted. not in any way "benevolent" as zoller seitz says above. surely it lets joe go not because he's like "dude understands me and is sensitive" but just because he's like "ok, mind melded with him and unlike the air force dude there is no chance this guy's a threat to my spaceship so no need to bother with him." liked the way the alien takes off and is like "oh by the way i won't be needing the rest of this water tower so i'ma drop it on some more soldiers."

I wonder if I'd have crushed on Elle Fanning as much as I did on Martha Plimpton. I dunno, Marth's character seemed much sassier.

Plus Super 8 has nothing as iconic as the Truffle Shuffle.

It's not as funny as the Goonies - some of the kids in Super 8 have kind of indistinct personas and don't get enough play. Really enjoyed this anyway, including all the ridiculous and explosions and stuff towards the end but the last 10 minutes or so was like a particularly half-arsed episode of Dr Who.

Actually it really is pretty much exactly the kind of cop-out ending Dr Who writers throw in when they can't work out how to end a story.

idg why they had joe commune with the alien in this at the climactic moment--the alien was a total asshole up to that point.

The point was exactly that Joe said it needn't be such an asshole: stop dwelling on past tragedies and move on with your life. Awful things happen but that doesn't mean you have to turn awful because of them. (Before the mindmeld the alien was bent on revenge for mankind for what the army did to it, but after it it just finishes the ship and flies away.) So basically alien = Joe's dad, get it? I guess the movie could've developed this theme a bit more.

could have left that shitty rushed nonsense out altogether tbh.

Tam Tam otm, everyone else annoyed by the 'spielberg 101' last third also otm.

Looked great and the kids were good, though.

I want the whole movie to be the actual kids movie they show at the end. Best part of the whole thing.

O_o

yipes!

good prosecutor zing at the end

According to court records and contemporary news accounts, Murphy, then a 19-year-old college student with acting aspirations, was already out on bail awaiting arraignment on charges of molesting the boy, whom he had met while working as a camp counselor. He disguised himself as a woman in a white dress and wig to kidnap the child.

I mean, what the shit?

thats on some bugs bunny