Super 8 - An Amblin Entertainment Production, a J.J. Abrams Film (1 Viewer)

[TravisR]

I'm sure even J.J. Abrams himself would disagree but I think Super 8 is much better than E.T. I love nearly all of Steven Spielberg's movies but I've always found E.T. to be boring, manipulative and vastly overrated. Based on the reaction that Super 8 is getting, the internet would eviscerate E.T. if it was made today.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

@TravisR..


sure most people love it and most critics as seen here on MRQE.com


http://www.mrqe.com/movie_reviews/super-8-m100091239


but again,i think that it's only because,it's not a sequel,and more

of a breath of fresh air if you compare it against most of the dreadful dreck that Hollywood

churns out year in year out.Therein lies the difference.


The whole point of my last post was that it couldn't be made today,and shouldn't be made today.Today

is worlds apart from what 1982 was.


And i'm also not sure the net would send E.T. back to his ship since a lot of people are frustrated with

what we pay for in terms of cinema storytelling.

 

[TravisR]

And i'm also not sure the net would send E.T. back to his ship since a lot of people are frustrated with

what we pay for in terms of cinema storytelling.

I think the sentamentality of E.T. wouldn't work with today's bitterly cynical audience. Like you said though, it definitely worked in 1982 and that's all that really matters.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I don't see why anyone would be satisfied with the story about the kids. The majority of them are left behind for the 3rd act never to return. Even Fat Kid, the largest secondary character (npi), gets dropped because they don't know what to do with him.

So you want another half hour to flesh out all the loose ends? Besides, we do get something of a resolution of the director kid (I'll remember him for being more than just fat). We see him get mad at Joe because he likes Alice too. In that scene it's clear to me that the two will remain friends. In the closing credits we also see that he completed his film.

Elle Fanning ended up being nothing but a damsel in distress.

Joe is the character the film is pinned on, but Alice is a full character in her own right and we get to know her well. Does she need a rescue, yes. I don't see this as a negative unless you think every female character that isn't a Ripley is a waste.

And our main character Joe at no point in the film ever has a conflict who's resolution can be summed up as "Some times bad things happen." He hasn't had any problem 'letting go' of his mother. He's having a nice summer with friends, they're making a movie, he's mak'n on the hot girl in school. Joe was doing just fine in the movie I saw, he didn't have any problem to resolve except for his relationship with his father.

We see several times that Joe is holding (and when he's not holding it, it's in his pocket) his mother's locket. He treasures it. He's very upset when the soldier takes it and Joe gets it back at first opportunity. We see Joe at the graveyard at his mother's grave, holding the locket. Joe is troubled by his mother's death, but he's still able to function and move forward. He's doing better than his dad is.

Are Joe and his Father's issues resolved? No. They just hug at the end.

At the end, Joe's dad realizes he has to be a father. He's telling Joe that when he says "I got you. I got you." Actually, he has realized that earlier when he learns Joe has been taken by the soldiers. At that point, he realizes he's got to protect his kid.

Outside of the kids story, you have the stuff with Kyle Chandler and Ron Eldard. Abrams put in a mystery here too, and it tuns out the huge conflict these families have is that Eldard didn't go to work one day. Really? I was expecting at least an affair with Eldard and the Mother, even if it would have been obvious. Ultimately none of this gets explored at all, and Chandler decides to 'forgive' Eldard for no reason other than the movie is coming to an end.

If my wife died because some drunken asshole didn't show up and she covered for him, I could work up a real, long-lasting hate for that guy. The thought that "If not for him, my wife would still be alive" would be jangling around in my head for a long time. Would that be totally fair, no, but this has resonance for me.

I do agree that the forgiveness comes about rather suddenly, with not enough development leading up to it.

Then there's the monster. Someone compared the monster to Jaws earlier. Why would you treat the monster like Jaws... if he's supposed to be E.T.? We don't joyfully watch Jaws swim-off into the sunset do we, because it would have made about as much sense as it does in Super 8.

I don't compare the alien to Jaws at all. I don't really think of E.T. very much either. I guess we've all read the comparisons to the Spielberg films, and I see that in a general, overall tone, but not in the specifics of the monster. The alien is hard to sympathize with, when he's eating people. Surely he could have gone after livestock, this was something of a rural area. Actually, it's not entirely clear the alien is eating the people. In the cave we hear one of the children say he's eating a person, but it's dim and hard to see that happening. We see several people alive in the cave. It's not clear the alien is eating people, but it's not clear he's not. I don't like that ambiguousness.

I don't get all the hate for this film. We'll just have to agree to disagree.

 

[montrealfilmguy]

i have to get this off my chest...


why oh why are all the tanks and whatnot just firing half hazardly and randomly everywhere near the end of the film

like some bad game AI on auto-pilot steroid mode ??


I'm half-joking,but as the camera pans up to let us see the kids dodging all this,i was trying to see if

the army was trying to shoot the creature running around,but couldn't find it.


i'm voting for misdirection on this.

"Look at the kids running around not getting killed."

sure,but there's no reasoning for all the blasting of the suburb area.


Full of sound and fury,signifying nothing perhaps ?

 

[Citizen87645]

My friend and I discussed this as a point of confusion as well. There was a very brief line from one of the soldiers about tanks misfiring. I think what was happening was the device the alien was building was supposed to be messing with the systems, but that doesn't make total sense since it looked like people were doing the shooting and not automatic targeting systems...

 

[Al.Anderson]

I enjoyed the film, but like many I thought it was little empty, depending too much on forced emotion at the end.


I completely agree with Zack and the poor motivations and dynamics; particularly:

... it tuns out the huge conflict these families have is that Eldard didn't go to work one day. Really? I was expecting at least an affair with Eldard and the Mother ...

I thought Eldard's ex-wife was going to Chandler's dead wife - making the kid's romance a Luke and Leia situation. Which would have been funny at least.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by Johnny Angell



We see several times that Joe is holding (and when he's not holding it, it's in his pocket) his mother's locket. He treasures it. He's very upset when the soldier takes it and Joe gets it back at first opportunity. We see Joe at the graveyard at his mother's grave, holding the locket. Joe is troubled by his mother's death, but he's still able to function and move forward. He's doing better than his dad is.





I don't compare the alien to Jaws at all. I don't really think of E.T. very much either. I guess we've all read the comparisons to the Spielberg films, and I see that in a general, overall tone, but not in the specifics of the monster.

Joe's dead mother story seems illogical because the movie acts like Joe MUST get move on and get past her demise, like it's some huge impediment to his ongoing health. As noted by others, the kid actually seems pretty well-adjusted. It's only been six months - IIRC - since she died, and he's doing nicely. Sure, he treasures that locket - as well he should. That's healthy and it's borderline insulting that the movie makes him sacrifice this cherished connection to his mother to help save some space monkey he barely knows, especially since the movie implies the stupid kid needs to stop obsessing over his dead mother and just get over it.


I thought of "Jaws" a lot in terms of the style of the attacks - and the presence of a local law enforcement official who chases it isn't a coincidence, I'm surprised they didn't name him Deputy Brady.


The ET comparisons are totally apt as well. The alien makes a psychic connection with those who touch it, and the ending is a total rip-off of ET's departure. I didn't go into the movie planning to count the references, but they were pretty obvious, IMO.


Why the hate? Because Abrams made a completely derivative movie that goes nowhere. I actually don't HATE the movie, but I fully understand the disdain it earns - as I've said, it's little more than a big collection of movie references packed into one loose plot...

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by TravisR

And i'm also not sure the net would send E.T. back to his ship since a lot of people are frustrated with
what we pay for in terms of cinema storytelling.

I think the sentamentality of E.T. wouldn't work with today's bitterly cynical audience. Like you said though, it definitely worked in 1982 and that's all that really matters.[/QUOTE]

I think you're wrong. You'll find tons of sentimentality in movies. The Pixars indulge in it all the time, and they're huge hits...

 

[TravisR]

^ Sure, Pixar does sentimentality great but the sentimentality in their movies comes off much better and more real than the manipulative and false sentiment in E.T. I'm not changing anyone's mind but I think some of the criticisms being made about Super 8 are also totally applicable to E.T. as well but for some reason, E.T. is being used as the template of what is good.

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by TravisR

^ Sure, Pixar does sentimentality great but the sentimentality in their movies comes off much better and more real than the manipulative and false sentiment in E.T. I'm not changing anyone's mind but I think some of the criticisms being made about Super 8 are also totally applicable to E.T. as well but for some reason, E.T. is being used as the template of what is good.

Because "ET" tells a coherent story and doesn't just lift from old movies. When it tugs your heartstings, it does so because you've come to love the characters and care about them - it earns its emotional payoff, whereas "Super 8" expects us to care because... well, I don't know why. It doesn't develop the situations well enough so that they should matter to us.


Was "ET" manipulative? Sure - virtually every movie is. If you discredit every movie that manipulates your emotions, you'll be left without much in your DVD/BD library.


I disagree with the false sentiment accusation, though. "ET" is as moving as it gets, IMO, and it earns that status for the reasons I've discussed.


"ET" is a directorial masterpiece. It takes a downright goofy story - boy meets alien, boy bonds with alien, boy helps alien go home - and makes it engrossing and moving.


Without Spielberg, "ET" is "Starman", a lackluster, generally emotionless escape story. Or even worse, "ET" is "Mac and Me": Spielberg was at the top of his game with "ET", while Abrams is just a pretender with "Super 8".


Anyway, my basic point stands. You claimed that today's society is too bitter/cynical to accept sentiment in movies but then somehow changed it to being about "bad sentiment" in "ET"...

 

[TravisR]

Anyway, my basic point stands.  You claimed that today's society is too bitter/cynical to accept sentiment in movies but then somehow changed it to being about "bad sentiment" in "ET"...

Whatever my feelings about E.T., how does your point stand? It's no more proven or provable than mine.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I don't get the complaints, personally. The film delivered on everything I was hoping for, and I felt the emotional aspect of Joel and his mother was consistent throughout the film, as the necklace comes up several times, and of course the scene where once the power comes back on its obvious he was rewatching the old films of his family.


Personally, I like it more that ET, if only because I've always felt ET was overly sentimental. But that's just a matter of taste, of course.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Originally Posted by Brandon Conway

I don't get the complaints, personally. The film delivered on everything I was hoping for, and I felt the emotional aspect of Joel and his mother was consistent throughout the film, as the necklace comes up several times, and of course the scene where once the power comes back on its obvious he was rewatching the old films of his family.


Personally, I like it more that ET, if only because I've always felt ET was overly sentimental. But that's just a matter of taste, of course.

That's it though, as film appreciation is so personal and there are so many variety of differences between us, there's bound to be disagreement to how we appreciate any film.






Crawdaddy

 

[Colin Jacobson]

Originally Posted by TravisR

Anyway, my basic point stands. You claimed that today's society is too bitter/cynical to accept sentiment in movies but then somehow changed it to being about "bad sentiment" in "ET"...

Whatever my feelings about E.T., how does your point stand? It's no more proven or provable than mine.[/QUOTE]

You said audiences these days are too cynical to accept "ET"-level sentiment. I said you're wrong and offered the Pixars as evidence. You then AGREED that the Pixars deliver that kind of sentiment but changed the subject to tell us "ET" sucked.


Seems to me the fact that many movies with "ET"-style sentiment do well proves that audiences accept the sentiment, doesn't it? And proves your original assertion - which you then seemed to discard - is wrong. You can argue "yeah, but 'ET' was more manipulative than 'Toy Story 3' or 'Up'!!!" if you'd like, but the fact remains that those movies heap on sentiment - and modern "cynical, bitter" audiences loved them...

 

[TravisR]

You said audiences these days are too cynical to accept "ET"-level sentiment.

I guess I wasn't specific enough but I didn't say that today's audiences wouldn't accept sentiment, I meant that they wouldn't as readily accept E.T. today as they did in 1982. The reason why I think that (and keep bringing up my personal feelings on E.T.) is because I think that my view would be shared by alot more people today.

 

[Todd H]

Absolutely loved this movie. My favorite film of the summer so far.

 

[Brett_M]

I saw this again in IMAX and it was a hoot. Great flick.

 

[Adam Gregorich]

Here are some clips from the upcoming DVD/BD release:



This clip, taken from THE SEARCH FOR NEW FACES featurette, features the cast discussing working with J.J. Abrams



This clip, taken from the MEET JOEL COURTNEY featurette, talks about Joel Courtney meeting Elle Fanning





DVD/BD Trailer