Anybody else jazzed about "Super 8"?

dunno... i guess i just haven't gotten into the whole JJ Abrams kick like everyone else. i've been disappointed with just about everything i've seen from him. as far as a director... he's only made 2 movies before this... MI3 and star trek. MI3 was ok. i guess it was what it was supposed to be, but nothing amazing. i didn't really car for star trek. i thought the script was very cliche... in terms of the characters. they all felt like a charicature of the original characters, rather than the characters themselves. like "oh, spock says this kind of stuff, so we better have him say things like that" rather than understanding who spock really is, and so on with all the rest of the characters. cloverfield, which was one of his big productions, was just full of annoying characters. by the end, i wanted them all to die. just poor writing (i dont' know that he wrote it, but as the main producer, he surely should have had it rewritten).

so anyway, i am not that excited for the movie... .with the exception that spielberg is producing it. i am hoping that spielberg can help make the script what it should be, instead of the letdown that most of abrams scripts have been. i want it to be good. it definitely looks like spielberg ala late 70's early 80s. i guess if spielberg can get michael bay to make the first transformers movie to be halfway decent, then hopefully he can get abrams to make a good solid film.
 
Saw this about a week ago - I wasn't as blown away as some of the people I sat with. It's a good movie - it might have been a great movie if it had been released in 1982...as it is, it feels like a story that has been told before, with characters I've seen before, in a plot I've watched before. It's well-executed - I just couldn't turn off my memory off all movies like this I've ever seen in order to enjoy it as fresh or original.

I think it'll do well - if I was an eleven-year old kid, this might seem like the greatest movie ever. As an adult, it was just okay, for me.

gelder
 
lewis886 said:
i didn't really car for star trek. i thought the script was very cliche... in terms of the characters. they all felt like a charicature of the original characters, rather than the characters themselves. like "oh, spock says this kind of stuff, so we better have him say things like that" rather than understanding who spock really is, and so on with all the rest of the characters.
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Very well put. It seemed more like a fanboy tribute than a story with intelligent and interesting characters. But it was a huge success, so apparently that's what people like nowadays.
 
lewis and 2001, I couldn't disagree more, regarding your assessment of Abrams' "Star Trek". You mentioned Spock -- what of his anger issues? Spock is angry is a charicature? No, clearly not. Making him stiff and rigid would be a charicature. Explaining that vulcans actually do feel emotion, and that they're actually just really good at controlling it, is an interesting way to show that the inner-child in Spock is really pissed off. That's the exact opposite of a charicature.
 
Cracker Funk said:
lewis and 2001, I couldn't disagree more, regarding your assessment of Abrams' "Star Trek". You mentioned Spock -- what of his anger issues? Spock is angry is a charicature? No, clearly not. Making him stiff and rigid would be a charicature. Explaining that vulcans actually do feel emotion, and that they're actually just really good at controlling it, is an interesting way to show that the inner-child in Spock is really pissed off. That's the exact opposite of a charicature.
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Watching the original series in syndication as a kid, it always struck me that Spock was the most emotional "non-emotional" character I had ever seen. He was constantly showing emotion - sad when he thought his friends were dead, happy when Kirk wasn't dead, etc. It seemed like they showed him showing emotions every other episode.

In that sense, to me, he became a charicature long before the re-boot.

gelder
 
Cracker Funk said:
lYou mentioned Spock -- what of his anger issues? Spock is angry is a charicature? No, clearly not. Making him stiff and rigid would be a charicature. Explaining that vulcans actually do feel emotion, and that they're actually just really good at controlling it, is an interesting way to show that the inner-child in Spock is really pissed off. That's the exact opposite of a charicature.
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You're correct about that, CF, but that wasn't what we were talking about (okay, I shouldn't speak for lewis -- that's not what I was talking about).

I'm not sure how to better explain it, except to say that it was like an original painting versus a paint-by-numbers painting. Both could be called art in their own right -- but one I might hang on my wall; the other, probably not.

You're of course free to disagree. Most people do, obviously. But my wife and I have both been ST fans since the 1970s and both felt the same way about the last movie, FWIW. :P
 
2001, come to think of it, I think you and I had a similar discussion before, and the conclusion I reached in my head is that the main difference is that I was never a huge fan of the original TV series. I'm more of a movies-only-Trekkie, at least if we're talking about the originals. More than anything, I'm a Next Generation Trekkie (for both TV and movies). So, I can see how following the original TV series would give you an entirely different perspective than mine.
 
I was seriously amped up to watch Super 8 more than any other movie this year. The trailer looked fantastic and I honestly thought that it'd be an instant classic. Oh god was I disappointed when it actually started rolling.

Super 8 was easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen - no redeeming value. It honestly was just laughably bad and it was the first time that I walked out of the theatre in a long time. I'm seriously very lenient towards movies - there's always something about a movie that I'll find interesting or that I think is well done, but to be perfectly honest I couldn't find a single thing about this movie that I thought was well done. It's too bad because I quite enjoyed Star Trek and Cloverfield.
 
zubidoo said:
I was seriously amped up to watch Super 8 more than any other movie this year. The trailer looked fantastic and I honestly thought that it'd be an instant classic. Oh god was I disappointed when it actually started rolling.

Super 8 was easily one of the worst movies I've ever seen - no redeeming value. It honestly was just laughably bad and it was the first time that I walked out of the theatre in a long time. I'm seriously very lenient towards movies - there's always something about a movie that I'll find interesting or that I think is well done, but to be perfectly honest I couldn't find a single thing about this movie that I thought was well done. It's too bad because I quite enjoyed Star Trek and Cloverfield.
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Not a single thing?

How about we start from the beginning -- the very opening shot, a slow creep towards the sign that reads how many days it's been since the last accident. Perfect.

There ya go. We're not even 30-seconds into the movie, and I've listed one redeeming value. I could continue, but that'd seem pointless. I think you must've eaten a bad meal that day, or something, and you didn't give it a fair chance.
 
steve gelder said:
....if I was an eleven-year old kid, this might seem like the greatest movie ever. As an adult, it was just okay, for me.
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When I saw "Goonies" I was an adult and I felt the same way about
that film. When I mention that to people who were 10 to 16 in 1985
they tell me it was the greatest movie ever. I think one of the issues
about "Super 8" is going to be the era - I suspect most eleven-year
old kid's will not relate to it as well as eleven-year old kid's related to
"Goonies".

I, however, totally related to "Super 8". I was those kids - I had a
couple of those conversations work for word. When the "cute girl" asks
the kid how he learned to do the make up and he mentioned Dick Smith's
book that was the exact, word of word conversation I had at that age.

What struck me while watching it was many of the discussions we have
right here in indietalk. Those kids made their movie using what they
had - a couple of scoop lights a crappy mic and a cheap Kodak camera.
So many people come here and resist making a movie with anything but
a DSLR with shallow DOF and excellent shotgun mic. I loved that those
kids (like me at that age) shot with what they had.

The film itself was fine - nothing amazing. In fact the combination of
Abrams and Spielberg did not work for me. I could see their styles butting
heads over and over and they did not mesh.
 
I thought it was a fantastic movie. To me, it accomplished exactly what it was meant to, which was to be a small-town adventure story that uses the JJ Abrams monster-suspense style as a backdrop for a drama about parental loss and letting go. It all culminated rather nicely (albeit terrifically cheesy -- but that WAS the point) and we got our fair share of movie suspense moments along the way.

I feel like audiences today want every movie they see to be the most incredible thing they've ever seen, and when they get through the movie and it's only a STORY with a beginning, middle, and end and NO epic mindfuck at the end, well... then it apparently "didn't live up to the hype."
 
LastChancey said:
I feel like audiences today want every movie they see to be the most incredible thing they've ever seen, and when they get through the movie and it's only a STORY with a beginning, middle, and end and NO epic mindfuck at the end, well... then it apparently "didn't live up to the hype."
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As an audience member, I want a STORY that makes sense or connects with me - this film has a million holes and problems.

(potential SPOILERS follow)

The schoolteacher drives on the tracks with his pickup, is hit head on by a train at full speed, explodes, and then the driver, moments later, tells some of his story and threatens the kids with a weapon, rather than just being in a million flaming, dead pieces.

The strength of the creature is superhuman - why is it being transported in a regular train car? If it's a specially constructed train car, wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to use an 18-wheeler than an entire train? The train exists only for a train crash special effect, that, coincidentally, doesn't hurt a single one of the kids filming ten feet away from the crash. The girls' car is still 100% a-ok and drivable.

How did the teacher/scientist know that hitting the train head on with his pickup would free the creature instead of killing it in the crash?

And a million plot holes from there - that's the first few minutes of the film.

It's a decent movie. But it's not like I'm ignoring a great STORY when I say it's okay. The story falls apart as soon as you examine it at all.

gelder
 
steve gelder said:
As an audience member, I want a STORY that makes sense or connects with me - this film has a million holes and problems.

(potential SPOILERS follow)

The schoolteacher drives on the tracks with his pickup, is hit head on by a train at full speed, explodes, and then the driver, moments later, tells some of his story and threatens the kids with a weapon, rather than just being in a million flaming, dead pieces.

The strength of the creature is superhuman - why is it being transported in a regular train car? If it's a specially constructed train car, wouldn't it have been cheaper and easier to use an 18-wheeler than an entire train? The train exists only for a train crash special effect, that, coincidentally, doesn't hurt a single one of the kids filming ten feet away from the crash. The girls' car is still 100% a-ok and drivable.

How did the teacher/scientist know that hitting the train head on with his pickup would free the creature instead of killing it in the crash?

And a million plot holes from there - that's the first few minutes of the film.

It's a decent movie. But it's not like I'm ignoring a great STORY when I say it's okay. The story falls apart as soon as you examine it at all.

gelder
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Nothing new here to me, most movies require suspension of disbelief at some level.

Seems most your issues are narrative choices that you don't find plausible, not plot holes. Plot holes are gaps in the audiences understanding that can not be filled with any rational explanation. Its a movie and many implausible things happen,
but a train crash where the driver of the truck survives, or where an entire group of kids is unhurt, or one car is undamaged COULD happen, not likely for sure, but not impossible.

To me its entirely plausible that the government would use a train rather than a truck, even if it was cheaper and easier to use a truck, I mean come on.. its the government!

This one point
How did the teacher/scientist know that hitting the train head on with his pickup would free the creature instead of killing it in the crash?
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Is answered directly in the movie, telepathy with the alien is how he knows it and the alien is freaking tough. It was a try or die situation for the alien anyway, he took the risk, it paid off.


flame away..
 
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wheatgrinder said:
[/SPOILER]

This one point


Is answered directly in the movie, telepathy with the alien is how he knows it and the alien is freaking tough. It was a try or die situation for the alien anyway, he took the risk, it paid off.


flame away..[/spoiler]
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So, somehow the alien knows he will survive a train crash, sacrificing the scientist/teacher, who has evaded being caught by the government while teaching in a school that happens to be on the train tracks that the government chooses years later, blah, blah, blah.

It has plot holes, it has inconsistencies, it has a buncha problems, and the film, for me, was never interesting enough to make me forget or ignore those. It was all right.

No flames necessary.

gelder
 
Totally in fun and good spirits..


(use the spoiler tags please)
The alien took a risk.. any escape has the possibility of the escapee buying it.
One big hole that made me mad was..
it took a minute to realize that all the military guns were firing them selves, OK I believe that.. so the tank is mechanically steered and the alien took that over, OK, Im with that, but in one of the last shots of the no war-war action, we see a guy shooting a jeep mounted machine gun.. dang it! IF the alien could control human minds, and machines to that extent, then he would never have been in the situation to begin with!
 
steve gelder said:
So, somehow the alien knows he will survive a train crash, sacrificing the scientist/teacher, who has evaded being caught by the government while teaching in a school that happens to be on the train tracks that the government chooses years later, blah, blah, blah.

It has plot holes, it has inconsistencies, it has a buncha problems, and the film, for me, was never interesting enough to make me forget or ignore those. It was all right.

No flames necessary.

gelder
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That's somewhat similar to saying,

"Okay, so he's not 16 he's 142, and a vampire; and he gets all furry and wolf-like when he gets mad; and there's in fact a secret society, living amongst us for centuries that we never knew about. Okay. but wait, she's in a love triangle and suddenly it gets better? Never gonna happen!!"

Or, to step back into Super 8, the existence of the Alien its self is okay? I understand there's unrealistic aspects to some parts (I myself did question the truck being that intact after that kind of accident) but at what point do we draw the line? The movie its self is obviously pure fiction; there was never a train crash in Lillian resulting in the escape of a captured alien. Yes, the truck and driver being mostly intact bothered me, but it is somewhat very vaguely conceivable, and I think complaining very open and vocally about THAT in what is a fantasy movie makes no sense...when I was perfectly willing to accept the alien story.

Now, when you throw "Based on Actual Events" at the beginning of your film, and rather inconceivable things happen I can see the complaint better.

Not downing your outlook, simply sharing my own.
 
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JohnNetzlof said:
Or, to step back into Super 8, the existence of the Alien its self is okay?
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Sure. I get suspending disbelief to enjoy a movie. I do it frequently. This particular movie did not do that for me.

But, just because I accept the existence of an alien as a given, doesn't mean you can suspend all Earth physics, military procedure, realistic human reactions, etc. etc.

I was fine with E.T., which I think this movie really wanted to be. Not so much with Super 8. Just my opinion.

gelder
 
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