1. And a movie the Porchers can almost believe in.
2. It’s a movie that’s parts of lots and lots of movies about home, friendship, family, and ETs who just want to go home. It could easily be understood as Abrams’ suck up to Spielberg. But there is, after all, a good side to Spielberg.
3. The place, the town, is quite realistic. At first glance, there’s nothing more depressing than a midwestern milltown (in Ohio–but it was actually filmed in Weirton, WV). But it’s actually quite beautiful–the surrounding hills, the neighborhoods with all kinds of modest, quirky houses from various decades, and the run-down but still functioning downtown. Nostalgia inspired by the place is realistic. The kids aren’t being raised so well. The families are “dysfunctional.” (The one in-tact big family is a screaming mess crammed into s small house–that’s not to say that those parents aren’t doing their best in a responsible, loving way.) There’s no farming and no hanging out on porches–it’s an industrial, working-class town.
4. The movie has a lot of STAND BY ME in it–marginalized friends transformed by an improbable, genuinely dangerous adventure etc. The big difference is that the kids aren’t quite abandoned. Two of them have screwed-up single dads who aren’t paying real attention, but both those dads stand up for their kids in an heroic way before the film’s end.
5. The one kid who doesn’t come from a broken family with a sad dad is screwed up and alienated from his loving, relatively normal family because he’s fat and too smart and imaginative for a small town. The horror movie he gets done–despite it all–is quite the work of art.
6. The year of the film in 1979. It’s the time before internet but with the Super 8 and the Walkman. The kids had the technology to create for themselves but not the kind that would keep them stuck in their rooms. The kids are out and about, relatively unsupervised, and the town (until the showdown between the ET and the air force) was safe enough for that.
7. The defeat of the evildoers depended on the courageous ingenuity of both parents and kids. Kyle Chandler (who plays the most admirable character on TV–the coach on FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS) and his son are heroically working at the same time but not together. He’s out to save his son. And his son–in a most chivalric way–is out to save the woman he loves (a girl who’s undeniably kind, pure of heart, somewhat abandoned, and beautiful). (Coming-of-age love is displayed as love for the whole person, and for that reason alone this is a great movie for kids.)
8. But 1979 is not mainly some magical year. We’re reminded that it was in the midst of the Cold War. And paranoia about the ET is connected to paranoia about the Soviets, suggesting that a lot of war is caused by assuming beings are evil and out to get us when they’re not. More importantly, though, we see evidence of the devastation of the dazed-and-confused merely recreational drug culture of the 70s, what ruined the lives of many good-natured, working-class kids.
9. That some rogue air-force commander caused a lot of random devastation because he misunderstood the intentions of some ET is not a big indictment of our armed forces. There’s no serious suggestion that the whole air force was needlessly paranoid about the Soviets. It’s understandable that military men would be reluctant to listen to reports from some biologist about his telepathic communication with said ET. That part of the story is pretty confused and meant only as background.
10. That ETs, like us all, are mainly angry when they’re scared and homeless is surely a large part of the truth. That doesn’t mean we should trust them and count on mutual understanding to avoid violence if they really do come around.
11. We also learn that there’s nothing for a real man to do for a living in a small town these days but be a high-school teacher or in law enforcement. There’s no coach in the movie because the kids aren’t jocks. But I’m happy that the sheriff and the deputy are portrayed as real men who know what they’re doing.
July 1st, 2011 | 9:53 am
But there is some cussing in it, just to correct what I said in my earlier post. It just felt so right and healthy an adventure for the junior-high set that I forgot it. So, maybe not right for a sheltered 6th or 7th grader, but maybe right on for one too un-sheltered.
July 1st, 2011 | 10:41 am
The cussing is at the realistic level, as you say. Not too much or too little. But there’s no sex or even any talk about sex. That 6th or 7th grader would have be sheltered beyond belief. The boys, by the way, apologize to the young lady when one calls another a pu—.
And she blushes but says it’s alright. Exactly the right touch.
July 2nd, 2011 | 2:42 am
It could have been the theater I saw Super 8 in, and I agree with much of which has been written about this movie in terms of the story, but as a visual experience it was too loud and too quick of cutting for me. Cut, cut, cut, bang, bang, bang.
The movie seemed to be endless shots of metal hitting the ground with loud scraping noises intended to make the heart stop. Of course, I sound like an old man, but that was my experience. Looking into a strobe light may be fun for some, but it reminded me of Transformers and Speed Racer (and even Avatar) before I went into a seizure.
Of course, if I were ten to twelve years old, I would have found this experience as awesome as a roller coaster. But at my age I need extended shots. I like explosions, but not for a whole three minute sequence. It goes on and on. I found the film irritating, and it gave me a head ache.
You kids with your rock music…
July 2nd, 2011 | 6:13 am
[...] old Super 8: Hit movie revives nostalgia for the quirky '70s film formatKansas City StarSuper 8: A Family MovieFirst Things (blog)Super 8 Lessons from Spielberg and Abrams in How to Be More CreativeBlogging [...]
July 2nd, 2011 | 6:49 am
[...] encounter the unknown, engage it, handle it far better than the adults and find that their …Super 8: A Family MovieFirst Things [...]
July 2nd, 2011 | 8:32 am
To those with John’s concerns, I’d say try it at the drive in…this reduces the loud noise effect, and puts you in the summer-night atmosphere of the film.
July 2nd, 2011 | 10:08 am
[...] encounter the unknown, engage it, handle it far better than the adults and find that their …Super 8: A Family MovieFirst Things [...]
July 2nd, 2011 | 11:32 am
So metal and the noise: I didn’t like it either, but I actually am an old man. Consider the runt of the gang and his love of blowing things up. (He’s about blowing up trains as much as the sensitive guy is about building model trains and such.) It’s amazing that there’s all those explosions and metal flying all over and nobody important dies (maybe nobody at all). Certainly the over-the-top spectacular train accident should have killed all those kids. So a family movie makes compromises: This is something for the anarchist spirit of boys, but not in a murderous way. Makes the whole thing more manly than the movie ET, which I do appreciate.
July 2nd, 2011 | 4:32 pm
[...] the unknown, engage it, handle it far better than the adults and find that their emotionally …Super 8: A Family MovieFirst Things [...]
July 3rd, 2011 | 8:41 pm
Very thoughtful perspective on the film. Thank you for sharing.
July 3rd, 2011 | 9:40 pm
In film studies courses, students used to be taught how left wing writers, directors etc subtly conveyed their ‘subversive’ message under the watchful eyes of the studio bosses. Now conservatives in the film business are using the same techniques that the lecture had to use in the 50′s. Super8 is a good example. The conservative message is the importance of federalism and the tenth amendment. The ‘bad’ government is the federal government, or ‘rogue’ elements within it that doesn’t seem accountable to anyone. It’s the local government, which isn’t perfect, but is full of common sense and focussed on the safety of the locals. The federal government progress in abuse begins with lies,moves to the destruction of private property (arson,etc), and ends with the effective jailing of the entire community…all justified as being in the community’s best interest. The writer/director doesn’t draw the explicit connection to any particular actual government program, but note that thelocal deputy sheriff holds a ‘town hall’ which is boisterous–the Feds do not attend that.
I’m not saying this is the correct reading of the film, and I certainly don’t want to blow anyone’s cover, but the fed/local government contrast was much more central to Super 8 than in Dog Day Afternoon or Die Hard (1) suggesting that it was more than a dramatic device.
July 4th, 2011 | 1:28 pm
Jason, solid contribution to SUPER 8 studies. The town meeting was hardly a model of deliberation, though. And the troops acting locally seem rogue; they won’t let the deputy call Washington etc. But the town is destroyed because the military guys lose control over their own weapons; there has to a message along your lines there.
July 4th, 2011 | 1:29 pm
stick a “be” in the last sentence above
July 4th, 2011 | 6:19 pm
The wife and I are taking the vacationing grandbabies to ‘Super 8′ tomorrow and thanks for not giving too much away.
Ironically, some scenes for the movie were shot on the beloved wife’s relatives farm.
Also, thanks for your kind remarks re: our local area. And yes, times are tough and some folks are fighting to keep afloat but we’re Ohio Valley people and that’s mostly the way it always was. However, not only police and teachers are socially speaking, top dogs and ok, financially, but most employees of county and city gummint and in their cases it’s mostly a question of ‘who you know,’ if you know what I mean. The rest of us pay the taxes on bloated salaries, pension, and related bennies. So God Bless Ohio Governor Kasich who should be running for president.
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