Super 8

Director: J.J. Abrams

By the time you read this, US schools will be out for summer vacation. Traditionally it’s a time for bivouacking and family holidays, chucking the ol’ pigskin around and topping it off with cool drinks of lemonade bought for only a nickel. Across the country, parents and adults will be pulling their hair out in frustration as fifty million school children run rampant, conducting themselves in manners most unruly in order to earn a rite of passage. It is also a time for Hollywood to make wild paper as movie production studios roll out their summer blockbusters.
Like any politician with White House aspirations, for a movie to have the most impact possible, the cunning is in the marketing. The wheels of the promotion express need to start churning at least a year ahead of time. Hype is Paramount.

In May 2010, director, J.J Abrams released the first trailer for his sci-fi thriller: Super 8. It began with a black screen and a freight train speeding away. The following captions appeared: “In 1979, The U.S. Air Force closed a section of Area 51. All materials were to be transported to a secure facility in Ohio”. What happens next is the spectacular derailment of the train and the audience’s focus brought on one particular overturned carriage. Inside, something angry, very large and un-human wants out. Tacked to the end of the trailer was one Steven Spielberg as producer. With viral marketing initiatives in place the fanboys were let loose. They announced a hot movie cometh next summer.

In February 2011, almost a year later, the second trailer for Super 8 was placed in another major USA tradition, the Super Bowl half-time show. The familiar scene of soldiers evacuating a panicked stricken small town gave more insight into the thriller that was to come. Thirty seconds later the world was waiting for June to arrive and the secrets of the carriage to be revealed.

It is summer 1979, where Blondie, Walkmans, and the Cold War colour the American landscape. In a small Ohio town, a group of young adolescents led by Charles (Riley Griffiths) and best friend Joe (Joel Courtney) are intent on completing their zombie movie, filmed on an Emuig Super 8 camera. One night at an abandoned train station, an unexpected freighter appears in the distance. Charles, the ever-opportunistic movie director, shouts: “Production value”, and the camera starts rolling. What they witness is a catastrophic derailment of amazing proportions thanks to the generous slice of the movie’s budget dedicated to CGI effects. What this opening sets up is a classic throwback to 80’s sci-fi, adventure and coming of age movies like E.T., The Goonies and Stand By Me.

Spielberg and Abrams are a winning combination of storytellers that share a love for special effects and big monsters. Both are no strangers to big budget films and are aware of the responsibility that comes with such titles as director and producer. For Paramount, it’s a safe bet pairing these two heavyweights. The odds indicate a massive payout on investment through box office takings. It must be noted though, this is their first project together.

Movies are as unpredictable as horse races. No matter the statistics and the expertise of trainer and jockey, things don’t always turn out as predicted. That is why there are two strategies with racing stables. The first is to place the horse in races that it can win; the other is to place jockey in a race that he may not win but will gain some valued experience. Until there is a reassurance of an absolute galloper, safe strategies are always adopted to avoid any trips to the cannery.

In Super 8, there is a degree of stable strategy on the part of Paramount and it’s obviously to make back the fifty million or so in financial investment. That is why the plot and characters of the movie are easily accessible and recognisable for the family demographic.

Once the train crash occurs, strange things start to happen around the small town. Car engines, microwaves and powerlines disappear; generators overheat and all the dogs make tracks elsewhere. Once the local sheriff goes missing, the military presence rolls in under the command of pocked faced Colonel Nelec (Noah Emmerich). Nelec gives no reason to Deputy Lamb of the local sheriff’s office (Kyle Chandler) or the community for the military infringement, because by this time in the film, young and old are fully aware: there is a need to know basis. This is a staple of Abrams story telling style where things are made very obvious and leave no room for second-guessing.

This spoon-feeding may come across as a little harsh to experienced viewers, however there are a number of references to the back catalogue of Spielberg and Abrams to keep any disgruntled movie fan happy. For example the use of bicycle chases is classic E.T., the only petrol station in town bares the name Kelvin after the ship that James T Kirk’s father died on. There are countless references, sonically and visually, to Encounters of the Third Kind. Nostalgia, in Super 8, is a character with a strong presence.

If you were born in the late 70’s to mid 80’s, movies like the aforementioned were apart of your teens – and those with kids today may discover a look of “you’re so old” drawn across faces as parents try to explain dated references. These children don’t care about what has come before Super 8; all they want is to see how the main protagonists come through in the end, because, Super 8 is about how children can save the day. That is why the film, I feel, is predominantly for young adolescents.

Surprisingly, the rehashing of Spielbergian tropes is refreshing, especially in a time where television and movie screens are bloated with hipster tweens and silicon brats. By situating the movie in the late 70’s it allows for the cast of children have mouths full of braces, ridiculously unflattering spectacles and a banter that is so retro that it helps in suspending disbelief.

For Abrams and Spielberg, there is a reminiscing on a less convoluted time for youngsters. These story tellers want to take today’s children away for a couple of hours, to a world where there isn’t a war on terror, there isn’t a financial crisis and there isn’t the pressures of modern society forcing them to grow up prematurely. For children, Abrams and Spielberg believe life should be a lot simpler than it is today.

Joe is the kid who is artistically talented, whose father would rather send him to baseball camp instead of reaffirming his dreams. Charles (perhaps Abrams at 13) is the headstrong; nothing gets in his way kid. There is Cary (Ryan Lee) who is your wildcard, intent on setting fires and blowing up anything. All these characters are very familiar, perhaps even cliché, but it is classic ideal of American children in their purest form without the gadgetry and multiple on-line identities. They have simple inner and outer conflicts that needs resolving.

For a cast of young actors, the responsibility to carry the film rests on their shoulders. The task of being to cast back to a time before they were born is a difficult feat and in the end they all accomplish what is asked of them. The adults, even the monster (when it makes an appearance), are two dimensional in comparison. The positive development of the main protagonists should ultimately influence young audience members to promote Super 8 through social media. It is safe to say that Paramount would have factored this in at the very early stages of development.

Abrams has often said that Super 8 is his pet project and that with this film he wanted to accomplish something in the vein of Spielberg’s E.T. and Close Encounters. Those movies in their heyday were trailblazers and any production company would love to have a film with that potential ready for the summer. However, with the current state of the USA’s economy effecting American families and their income the number of people attending films has significantly reduced. For Hollywood the boom days are over and its time for them to play it safe.
What Super 8 represents is a culmination of successful film tropes that almost borders on a paint-by-numbers. There are a lot of boxes ticked and predictions that suggest Super 8 will have strong run.

By the time you read this the American summer will be in full swing. Status updates will be numerous in blither, the malls will be packed with the young and under dressed and the older generation will complain how the world has changed for the worst. But somewhere, children and adults will be lining up together to help revive the great American tradition of the family movie thanks to Super 8.

Ben Wood