We’ve seen it twice in the past 2 days and it’s well-worth seeing again and again. I’m not going to give anything away but for those who’ve seen it, please use spoiler tags. I’ll just say for now that while it pays homage to other movies such as ET and Close Encounters, it’s its own movie and is, IMO, an instant classic by itself. Yes!
What’s the monster? It it the thing that shows up under a google image search for super 8 monster?
Equipoise, what age would you say is too young for the movie? My daughter’s 11, and I know the movie is rated PG-13, but she’s pretty tough, loves scary stuff, and has seen PG-13 stuff before.
I generally loathe movies where the plucky kids can’t convince the clueless adults that something is happening, all the while hogging all the screen time and acting like super-sleuths. Will I like it?
Just got home from work. I posted my OP from my iPod Touch, standing in front of a McDonalds using their WiFi, freezing my ass off, during lunch.
drastic_quench, no on the Google monster, and no, I will not tell you anything else. Sorry. You’ll have to see it or wait until screen shots appear. I’m not going to spoil anything.
Nayna, the movie would be fine for your daughter, especially if she’s a monster aficionado. It’s about a bunch of kids, and she’d relate. Not just because they’re kids, but because they’re into monsters and zombies and (safe) scary things.
Morbo, I don’t know if you’d like it, but the kids don’t try to convince the adults of anything. In fact, one of the key adults sees the monster before the kids do, and when the kids need to convince the other key adult, they have proof before a word is spoken. But of course the kids hog all the screen time. It’s about the kids. And yeah they act like super-sleuths. It’s about the kids trying to figure out what’s going on. If you don’t like those kinds of movies, you’d probably hate it.
Thanks, Equipoise! Sounds perfect. We’ll go this weekend, and I’ll report back!
Please do, thanks. In spite of what I said, I am curious if it will appeal to current kids, since it’s such a throwback to '70’s kids.
OK, thanks. I’ll probably see it, but X-Men comes first. If I do I’ll report back as well.
I’ve seen it a couple times myself already and while I generally enjoyed the film…
I found that I liked the two main characters a lot (Elle Fanning and Joel Courtney) but that I didn’t like any of the other kids at all. The “best friend” especially.
I’d been very careful to stay away from all trailers & clips, so now I’ve started watching them. Oh lord! First, I can’t BELIEVE how much they give away. Not the big reveal of course, but lots of other things. I am beyond glad that I saw all of these dramatic scenes such as the train crash, which I had no idea was coming, for the first time in the theater, in IMAX no less, and 2) not one of the clips I’ve seen so far get across how sweet and playful and funny much of the movie is. They all make the movie seem so sooooo serious, and it’s not. There’s a great balance of funny, serious, sweet, moving, amusing, scary and freaky. I don’t know if the trailers convey that to someone who hasn’t seen the movie.
And btw, hurrah that Super 8 is NOT in 3D! I’m sure Abrams was under some pressure to do it, and I’m glad he didn’t.
As an aside…
If you were one of the people who saw the new Star Trek film and thought, “Dear God, what’s with all the freaking lens flares?”, then clearly JJ has heard your cries - and has replied through this film with, “You think that was a lot of lens flares? HERE COMES DOUBLE!”
Just got back. Absolutely outstanding. great mix of action, comedy, and drama.
The focus of the movie is on the kids, but one of my favorite parts of the movie is that they avoid this trope. The adults are just as investigated too.
And while the whole movie was amazing, I gotta say my favorite part was
the zombie movie at the end
Just got back from seeing it and I liked it a lot. Most fun movie I’ve seen in a while. It’s not perfect–the expository film reel from the 40’s was hokey, and I thought the climactic scenes could have been fleshed out a little better. But the two main kids (the boy and girl) were great–they had believable chemistry together, and I’m glad the monster didn’t turn out to be all warm and cuddly.
One very subtle maybe-joke I enjoyed: the very last shot in the film is a lens flare, just for everybody who complains about them.
I thought it was pretty good, even with all those lens flares. JJ needs to work on his production values. 
For me it was an admirable pastiche of a whole bunch of great kid-adventure movies that I love. Not as “good” as Stand By Me or E.T. perhaps, but a wonderful effort that will stand alongside them as a favorite in the genre. And here’s a note to potential viewers: don’t walk out before the end credits roll!
I really liked it but to me it was a weird mix of E.T. and War of the Worlds!!! AAAAAHHHH Run for your LIVES! Awwwwwwww.
But this movie does ‘blow things up real good’.
For me they missed a great opportunity for a fun joke.
when the tanks are rolling through town there is a Ford Pinto. It should have got nudged in the rear and blown up
We liked it, but yeah - it was “ET’s Older, Really Pissed-Off Brother”
A lot of films like this don’t spend time with character development - but this film seemed to spend a lot of time getting to know everyone before they got to the fun stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but I was sort of thinking “OK, let’s get into the story now…” and then they did.
Sorry now that we didn’t stay after the credits - would like to have seen that finished Super- 8 film (which most kids probably don’t even know what Super-8 is today!). Oh well, will catch this ending on cable.
I really liked it and so did the group I was with. My 9yo nephew thought it was a bit scary and loud, his friend thought it was cool. But we couldn’t figure this out:
Why did the alien take some humans and kill others?
Why did he hang them upside down under the water tower?
I liked the slow progression of showing the whole body. I also approved that he wasn’t very cuddly.
I saw the movie earlier today and also loved it. I agree with the points made earlier; my puzzling scene was when the monster grabbed a hold of Joel and was about to munch on him when Joel said something about some things or some people are bad but you don’t need to do this . . . The monster looked at him and then put him down and got back to work on his ship. What did that mean, that just because some people are bad , don’t judge everyone else?