The reveiws for Super 8 suckered me into seeing what turned out to be a hackneyed, contrived, cliche-ridden cheese fest with no surprises, no tension, no edge, no originality, no believability and with really nothing to recommend it except for maybe Elle fanning and an almost - but not quite - interesting character in the fat director kid.
Reasons this movie fucking blows and you should not waste your mone (spoilers coming up):
It isn’t scary, It generates no tension or fear. You never think for a second that any of the primary characters are ever in any real danger. It’s a children’s movie, safe as milk. When the little girl gets taken away by the alien, you know she is only being taken away so she can be rescued (completely unharmed) by the deputy’s kid later.
The writing and characters are cliched and predictable at every turn, The kids include ther resiquite fat kid, the requisite delinquent kid and the requisite protagonist who will have the requiste romance with the requisite “girl.” The whole storyline with tension between the deputy dad and the girl’s dad not liking each other and not wanting their kids to see each other is not only predictable, but stupid and calls for the dads to behave irrationally. Deputy dad is really going to hold it against the white trash dude’s little girl because his wife was killed in a factory accident working white trash dad’s shift a few months before?
The movie makes the military look maniacally evil and crazy. The Air Force is really going to kill all these kids and their families to stop them from talking about some white cubes?
The scene where they find a film reel of the science teacher giuy talking about the alien conveniently includes a voice over from science teacher guy givimng them the full scope on the alien and what he’s trying to do. It almost looks like that film reel was produced with the specific intention of filling the audience in on everything.
The movie thinks that marijuana is some kind of powerful barbituate which puts the user into an unrousable sleep.
The movie reinforces the movie rule that fat guys are not worthy of ever getting the girl, and even has the fat kid sadly acknowledge that it was foolish for him to ever hope otherwise. This despite the fact that the fat kid is the only one who had anything like an interesting personality. Would it have killed Abrahms to have a girl actually find the fat kid who has some intelligence and artistic passiona nd makes his own movies more interesting than the kid who is merely “cute?”
The Deputy dad escaping Rambo style from a locked down military installation. Bull-SHIT.
The alien isn’t intersting.
The movie gives the alien psychic powers. This is not only (obviously) physically impossible, but cinematically lazy.
The writing is all just so formulaic. You can tell where every set up is going. They mention the science teacher’s “dungeon” matter-of-factly, and you know that means they will find something important later. You know the dads are set up as enemies so they can later put aside their differences and act together. The pothead repeatedly mentions that likes the fat kid’s sister, so you know the sister will somehow be called upon to get something from the pothead later (but of course the pothead then has to be abandoned as garbage).
None of the kids ever act like real kids either. They all act like movie kids having movie adventures.
The ending scene, with the locket being pulled out of the kid’s hand and zooming off into yonder with ET’s ship was cheesy beyond belief.
The little mock movie played over the closing credits (the supposed end result of the kids’ zombie move) was better written, scarier, more realistic and less contrived than the actual movie Super 8.
Other than that, how did you enjoy the movie, Dio?
It’s true, much of the film abounds with cliches and outlandish escapes. But I thought it was one of the best movies I’ve seen in a long time. Right from the start, it felt like classic Spielberg, like ET or Stand By Me. I give JJ Abrams mad props for that (although he could really ditch the lens flares … it’s not that cool of a trademark, JJ).
It’s a summer movie. You’re supposed to go along for the ride. Of course the main characters aren’t going to actually die … what kind of a movie are you looking for here, Shoah? I don’t believe for a second the Air Force guys were going to kill anybody besides the one guy they did “take care of,” and he was the only one who actually knew what the cubes were. The criticism of the pot scenes, okay, lacking other knowledge I’ll grant you that. But I think you spent more time here smashing the movie’s “inaccurate” depiction of pot use and its effects than the total time the film shop/pothead guy was onscreen. Just sayin’, seems to have struck a nerve there.
I do agree, the locket scene at the end was too much. And the kids’ actual zombie movie was a hoot.
So you didn’t like the movie, Dio. Not every film works for everybody, and that’s okay. Heck, I can’t stand Armageddon, and there are people who love the crap out of that movie (and that’s a lot of crap to love! Thank you, I’ll be here all week!).
I enjoyed the movie . . . and felt foolish that I allowed all the praise posted by friends on Facebook to drive me to pay full price for it.
It was praised in a way that I felt I should see it while I could enjoy the collective audience experience. Sometimes when I see a “Big Summer Movie” in a matinee a few weeks after release, I regret it a little, knowing it would have added to the experience to be immersed in a reactive large group.
So, I went to an evening showing of Super 8 during the opening week. Paid full price.
This is a movie I would have enjoyed just as much seeing it two months from now at the discount theater (which was my original plan).
Is this a thing now? A movie/tv show comes out, it’s well liked, people have a discussion about, some loving it, some like it, and some disliking it. Some time later someone comes along and has to make a topic specifically about how much it sucks. Do we really need both a general topic and a “X sucks” topic?
Whatever. Dio actually listed eleven things he didn’t like about the movie, so he’s clearly not saying “It sucks” and leaving it at that. Refute him or agree with him, fine, but why shit on a well-executed thread?
And really, if you’re just complaining about the fact that there are (the horror) TWO threads about a movie, why don’t you instead fire your relentless beam of hatred on all the stupid poll threads that have been polluting this forum lately?
ETA: Haven’t seen the movie, probably wasn’t going to anyway, but the OP put any last shred of hope to rest. Paaaaaass.
The other Thread is titled “Super 8 is great!” it wasn’t titled “Super 8 General Discussion Thread- did you like it or dislike it?”
Some of us value this Forum for discussion about movies because reviews by like-minded posters help us to make choices before laying down out 11 bucks at the theater. Titling a Thread “Super 8 is great!” basically asserts that the Thread is for Love-In purposes only. Anything negative about Super 8 posted in a Thread titled “Super 8 is great!” would essentially be Threadshitting. The OP was basically set up as a “If you post an alternate opinion you are a de facto Threadshitter” kind of a trap.
Instead of shitting in that Thread, this is a Thread for people who were not impressed with the movie.
I managed to see the end of it in a way that is probably illegal. But I’m glad I did because I know I wouldn’t want to waste money on it. From the bit that I saw I have to agree it was pretty cheesy. It seemed to me like someone wanted to make a movie about what would happen if ET ate people instead of Reese’s Pieces.
I do think the film was horribly mis-advertised. The earliest trailers made it look like a straight-up horror film (and the later ones did little to change that appearance), so I can see where you’re coming from. I didn’t mind the fact that the kids were never in real danger, because I didn’t feel the movie was that kind of movie, but I totally get what you’re saying. We’ll just have to agree to disagree that this is a flaw of the movie.
I’ll do you one further and complain that the Dad escaping Rambo style did nothing to advance the plot. He gets captured by the Air Force dudes, escapes, sneaks his way back into town, and… does nothing. Nothing he does after this point affects the plot in any way. I wonder if they deleted some scenes, or rewrote some stuff, but left this part in by accident? I generally enjoyed the movie, but I thought this was a pretty obvious storytelling flaw.
The topic was titled “Super 8 is great” because the first person to post about it liked it. That’s usually how it goes. But there are negative opinions about the movie in said topic. I think the idea that we need multiple topics about the same movie is quite ridiculous. Can’t we have a reasonable discussion about a movie instead of a topic just for people who like the movie and people who hate it? Creating a whole other topic just kind of screams “My opinion is more important!” I’m not going to go and make a topic that says “I like Super 8 even more.”
Despite my opinions of Dio on other boards, I do think he makes good arguments on this board. Of course, I cannot counter his points in this topic because, by your logic, I would be threadshitting this topic if I posted a positive opinion.
I think this board has become increasingly cynical and it’s really quite annoying. But I will end my hijack and discuss this no further in this topic.
Summary: Dio hated the movie because it was insulting to fat guys and potheads.
I thought there was some good visual storytelling. The fifties-style horror set ups, the unseen menace. And I liked the scenes where the kids were actually making the movie, particularly the scene with Ellie Fanning suddenly feeling the words and blowing the other kids away – few actors that age could pull it off the way she did.
It didn’t really live up to the promise but it’s not a bad flick.
If Dio had put his comments in the other thread, someone would have accused him of threadshitting. It doesn’t matter that the other thread turned into general discussion, someone would have said it.
That said, thanks to Dio for his comments. His complaints are about the kinds of things that bug me too, so I’ll wait for the DVD.
Actually nothing any of the protagonists do affects the basic plot in a material way. Think about it - what did any character do that changed the general outcome of the film? Nothing that I can think of. They were all having a tremendous adventure, but unnecessarily as far as I could tell.
That said I liked Elle Fanning and thought despite plot holes and a healthy dash of Spielburgian glop, the film was reasonably fun and decent enough fluff.
Who cares if someone accuses Dio of threadshitting? People accuse him of a lot of things and it hasn’t changed any of his other behaviors. There is no reason for this to be its own thread–i posted negative thoughts in the other thread as well and suffered no such accusations.
All lens flares
_________________ o _________________
ALL the time! --------====O=-O- - -
This movie was JJ Abrams last chance to redeem himself after Star Trek. _______________ . … ______ That movie, while otherwise enjoyable, felt like I’d been pulled over by the cops at night while I watched it. I refuse to see any more of his movies until someone tells him LENS FLARES =======O==== SUCK.
Aliens never come to the inner city, but either out in the sticks or the nice suburbs where all the neighborhood kids are friends.
And how in the hell did Dr. Woodward survive that crash? I can buy him giving some last parting words to the kids to STFU, but no ways he should have still been alive days afterwards.
I’d also like a sci-fi movie where the female character is not just there to serve as the love interest for the hormonal male protagonist.
