Author Topic: Super 8  (Read 8044 times)

verbALs

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #60 on: August 12, 2011, 11:57:53 AM »
Why were the Air Force carrying that spaceship in the train? That makes absolutely no sense.
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Re: Super 8
« Reply #61 on: August 12, 2011, 05:29:47 PM »
Why were the Air Force carrying that spaceship in the train? That makes absolutely no sense.

My guess was that they wanted to be inconspicuous. Why try to be super secretive when you can be non-chalant about the whole thing and just transport it in a train?

It doesn't work out well for them, but I'm just throwing in my two cents as to why they did that.
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verbALs

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #62 on: August 13, 2011, 01:50:46 AM »
I mean the one creature on the planet who can use those cubes is on the train as well. Why move them together?
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Re: Super 8
« Reply #63 on: August 13, 2011, 11:07:07 AM »
Because the rest of the movie.
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Re: Super 8
« Reply #64 on: August 15, 2011, 10:05:29 PM »

I'm fairly certain there's a shot of Elle's car during or directly after the trainwreck and it's missing its back wheels and damaged, then suddenly is all fixed up a couple instants later. Silly.

Yep, your exactly right. I remember seeing that and going, "Wait a minute..."

Overall, I thought it was a rather weak effort by Abrams. I liked several of the kids, but they were really just caricatures. The CG for the alien was awful, and the design was pretty ridiculous as well. My biggest issue was the film is called, "Super 8" and for more then half the movie, we're waiting for the Super 8 film to be developed, and then when it comes back, it means absolutely nothing.

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #65 on: August 16, 2011, 04:48:31 PM »
Yeah, I saw this again and I liked it less. It doesn't do well on second viewings. I found it to become a bit more hokey and obvious than I previously thought. The line, "I got you" felt sooooo forced at the end of the film. It looks like JJ is laying on the family drama too thick. I would never let go of that necklace! Then go back to the beginning and Abrams has that woman monologue what should of just been seen or inferred, "blah blah has never been a good father, how is he going to raise him by himself blah blah". In fact, even the alien side story is forced. I think I've mentioned it before, but the entire school scene where the tapes are almost literally telling us to feel bad about how the alien has been treated is ridiculous. I stand by the "show, don't tell" rule in cinema - I believe that there's only a few exceptions to this rule, but Super 8 isn't one of them.

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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #66 on: August 24, 2011, 05:52:59 AM »
Ok, I have not read the other posts in this thread so I am going to be repeating stuff others have brought up.

Super 8  (J J Abrams 2011)

After some introspection and listening to lots of other reviews (so yes not all ideas expressed in this review are my own).

Starting off with how I felt walking out of the cinema, an enjoyable film well made, but I had some doubts. The kids did so well with a good script and Elle Fanning, wow what a revelation. Still those doubts lurked, and over time (it has been a few months now) they have formulated.
The big problem with this film comes from the director's over blown action. Lets start with the train crash, WTF, is restraint a dirty word? This crash was ridiculous, that the guy who caused the crash survived was not the problem it was the length and destruction that was so over the top. Carriages that seemed to accelerate post crash so they could fly through buildings. The carriage that destroyed the building where the kids were filming hit it a significant time after the initial crash, but was still travelling at the same speed, or a greater speed, than the train was initially doing. How is this possible on flat ground?
I have already mentioned lack of restraint, but nowhere did this reveal itself better than in the race through town. What we had was a huge battle under way with the military firing, everything they have, in all directions, what were they shooting at? I did hear a review that said there was some comment about the machines running wild, so fine, but where is the justification for this. The alien can now, apparently, control huge numbers of machine and make them go wild, so why did it not use this awesome power to escape much earlier. If the alien did not cause the machines to run wild, why was there so much shooting going on at an unseen target, stupid and ridiculous that's what it was.
Lens flare, yes I get that lens flare is J J Abrams signature trait, but at least put it in places where there is justification. The huge flare as the kids ran across a dark field, what source of light caused that? All the flare did was take me out of the moment.
Character development, in particular the development of the bad guy. The alien gets its revenge on the bad guy, but who cares, I saw nothing that drew this character as anything but a one dimensional bad guy (even that dimension was a struggle). On a side note I wonder about peoples' desire, my own included, to see the bad guy, in any film, die for their sins. Or is it just that too often we are shown that the only "justice" is the death penalty.

So a fun film, yes, but put your brain into reverse so that fun is not spoiled by the ridiculousness of the film.

One word review: Ridiculous.

verbALs

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #67 on: August 24, 2011, 01:04:02 PM »
I like that you articulated the physics of what looked so strange about the crash so well.

The machines electronics were going crazy, it wasn't that the tanks were being controlled. The electrical effects coming off the creature or the machine he was building were fairly well established.

One of my favourite pieces of (obvious) acting has been Naomi Watts in Mulholland Drive at her audition. Fanning's acting was on that level that's how good I rated it. The question is if you have gold like that why can't you just go with that as the focus of the film and forget the pyrotechnics?
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Dave the Necrobumper

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #68 on: August 24, 2011, 03:34:17 PM »
Thanks.

Modern tanks might be different (they probably are different), but I thought tank shells are manually loaded, so if the electronics are going crazy, how are the shells getting loaded. Then there is all the soldiers firing at random.

Another reminder why I need to see all of Mulholland Drive.

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Re: Super 8
« Reply #69 on: August 24, 2011, 04:41:04 PM »
I think tank only fired once.
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