SUPER 8 -- Abrams Spielberg Homage

[AndyDursin]

I counted about a half-dozen "replications" of shots from CLOSE ENCOUNTERS in that trailer by itself. Along with the music from COCOON, it looks like a "Spielberg movie" for a generation of kids who have never seen one.

I'm not writing it off entirely, but I wonder if there's going to be anything fresh or interesting, or if it's just a homage and derivation of the types of '70s and '80s fantasies I grew up with.

Curious...I just don't have a real strong handle about how I feel on this one.

http://www.deadline.com/2011/03/new-trailer-super-8/

[AndyDursin]

Well my $10.50 is safe.

"The monster is a disappointment, Giacchino's score is forgettable, and Fong gets distracting lens flares while trying to imitate Allen Daviau's style."


http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117945388/

Can't say I'm surprised. When you decide to recycle Spielberg cliches, you invite comparisons with the real thing...and just as Michael Giacchino isn't John Williams, JJ Abrams is never gonna be Spielberg either.

[DavidBanner]

This is unfortunately not that surprising. JJ Abrams is a really good television producer, writer and director. His best material has always been on the home screen rather than the theatrical one.

We'll have to see how this movie does, and then whether he stays on as director of the next Star Trek movie. I think he could do well to hire a different director for that, but it sounds like he wants to do it himself - which essentially means another MG score that will be reminiscent of his work on LOST and a whole lot more shaky-cam.

On the other hand, maybe this will be a hit in spite of itself.

[Eric W.]

No surprise on any front here.

[AndyDursin]

I saw it tonight. I LIKED it. I wanted to love it, but I still liked what it was trying to do. Abrams is a TV guy but he at least has a good sense of how to make a good looking, honest to goodness movie that isn't all shaky-cam and action scenes like last week's X-MEN film. Plenty of lens flares though!!

I think my main problem was it is such an overt Spielberg homage -- at the beginning -- that when it veers into CLOVERFIELD in its second half the effect is a jarring one, because you go in expecting emotion and that Spielberg type of fantasy, and you end up with a loud, bombastic 2nd hour that's more of a 1950s "monster movie". There's not much of a connection between the young kid and his dad, so there's no emotional investment you have built up between them...and all of the government guys are purely, completely "EVIL" to the degree that I snickered a few times when they'd show up on screen and Giacchino's CE3K copycat motif would appear. There is no Peter Coyote type to off-set the "bad military" people, which shows you the lack of depth in the screenplay. Why there needed to be a bit of an "edge" with an older pot-smoking teen and an f-bomb was also kind of odd.

There are, however, some great moments, and a few affecting ones as well. As much as I didn't like Giacchino's score at times (PLEASE STOP WRITING THE STRING LADEN "LOST" MUSIC), he ended the movie splendidly with a great final shot and music that matched.

Overall as much as it was flawed, and could have been better, I still felt like I was watching a well constructed movie. The Spielberg salutes are obvious (the kid at the dining room table beating the doll just like in CE3K; the overhead shot of the town just like in E.T. and CE3K; the juxtaposition of a character in the background with a foreground object on the other end of the widescreen frame, seen in many of his earlier films; overpouring the dog food into the dish just like in the JAWS outtake) but still fun.

If you like that type of film, or grew up on them, this is a nice throwback to those kind of genre films...not great, but still good.
After a whole summer of comic book movies, 3-D films and sequels, this one is well worth supporting IMO.

[AndyDursin]

I'll probably have bricks thrown at me on the FSM board but I felt like I needed to get this off my chest

I do think, ultimately, that Giacchino's score was a bit lacking. That's not to say it didn't have some effective moments, but when you go back to what Williams, Horner, etc. did in these kinds of movies in the '70s and '80s -- literally LIFTING the films with their music scores -- Giacchino's music didn't do that. It didn't make the material better, or enhance it. It was serviceable and had a couple of really "nice" moments but it seemed to me the film called out for something more and didn't get it.

They tracked the trailer with COCOON and that music provoked a far stronger emotional response (at least for me) than anything in Giacchino's score....it pretty much sums up the difference between orchestral film music then vs. now. I will still (gladly) take a Giacchino score any time over most of what we hear from Zimmer and his clones, but that type of special orchestral film scoring with strong thematic material we used to hear so often decades ago is pretty much long gone.

Here's a movie crying out for that type of scoring too and frankly Giacchino's score came up well short of that mark.

[Eric W.]

I'll probably have bricks thrown at me on the FSM board but I felt like I needed to get this off my chest

I do think, ultimately, that Giacchino's score was a bit lacking. That's not to say it didn't have some effective moments, but when you go back to what Williams, Horner, etc. did in these kinds of movies in the '70s and '80s -- literally LIFTING the films with their music scores -- Giacchino's music didn't do that. It didn't make the material better, or enhance it. It was serviceable and had a couple of really "nice" moments but it seemed to me the film called out for something more and didn't get it.

We just don't have that anymore.

They tracked the trailer with COCOON and that music provoked a far stronger emotional response (at least for me) than anything in Giacchino's score....

With great ease I'm sure.

it pretty much sums up the difference between orchestral film music then vs. now. I will still (gladly) take a Giacchino score any time over most of what we hear from Zimmer and his clones, but that type of special orchestral film scoring with strong thematic material we used to hear so often decades ago is pretty much long gone.

Here's a movie crying out for that type of scoring too and frankly Giacchino's score came up well short of that mark.

I don't even have to hear the score or see the movie to know that this is spot on because I know about the state of film music today vs. a great decade like the 80s and so forth.


Look, when you can't get big and fire it all up for something like Star Trek there's just no hope for you. Case closed.

MG is at his best when he's aping people a lot better than he is whether it's Willams and the big boys on Medal of Honor games or John Barry on The Incredibles and so forth.

He's got to be one my biggest letdowns in film scoring. I remember coming off those MOH games and such I was like: "Gosh, imagine if this guy does a Star Trek movie some day!"

Well, I found out.

[AndyDursin]

You're spot on Eric. I think we know who Giacchino is now and that's a guy who has inherited the mantle of "orchestral film music" from the masters but in no way, shape or form can write music that approximates them on his own.

I can understand that film music fans still like him because he's writing orchestral film music -- but he's just been unable to put it together and he's had a whole bunch of appealing assignments like Trek and now Super 8 to prove his worth. It's just not going to happen.

Good movie though -- but could've been better and the music was one of those spots that would've helped. I've even seen people on the AICN boards say the same thing.

[Paul MacLean]

A comedy writer friend of mine described the film as "more like Pretty Good 8".

[AndyDursin]

A comedy writer friend of mine described the film as "more like Pretty Good 8".

Now that IS funny.