SUPER 8 Post-Release Discussion - Page 2

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Originally Posted by JMulder 

I don't think the creature really qualifies as a MacGuffin. Your average MacGuffin doesn't have any symbolic significance basically by definition, and doesn't really interact with the emotional story at all -- I imagine MacGuffins as being basically inert. The characters chase them, without them really having any momentum or thematic significance of their own.

 

If the alien in Super 8 is a MacGuffin, then so is the shark in Jaws. But they're not MacGuffins -- they're just the antagonists in those respective stories.

Hm, fair point. I suppose it depends on what definition of 'MacGuffin' you subscribe to. Hitchcock certainly saw them as inert elements the audience isn't meant to care about, or there's the George Lucas interpretation which states that it should be something powerful and important to the characters and audience (Which is how he saw R2 in the first Star Wars)

Either's good, really. Maybe a more accurate way of putting it is, the alien's meant to be the agent by which Joe and Jackson reach emotional closure, but it winds up distracting the audience from that story. It almost feels like Abrams put so much heart into the personal story he realized at the eleventh hour that he hadn't spent as much time on the 'alien hunt' aspect and overcompensated. It's not that the alien doesn't work on that symbolic level per se; it's that with JJ being JJ and piling on mystery upon mystery just because, it muddles the alien's story and diminishes its symbolic impact. 

Yeah I agree. The problem with this movie isn't that it mashes together two stories that don't fit -- it just does it quite poorly, and doesn't provide enough of a reason for doing it, even though Abrams gets real credit for trying.

I'm a firm believer that you can't judge a movie for failing at what it doesn't try to do. For example, War of the Worlds gets a pass because the "emotional" core of the story (Cruise learning to be a better dad) doesn't parallel the alien invasion at all, and isn't meant to (and of course it gets more of a pass for the pretty brilliant September 11/Iraq War allegory but that's a different story). Super 8 doesn't get a pass because Abrams clearly intends his two ultimately disparate stories to be intimately connected both in theme and resonance, but just fails to pull it off with much effectiveness.

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Originally Posted by Workyticket 

Thinking about the film last night, I realized what it was about the 'alien was vulnerable all along' angle that rubs me wrong: for a benevolent-but-misunderstood creature, it sure goes after a lot of innocent people. The sheriff and soldiers I understand - they were armed and had aggressive intent. But the gas station kid? The woman with hair rollers? Alice? Are we supposed to buy that a lifeform that's sophisticated enough to build a spaceship out of carburettors doesn't have the intelligence to deduce basic behaviour?

 

It's not just that it should be intelligent enough to know better to begin with, it's that given it's nature, it can't grab an innocent victim without immediately and completely understanding their innocence in the harm that was done to it.  

Abrams is a great idea man, but it really seems like he can't resolve a plot coherently if his life depended on it.  This is a complete mess of a script, for reasons that Josh articulated really well.  The actors redeem a lot of it, but the problems are so obvious and first draft-y that it's hard to forgive them. 

Before seeing Super 8, I was thinking that Abrams would finally be able to deliver some 'next level' stuff, free from the shackles of hacks like Orci and Kurzman.  Turned out that JJ's own script was just as disjointed and messy and, at times, just as lazy.

But damn, I loved this thing anyway.  As with JJ's previous efforts, there's an infectious energy in Super 8 that really helps it plow through a good portion of its many many obstacles.  A lot of that has to do with the kids, and how good they are together but Abrams really knows how to put together an action sequence; even one as wacky and nonsensical as the army 'attack' is undeniably thrilling.  I really dug the coming of age stuff and I could even get behind the 'misunderstood rampaging alien' stuff, its just a shame these threads never really come together in a satisfying way.        

Regardless, I thought it was a blast.  Its weird to see people be so critical of Super 8 (to be clear: they aren't wrong), but then give a flick like X-Men:FC a pass.  Both films lean heavily on some spectacular performances and solid direction, but both films also suffer from a rushed third act, some sloppy thematics, and more than a handful of ultimately useless characters. 

On a pure gut-level, I enjoyed this movie much more than X-Men: First Class.  And as a fan who's willing to look past a lot of comic book movie flaws, I think that's saying something.

But this movie does succeed best at the gut-level.  As soon as logical thought enters the picture, things start falling apart.  You guys have already said that, though...

I mostly started writing this post to say that I think the locket scene at the end didn't work with me because Joe didn't seem to have any kind of emotional reaction at all to the fact that he was losing the locket.  Maybe Joe's just REALLY mellow, but every time it looked like he would lose the locket, he just seemed mildly stressed at most.  And then, in the end, he hold on to it a while and then lets it go.  I mean, I get the message.  He's letting go of more than just the locket here.  But it would have been nice to see that reflected a little more on the kid's face.  And maybe if the kid actor couldn't pull it off, how about having his dad try and help him to hold on to the locket before Joe finally lets it go?

I don't know.  I'm usually an easy mark for sentimental stuff like that, and I was left entirely cold by that scene.

For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that Close Encounters and E.T. operate almost entirely on an instinctual/emotional level, and don't weather rational analysis any better than Super 8. But where Spielberg was trying to communicate his feelings, Abrams comes across to me as a button-pusher, albeit a gifted one.

How does Close Encounters not weather rational analysis?  I thought Spielberg went to quite a bit of trouble to ground each element of that story, and that's part of what makes it work so well to me. 

He researched reports of sightings and abductions, and appropriated the 'close encounter' terminology, but Roy's quest/calling is best understood as the escape fantasy of someone freaking out at the responsibilities of adulthood and parenthood. And the casual association of Lacombe's very public research with (para?)military action AND super-secret civillian operations is pure pothead paranoid portmenteau.

I do believe Abrams has created a whole new genre:  Spielberg-porn.    They seriously could have just called this "Spielberg Movie" and be done with it.  Some of the scenes with the kids worked, but overall, this was a big "eh" for me. 

The blue lens flares are so fucking distracting in the night time scenes that for a second, I was tempted to complain to the projectionist about flaws in the film. 

Another minor nitpick:  Elle Fanning seemed about six or seven years older than all the boys.  Oh, and I'm pretty sure Rubik's Cubes were not available in 1979. 

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Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

He researched reports of sightings and abductions, and appropriated the 'close encounter' terminology, but Roy's quest/calling is best understood as the escape fantasy of someone freaking out at the responsibilities of adulthood and parenthood. And the casual association of Lacombe's very public research with (para?)military action AND super-secret civillian operations is pure pothead paranoid portmenteau.

That's not the same as clunky character dynamics and unearned emotional pay-offs, though. CE3K soars thematically, SUPER 8 is just a mess of surface nostalgia and out-of-nowhere faux-emotional beats. Abrams and the devotion he inspires in a lot of film types is a worrying sign of the future of cinema: all narrative sins are forgiven if you can construct a striking image that allows you to project your own emotions onto it.

Thanks to the South Park episode last week if you tell anyone you didn't like Super 8 you apparently get compared to Stan.  Awesome.

Agreed on the lens flare.  In the theater I was in, sometimes the light source in question wouldn't even be on the screen.  Just this huge row of blue "artifacts" cutting across the image.  At first, I was like "What the hell is all that crap?"  And then I remembered it was Abrams.

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Originally Posted by Ratty 

 

The blue lens flares are so fucking distracting in the night time scenes that for a second, I was tempted to complain to the projectionist about flaws in the film. 

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Originally Posted by Shunderson 

Agreed on the lens flare.  In the theater I was in, sometimes the light source in question wouldn't even be on the screen.  Just this huge row of blue "artifacts" cutting across the image.  At first, I was like "What the hell is all that crap?"  And then I remembered it was Abrams.

 

I honestly didn't even notice the flares in Star Trek, but they're so prominent here that they should have been billed higher than Kyle Chandler in the credits. 
 

The lens flares are a neat stylistic choice in Star Trek - its the future and all the technology is super slick.  It fits.  In Super 8, its just a terrible distraction.

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Originally Posted by fuzzy dunlop 

The lens flares are a neat stylistic choice in Star Trek - its the future and all the technology is super slick.  It fits.  In Super 8, its just a terrible distraction.

Also a terrible distraction:  the alien, the movie-within-a-movie, the title, the period setting, half the kids, Alice's dad.

I had a pretty good time while I was sitting in the theater, but every time I think of it even in passing, some new pointlessness jumps out and makes me like it less.

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Originally Posted by Schwartz 

 

I had a pretty good time while I was sitting in the theater, but every time I think of it even in passing, some new pointlessness jumps out and makes me like it less.

Pretty much.  This is going to be one of those movies where I have to break out the dreaded "I enjoyed the ride!" defense in the future.  And as luck would have it, I've had plenty of opportunities to fine-tune since the Lost finale.

I will say that some of the criticism directed at the secondary kids isn't entirely fair.  Its not like C. Thomas Howell was any more of a character in ET than pyro kid or barfing kid in Super 8, but he's still right there at the end with Elliott and Michael.  

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Originally Posted by fuzzy dunlop 

I will say that some of the criticism directed at the secondary kids isn't entirely fair.  Its not like C. Thomas Howell was any more of a character in ET than pyro kid or barfing kid in Super 8, but he's still right there at the end with Elliott and Michael.  

The problem isn't that pyro kid is not developed enough, it's that director kid is developed so much more and then benched so perfunctorily.  It's not like his backpack of fireworks was such a technical maze that anyone else couldn't have carried and lit it, or that with a little more thought they couldn't have found use for another body in the tunnel sequence; as it was, I wondered how exactly a pile of firecrackers distracted the alien for long enough have an emotional scene of reviving Alice, then cut down a couple adults and chat with them a bit.  How big are these tunnels supposed to be? 

I will say that Brace Face kid was more gung-ho in general and likely a better choice if you're gonna go monster hunting than Fat Kid, who seemed more emotionally unstable.

Then don't make Fat Kid your 2nd lead character.  Or Brace Face so difficult to observe.

why is everyone so confused about the dogs? there's a giant fucking monster running around town and they all ran away. case closed.

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Originally Posted by Andrew Merriweather 

That's not the same as clunky character dynamics and unearned emotional pay-offs, though. CE3K soars thematically, SUPER 8 is just a mess of surface nostalgia and out-of-nowhere faux-emotional beats. Abrams and the devotion he inspires in a lot of film types is a worrying sign of the future of cinema: all narrative sins are forgiven if you can construct a striking image that allows you to project your own emotions onto it.

Hence the second sentence in my original post:

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Originally Posted by Hammerhead 

For what it's worth, I'd like to point out that Close Encounters and E.T. operate almost entirely on an instinctual/emotional level, and don't weather rational analysis any better than Super 8. But where Spielberg was trying to communicate his feelings, Abrams comes across to me as a button-pusher, albeit a gifted one.

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Originally Posted by Schwartz 

Then don't make Fat Kid your 2nd lead character.  Or Brace Face so difficult to observe.

I agree - side-lining fatty at the end is definitely a weird decision.  I guess I was trying to say that there's nothing inherently wrong in having the minor kids involved in the climax in some capacity, regardless of how thinly sketched out they are as actual characters (hence the ET comparison, where it was done to great effect without feeling arbitrary).  

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Originally Posted by Deanburger 

why is everyone so confused about the dogs? there's a giant fucking monster running around town and they all ran away. case closed.

I've been kind of puzzled about the puzzlement as well.  I guess it's just because the marketing (and to a lesser extent, the film itself) built it up to be a bigger deal than a simple piece of atmosphere.

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Originally Posted by Schwartz 

Then don't make Fat Kid your 2nd lead character.  Or Brace Face so difficult to observe.

I get that, which is why I started with "I will say..." as opposed to treading over ground already covered. It's an isolated point that supports how fuck handed everything is. Brace Face is the one you'd choose to go into the Doom Pit with because he's more hardcore than Fatty. I have no idea if that's what JJ was thinking, if he was thinking at all.

Abrams has a way of making movies that make for a thoroughly entertaining and rewarding time at the theater that also don't totally hold up under even mild scrutiny. Walking away from it and taking some time for reflection, I still really liked it, but I can't bring myself to hail it as Abrams' trumpeting his arrival as the heir apparent to Spielberg, or whatever other hyperbolic statements are being transmitted from J.J.'s fan club. The script dearly needed a judicious round of supervisions to tighten up the last act and lift up the thematic elements of the story and make them work flawlessly; I don't understand the notion behind splitting up all of the child leads for no appreciative reason and giving the dads nothing to do, and Joe's moment of catharsis doesn't totally click as there's something missing to connect him to the creature, be that more time spent with the alien or something else.

I can think of a number of things that could have been improved, but I unabashedly loved watching it unfold before me. If the guy starts getting really impeccable and well thought out scripts handed to him, he could produce something great instead of something that's flawed but good.

Well Spielberg has always been willing to sacrifice narrative logic for a powerful emotional moment or visual image, i.e. the plane crash-resistant van in WotW or the physics-defying T-Rex who can walk through walls at the end of JP. That's why so many cynical and sarcastic people love to have a field day punching holes in the plots of his films -- because it's so damn easy.

But narrative logic, I would argue, CAN and SHOULD be sacrificed for a truly resonant and memorable moment -- especially if it's a moment so good that you don't even notice how little sense it makes until later. And the reason people don't notice these pretty glaring logical inconsistencies, especially on a first viewing, is of course because they're swept up in the emotional and thematic momentum of the film -- the effectiveness of which is predicated on cohesive, well-planned arcs for the central characters and a firm grasp on how the movie will play (or is likely to play) on the subconscious. Spielberg understands these things intrinsically and that's why his movies are successful despite their faulty logic -- you can analyze his films, beat-for-beat, and see how competently the emotional development of the story is handled.

In that sense, Spielberg's films DO withstand logical scrutiny in that he's rarely untrue to his characters or themes -- in this way they're usually pretty airtight actually, despite the objections of people (people who are critics in the bad sense of the word) who prize "reality" over everything else. Abrams, on the other hand, has done good character work before but in Super 8 he betrays his themes and characters left and right, and ultimately is left with a film that isn't coherent as a piece of art. Even if every beat in the story made perfect logical sense, progressed from points A-B-C in a sensible fashion and could be transplanted into reality without falling apart, the characters would still do things that aren't true to who they are and those A-B-C plot points still wouldn't be tied into a narrative that has any identifiably consistent theme or emotional through-line.

That was two thirds of a pretty great movie. Then, about the time Daddy Lamb blew up a military truck as a distraction (!) it got hit by a terminal case of the stupids. (Well, it had been showing signs earlier, with the guy surviving his truck being hit by the train and all, but it had been manageable up til then...)

I could honestly deal with the alien being a force of nature, beyond our morality, and thus able to wreak havoc yet still leave in an ET-esque blaze of wonder at the end. What I want to know is--why the fuck didn't he leave earlier?!? I understand, emotionally, why he needed the catharsis moment, but what was it about that that allowed him to suddenly get his ship (and his shit) together? It seemed like he could have taken off long before.

And sorry to be an "armchair filmmaker", but in a movie about filmmaking, whose climax is about communicating with the alien, why didn't the big cathartic moment of communication involve Joe showing the alien something on film? That seemed like a total gimme.

Abrams seems like the perfect representative of modern geek culture. He's got so much raw talent and enthusiasm, and I believe he's completely and sincerely in love with his various infuences. But he's too busy geeking out over superficialities to invest his work with any real heart or brains, and he's allergic to anything original. He's a second-generation xerox of Spielberg, who was already very much a "don't think about this too hard, just let me emotionally manipulate you" kind of filmmaker. But at least Spielberg has, or had, a drive to be distinctive, and an understanding of the nuts and bolts of storytelling.

Get off Spielberg's cock, you're getting shit on it.
 

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Originally Posted by JMulder 

Well Spielberg has always been willing to sacrifice narrative logic for a powerful emotional moment or visual image, i.e. the plane crash-resistant van in WotW or the physics-defying T-Rex who can walk through walls at the end of JP. That's why so many cynical and sarcastic people love to have a field day punching holes in the plots of his films -- because it's so damn easy.

 

But narrative logic, I would argue, CAN and SHOULD be sacrificed for a truly resonant and memorable moment -- especially if it's a moment so good that you don't even notice how little sense it makes until later. And the reason people don't notice these pretty glaring logical inconsistencies, especially on a first viewing, is of course because they're swept up in the emotional and thematic momentum of the film -- the effectiveness of which is predicated on cohesive, well-planned arcs for the central characters and a firm grasp on how the movie will play (or is likely to play) on the subconscious. Spielberg understands these things intrinsically and that's why his movies are successful despite their faulty logic -- you can analyze his films, beat-for-beat, and see how competently the emotional development of the story is handled.

 

In that sense, Spielberg's films DO withstand logical scrutiny in that he's rarely untrue to his characters or themes -- in this way they're usually pretty airtight actually, despite the objections of people (people who are critics in the bad sense of the word) who prize "reality" over everything else. Abrams, on the other hand, has done good character work before but in Super 8 he betrays his themes and characters left and right, and ultimately is left with a film that isn't coherent as a piece of art. Even if every beat in the story made perfect logical sense, progressed from points A-B-C in a sensible fashion and could be transplanted into reality without falling apart, the characters would still do things that aren't true to who they are and those A-B-C plot points still wouldn't be tied into a narrative that has any identifiably consistent theme or emotional through-line.

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Originally Posted by Nardo 

Get off Spielberg's cock, you're getting shit on it.

Oh please. Putting out a rational, well-reasoned post praising a filmmaker is suddenly "getting on his cock"? Give me a break

Yeah, what's the deal with the negativity? It's no different than someone liking a Jodorowsky or Scorsese, he can't have an opinion on a director?

I'm kind of let down by the negativity I see on this thread about this flick.  I thought it worked on every level I wanted it to. So often all I see in the theatre now is consistently dark and dirty and gritty movies where the dog dies and the parents lose their house. I was really happy watching this thing because it felt like a throwback to those movies I grew up on, where there is a happy ending and the CG isn't front and centre. 

Very quickly, and for the first time in a long time, I stopped wanting to see the monster and just wanted to stay with those characters. I was invested in each of them from the father on down. Its a damn good movie in my opinion, and the first movie I've seen in probably 15 years (or more) that gave me that nice, warm, feeling in my stomach when it ended. 

I wonder when some of you stopped going to see a movie for the emotional journey it can take you through, and instead  go to see them so you can pontificate days later on plotholes that you just figured out? The movie absolutely worked for me on an emotional and entertainment level, and thats a hell of alot more than I can say for most movies I've seen in a long time.

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Originally Posted by Swahili 

 

 

I'm kind of let down by the negativity I see on this thread about this flick.

 

I wonder when some of you stopped going to see a movie for the emotional journey it can take you through, and instead  go to see them so you can pontificate days later on plotholes that you just figured out? The movie absolutely worked for me on an emotional and entertainment level, and thats a hell of alot more than I can say for most movies I've seen in a long time.

 

 

Well I get the impression that a lot of people on CHUD are in the industry, want to be in the industry, or are just naturally take a critic's view of films. Lord knows the vast majority of films released nowadays are not emotionally involving at all. So talking about the structure of a film or the casting, FX etc becomes THE conversation.

Thing is, when you've seen a lot of films, you start noticing the references and they stop being "homages" and start being annoying. A lot of the criticism of Super 8 in this thread IMO comes from that. We've seen the Amblin movies from the 80's , why do we need an inferior version of those films?

This movie has what I call the "Lilo & Stitch" problem, where all the "realistic" stuff with the family and the kids and the movie-making is really good and funny and feels very honest, but once the alien shows up the movie just kinda shifts into an "OK" (and sometimes outright "BAD") gear that just never gets as good. It honestly felt like two different screenwriters were tasked with those two elements: everything revolving around the monster and everything not, and then a third party tried to unorganically smash them together. This is a movie where someone says, "We've been gettin' a lot of strange calls," and then someone else goes, "What kind of strange calls?" and then it cuts to just what kind of strange calls they've been getting. Just the laziest, most obvious kind of writing, real first-draft placeholder stuff. But then like two minutes later there's that really wonderful way the kid talks about his mom and the necklace. "She used to wear it all the time. And how she died was really bad. But my Dad got it back." Just great, great, subtle stuff. 

I didn't dislike it, but I didn't like it either. A real missed opportunity, I feel.  

The thing that bugged me about the movie as soon as the credits started rolling is how it kept trying to make the alien look sympathetic and misunderstood while simultaneously portraying it as a monstrous killing machine.  I get that it's pissed off after being held against its will, but all the characters that do make contact with it (and survive) hold it in a sort of awe. And then it murders (?) the sheriff and redshirt lady.  Is it some kind of Stockholm syndrome going on or what.

Having it mind-meld with anyone it touches only raises more questions when all the people it plans on touching are going to be food.  I mean, does it have a nice conversation with you as it's lifting you into it's mouth?

Overall I enjoyed it but I have to agree with the general consensus of the thread. It's got a really good movie in there somewhere. I'm especially disappointed because this was the only film of the summer I was actually looking forward to.

EDIT: Having read more of the thread I see that the monster's dubious morality has already been brought up and discussed pretty thoroughly. Moving on!

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Originally Posted by JMulder 

Oh please. Putting out a rational, well-reasoned post praising a filmmaker is suddenly "getting on his cock"? Give me a break

 

No, your argument was entirely based on building a straw man about the people who may have a differing viewpoint:

"That's why so many cynical and sarcastic people love to have a field day punching holes in the plots of his films -- because it's so damn easy."

Oh really?

Take Devin for example. Astonishingly smart guy, who'd often shoot himself in the foot (though it could be intentional hit baiting on his part - it's hard to tell sometimes) by spending most of his argument creating a bullshit psychological profile of people who (may/will) disagree with his position and what their ultimate critical intentions are/agenda is.

When someone uses that line of argument: fuck them, and so fuck you too.

Most people would agree with the Logic/Emotive Moment proposition, if you gave them a chance. It's not that new a concept. Hitchcock talked about it often. Arguing Spielberg's use of same vs Abrams is also something many would agree with, particularly because Abrams was doing a Spielberg riff with Super 8. But you had to be a shitty little cunt about it.

Spielberg's a great filmmaker, but you're a goddamned fool if you believe he's above critique.

Edit: fuck, typos.

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Originally Posted by Swahili 

1. Yeah, what's the deal with the negativity? It's no different than someone liking a Jodorowsky or Scorsese, he can't have an opinion on a director?

 

2. I'm kind of let down by the negativity I see on this thread about this flick. 

 

 

1. He can have an opinion, but he has no right prefiguring anyone else's opinion, particularly in an effort to buoy his own argument.

2. Don't take it too seriously. It's not a film discussion worth having if someone doesn't get a beer glass smashed over their head.

A "meh" response to Super 8 would be far worse than what you're seeing on the various geek sites. At least people seem to give a fuck that it was mishandled.

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Originally Posted by Nardo 

No, your argument was entirely based on building a straw man about the people who may have a differing viewpoint:

 

"That's why so many cynical and sarcastic people love to have a field day punching holes in the plots of his films -- because it's so damn easy."

 

Oh really?

 

Take Devin for example. Astonishingly smart guy, who'd often shoot himself in the foot (though it could be intentional hit baiting on his part - it's hard to tell sometimes) by spending most of his argument creating a bullshit psychological profile of people who (may/will) disagree with his position and what their ultimate critical intentions are/agenda is.

 

When someone uses that line of argument: fuck them, and so fuck you too.

 

Most people would agree with the Logic/Emotive Moment proposition, if you gave them a chance. It's not that new a concept. Hitchcock talked about it often. Arguing Spielberg's use of same vs Abrams is also something many would agree with, particularly because Abrams was doing a Spielberg riff with Super 8. But you had to be a shitty little cunt about it.

 

Spielberg's a great filmmaker, but you're a goddamned fool if you believe he's above critique.

 

 

Edit: fuck, typos.

 

I'm not entirely sure how you're interpreting a fairly innocuous statement like "cynical and sarcastic people like to poke holes in Spielberg films" as being some kind of veiled effort to strengthen my own point by preemptively discrediting all possible opposing arguments. You'll have to take my word, I guess, that it wasn't my intention to preempt anybody else's argument, and I'm sorry you perceived it that way -- for whatever weird reason you did.

You might also notice that I never said Spielberg is above reproach. While I obviously like Spielberg I think a lot of criticisms can be leveled against his films, and if YOU were inclined to make them (rather than attacking my style of argument, and not producing any real points of your own) then maybe there could be a discussion worth having here. However, the confusingly hostile reaction you had towards my post indicates that's probably not a possibility, although I would still welcome it.

The point I made in my post (which is not vetoed by the simple fact that people have made it before) still stands -- especially since the argument wasn't even based on the statement about cynical criticism you quoted -- and were so offended by -- pretty much at all anyway. It's not like if you removed those sentences the whole post would suddenly cease to make sense.

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Why does the alien need to be morally pigeonholed? It ate people. The film doesn't shy away from that fact. Why can't we sympathize with its desire to go home and escape its abuse, while simultaneously being disgusted by its cravings for human flesh? Plus, it's got to eat something (perhaps it's an obligate carnivore) and after the way it was treated by humans why should it value their lives over the lives of any other animal on this planet?

The problem isn't that it wants to eat people, it's that the movie seems very confused about its own monster.  When the schoolteacher lays there dying in the military hospital he makes the monster sound like a force of righteous vengeance that's been unleashed. Then the movie tells us that it's sentient and can trade brainswaves through touch.  So it's very clearly aware of its actions when it starts murdering people and I assume even swaps thoughts with its victims, because I don't recall it using a knife and fork.  So how does the movie expect me to not want to see the monster dead? Is it all ok because he was treated nasty and was really just scared all along? 

I imagine a lot of serial killers had rough childhoods but that doesn't really excuse killing and eating people.

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Just because a character within a film has a certain point of view, that doesn't necessarily mean that the film itself is endorsing it. It's obvious that Mr. Woodward (ha ha!) had a few screws loose.

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When a lion kills an antelope is it murder? If a sentient lion had the ability to trade brainwaves with an antelope it might discover that the antelope does not want to be killed and eaten but nonetheless the lion must eat.

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Its not about excuses, its about understanding how the past informed its decisions.

Lions are neither sentient nor capable of revenge or compassion though. They certainly don't fly spaceships. 

I'm not really seeing where you're coming from here. Are you saying that the alien was just being its kooky self and didn't mean any harm? If not then why not go after livestock or something?  It's never established why he's praying on humans beyond the fact that he likes meat. If there aren't alternatives to human flesh available then it really should have been established somewhere in the fuckin' script--otherwise the alien just looks psychotic.

Some of this discussion is more confusing then the movie.  The only people (from what I could tell) that it actually "ate" (read: killed on the spot) were the military folks and the movie made a point to explain why.  Everybody else it just captured and tied up.  The muddy script isn't helping the discussion, but who knows what it was doing with those people.  Joe (and Woodward) were the only people who were actively trying to communicate WITH the monster once it touched them so there's something to be explored there in discussion.  And as far as The lady with the rollers and the Sheriff taking the loss - yeah that's a LITTLE hard to gather, but it doesn't take a whole lot of intellectual heavy lifting to think that the fireworks explosions in the tunnel sent the monster into a panic and it was like "Fuck these people I gotsta go."

It appeared to be snacking on a human leg when they first found its lair though... and it took down the girl like she was going to be dessert before being distracted by the fireworks.  It's pretty heavily implied that the monster was into people meat.

Just got back from Super 8.  Big dissapointment for me.  For me, it seems like JJ didn't know what kind of monster he wanted.  It's tearing apart buildings, destroying property, kidnapping people including children, and eating them like slim jims, but in the end we are supposed to feel sympathy for it?  Something tells me, if ET ripped little Drews arm off, we wouldn't have been chearing when Elliot and ET flew accross the moon.  Also, it goes from picking off the sheriff and the hair curler lady, to making "puppy dog" eyes are the main kid (I don't remember any names btw), what? 

Tried to edit, double posted.

Quote:

People are misreading the film if they think it's trying to endorse a particular viewpoint about the alien. I think it's quite the opposite. Abrams wanted audiences to feel conflicted about the creature, otherwise he wouldn't have had it eat people.

No, I think he wanted to have his cake, and eat it too.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NickP 

No, I think he wanted to have his cake, and eat it too.

Bingo. There's no scene where our reaction seems like it should be genuinely conflicted.  It's pure Godzilla until it becomes pure ET.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Barry Woodward 

Abrams wanted audiences to feel conflicted about the creature, otherwise he wouldn't have had it eat people.

I suspect this is true, its just the execution is so sloppy.  Audiences aren't so much conflicted as they are confused.

After seeing the excellent Attack the Block earlier this week, all of JJ's third act missteps are that much more glaring in comparison.