Super 8

It's been compared to The Goonies and ET, yes there are definite and deliberate parallels, but in this film ET is a massively pissed off badass. Oh and he's massive.

The plot is nothing extraordinary; small town bunch of kids in 1979 happen upon a military plot to cover up attempts to recapture a dangerous alien. The sub plot follows main protagonist's relationships with his father following the death of his mother.

...but the most interesting thing about it is it's relationship to those early 80s films - and how the same kind of action is superimposed on the same themes of otherness and sameness, but within a different context.

But it's not the Cold War, and we're not demonising Russians.

So just who is the alien in this film? The anxiety this time is provoked probably by The War on Terror - the unseen menace (that could have been the tagline). When the real menace turns out to be closer to home - embodied in the relentlessly inhumane military?


I'm not saying the film is politically notivated of course - it's a popcorn no brainer. I'm saying the styling and empathy is engineered for a particular emotional response. It's simple terms of good+bad become blurred: The bad guys become the good guys, and the good guys transform into bad guys.

• The black professor who causes the train crash is not a an irrational suicide attempt or terrorist - he becomes the liberator (I'm not sure if him being black is critically meaningful)
• The military who are supposed to be protectors are shown to be the amoral bad guys
• The seemingly emotionally void father learns to open up and forgive and express his love for his child
• ...and most obviously, the alien (whose origin or story is never revealed) is not the mindless terrorist or invader - it becomes the object of affection - we want to protect it. Is that a little bit of maternalism that is lacking in the main kid Joe's life? The momster is not weak, but nevertheless we want to protect it.

I think it's far fetched to say that Super 8 is about decontructing the binary nature of difference to realise that the oppositions are arbitrary and illusory (I just wanted to say something that sounded clever), but it does have a relationship with it's predecessors in it's expression of the anxietyof our times towards unseen agent of terrorism. Just like the Cold War, American Paternalism and Artifical Intelligence was common currency in early 80s films. I don't doubt that the Postmodern intertextuality is deliberate - and successful too. Works for my age group anyhoo.

...and watch out for that anachronistic Walkman!


Well worth watching, but it won't change your life!