Super 8 (2011) - Nostalgia Check

This week on Nostalgia Check, presented by BJ in the Morning, we revisit Super 8 (2011), the sci-fi adventure directed by J.J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg.

Does this love letter to classic Spielberg films still deliver fifteen years later? We break down the biggest moments, discuss the performances from Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Kyle Chandler, and the rest of the cast, and talk about what made Super 8 stand out during the summer of 2011.

Along the way, we dive into IMDb and Letterboxd reviews, revisit the train crash, the mystery surrounding the creature, and the emotional story at the heart of the film. Then it’s time for the ultimate question: does Super 8 pass the Nostalgia Check?

Subscribe for weekly movie reviews, first-time watches, nostalgia rewatches, and our journey through movies from every year we’ve been alive.

#Super8 #JJAbrams #StevenSpielberg #NostalgiaCheck #MovieReview #2011Movies #SciFiMovies #BJintheMorning

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:14

Welcome back to BJ in the morning. First time watches, rewatches, and we're gonna see what holds up. I'm Juan. I'm Brendan. And if the whole sentence sounded like it was a question, it's gonna be because it was. It was. I did it off the top. You did it. I didn't even have to look at the notes.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It's I'm proud of you.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

We're getting there. There's still I feel like there's still something missing in there, you know, to make it really just like punch.

SPEAKER_04 0:52

I said it right though, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:53

You said it right, but I wrote it poorly.

SPEAKER_04 0:56

Right, right, right, right, right.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Um But yeah, today we we went back for the second time to 2011 and had to pick a movie. It's really tough to do.

SPEAKER_04 1:09

We watched a lot of movies back in that day.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

Yeah, it was right after high school, and we were seeing movies left and right. Today's movie we definitely saw in theaters. I remember going to see it in theaters. Yep. We were big JJ Abrams fans. Yep. We I loved Lost, one of the best TV shows ever made. This was, you know, he was doing Star Trek, hadn't done Star Wars yet. Um Lens Flares a plenty.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

Right.

SPEAKER_00 1:35

Just hit after hit. Big booms. Big booms, lots of lots of booms, lots of booms, lots of nostalgia. You know, Cloverfield was one of my favorite movies in high school, so coming coming off of that, where there's another monster movie by JJ Abrams. Super exciting. Um and now here we are. We watched Super 8 again. What do you remember from this the first time we watched it?

SPEAKER_04 2:00

From the first time we watched it? The first thing that comes to mind every time is the the scene on the train track. All the time. Uh that is probably one of the most memorable scenes.

SPEAKER_00 2:13

Definitely.

SPEAKER_04 2:15

And how much detail goes into just showing almost every single car of that train exploding. And seeing the the monster alien, we don't know what it is at this point of the movie, but seeing the monster climb out of the train, and it's just still a m a mystery because you just see a shadow of it almost. Uh I think that is what stuck with me the most. Uh I know before re-watching, I didn't remember the rest of the movie that much.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

And see, I I think the train scene stands out a lot because it is JJ Abrams making an explosion scene. Yeah. It's a lot of there's a lot more explosions than you think would probably happen. It's a little more grandiose than what a train derailment might actually look at or look like. But I think a lot of that, the feeling of it, it almost feels like a kid retelling the story and adding all these things into it. But it's also JJ Abrams.

SPEAKER_04 3:22

Well, yeah, if you think about it realistically, that train would have just smashed the truck out of the way. Get out of here and continue going. But we got that epic train crash scene, and it's in like the first 20 minutes of the movie, and then when they go back and you see the aftermath, that shot is amazing. I think that shot of seeing like the wreckage in the you know, in the background is crazy looking to me. But I love it.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah, I definitely forgot the last 25 minutes of this movie until I got there. And then when I got there, I just said, This is it. Yeah, this feels a lot like it.

SPEAKER_04 4:05

As the movie went on, I felt like there was a lot of points, a lot of points that I was remembering that I thought had happened in different movies. You know, so like the gas station scene, I was like, was that this movie? And then it didn't. Or was that another movie? And there was this.

SPEAKER_00 4:23

I think a lot of that is gonna come down to the fact that JJ Abrams was making like a love letter to Steven Spielberg movies, and you know, it definitely has a lot of ET vibes. Yeah, it has a lot of the Goonies, even it from back, you know, this was before the new revival of it. Um, but I think without this movie, we wouldn't have things like Stranger Things or the remakes of it probably wouldn't feel as good. Right. Because this having a modern day retelling of a a group of kids in a small town solving a mystery, it kind of got lost after the 80s and 90s, you know, without the Goonies. That was our parents age group, you know, those movies came out when our parents were teenagers or young teens. Uh we didn't really have movies like this until this one. We grew up with the Goonies because someone told us to watch it. We watched ET because someone told us to watch it. But Super 8 is like right on the cusp. We were a little bit old for this movie, like for the kids section of it. We were already 19 when this movie came out. We didn't grow up in a small town, so we didn't have any mysteries to solve. But when you look back into our childhood, roaming the deserts and going out on adventures and trying to find the weirdest shit we could and making up stories in our in our friend groups. Yeah, this movie like punches a hole into that and says, What if you were right? Yeah, it's it's awesome. Um, nostalgically, I I loved this movie. I think it hits the nostalgia vibes because it is nostalgia, every bit of it.

SPEAKER_04 6:06

Yeah, also, you know, it reminds me of us even just trying to make our own movies. Oh, 100% or YouTube videos or whatever the deal was at that time. Um, especially in 2011. And I do remember like seeing like a weird mark on the floor and being like, oh, this ghost was roaming the deserts and they laid down right here, and you know, and we're and it was probably just a home screen. And we just go up, we just go off on these tangents, just trailing the desert.

SPEAKER_00 6:36

Or finding a slab of concrete out there and saying there was a house here once. Yeah, but this movie definitely plays on that. I think the movie they're shooting in in this movie, the the kids are all shooting a zombie movie. It reminds me of some of the stuff we tried to make. We tried to make a zombie movie, it I think it was 2011, honestly. Probably, probably around then. Uh, we desperately were trying to make monster movies and things like that in high school, and we were learning how to make fake blood all the time because we wanted to make creature features, monster movies, ghost stuff, horror movies. And this this group of kids is honestly making a better movie than I saw in any of the years I was in film school. So it's really fun, and I love that they include a lot of it at the end in the end credits. Yeah, yeah. It's really fun. Uh, but let's let's get down to the details of the nitty-gritty the meat and potatoes. The meat and potatoes. We're gonna put that on a shirt eventually, too, huh? Uh so Super 8 came out in 2011, it's PG 13. Uh it feels PG-13, like a classic PG-13, you know? Yeah. Uh one hour 52 runtime.

SPEAKER_04 7:50

Not bad.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

The pacing of this movie is pretty solid. It as soon as that train crashes, it it does pump the brakes every now and then just to to rev the engines one more time. And I think JJ Abrams has been pretty good about that. And having Steven Spielberg as a producer really helped him with the pacing and the feel and the tone of this movie, which we'll get into more.

SPEAKER_04 8:12

I've noticed that when it slows down, is when they decide to focus on someone else. So, like you have your main Joe.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Joe's the main protagonist. He's very shy and very quiet.

SPEAKER_04 8:23

Uh Ali.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Alice, yeah, played by Elf Anning. Um best actor in the movie that they're shooting in the movie.

SPEAKER_02 8:33

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

I think uh I have some some issues with her, but I think it's more of the writing and not so much her as an actor because nowadays I love Elf Anning. She was just in a show that came out recently called Margot's Got Money Trouble. I can't recommend that show more than I recommend it. Like it's so good. Right. Alright. Anyways.

SPEAKER_04 8:55

Yeah, it just felt like when it when it died down, like they focused on like um on Joe's dad. And like Joe's dad fell flat for me in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Yeah, I I do want to point out though, that when we talk about these kid group movies from like the 80s, even stranger things, especially it and the Goonies, it's like the parents are absent. They're there to set up a problem and then they disappear. Uh in it, there are a lot of like neglectful or horrible parents, which is explained by the curse in in Penny, like from Pennywise, right? But a lot of these movies where a group of kids goes on an adventure like this, the parents are just missing from the story. I do like that there is a theme in this movie about it is grief, you know, overcoming grief and moving forward. But there's also that aspect of the kids have their story and the parents also have their story, which adds to the it's not just for kids. Right. It's a movie that adults will enjoy too, because we get the side of the story from the adults, which seems more grounded and more realistic. Whereas the kids are like, What was in that thing? What happened? Like all these wild mysteries, but the thing is, the kids are right, which I think is a really cool aspect of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

So when we were kids and we would make up things to to make each other laugh or freak each other out, if our parents ever heard that, they would say we're full of shit. But in this in this movie, the kids are right. Yeah. And I think that's it's really fun. Uh, the tagline for this movie. Read it. During the summer of 1979, a group of friends witness a train crash and investigate subsequent unexplained events in their small town. Sounds good. Sounds good. Sounds good. Sounds good. That's the movie. Unexplained events. 70 or uh seven out of ten on IMTB, 72 metascore. Cast. Lots of people in this movie. A lot of people don't act anymore from this movie. Most of the the kids, the boys, don't act anymore. Uh, but we have El Fanning, like we said, um, AJ Machalka, Kyle Chandler, uh-huh, Joel Courtney, Jessica Took, Joel McKinnon, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso. Directed by JJ Abrams, written by JJ Abrams. Again, we have mentioned JJ Abrams and everything that he's done lately. Uh, before this, he was a producer, director, all that for uh Star Trek, the re the remake movie of Star Trek. Uh-huh. Did you like that movie? It was okay. It's okay. It was fun. Uh, he was also the writer, creator, director, slash whatever else you want to do for Lost. Uh, some reviews from IMDb. I'm probably just gonna read one or two. Okay. Because they're we've realized IMDb reviews long as fuck.

SPEAKER_04 11:50

Super long.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Uh, so let's start with uh with a fun one up here. Six out of ten, been there, done that. Okay. As an homage to the Spielberg films of the 80s, this movie succeeds. As a piece of original entertainment, nothing happened, folks. Now, if you're a kid and you've never seen The Goonies, Jaws, E.T., War of the Worlds, Cloverfield, you may think this film is absolutely wonderful. And judged through the lens of cinema history, it may well be looked upon as a culmination of all that came before.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

I mean, I get it though, because like not only is it a similar idea to other movies, the alienslash monster does look almost like the Cloverfield monster to a point where maybe you can't tell the difference, you know, unless you get the up close. The Cloverfield monster you don't really see until the very end. Until the very end. But when you do see like little glimpses, and then you get the same idea here where you just see glimpses of this alien until the very end.

SPEAKER_00 12:58

So I've always thought see where they're coming from. Yeah, I thought the monster in this looked like a hermit crab most of the time, and it kind of has the the vibe of that, right? Like it's building its little little shell, its nest underneath the the ground.

SPEAKER_04 13:12

I mean, but it doesn't bother me. Like anything that I had issues with this m any issue I had with this movie had nothing to do with the monster except for one thing, which we'll get into.

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Yeah, and the issues I had with the movie have nothing to do with it feeling like movies from the eighties and nineties. Yeah. I think I knew going in, even the first time we watched it, that this movie is made by JJ Abrams based on his love of Spielberg movies. So of course it's an homage to those movies. I think if you go in just already wanting to hate it, you're gonna hate it.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

Uh but we also have a five out of ten here. Uh elements cobbled together from other Spielberg films. Super 8 is derivative and disappointing at its best. It can be summarized using elements from other sci-fi slash thrillers that Spielberg either directed, produced, or executive produced. Some annoying kids find a map, Goonies, including a fat kid who likes to eat, Goonies, and they come up against the military, which is trying to track down an alien on the loose, E.T. The creature has created issues for townsfolk who express concern at a meeting with the sheriff, Jaws, and they eventually have to evacuate because the because of a made-up disaster, Close Encounters. The alien, who is really a spider, arachnophobia, uh, that has been collecting items so he can get home, E.T., has the ability to make a psychic connection with humans, Close Encounters. One of the kids has a seemingly useless obsession that winds up helping to save the day in a climactic sequence, the fireworks here and the inventions of data in the Goonies. However, the creature is much too smart to fall for such tricks, Jaws. Uh, as an old guy who is an expert on this creature, Jaws, winds up dying while the army shoots through the town and tanks role, War of the Worlds. Then the creature puts then the characters put the story together in one long expositional scene where we are really not sure how they figured it out, minority report. It seems the monster is really a misunderstood good guy, Goonies, uh, who makes a connection with our hero, E.T. and Close Encounters, and then flies home, E.T., but not before a lot of missing people are returned, Close Encounters, and lots of appliances fly around. Poltergeist, the end. I'm glad someone else did it.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, maybe shut the fuck up. Maybe that was the point.

SPEAKER_04 15:46

It's a it's an homage to maybe it's supposed to be a Frankenstein movie of movies.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Shit that you like. Yeah, hey, hey, why don't you back off, buddy? How about don't watch this movie? How about shut up? But you know what? We should I get it though, and I I like that it broke it down. But five out of ten, dude.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

It's we'll we'll talk about when we get to our rate of the stuff.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

That doesn't bother me, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 16:18

Like, but it bothers a lot of people, and I think it bothers people a lot more now than it did in 2011. Uh, I did not see when that review came out, but I'm gonna guess it was closer to then. But there's something about nostalgia bait movies today that feel a lot worse than this movie still does today.

SPEAKER_04 16:38

Right. I mean now, ever since No Way Home did it, everyone's going back and pulling old characters from movies that are 25 years old.

SPEAKER_00 16:51

Right, and even Steven Spielberg has done that to himself recently.

SPEAKER_04 16:54

Yeah, or they're even doing remakes or sequels to 25 30-year-old movies. That's just the hot thing right now.

SPEAKER_00 17:03

Yeah, because no one wants anything new, apparently.

SPEAKER_04 17:06

It's cool, but do those movies ever really do well?

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Um, sometimes, and that's why they keep doing it. Because uh five flops for one movie that blows the F up, yeah, is worth it.

SPEAKER_04 17:19

I guess.

SPEAKER_00 17:19

Yeah, because they're all making it with just computers nowadays. I guess so. Um, so let's read some reviews from Letterboxd. I got a I got a handful here. The wild stallion? The wild stallion. Oopsie. Are you good over there? You good over there? Over here on uh IMDB or IMDB, Letterboxd, it's got a 3.5 okay, which isn't horrible, not amazing, but not horrible five out of five. First review. Um When is JJ Abrams gonna sue the Duffer brothers? For real. That was a four stars. Uh the next four stars, it. Who are you? Super eight, you, but with parents who care about their kids. That was four stars. Uh, another four star here. There's a nostalgic factor about a group of kids who try to make a movie together that really warms my heart. And three and a half stars to finish it off. When he lets go of that locket, I turn into a big puddle of tears.

SPEAKER_04 18:11

Yeah, that part hit pretty hard. I'm not gonna lie.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

It it hit different now than it did in 2011.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 18:18

It's and like we have our parents for sure.

SPEAKER_04 18:20

And like I can't imagine also like realizing that that was the final piece to allow that alien to go home. Worse. Bruh, bro. How do I how did I not remember that or like realize that that was that that's what was happening back then? You know what I mean? Like, I don't remember that. I don't remember thinking that way or feeling that way, but that was the final piece. He has all the metal, all the electronics in the fucking town already. That was the final piece that allowed him to go home.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

It's really sad, dude. It's really sad.

SPEAKER_04 18:59

I know I'm just repeating it, but it's like holy shit.

SPEAKER_00 19:02

Yeah, no, for real. Well, this movie tugs at the heartstrings. It does. And I think if we start breaking down the movie, letting people know what happened in the movie. Sure. Uh, and we'll go through scene by scene, kind of. We're gonna shorten it down a little bit. We're just gonna go through in important details of the movie and talk about it. Me and potatoes of the movie. All right, let's do that then. So Joe and Alice have a connection. That's where we're gonna start. Joe at the beginning of this movie is still grieving the loss of his mother. It's been four months since she passed away, but he develops a crush on Alice, played by Elf Hanning, whose father is blamed by Joe's dad for the accident that killed Joe's mother. So the two dads don't want their kids hanging out with each other.

SPEAKER_04 19:41

They hate each other.

SPEAKER_00 19:42

They hate each other, so your kids gotta hate each other. Uh, but their relationship becomes the emotional core for the movie. Joe and his friends are making a zombie movie for a film festival coming up, and they are shooting this movie uh with a Super 8 camera, which is where the movie gets its name. Uh, and they decide that they're shooting on a train platform the scene in their movie where they capture a train derailment, which we've spoken about. And this scene is probably the craziest scene in this movie. Yeah. We we mentioned a lot about how it seems huge and over the top and really grandiose, but that's kind of JJ Abrams' style. And it also feels like a way that the kids are kind of embellishing their story, making it seem more chaotic than it actually was. Uh, but they discover that their science teacher deliberately caused the crash by driving his truck into the train. During the commotion, we see something escape from one of the train cars, and the teacher warns them to never talk about what they saw. But strange things start happening. Dogs disappear, people go missing, electronics and metal objects are stolen all around town. The military arrives and they start covering everything up, and it beg they begin evacuating residents. Joe and his friends realize the escape creature is behind the incidents.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

So this this part of the movie when the when the military comes in is where Joe's dad really kind of irritates me because he's he's like the sheriff, right? He's the deputy, the deputy, but he's in charge.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

Because the sheriff goes missing.

SPEAKER_04 21:15

Yeah. For well, for one, at the beginning it's established that he doesn't like Joe's friends in a way.

SPEAKER_00 21:21

Like he just thinks they're bad kids.

SPEAKER_04 21:24

He yeah, he thinks that Joe shouldn't be hanging out with them.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

I think every dad has had that conversation with their kids, or parents in general, right? It's like those friends of yours are causing you to get in all sorts of trouble. I don't know why I gave my dad a southern accent like that. Uh he's not that way. Uh, but I feel like every parent has that talk. Like those kids, those friends of yours, they're getting you in all kinds of trouble.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:47

And I think Joe's dad, Jackson, is his name, uh, is not dealing with the death of his wife very well whatsoever.

SPEAKER_04 21:55

I I get that, and I get like the beginning of the movie. I I get it. I I f feel that. But when shit is going down and he's trying to figure everything out and he's working like crazy and like even Joe is getting neglected at that point more than he already was. He sees the the military outside of people's houses and and searching houses and doing all that. When he comes up to Joe and just grabs him and throws him in the car, and then the other kids are like technically that's your camera, but technically that's my film. Yeah, that part. He I don't know, that kind of bothered me because I'm like, dude, this is your community. Yeah, you're the guy. Everyone's looking to you for help right now. Right. And you could care less about your son's friends. Yet alone the kids of the town that you're trying to save. And you know, you think Joe's in danger, but the kids could be in danger as well being in that area.

SPEAKER_00 23:01

Yeah, I think there's a lot to read into this situation. Like, uh, because they've had multiple conversations, uh, Joe and his dad, about staying away from the military, getting out, like not going off in like in the on these adventures where the military could be. And then as soon as he sees him, he's standing in front of the military going through this dude's house.

SPEAKER_02 23:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

Which would probably piss you off as a dad. But yeah, I mean, he doesn't even tell the kids to go home or anything. Yeah. He just ignores them straight up. I see what you're saying.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:35

I don't I don't know, like how to to see it from his point of view yet. I don't have kids that are of that age. It might change.

SPEAKER_04 23:45

It's just almost like he has blinders to anything but his job right now. He does, yeah, definitely. It isn't till the end of the movie that you see him hug Joe that you're like, it's over. Yeah. Like the movie's over, and he can breathe now. But like even before all this was happening, he was grieving and he was still treating Joe kind of like shit. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

And they did have that conversation where he's like, the town has a lot of people that are counting on me now, and they're not supposed to count on me, but the person they normally count on isn't here. So now it falls on me. And he kind of explains his stress to Joe, who does disobey everything he fucking tells him. You know what I mean? Like, and but Joe's not a bad kid. He's not going off and like he's not disobeying him to be disobedient. He's disobeying him because he wants to make this movie with his friends. He's got a crush on a girl who definitely has a crush on him back, but also there's something going on, and only the kids are seeing it. Like I was mentioning earlier, it's like only the kids are.

SPEAKER_04 24:53

We see it from Joe's point of view where oh dad's being a dick. Yeah. But if we see it from Jack's Jackson's point of view, then it's like Joe's being a little shit.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

That's dynamic. That's dynamic as fuck, dude. That's that's story writing. I see it. I see it. That's character creation. I see it. That's giving people motives. Hell yeah. So they're making this movie and they're using all these incidents around town to use as um production value. They have a huge group of friends, and Charles is keeps yelling production value whenever there's something epic going on, and they use it in the background of their movie, which is smart as heck. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 25:34

Honestly, what it this is the director we're surprised he didn't try to use the evacuation.

SPEAKER_00 25:39

I think they were too wrapped up in being evacuated and thrown on the bus. But yeah, true. I do like he's very like Charles is very into his work and into his art and his craft. And the problem, the biggest problem I have is that you have a a screenwriter/slash director who has made a bunch of huge budget movies trying to write a kid who has never done it before, and if he feels too professional, yeah, especially for 1979. Right, they're not going off and watching YouTube videos on how to make movies, they're not watching behind the scenes footage on a on a DVD. He knows too much for 1979 for a kid in a small town. I feel that, and that that's not necessarily a problem. I'm sure there were ways, like magazines and things like that at the time that he could have probably gotten his hands on. But I do like the amount of times that he says that's mint. Yeah. Uh, I think when we saw it in 2011, we all talked shit about it, and we were just saying it as a joke. But now I'm like, bring that back. That's way better than slapped.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Like that's mint. That's mint. This episode. It's mint. It's mint. Uh Smint. Smith. Smint. Uh so yeah, dogs are disappearing, people are going missing, all the electronics and metal objects are being stolen all around town. Uh, I do like this little bit in the middle where where Jackson's going around and talking to everyone after the sheriff has gone missing. That that whole area just feels very small town, very, very remake of it. It's given a lot of really cool small town vibes. But I like when he's seeing all the engines missing out of the cars. But my question is, this alien is fucking huge. How did he open the hoods of all these cars, take the engine out, and then close the hoods without denting them or scratching them or destroying the cars? Right.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

And also, we saw at the end, you know, like the the metal objects being called to his where he's at. That would have ripped the fucking hood off anyways. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

I had another one that I was confused about too. Like, this thing's huge, and I don't know how it got away with doing as much things as it was doing.

SPEAKER_04 27:54

Without being seen.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Without being seen, but also it's a huge monster. How is it doing these small, intricate things?

SPEAKER_02 28:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:01

It some some details that I I just don't understand. But also, it didn't take me out of the movie. I just for a second was like, how did that happen?

SPEAKER_04 28:10

And then stole microwaves from a store.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

Yeah, just the microwaves.

SPEAKER_04 28:14

Just microwave.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

But did the windows get destroyed or did it go in there? And because when you see it attack the sheriff at the the gas station, a I love the sequence, it is terrifying. The jump scare of the dumpster being thrown got me bad.

SPEAKER_02 28:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Uh I hated it. Yeah. Um, but I do love that we don't really see the the alien until later on, and you only see it in the puddle of the gasoline at the gas station.

SPEAKER_04 28:40

Yeah, like you just see glimpses of this thing the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 28:43

It's so good. Uh, but I really like when it does the wide shot of the the gas station and the sign turns and blocks where the monster would be. Uh-huh. It's it's so perfectly JJ Abrams. Like everything that he would do, that is it. It's great. It's it's perfect. Uh, but Joe and his friends realize that the escaped creature is behind the incidents, right? They these kids are everywhere, and no one's telling them to leave. Right. They're lit Joe's listening to his dad and all his cop buddies, they're overhearing things with the the military. He's just a kid. Nobody's really like they don't pay attention. It's the 70s. It's the 70s, dude. Uh, but the kids uncover the the lost research of their science teacher, and they realize that the creature is actually an alien that crashed on Earth decades earlier.

SPEAKER_04 29:29

The military captured it 1958 or something like that.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

Roswell type shit, right? Uh the military captured it and was experimenting on it. And we see Colonel Nellick when he's torturing basically um Dr. Woodward, he says, I'm in him, he is in me. And you're like, what the f is this a religious shit? Is this some religious shit? But it turns out that the alien has like a a weird psychic connection with anyone it comes in contact with, and they all are connected. And that was the first time we ever like got glimpses of it. But why is he taking people? Why is he abducting people?

SPEAKER_04 30:05

Well, yeah, why is he abducting multiple people? Tons of people.

SPEAKER_00 30:10

It's it's kind of strange. Uh, but then Alice gets taken. So the alien takes her, and Joe and his friends go on an adventure to try to save her, which means they go into his underground lair beneath the town, and they rescue her. And this whole segment feels a lot like it when they're in the sewers.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

100%.

SPEAKER_02 30:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:28

I like the the way it looks. There's a very Spielberg feel to this underground layer with like the lights throughout the entire tunnels, and it feels all the junk laying around, kind of feels kind of like hook, like the Lost Boys kind of um like treehouse and everything, where everything's just kind of pieced together. It it's cool, it feels cool. I don't remember any of that from the first time I watched it.

SPEAKER_04 30:53

Yeah, and then you got the people just hanging around like unconscious. It's like, what is his purpose with them?

SPEAKER_00 31:01

Is it I'm wondering if it has something to do with the psychic connection between everyone, like if it's something to do with how it's gonna get home, but it doesn't need all the people.

SPEAKER_04 31:11

That's not explained either.

SPEAKER_00 31:12

But the the best explanation I can give is that when Joe talks to the alien and it picks him up, it Joe then feels everything the alien's feeling. And I think that's when he realizes that it's why he says that bad things happen, but we just gotta keep going, basically. Um, I think the alien is just really pissed off at humans and it's blaming every human being for everything that happened to him. But Joe, of all people, gets to tell the alien, just go home.

SPEAKER_04 31:43

Right. Just go home. Now that you bring that up, though, the interactions with the aliens throughout the movie. I I feel like there could have been more. We should have gotten more because we don't have enough to feel for that alien. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Because it's all shoehorned in the very end of the movie.

SPEAKER_04 32:03

Yeah, so it's literally like the last five minutes of the movie. We see this connection between Joe and the alien, but it's just not enough. It's too little, too late.

SPEAKER_00 32:14

There is a lot there, but it's just too it's not enough. Yeah. We needed like you say it just needs more.

SPEAKER_04 32:21

But when you see this alien takes off, it has this like overall feeling that we're supposed to feel happy that this alien finally escapes.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

I don't feel shit.

SPEAKER_04 32:31

But yeah, we don't have any emotional connection as the audience to the alien. And what we got him opening his eyes to to Joe for a second. Yeah, he's just like instead of like uh attack mode, he goes into like, oh, we can be chill mode. We're chill, we're chill, darn. We're chill, dog. So that is like I think you know, even like three-quarters of the way of the movie, if we could have started seeing more interactions between the alien and maybe the kids, maybe Joe, maybe uh Alice. Alice. Yeah. Especially Alice, she was there the whole time. Right. You know, like having them have having us realize that it's not bad. It's not trying to kill people, he's trying to go home.

SPEAKER_00 33:22

Yeah, because up until they go underground, we think all these people are dead. We think the things just the only time in the entire movie where I wasn't afraid of it was there was the guy checking the power lines, and you just see cars and stuff being thrown out into the air. And all I picture is that that alien's over there, like someone trying to go through a toy box to try to find one toy, and they're just flicking toys out. Um, that's the only time I wasn't like I wasn't really afraid, but you know, like afraid of this monster that's gonna kill everyone.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

And they do wrap it all together with the explanation from the scientist, from the from the science teacher. But and then they kill him.

unknown 34:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:03

The government. Like who really cares? You know, like you explain it to me, but show us that. Show us that the alien is not bad.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

This is the one time I would have taken a flashback.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Yeah, let us let us feel bad for the alien because the the military is so actively going for it.

SPEAKER_00 34:24

Why why did Dr. Woodward basically kill himself to save to save this creature? Right. Uh, but it's like, yeah, cool, it wants to go home. It's been here for 30 years almost. It wants to go home. There's not enough, like you said. But I don't necessarily think the movie's about the alien as much as the last the last bit of the movie. The alien's got its ship ready to go, and it's needing one more part, and it's Joe's Locket that is holding a the picture of his mother that was hers since he was born. There's a video earlier on, like uh he's watching old clips, um, like old film roles of his mom holding him as a baby, and he's got the locket in his mouth. And the alien tries to take the locket and he holds on, and it lingers for a while, where he's kind of contemplating, like, I think it's time to move on. And even Jackson's there, and you feel like, yeah, it's time that we both move on. And the locket goes and the ship takes off and the movie ends.

SPEAKER_04 35:29

Yeah, I mean that last scene was powerful. Oh, yeah. Um, for for Joe's ending of the movie. The only thing, not enough with the alien, the performance from the adults in this movie falls flat for me, uh, especially Alice's dad. Uh, his bad boy attitude feels very forced. And I've already told you about Joe's dad, and then Alice, not the best performance in this movie, she feels like a ghost. Yeah. She has one emotion throughout this whole movie.

SPEAKER_00 36:08

And it's this.

SPEAKER_04 36:10

And it's it's confusing what emotion that that is, but it's she seems confused and scared the whole time.

SPEAKER_00 36:17

Yeah, I could see that.

SPEAKER_04 36:19

And I don't know, like, is I know she's great, right? But in this movie, I don't know if this is her first movie. It is her first movie.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Like, it's like a breakout movie for her.

SPEAKER_04 36:31

Yeah, it's good. Yeah, it's off. It's so like, I don't know, it's just very bland.

SPEAKER_00 36:38

I could present the right word. So I I typically try to not look up other reviews or anything before we do the podcast. I don't want to listen to anyone else's emotions behind anything. I don't want to be swayed in one direction or the other. Uh-huh. Um, a lot of people are saying that this is like a really great performance for her. I know this was one that really took her off to to prove that her and her sister, they're drinking some kind of fucking magical elixir to make them really good actors. This movie didn't do it for me for her. She did feel very one-dimensional, and I think a lot of that is just the writing. I I I mentioned at the beginning, I think the writing of her character is really boring. And I think a lot of that's just JJ Abrams doesn't know how to write a teenage girl.

SPEAKER_04 37:25

Well, also, like, they wanted her to be like depressed and like hate her dad and like all this other stuff, but it made her get into this mode of being one-dimensional throughout the whole movie.

SPEAKER_00 37:40

Super quiet, shy girl.

SPEAKER_04 37:42

Yeah, quiet shy girl.

SPEAKER_00 37:43

The only the only range we really got was in the train station when they're shooting the movie and she's doing the acting in the movie. Uh, and then the scene where the power comes on and Joe's watching the videos of his mother and she starts crying. It's powerful. You feel that. But the rest of the movie, it's she's just kind of talking like this. The entire movie.

SPEAKER_04 38:06

No facial expressions, barely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:09

And um, the one scene that really bothered me is when it's the day after the train crash, and they're trying to convince her to do the movie still, and he go Joe calls her and like, don't call me, don't come over. And he's like, I'm gonna come over, don't come over, and he comes over anyways, and there's like a couple lines of dialogue where it's like, Well, now you're at my house. It's like, no shit. Like, we knew this already. I'm like, now you're here at my house. You should probably leave. My dad, he hates you. Uh, but she just feels very robotic, very, very much just exposition heavy, just repeating what's going on, saying how she feels instead of feeling how she feels. The m the best acting we got was in the scene in Joe's room, and then I think when she pulls up in the car at the beginning. Yeah. And she's pissed.

SPEAKER_04 38:59

Yeah. Um, I will say in that scene though, and she's like she's explaining what happens to Joe's mom, right? So her dad gets drunk, didn't go to work. Apparently, his his mom and her dad work together. She took that shift. Then she says, My dad wishes that it was him instead. And sometimes I do too. And that shit hurt. Oh my god. That is probably the only part in this movie that I felt anything for Alice.

SPEAKER_00 39:31

Yeah. I wanna I wanted to wait to get into it until we do our reviews. So maybe we should just get into our reviews. What do you think? You think so? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:38

So I've already said most of what I wrote down.

SPEAKER_00 39:41

So this movie is pure nostalgia. It is built to be a vessel for people who grew up in the 80s to remember what it was like to be in the 80s, but it's also shot so beautifully and it looks so so good and it feels so grounded most of the time that anyone should be able to enjoy this movie. I think if they didn't have such a strong group of kids, this movie would have sucked.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

There are times where you see all these kids and you're like, I don't even know why you're here, and then they say something, or they do something, and you're like, now I know why you're here.

SPEAKER_02 40:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 40:20

But also every kid, their personality matches their ma membership on the crew. Right? You have um Charles who's loud and like very emotive and very confident in himself as the director. You have the crazy wild kid who's in charge of the pyrotechnics and the camera, and then you have the kid who's like the most popular out of all of them, but also like you can tell he's bullied the nerdy kid who is the lead actor, right? And then you have the other shy kid who's kind of in the back and really nervous about everything and doesn't want to talk to anybody except his group of friends, and he's like a supporting actor in the background, and then you have Joe, who is dealing with the grief of his mother, he's really shy, really reserved. I think has like no depth emotionally whatsoever until the scenes where we feel something for Alice, and then that very last scene, it's like you were saving all of your energy for this, huh? Yeah. Um, and then there's Alice, who is the girl. Um, so without a group like that, without the dynamic, I don't think it would have uh resonated as much for you and I when I look back into our childhood and us making videos and trying to be on YouTube and everything like that. We can look at all of those people and put our f faces or our friends' faces into their place, you know? You can look at everything and say that's us, and that's where that movie, where this movie like really like dives into the nostalgia of it. Just because it takes place in the you know in 1979 doesn't mean you can't find yourself in this world. This is the shit we wanted to to make. These are the movies we wanted to make when we were kids. There's a lot of heart in this movie, and I think the alien part is the weakest part of the movie, and I think that's a problem that JJ Abrams has with his movies. When I look at Cloverfield, that movie's about the people interacting, it's about something with a found footage that is doing something that hasn't really been been done before, right? Yeah, before this, found footage movies were reserved for small spaces. You think like Blair Witch, and there's there's a handful of others in there that weren't really like popular. But those weren't like popular, right? Until after Cloverfield. But then you have 10 Cloverfield Lane, which is great, until the fucking aliens show up. Yeah, and then that movie falls apart, and you're like, You fucked this movie up, Abrams. You fucked it up. But then you have Star Trek, and you're like, this movie needs aliens. Uh, but he dives into the the people and like the the way that everyone interacts with each other and lens flares, it's crazy. Uh, and then there's Lost, right? And the best parts of Lost are the mystery, but as soon as the mystery is unveiled, it's not as fun anymore. And Abrams is really big about talking about this mystery box approach to making movies, and that's like the hardest thing to do is create a mystery box where you don't know what's inside of it because 90% of people are usually disappointed when they open a mystery box. That's 5% of people though who get the shit that they want out of this are gonna be pumped. For me personally, this movie not only looks beautiful, it feels like a movie, like a classic movie. It feels like I could feel nostalgia for this time period I wasn't around for. But what I what I feel when I watch this movie is I want to make a fucking movie with my friends. Yeah, I want to go out and find crazy shit and use it to make my movies even better. Production value. Production value. I want to go around yelling, this is mint. That was mint. Uh I want to uh run away from my parents when they're being dicks, and like that's the nostalgia I feel is like I was a kid once, I'm not a kid anymore.

SPEAKER_02 44:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:01

But I wish I could go make a movie with my friends.

SPEAKER_02 44:04

Right, right.

SPEAKER_00 44:05

And my my review for this movie is tough because it's like it feels so good and there's obvious flaws and there's things I don't like about it. The hardest part is that we keep adding to how we're like scoring shit and coming up with ideas. But this movie passes the nostalgia test like check for me because it is full nostalgia. When I think about this movie, it's all warm and fuzzy feelings. And then I watch parts of it, I'm like, I don't like this. I don't like this. I don't like that. But overall, this movie's really fun.

SPEAKER_02 44:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:40

And if I have to give it anything score-wise, um it's tough because I want to give it higher, but I'm gonna give it a 6-5 because the problems outweigh the positives. The alien part of it couldn't have could have just not been there, and I would have been fine with it if the kids were making it all up and it was just the military was there cleaning up their mess. Yep. Um so a 6-5, and like for me it passes, but barely.

SPEAKER_04 45:09

Yeah. And you know what's funny is I also gave it a 6.5.

SPEAKER_00 45:16

Fucking stupid.

SPEAKER_04 45:17

Written down at the bottom of my notes. Just so you know, I wrote it down earlier, and I was torn because we it it is a great movie, it's so much fun to watch uh without criticizing it, you know. But like when you really, really think about it, and what I really felt bad about was like the last couple movies were like sevens, eights, and nines. Or barely even sevens, but then I'm like, does this movie deserve a seven or an eight?

SPEAKER_00 45:53

It would if the Goonies didn't exist. And if D.T. didn't exist, right? Yeah. Which we were defending the movie at the beginning. But it it is like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

SPEAKER_02 46:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

And if you're gonna do an homage to it, don't make it aliens.

SPEAKER_02 46:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

Like, seriously, the alien ruined this movie for me.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

At the very end? Yeah. If you would have just kept it a mystery. Mm-hmm. Uh not even uh necessarily a mystery, but keep it in that oh, what is it? Mm-hmm. Oh, we saw something. Oh the ship is building itself, and then you see the alien climb into it.

SPEAKER_00 46:32

That's it. That would have been great. I didn't need them interacting. Right. I did it just that it ruined the movie. I mean, and it didn't I wouldn't say ruin. Because I still like this movie. I'd watch it again happily. But it ruined it from a s a nine or an eight or a seven, you know?

SPEAKER_04 46:50

It is what it is. Even when they were uh explaining, like when they were watching the video of the scientists talking about it, they didn't show the alien. They just showed the arm come out and grab him.

SPEAKER_00 47:02

That's enough. That is enough. So, my question for you then something we haven't really asked on on the show, which I think we should start doing because it's gonna help. We both think it passes the nostalgia test. Yep. So would you recommend this movie to someone who's never seen it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I would. But then I go back and I think of Hell of a Summer. Would you recommend that movie to someone who's never seen? No, hell of a no. Hell of a no. Nostalgically, we think this movie passes. It is a fun, nostalgic time. It isn't a perfect movie at all. I think Abrams kind of peaked with Cloverfield and lost. I hope that he makes a comeback. Force Awakens was fine. Star Trek's pretty good. I think this whole mystery box aspect of things is not really working as much as he thinks it's gonna work now.

SPEAKER_04 47:48

Well, like it works until he reveals, and then the re reveal is shit. Keep the box closed. Keep the box closed or give us more of the reveal. Give us more of a payoff, payoff when you reveal.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

Yeah. Like I said, like 10 more minutes with the alien probably wouldn't help.

SPEAKER_04 48:09

I don't mean to contradict myself when I say the alien didn't need to be there, which it didn't. It would have been better without because of how little we got now. But if we got more alien, or if we got more of like a connection between Joe or or whoever, it doesn't matter who, it would have been ten times better.

SPEAKER_00 48:28

But would that have just been more of a ripoff of VT? I don't give a shit. It looks pretty. They shot it well.

SPEAKER_04 48:36

I don't care. I w I would have felt more for that alien. Like I feel like they wanted us to.

SPEAKER_00 48:44

I get it. I see what you're saying. Picking up what I'm putting down? Yeah, it's a white Rubik's cube of weird shapes. Yeah. Like in this movie.

SPEAKER_04 48:53

Explain that to me. That's the ship. No, I know it is, but like I wanna know. Did you figure anything out about that technology? Tell us. Maybe. That's interesting as fuck.

SPEAKER_00 49:05

Suck it up. Deal with it. You're never gonna know. And that's how we felt about Super 8. But Juan, we had a listener submit a review for Super 8. What? Yeah, so this one is from Mike from New York.

SPEAKER_04 49:19

New York. We've been chatting with.

SPEAKER_00 49:21

Thanks for joining. I don't want to say fans. That sounds stupid, but like thanks for being a listener of the show. Yeah, of course. Thanks for hanging out. Thanks for chatting. It's been really cool talking movies with you. But he gave us a review of Super 8. Okay. I enjoy alien and creature type movies. Once they start changing locations and focusing on other characters, it held my attention. It reminded me of the time my friends were trying to make their own little movie. And as the movie plays, you slowly gather information and try piecing together what is happening. The times the alien attacks were suspenseful, and I knew something was going to happen, and I liked the fact that you don't see too much till the reveal towards the end. Some negatives were it took me a while to get into the movie. A few of the characters grated on me at times, and the first alien artifacts reminded me of Rubik's Cubes. They really did. And it threw me off and took my intention away from the movie. I feel the movie was okay, and I would give it a 5.9. That's pretty close to Rus. Some some different perspectives on what we felt about the movie, which is which is cool. Um the Rubik's Cubes were funny, and we kind of mentioned that they weren't really explained.

SPEAKER_04 50:32

I felt like it like from when we see Joe grab it to when he wakes up the next day, I feel like it grew. It changed shape, but it was yeah, I I f I wasn't realizing expecting it to do more. You know, like almost like the whole demogorgon situation in Stranger Things, where like, oh, all of a sudden it's this giant slug, and then all of a sudden it's a dog, it's a dog, and now it's a holy shit. Yeah, I don't know. I was expecting more with the white Rubik's Cubes, but they weren't really explained. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

They were just there, and you're supposed to just accept that they're they're alien tech.

SPEAKER_04 51:11

It's gonna turn into an alien ship at some point.

SPEAKER_00 51:13

Uh but Mike, thanks so much for submitting a review. And if anyone else wants to submit a review, I don't I don't know, send us some fan mail and we'll text you back with what movies we're watching. Yeah. And send us another text and we'll get it, and we'll read your review on on the podcast like we did for Mike.

SPEAKER_04 51:28

For sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:29

So again, shout out to Mike. Thanks so much for for submitting that review. It's really awesome to hear other people's perspectives.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

Definitely.

SPEAKER_00 51:36

Thanks, Mike. It's been a fun time revisiting 2011 for the second time on the podcast. Right, right. Um, we have an idea to make sure we don't get 2011 again. Uh-huh. And if you join us next week, we'll tell you what that idea is. For sure. And until then, you should go over to Instagram at BG in the morning underscore.

SPEAKER_04 51:58

Or TikTok at BJ in the morning podcast. Or YouTube at BJ in the morning podcast.

SPEAKER_00 52:04

Where you can find us on all the social medias, interact with us, get to, you know, get to see some small clips here or there, check out what we're doing on the side. Um, if you're bored in September and in the Tucson area, you can come see us at Tucson Comic-Con. We'll be there the 4th, 5th, and 6th of September. I'm looking forward to it. Juan went to Phoenix Fan Fusion this weekend, and all he all he texted me was, I can't wait for Tucson Comic-Con. So I'm looking forward to it too.

SPEAKER_03 52:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

So come hang out with us there. We might have something planned to like meet up with some people and uh just have fun. So go get your tickets to Tucson Comic Con because we'll be there. It'll be a good time.

SPEAKER_04 52:43

But don't forget to leave us a review if you're listening on Spotify or Apple or any podcast listening app. You can give us a review.

SPEAKER_00 52:52

Five stars, preferably. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge. If you haven't done that already, it would be doing us a huge favor to see a little bit more like fours and fives up there. Right. I think that'd be cool. Right. I'd I'd appreciate it. It'd be really nice. Just do us a solid. Please. Please. Please. Don't don't don't cry about it. Sorry. Uh join us next week. We are watching 2011's The Details featuring Toby Maguire and Elizabeth Banks for a crazy movie where Spider-Man marries Betty Brandt and fights off a bunch of raccoons. It's insane. Join us uh for one of the lowest-rated movies we've ever watched on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

I think so.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Will it will it put up its fist to uh hell of a summer? We don't know. But join us next week. We're gonna find out. And with that, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of BJ in the morning. My name's Brendan.

SPEAKER_04 53:52

And I'm Juan. And we'll talk to you next time.