Story of movie Super 8 2011 Film :
Super 8 is a 2011 American science fiction horror film written, co-produced, and directed by J. J. Abrams and produced by Steven Spielberg. The film stars Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, and Kyle Chandler and tells the story of a group of young teenagers who are filming their own Super 8 movie when a train derails, releasing a dangerous presence into their town. The film was shot in Weirton, West Virginia and surrounding areas.
| Super 8 | |
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Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | J. J. Abrams |
| Produced by |
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| Written by | J. J. Abrams |
| Starring |
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| Music by | Michael Giacchino |
| Cinematography | Larry Fong |
| Edited by |
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Production company |
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| Distributed by | Paramount Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 112 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $50 million |
| Box office | $260.1 million |
Super 8 was released on June 10, 2011, in conventional and IMAX theaters in the United States. The film was well received, with critics praising the film for its nostalgic elements, visual effects, musical score, and for the performances of the cast, in particular, both Fanning and newcomer Courtney's acting was cited, while also being compared to such thematically similar films as E.T., Stand by Me, and The Goonies. Super 8 was also a commercial success, grossing over $260 million against a $50 million budget. The film received several awards and nominations, primarily in technical and special effects categories, Giacchino's musical score, as well as for Courtney and Fanning's performances.
Screenplay
In 1979, Deputy Sheriff Jack Lamb of Lillian, Ohio, and his 14-year-old son Joe, mourn the death of his mother Elizabeth, who died due to an accident at work. Jack blames her co-worker, Louis Dainard, as she was covering his shift because he had a hangover. All Joe has left is a locket that belonged to her.
Four months after Elizabeth's funeral, Joe's best friend Charles Kaznyk decides to make a low-budget zombie movie for a film competition. Charles enlists the help of Preston Scott, Martin Read, and Cary McCarthy, as well as Dainard's daughter, Alice. Though their fathers would be furious, Joe and Alice become close to each other.
Charles has them film a scene at a train depot at midnight. During a rehearsal, a train approaches, and Charles has them start filming as the train passes to add 'production value'. While filming, Joe witnesses a pickup truck drive onto the tracks and ram the train, causing a massive derailment that destroys the train, the depot and the surrounding area, and separates the children from each other amidst the chaos. Joe finds himself near one container, to which the loading door is violently thrown from the carriage by an unseen force. Eventually the kids regroup and wander the wreckage. The kids investigate the wreck and find crates full of strange white cubes, then discover the truck's driver is Dr. Woodward, their biology teacher. Woodward, barely alive, warns them at gunpoint to forget what they saw that night, or else they and their parents will be killed. The children flee the scene just as a convoy from the local Air Force base, led by Col. Nelec, arrives at the scene. Nelec discovers an empty super 8 film box, and assumes the event was purposely captured on camera.
While Joe and Charles wait for their film to be developed, the town experiences strange events: All the dogs run away, several townspeople go missing, the electrical power fluctuates and electronic items from all over are stolen. Overhearing military communications, Jack approaches Nelec to address the rising panic in town, but Nelec instead orders him arrested. Nelec orders the use of flamethrowers to start wildfires outside of town, as an excuse to evacuate people to the base. Suddenly, soldiers sweep into town to begin the evacuation. Meanwhile, Joe and Charles watch the derailment footage and discover that a large creature escaped from the train.
At the base, Joe learns from Alice's father that she is missing, abducted by the creature following an argument between Alice and her father. Joe, Charles, Martin, and Cary convince Jen, Charles' older sister, to pretend to hit on Donny in order to get into town to rescue Alice. They break into Dr. Woodward's storage trailer and discover films and documents from his time as a government researcher.
They play the film, which reveals that an alien crash-landed in 1958. The Air Force captured the alien and was running experiments on it while keeping it from its ship. Woodward was one of the scientists experimenting on the ship, composed of the white cubes. At one point, the alien grabbed Woodward, apparently establishing a psychic connection with him. Now understanding the alien, he was compelled to rescue it and help it escape from Earth. He found out about the train, years later, and sought the opportunity to help the creature. The boys are caught by Nelec, but as they are taken back to base to face an unknown fate, the alien attacks their bus, tipping it over. The boys escape as the alien focuses on killing the airmen, saving Nelec for last. Meanwhile, Jack escapes from the base's brig and makes his way to the shelter housing the townsfolk. He learns from Preston about Joe's plan to rescue Alice. Jack and Dainard then agree to put aside their differences to save their kids, making amends along the way.
In town, the military attempts to kill the alien but find their hardware goes haywire in its presence, resulting in significant collateral damage to the town. Martin is injured in an explosion, so Charles stays behind with him while Joe and Cary head to the cemetery, where Joe had earlier seen something there that made him suspicious. Inside the cemetery's garage, they find a massive tunnel leading to a warren of underground caverns. In a chamber beneath the town's water tower, they find the alien has created a device from the town's stolen electronics, that it appears to be trying to fully activate, attached to the base of the tower. The alien also has several people, including Alice, hanging from the ceiling and unconscious, that it uses for food. Using Cary's firecrackers as a distraction, Joe frees Alice and the others, but the three kids end up trapped in a dead end cavern after the alien chases them down and dispatches the others. Alice and Cary scream and cower against the tunnel wall, but Joe steps forward and tries to talk to the alien. The alien grabs Joe, who quietly speaks to the alien, telling him over and over that "bad things happen" but that the alien "can still live". After studying Joe for a moment, and then hearing its device fully activating, the alien releases him and departs, allowing the three to return to the surface.
As Joe and Alice reunite with their fathers, everyone watches as numerous metal objects from all over town are pulled to the top of the water tower by an unknown force. The white cubes are also pulled in to assemble into the alien's spaceship, using the objects and the water tower as its base. As it nears completion, the alien enters the spaceship. The locket is then drawn from out of Joe's pocket towards the tower and Joe, after a brief moment, decides to let it go, completing the ship. The water tank implodes and as the tower legs fall to the street, the ship rockets into space. Joe takes Alice's hand as they watch the ship depart into the night sky.
- Joel Courtney as Joe Lamb
- Elle Fanning as Alice Dainard
- Riley Griffiths as Charles Kaznyk
- Ryan Lee as Cary McCarthy
- Gabriel Basso as Martin Read
- Zach Mills as Preston Scott
- Kyle Chandler as Deputy Jackson Lamb
- Ron Eldard as Louis Dainard
- AJ Michalka as Jen Kaznyk
- Joel McKinnon Miller as Sal Kaznyk
- Jessica Tuck as Mrs. Kaznyk
- Brett Rice as Sheriff Pruitt
- Michael Giacchino as Deputy Crawford
- Michael Hitchcock as Deputy Rosko
- Jay Scully as Deputy Skadden
- Noah Emmerich as Colonel Nelec
- Richard T. Jones as Overmyer
- Bruce Greenwood as Cooper
- David Gallagher as Donny
- Glynn Turman as Dr. Thomas Woodward
- Beau Knapp as Breen
- Dan Castellaneta as Izzy
- Dale Dickey as Edie
Development
J.J. Abrams had the idea to start a film by showing a factory's "Accident-Free" sign long before he came up with the rest of the ideas for the film. Super 8 was actually the combination of two ideas; one for a film about kids making their own movie during the 1970s, and another for a blockbuster alien invasion film. Abrams combined the ideas, worried that the former would not attract enough attendance.
Abrams and Spielberg collaborated in a storytelling committee to come up with the story for the film. The film was initially reported to be either a sequel or prequel to the 2008 film Cloverfield, but this was quickly denied by Abrams. Primary photography began in fall (September/October) 2010. The teaser itself was filmed separately in April. Super 8 is the first original J. J. Abrams film project produced by Amblin Entertainment, Bad Robot Productions, and Paramount Pictures.
Abrams wanted to find new faces to play the parts in his movie. He conducted a national talent search in order to find the child actors to play each of the leading roles. Courtney (who was hoping to land a part in a commercial) was picked out of many boys because Abrams found something "different" in him. Riley Griffiths sent Abrams a tape of himself in order to land the part of Charles.
Filming
Filming took place in Weirton, West Virginia, from September to October 2010. To promote the film, Valve Corporation created a short video game segment and released it alongside the Windows and Mac versions of Portal 2.
Abrams' original plan was to film all of the sequences for the film-within-a-film, "The Case", in Super-8 using Pro8mm stock and cameras. However, this approach proved unsuccessful, as visual effects house Industrial Light and Magic found it impossible to integrate CGI into the footage due to the format's graininess. For sequences involving CGI, cinematographer Larry Fong used Super-16 instead.
Soundtrack
| Super 8 | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Film score by Michael Giacchino | ||||
| Released | August 2, 2011 | |||
| Recorded | 2011 | |||
| Genre | Orchestral | |||
| Length | 77:19 | |||
| Label | Varèse Sarabande | |||
| Michael Giacchino chronology | ||||
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