Follow TV Tropes

Following

Context Film / Super8

Go To

1[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/super-8-struzan-poster-610x903_495.jpg]]
2
3->''"There's a reason that ''Super 8'', its cool thrills, also seems a work of innocence: it takes incidental inspiration from the films of a director who, back in 1979, was the J.J. Abrams of his day. Look closely and you'll see that ''Super 8'' is a medley of tropes from the films of Spielberg's early prime."''
4-->-- '''Richard Corliss''', ''Time'' magazine
5
6''Super 8'' is a 2011 {{science fiction}} monster film written and directed by Creator/JJAbrams and produced by Creator/StevenSpielberg. It is an homage to classic "adventurous children" movies, particularly those made/produced by Spielberg, like ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial'', ''Film/TheGoonies'' and especially ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind''.
7
8A group of middle schoolers in a small Ohio town in 1979 are dedicated to making a zombie movie to enroll in an upcoming film festival, with Charles as script-writer and director, his best friend Joe as the make-up artist and other cast and crew members like Martin (lead actor), Cary (pyrotechnic/pyromaniac) and Preston (misc crew/extras). Charles manages to convince a girl and classmate, Alice, to play the part of the wife, and she and Joe start to form an affection for each other. Unfortunately, there are some lingering emotions surrounding the death of Joe's mom several months prior, as well problems with his distant father, a deputy in the local sheriff's office.
9
10While filming a scene late at night, they happen upon a freak train crash and barely escape before the authorities show up. Shaken up by the experience, they find that they accidentally filmed ''something'' on their [[TitleDrop Super 8-mm film camera]] in the aftermath of the crash, and soon they're caught up in strange happenings and a secret military operation.
11
12An interactive version of the teaser trailer is bundled with ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'', found in the game's Extras section. There's also a prequel comic book that was bundled into the second issue of the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' comic book tie-in. It details the 1958 events referred to in the film and how Col. Nelec got involved with the situation.
13
14[[JustForFun/IThoughtItMeant Not to be confused with]] ''Film/EightMM'', and has nothing to do with [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_8_(hotel) the motel chain]], either.
15----
16!!This film provides the following examples:
17* The70s: Takes place in 1979, and does a fabulous job of capturing the look of the time.
18* AlcoholicParent: Alice's father. He was drinking the morning of the factory accident, which led to Joe's mother taking his shift and her untimely death.
19* AliensInCardiff: {{Area 51}} stuff happening in a small Ohio town somewhere west of Dayton, possibly tying into the rumors that the nearby Wright-Patterson AFB was the storage place of the alien bodies and wreckage from the Roswell crash.
20* AllohistoricalAllusion: The [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accident Three Mile Island accident]], which took place in the same year as the events of the film, is mentioned in the news in one scene.
21* AlternateRealityGame:
22** Naturally there'd be one. It involves a site about Ice Cream Lollipop called [[http://rocketpoppeteers.com Rocket Poppeteers]]. There's [[http://scariestthingieversaw.com Scariest Thing I Ever Saw]], [[http://www.Hooklineandminker.com Hook, Line and Minker]] and [[http://www.super8-movie.com/editingroom.html S8 Editing Room]].
23** The editing room is especially good as you have to unlock clips and put them together forming one big video (which features the Truck Guy who apparently was involved in some experiments relating to the monster). Clips can be [[http://www.movieviral.com/2011/05/18/super-8-standees-provide-links-to-editing-room-clips/ unlocked from looking through Super 8 standees in theaters and watching the title card after the trailer]] and [[http://www.movieviral.com/2011/05/09/new-super-8-app-reveals-hidden-editing-room/ using the Super 8 app.]]
24* AlwaysSaveTheGirl: The mysterious things that are happening in town are overall dismissed by the kids as they try to make the film, but the moment Alice is kidnapped is the moment they all race to try to figure out what is going on so they can rescue her.
25* AmateurFilmMakingPlot: Charles's zombie movie ''The Case'', eventually shown in full during the end credits.
26* AnachronismStew: When finding the mysterious metal cubes in the train crash, the gang exclaims that they resemble Rubix Cubes -- which were not introduced until 1980, one year after the movie is set.
27* AnAesop:
28** Misunderstandings can ruin lives and relationships, but they can be healed with understanding and communication.
29** [[DrugsAreBad "Drugs are so bad!"]], Martin moans after Donny stones himself to sleep. PlayedForLaughs.
30* {{Area 51}}: That's where the train's cargo comes from. So, obviously, it's trouble.
31* ArmiesAreEvil: Not entirely so, but army men are not pleasant guys to deal with, and one of them tortured the alien and turned him against humanity.
32* ArsonMurderAndJaywalking:
33** After the train derailment when the kids are all driving away, they're freaking out over Woodward's warnings. Charles is just as distressed, but not about entirely the same things.
34** "You will die; your parents will die... this is not good information!" "I've never had a teacher aim a gun at me!" "That train could've killed us!" "Oh shit, the focus ring fell off my camera! The lens is totally cracked!"
35* ArtisticLicensePhysics:
36** A whole train was pulled off the tracks by just a truck, ''whose driver survived.''
37--->"[[LampshadeHanging How could a pickup truck derail a train, man? That's impossible!]]"\
38"[[CaptainObvious Obviously]], it isn't."
39** Tanks are shown firing their main guns in very close proximity to characters, which should have knocked them down and made them deaf at the very least.
40* AssholeVictim: Nelec and the soldiers are pretty rude to the kids at best and [[spoiler:kill Dr. Woodward]], so we don't feel all that sad when the alien eats them all.
41* AsYouKnow: A few times with the kids, who usually respond with a huffy, "I know that!"
42* TheAtoner:
43** Dr. Woodward, due to his guilt over being one of the scientists that kept the alien imprisoned, and finding out from a mental link that it's just scared and wants to go home.
44** Alice's father turns out to be this as well, as he was indirectly responsible for the death of Joe's mother and sought out forgiveness.
45* AvoidTheDreadedGRating:
46** Donny saying "fuck" (amongst other curses from the children) and Nelec's unusually gory death were probably put in to ensure a PG-13 rating.
47** Interestingly, the film was originally going to have a scene where Joe masturbates as a CensorDecoy, but the scene never made it past the script because the filmmakers decided it would be too creepy.
48* BadassTeacher: Dr. Woodward, the biology teacher at the main characters' middle school, crashes into the train. The best part is that he survives the crash. Turns out he's also one of the scientists who studied the monster.
49* BadBadActing: Averted. Most of the acting in the movie the kids are working on is believably bad. Joe himself was called upon to play a soldier and was particularly stiff. Martin seems to be alright, but Alice got so emotional and into character as the wife during the rehearsal take that she stunned everyone. Amusingly, the poor editing of Charles' movie (seen over the ending credits) conceals this, since he chose to use a take where she had to yell over the sound of the train. As a result, she sounds just as bad as the other kids.
50* BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil: Upon being tortured and experimented on by the military, the alien came to believe all humans were a potential threat and lashed out at them, taking civilians for his food supply and kidnapping anyone who sees him. In this case, he's not so much evil as he is dangerously paranoid.
51* BigBad: Colonel Nelec. While the creature gets its sinister musical motif, the Colonel gets his own, which sounds somewhat like a [[Franchise/StarWars certain March]].
52* BigEater:
53** Charles (the fat kid, duh!). {{Lampshaded}} by Cary.
54** The alien also, to judge by the massive hunk of beef being provided to it in an old video clip.
55* BirdsOfAFeather: Joe and Alice both have [[ParentalNeglect neglectful fathers]] and {{missing mo|m}}thers.
56* BizarreAlienBiology: The alien is thoroughly weird-looking. It has six arms, feet that end with digging "chisels," and a body with multiple gaps or negative spaces that do not exist in Earth vertebrates. Its face looks surprisingly humanoid at first glance, but the lipped mouth can split horribly into a fanged set of mandibles, and the human-like eyes are normally covered by a reflective membrane.
57* BlackDudeDiesFirst:
58** {{Subverted|Trope}}. The first violent scene in the movie involves a train crash, in which Dr. Woodward -- a black guy -- is apparently killed when his truck gets hit by the train. However, despite appearing dead at first sight, he is actually alive and scares the crap out of the kids who come to investigate.
59** Played straight in the bus attack, when the first two soldiers to die are Overmeyer and the driver, Krause, who are both black guys. As if in silent acknowledgement of this trope, both of them have the most darkly hilariously "[[ThisIsGonnaSuck I hate my job]]" expressions on their faces when Nelec sends them out to track the alien, clearly [[GenreSavvy knowing what's going to happen to them]].
60* BlueAndOrangeMorality: Joe eventually realizes that the alien isn't particularly malicious, it just wants to rebuild its ship and go home, but it has to eat ''something'' while it's on the run from the law, and basically feels the same way about humans that we would feel about some particularly nasty-but-small wild animals when we crash land in a foreign country - (an obnoxious nuisance at worst, but also [[ToServeMan the best food source available]]). The only time it displays actual murderous intent is during the bus attack, [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil not without justification.]]
61* BookDumb: Joe's talents are obviously placed outside school subjects. In one scene he hides a test marked "C-" from Alice.
62* BrattyTeenageDaughter: Charles' older sister, Jennifer, who is constantly complaining to their mother about wanting to go to a girl's party, but can't, due to babysitting duties. Used as a plot point, as it's the only way Charles is able to get them places during the events of the film by promising to babysit instead.
63* BrickJoke:
64** A woman at the police department is looking for a woman with brown hair and "rollers." She's one of the people taken by the alien.
65** Cary's Electronic Football that was previously taken by Dr. Woodward. When the kids break into the "Dungeon" where all the confiscated items and Woodward's items were, the next scene has Cary playing it in the background.
66* CallingTheOldManOut: Joe attempts to when his father forbids him from spending time with Alice.
67* TheCameo: Creator/DanCastellaneta as the car dealer and composer Creator/MichaelGiacchino as one of the deputies.
68* CapturedSuperEntity: The alien since The50s, under less-than-humane circumstances.
69* CarSkiing: Happens when the creature slams into the military bus transporting the gang. Of note is that while the driver does succeed in getting the car back on the ground, the raised tires are totally destroyed on impact, forcing him to stop.
70* CatchPhrase: Charles has "That was ''mint!''", "Shut up!", and "Production value!"
71* ChalkOutline: The boys' movie features a chalk outline that was drawn around a corpse before it got up and left.
72* CharacterDevelopment: Joe. He starts off as a bit of a pushover, constantly helping Charles with his film and initially letting him blow up his model train. After bonding with Alice, Joe starts standing up for himself, eventually directing the kids to help Charles and taking Cary with him to save Alice. As noted by Donny, "When did ''he'' get so bossy?"
73* ChekhovsGun:
74** The "dungeon," Dr. Woodward's container in the school parking lot, is mentioned briefly after the train accident before it turns out that is where Dr. Woodward's research is located.
75** Donny has a crush on Charles' older sister Jennifer, who wants to go to Wendy's party next week, but their mother makes her babysit the twins. This comes in handy when Charles convinces her to flirt with Donny so that the gang can be driven back to town to rescue Alice in exchange for Charles doing the babysitting for her so she can go to the party.
76** The film used during the train accident is later given to Joe's father by Preston, bringing him up to speed on the alien situation.
77** The water tower is shown a few times in the background before it is given any relevance.
78** The strange metallic cubes that the train was also carrying.
79* ChekhovsHobby: Cary's obsession with fireworks comes in handy later on when they need a diversion.
80* ChekhovsSkill: A double one. The alien's ability to bond, and Joe's passion for train models, come in handy when it is time to build a new spaceship.
81* ClicheStorm: InUniverse. ''The Case'' is all NightOfTheLivingMooks cliches rolled into one. A more realistic example, because it's hard to expect Creator/AndreiTarkovsky material from a bunch of 14-year-olds who've been watching too many zombie movies.
82* ClusterFBomb:
83** As summarized by none other than Creator/JamesRolfe, "Coming from [[WebVideo/TheAngryVideoGameNerd a guy that says 'shit' a lot]], these kids say 'shit' ''all the time''."
84** However, it's worth noting that if you pay attention, the swearing is mostly from Charles and Cary. The others either say bad words very rarely, or not at all.
85* ColonelBadass: The Colonel spends his last few moments of life shooting the monster ''in the face'' -- despite knowing it won't work -- and staring it down before it eats him.
86* ComingOfAgeStory: With, you know, an angry alien on the loose.
87* CoolCar: If you like old-school '70s cars, almost all of them.
88* CreativeClosingCredits:
89** The credits show the entire film the gang was working on.
90** CreditsGag to the second degree ensues as the credits of the in-film film playing over the credits of the film are interrupted by a zombie attack.
91* CuteMonsterGirl: Alice, after Joe applies the zombie make-up.
92* DamselInDistress: Alice when she is captured by the alien.
93* {{Deconstruction}}:
94** Of a sort. The plot shows a [[DarkerAndEdgier grittier]] realization of an ''[[Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial E.T.]]''-style alien arrival and some ''[[Film/TheGoonies Goonies]]''-esque meddling kids' entanglement in it. Ultimately, the kids have next to nothing to do with the alien's escape from Earth. Rather, the story is about the ''humans'' learning to forgive and move on with their lives. Whether or not the alien learned about human emotions it's likely unable to comprehend is pretty much irrelevant. In fact, the kids' and the alien's paths only briefly intersect a couple of times.
95** The creature is also a [[GreyAndGrayMorality good deal more violent]] than most "crash-landed alien" movie characters, and after [[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil 20-something years of being tortured and experimented on]], it's pissed off and ready to leave, and doesn't care who gets in its way. It's clearly some form of an apex predator -- like the only other sentient species that has yet been identified in nature -- and thinks nothing of kidnapping the native "[[ToServeMan wildlife]]" to feed on while it builds its spaceship. An intelligent animal the size of a bus has to eat a lot of food, and given that Lillian seems to have no large livestock, there's only one [[ToServeMan food source]] it can turn to.
96* DefrostingIceQueen: Alice, who is initially cold towards Joe but quickly warms up to him once they spend time together.
97* DepartmentOfRedundancyDepartment: From ''The Case'' – "This fell out of the pocket of the attacker's pocket."
98* DidntSeeThatComing: When the kids play one of the rolls of film from Woodward's trailer, Woodward is shown at one of the windows of the alien's prison cell, dangling a hunk of meat near the bars. The guy is just ''begging'' to be yanked through the window by an alien tentacle or whatever, and the audience steels itself with anticipation when all of a sudden he's snatched up by the alien's arm, sticking through another window ''thirty-something feet off the ground''.
99* DidntThinkThisThrough: Feeding an alien creature [[Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial Reese's pieces]] works fine when it's approximately the size of a toddler. Not so much here: A highly intelligent apex predator the size of a school bus has to eat a ''lot'' of food to sustain itself, and given that Lillian seems to have no farm animals, there's pretty much only one [[ToServeMan food source]] available for the creature to choose from.
100* DirectorTrademark: Slusho appears again as one of the advertised items at the Kelvin Gasoline store.
101* DirtyCommunists: {{Invoked}} when a woman suggests that all the weird stuff going on in town is a prelude to a Soviet invasion.
102* DiscOneFinalBoss: [[BigBad Colonel Nelec]] gets killed about 3/4 of the way through the movie. The climax of the film is Joe convincing the alien that it doesn't have to act like a monster.
103* DisneyDeath: After the train accident, the gang find blood on some of the train wreckage and think that it's Alice's. Alice appears behind them and is uninjured; the blood is just fake blood from Joe's make-up box.
104* DoggedNiceGuy: Joe towards Alice. It turns out Charles had the same idea too.
105* DownerBeginning: We start with a funeral for Joe's mom.
106* DramaticAlienVTOL: It wouldn't be a proper '80s-style Spielberg movie without one.
107* DressingAsTheEnemy: After being detained by the Air Force, Jackson tricks a guard and knocks him out, stealing his uniform to escape the base.
108* DullSurprise: Averted within the movie itself, as all of the child actors are great. Played hilariously straight within ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Case]]'', where the acting is just ''[[StylisticSuck lousy.]]'' Charles and Martin are decent, but Joe is painfully wooden when playing a soldier. Alice is the only one of the kids who seemingly has any acting ability, but most of that gets edited out of the film.
109* EsotericHappyEnding: InUniverse. The kids' film, ''The Case'', ends with the hero saving his wife from the zombie disease...by wasting the only remaining dosage of the cure on her.
110* EveryoneCanSeeIt: Between Joe and Alice.
111* EvilDetectingDog: All the dogs in the area run away to other towns because they can tell there's a monster running around. Either that, or the equipment it's assembling makes a noise or smell humans can't detect, but they don't like at all.
112* EvilLaugh: The noises made by the creature before it crushes the Colonel to paste sound suspiciously like a ''[[HellIsThatNoise very]]'' nasty chuckle.
113* ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin: How Cary explains why talking is bad in the silent reading section.
114* ExposedExtraterrestrials: The creature.
115* FaceDeathWithDignity: The Colonel appears to.
116* FamilyUnfriendlyViolence: The alien kills a lot of people in rather brutal ways. Although it's only visible for a few scant moments, it's clear that the Colonel's entire upper body pretty much ''disappears'' in a splatter of blood across the window when the alien bites him.
117* FantasyForbiddingFather: Deputy Lamb.
118* FelonyMisdemeanor: When the kids run into an empty house to escape the chaos wrecking their hometown, Charles starts chugging down a bottle of soda.
119-->'''Martin:''' Charles, what are you thinking, dude? That's not yours!\
120'''Charles:''' What? I'm thirsty! I'm in a war zone!
121* FlatWhat: Cary emits one of these after Joe is able to convince the alien to spare the two of them and Alice during the climax.
122* FluffyTheTerrible: {{Justified|Trope}} in that ''Cooper''--the alien--is not a monster at all. Although he's still scary.
123* {{Foreshadowing}}:
124** As the kids drive away from the train accident, they pass the gas station that gets prominence a few scenes later.
125** When the cube picked up from the crash site goes crazy in Joe's room and flies through a wall to the water tower, it notably passes through a poster of the space shuttle.
126** When Deputy Lamb is coming out of the press conference, a man comes up to him and tells him about "some kinda sinkhole" in his garage.
127* {{Forgiveness}}: One of the major themes of the film.
128* FourTemperamentEnsemble: The main group of boys fit this extremely well. Charles is choleric (focused on his film most of all, and low in patience), Martin is melancholic (practical but the most easily frazzled of the boys), Joe is leukine (pretty quiet and in general just goes with whatever the others want), Cary is sanguine (a loud and hyperactive boy with a love for fireworks), and Preston is phlegmatic (very smart but not as willing as the others to get involved).
129* TheFourthWallWillNotProtectYou: At the end of ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Case]]'', Charles talks directly to the audience, only to be interrupted by a zombie tearing out his throat. It's a ShoutOut to grindhouse movies that did the exact same thing, and to the framing stories of a few ''Series/AlfredHitchcockPresents'' episodes being invaded by the primary plots.
130* FreeRangeChildren: The kids do sneak out at night, but they also spend all day on their own.
131* FreezeFrameBonus: The alien is first briefly seen in the reflection of a gasoline puddle.
132* FriendVersusLover: Sort of. Alice wants Joe to stand up to Charles and not let him blow up his train model, while Charles is annoyed by Joe's new-found independence (or, as he puts it, "bossiness") due to Alice's encouragement. Although what ''really'' bothers Charles is that Alice likes Joe better than him.
133* FunnyBackgroundEvent:
134** When several of Martin's scripts sheets blow away, he is seen chasing them across the screen behind Joe and Alice. A little later, when Joe is putting make-up on and having a conversation with Alice, Charles and Martin have a heated argument over one of his lines being changed slightly just before filming.
135** In the same scene, watch Preston's mouth as he fakes conversation on the pay phone. Shortly afterwards he stops trying entirely when he's entranced by Alice's performance along with everyone else.
136* GenreDeconstruction: In addition to being a GenreThrowback, arguably the basic plot of the movie asks the question "What if instead of being tiny, eating human food, and being adopted by kids, [[Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial E.T.]] was huge, carnivorous, and got captured and tortured by the government before the kids could get to him?" Answer: he'd be [[DeconstructedCharacterArchetype a terrifying monster]], who's not killing people for the fun of it (except [[ItsPersonal the military]]), but, well, for a predator the size of a bus, Beer and Reese's Pieces ain't gonna cut it as a food supply. Also, TheMeddlingKidsAreUseless gets a damn good reason for once: this alien has a mission and will kill anything that gets in the way, and the military [[KilledToUpholdTheMasquerade has no problem getting rid of witnesses]]. [[spoiler:Joe manages to talk the alien out of killing any more people, but having killed Nelec (the bastard who deserves ''all'' of the vengeance) and with its ship fully rebuilt, it's a pretty moot point.]]
137* GenreThrowback: The entire film appears to be honoring every late 1970s-1980s film that Creator/StevenSpielberg either directed or had a hand in:
138** Specifically ''Film/CloseEncountersOfTheThirdKind'' (the Midwest setting, power outages).
139** ''Film/{{ET|The Extraterrestrial}}'' (the kids on bikes, coping with an alien that only wants to go home, and dealing with uncaring military authority figures).
140** ''Film/TheGoonies'' (group of motley kids trying to solve mysteries).
141** Even Deputy Lamb trying to find out what's going on with the disappearances in town is reminiscent of Chief Brody's investigations in ''Film/{{Jaws}}''.
142** The deputy punching out bad guys to steal their uniforms is a pretty blatant ShoutOut to ''Franchise/IndianaJones''.
143* GiantSpider: The creature sort of resembles one. It has six (not eight, but still many) limbs, its face can open up to reveal a spider-like maw, it has black, spider-like eyes when hunting, it can produce web (which it uses to tie up its human prey), and it is a carnivore. It's also subterranean, possibly referring to funnel web spiders. The creature can be more accurately described as a giant spider-human hybrid though, considering its humanoid torso, hands, face, and most importantly, its incredibly human eyes whenever it's calm.
144* GreyAndGrayMorality: The conflict between the army and the alien. The army is highly xenophobic, and willing to go to grand lengths to bring the alien down. But they're mostly just doing their jobs, and even the worst of them has his redeeming qualities. Namely, sacrificing his life to let the kids escape the alien. Meanwhile, the alien has no problem with killing or kidnapping innocent people that get in his way, using kidnappees as a food source while he rebuilds his ship. However, he's more interested in leaving Earth than causing harm, and the whole reason he's attacking humans at all is because his terrible and inhumane treatment at the hands of the military has led him to believe that all humans are a potential threat. That and the fact that a two-story tall apex predator has to eat ''something'', and since Lillian apparently has no livestock (and [[EvilDetectingDog all the dogs]] were scared off by the alien), there's pretty much only one [[ToServeMan food source]] available.
145* GoryDiscretionShot:
146** Averted. There is an explosion of blood against the bus window as the creature kills the Colonel as well as a shot of the creature feeding on a human leg after he consumes one of the hostages.
147** Played Straight when a bone is said to be poking out of Martin's leg after an explosion in the house and it has to be physically arranged back, but neither the injury nor the process is shown.
148* TheGuardsMustBeCrazy: There's a crashed military train with an escaped alien loose, a town that needs to be locked down, people and dogs disappearing all over the place... and ''nobody'' seems to notice a group of kids filming all of it? Eventually Colonel Nelec notices, but by then Joe's dad shows up to take both camera and Joe away.
149* HalfTheManHeUsedToBe: The shot cuts away so quickly that it's hard to notice the first time around, but the entire upper half of Colonel Nelec's body seemingly ''disappears'' [[FamilyUnfriendlyDeath in a massive cloud of blood]] when the alien bites him.
150* HappierHomeMovie: Joe and Alice watch a home movie of Joe as a baby with his mother.
151* HeadphonesEqualIsolation: A gas station attendant is so busy rocking out to Music/{{Blondie|Band}} on his brand new Walkman that he doesn't hear the monster attack, nor feel the shockwaves from a police car being bounced off the ground 50 feet away.
152* HeelFaceTurn: The alien monster, thanks to ThePowerOfFriendship.
153* HellIsThatNoise: The sound designers in this movie really earned their overtime pay. The creature's demonic-sounding roars and growls are ''terrifying''. Especially during the bus scene.
154* HeroicSacrifice: Interestingly, the guy who delays the alien long enough for the kids to escape, and pays for it with his life, isn't one of the parents or Dr. Woodward, but [[VillainousValor Colonel Nelec]].
155* HisHeartWillGoOn: Joe's father eventually comes to terms with his wife's death.
156* HoldingHands: Joe and Alice at the end of the film.
157* HomageShot: The setup of the train crash is nearly identical to the one in Creator/CecilBDeMille's ''Film/TheGreatestShowOnEarth''. Indeed, it was Steven Spielberg's childhood attempts to replicate this train crash that led to his pursuit of a film career, which this film pays homage to.
158* HumanityEnsues: In ''The Case'', Det. Hathaway is about to reluctantly shoot his infected wife when the antidote starts taking effect.
159* HumansAreTheRealMonsters:
160** The creature itself has been stranded on Earth since the 1950s, and has been imprisoned and experimented on for the last couple of decades, and has only wanted to return home via its ship. More or less the reason for its aggression is because every human it sees (other than Dr. Woodward, with whom it establishes a mental link) is a potential threat, or expendable for the most part.
161** Averted with Joe, whose chat with the alien in the tunnel -- "Bad things happen" -- reveals to it that in a way, everybody hurts. And since the alien is holding Joe at the time and establishes a mind link by contact, the alien can see that Joe -- who had by then forgiven Alice's father for what happened -- is right.
162** From the prequel comic's tagline: "The Soviets sent a dog. The U.S. sent a ''{{Nuke|Em}}''." This is actually justified: the Soviets' probe was shot down, causing all the worst reactions...
163* ImmuneToBullets: The alien, which is a bit of a problem for Colonel Nelec when he's trapped in a bus by the alien with only an M-16. Even escalating to ''tanks'' doesn't help, as it's capable of making them veer off course with magnetism.
164* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: In-movie example for ''The Case'' when Cary's zombie character gets impaled through the head on nails sticking out of the wall.
165* ImprobableInfantSurvival: Despite a number of other violent deaths in the movie, all the kids make it out unscathed.
166* InSeriesNickname: Cary calls Martin "Smartin", to his displeasure.
167* InsufferableGenius: Charles can be quite arrogant and bossy when it comes to his film, but he clearly wants to make it more in-depth by adding emotional investment to it, such as giving the detective a wife. Which makes the amusingly awful result all the more funny.
168* ItWillNeverCatchOn: The sheriff is not impressed by the idea of everyone having their own Walkman. He isn't totally ignorant of its potential, though, and in fact sees how such an innocuous device could inspire an entire new trend. "It's a slippery slope," indeed.
169* ItsAllMyFault: It's eventually revealed that Alice's father blames himself for Joe's mother's death, as she took on his shift at the factory on the day of the accident.
170* ItsPersonal: The alien is pretty dispassionate and impersonal in the way it kills and eats humans, right up until it has Colonel Nelec cornered on the bus, and lets out a noise that sounds [[HellIsThatNoise disturbingly close to]] ''[[EvilLaugh laughter]]''.
171* JumpScare: A few times. [[KilledMidsentence "Sir, is there a particular area you'd like me to-"]]
172* KarmicDeath: The Colonel finally meets his end at the hands of the creature he ordered experimentation on.
173* KickTheDog: One of the soldiers takes Joe's mother's locket. Joe gets it back later from the guy's corpse.
174* LensFlare: A drinking game based on them would end very badly for all involved. It's a J.J. Abrams movie.
175* LetNoCrisisGoToWaste: The kids take advantage of a train crash and the soldiers in town in order to increase the "production values" of their film.
176* LoveTriangle: Joe and Charles both have crushes on Alice. Type 4, as Alice reciprocates Joe's crush once they form a bond.
177* MacGuffin: The Super 8 footage of the crash - although it doesn't figure into the plot as heavily as one might expect.
178* MadeOfExplodium: Just what the hell was ''in'' that tiny little pickup truck of Woodward's to derail a massive military train like that?
179* MadBomber: Cary, to the concern of the kids' parents and sometimes his friends. But boy, does it pay it off.
180* MeaningfulBackgroundEvent: The alien monster and its antics; the story is about Joe and his father.
181* MementoMacGuffin: The locket that belonged to Joe's mother. It ends up being the last piece of metal needed for the alien's ship.
182* MissingMom: Joe's mother is dead, and Alice's mother has left her family.
183* MisterSandmanSequence: Immediately following the DownerBeginning, kids excitedly run out of school for their first day of summer with Music/ElectricLightOrchestra's 1979 hit single "Don't Bring Me Down" blasting in the backdrop.
184* MoodWhiplash: Several:
185** Joe's mother's funeral, which starts out very somber and then switches to the kids all arguing about the grisly manner in which she died.
186** The climax, when Joe talks down the alien from killing him and his friends immediately followed by Cary's indignant reaction to the fact that it actually worked.
187** After the moment where Joe lets go of the locket, followed by the ship leaving, the credits continue the sad music... only to cut to show the hilarious [[ShowWithinAShow movie of the kids]], ''The Case''. And then, Music/TheKnack's "My Sharona".
188* MookLieutenant: Overmeyer, Nelec's loyal subordinate.
189* MuggedForDisguise: Joe's father has to punch out the soldier guarding him and steal his uniform to pull off DressingAsTheEnemy.
190* TheNewRockAndRoll: Parodied a little bit when the Sheriff makes a passing mention (upon finally catching the store clerk's attention) that the Walkman is "pointing down a slippery slope of juvenile distraction".
191* NightOfTheLivingMooks: ''The Case'', the zombie movie the kids are trying to film.
192* NoodleIncident: A more grim version: It's never revealed how Joe's mother died, only that it was rather nasty and involved i-beams. A sort of in-story ViolenceDiscretionShot.
193* NonMaliciousMonster: The alien. Note that in this case, "non-malicious" [[DeconstructedTrope does not equal harmless]]: All it wants to do is to get home, and if it gets a little hungry while it's waiting and has to eat some of [[ToServeMan the local wildlife]], well, [[PunchClockVillain so be it.]]
194* NoPlansNoPrototypeNoBackup: The cure for the zombie virus in ''The Case.''
195* NostalgiaFilter: Anybody who was a pre-teen between 1975 to 1985 is gonna get misty-eyed watching this movie.
196* NothingButHits: "[[Music/ElectricLightOrchestra Don't Bring Me Down]]," "Easy", "My Sharona," "Heart of Glass," and "{{Silly Love|Songs}} [[Music/PaulMcCartney Songs]]" all show up.
197* NothingIsScarier:
198** The classic version is used repeatedly when the monster abducts someone. The third version as well: when Joe and Cary are in the monster's lair, the sheriff's body is right next to them, though you might not spot it until they do. Also, when Alice is abducted, there appears to be something blurry in the background, which starts moving.
199** The attack on the bus is the "Wait for it" version, played straight as an arrow, complete with some [[RedShirt poor bastard]] getting [[JumpScare abruptly yanked out of the truck]] [[KilledMidsentence mid-sentence.]]
200** In the first draft of the script, the alien was never supposed to be shown ''at all''.
201** The train crash scene does this excellently as well. The entire movie-filming scene draws out the tension as much as possible, because the audience just ''knows'' there's going to be a train coming down that track. Sure enough, Charles spots one, and scrambles to get everything set up in time to capture it during a take. Then Joe spots a light on the track ahead of the train, and realizes it's a pick-up truck, [[OhCrap driving straight towards the train.]]
202* NotQuiteDead: Dr. Woodward after a head-on collision with a train.
203* NotUsingTheZWord: Almost no one says "alien". Averted for the actual Z-word in the ShowWithinAShow short movie ''The Case''.
204* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Despite killing a large number of people throughout the movie, it's made clear that the alien is primarily just trying to feed and/or defend itself, as a carnivorous creature that large would require a huge amount of food to survive. Except for when it has the Colonel cornered in the bus, the creature pauses and looks him dead in the eye, as if [[BestServedCold savoring the moment]], then [[EvilLaugh starts laughing.]]
205* OperationBlank: Operation Walking Distance.
206* PaperThinDisguise: Jackson's stolen Air Force uniform. Everyone from town knows that it's him when he uses it to infiltrate the evacuee center run by the Air Force and he actually has to shush a child who greets him. It works for the soldiers, since the military is, obviously, a very big organization.
207* ParentalAbandonment: Joe's mother is dead, and his father attempts to send him away to a six week baseball camp over the summer, arguably so he doesn't have to deal with raising Joe by himself.
208* ParentalNeglect: Both Joe's and Alice's fathers share neglect towards their respective child -- Joe's father due to his work and emotional baggage carried from Joe's mother's death, and Alice's father due to his resentment over Alice's mother leaving him and his guilt over Joe's mother's death, which he is indirectly responsible for.
209* PetTheDog: What does [[KnightTemplar the Colonel]] do in his last few minutes of life? [[YouShallNotPass Buy time for the kids to escape from the creature.]]
210* PrecisionFStrike: Other characters swear plenty of times, but "fuck" is specifically saved for the perfect moment towards the end:
211-->'''Donny:''' [''looking at the wreckage of the bus''] What the ''fuck?!''
212* PoliceBrutality: Mild case. Joe's police officer dad strongarms Mr. Dainard into the back of his police car and drives him away, apparently for the crime of... showing up at a wake. Subsequent events explain his motive, though.
213* PosthumousCharacter: Joe's mother.
214* PostKissCatatonia: After Joe saves Alice and she hugs him, he looks astonished for a split second, but then hugs her right back.
215* {{Prequel}}: The comic bundled into the second issue of the ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'' comic. Long story short, it's revealed that [[spoiler:the alien's ship had been monitoring Earth for quite some time and humans only discovered it with Sputnik; the Russians were scared shitless and so were the Americans, through OSS intelligence. The Russians sent Sputnik 2 (with Laika on-board) to investigate, while the Americans sent a probe of their own, which the alien ship promptly atomized. The U.S. response? [[NukeEm A nuclear warhead]]]].
216* ProductPlacement:
217** Budweiser, 7-Eleven, and [[Creator/EastmanKodak Kodak]] are all over the place.
218** The last is more Company Name Placement than Product Placement, of course, as ''all'' of the Kodak products shown in this movie have been supplanted by updated versions or discontinued.
219* PsychicLink: Humans develop this link with the alien if they are touched by it.
220* PunchClockVillain: All of the U.S. military personnel under the Colonel's direction.
221* ReassignedToAntarctica: At one time, Dr. Woodward was a military research scientist with a top-level security clearance. After he spoke out, he wound up teaching MiddleSchool science classes in a steel-mill town in Ohio.
222* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: When it finds Colonel Nelec's transport bus, let's just say the alien...[[BeingTorturedMakesYouEvil takes its time.]]
223* PyroManiac: Cary constantly totes a satchel of fireworks, blows things up at random intervals, and builds his own M80s. Lampshaded when Charles chews him out about his extreme obsession with fireworks.
224* RecycledTrailerMusic: If the music from [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCRQQCKS7go this trailer]] sounds familiar, that's because it was from the movie ''Film/{{Cocoon}}''. It can also be heard in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pEzTeHJUk3k this trailer]] for ''Cocoon: The Return''.
225* RedShirt: The woman with the rollers in her hair and the Sheriff are eaten by the monster in the cave.
226* TheReveal: Eventually, the kids find the footage and the recordings that explain what the creature is -- an alien who crash-landed years ago who only wanted to rebuild his ship and go home, but government officials got a hold of him first and kept him in captivity for experimentation. The alien did not take this treatment well and therefore was not shy about killing people as he gathered the equipment necessary to rebuild his ship, though it is clear that he eats human beings for sustenance despite being less than fond of them. Though this is a bit ruined if you happened across the prequel comic.
227* RuleOfCool: In the train crash scene, the only thing more broken than Woodward's truck are the [[ArtisticLicensePhysics laws of physics]], but most people forgive it on the grounds that ''Jesus'', that's one hell of a train crash.
228-->'''Creator/RogerEbert:''' The train wreck goes on and on and on, tossing railroad cars around like dominoes. You would think a freight car loaded with heavy metals [[LampshadeHanging couldn't fly very high into the sky]], but you'd be wrong. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools This is a sensationally good action sequence]], up there with the airplane crash in ''Film/{{Knowing}}''.
229* RuleOfThree: The three male zombies in ''The Case'' are all played by Cary, who looks exactly the same in all three roles except with a change of clothes.
230* SceneryGorn: The train crash. Explosions, scraping metal, flying train cars, and frightened kids are all captured in full detail to show the massive amount of destruction that takes place.
231* SelectiveMagnetism:
232** The magnetic field at the ends attracts guns, appliances, and even cars, but the military vehicles remain on the ground. Justified in the case of tanks and armored cars, which clearly weigh a lot more than civilian vehicles; done wince-inducingly straight with the metal chain Alice's dad wears around his neck and Cary's braces, which both remain firmly in place while [[TragicKeepsake Joe's locket]] goes floating off into the air.
233** Could be justified: braces might have been made of different material back in the 1970s, but today, dental braces are very rarely magnetic. The metal chain could be a similar example of a non-magnetic metal.
234* SerkisFolk: The creature is all motion-capture. Provided by Bruce Greenwood, of all people. Maybe Abrams just likes [[Film/StarTrek2009 hanging out with him]].
235* SeventiesHair: Creator/FarrahFawcett hairdos and long sideburns all over the place. However, most of the male kids' hair isn't all that different from 2011 fashions.
236* ShootTheFuelTank: Deputy Lamb blows up the truck carrying the fuel used to create the "wildfire" that prompted the evacuation to create a distraction for him to make off with a car.
237* ShootTheMoney: InUniverse example. Alice absolutely ''nails'' the first take of her speech to Martin at the train station, but Charles uses the take where she's having to shout to be heard, and all emotion in her dialogue is barely audible, because there's a real train rolling by in the background.
238* ShownTheirWork:
239** The alien is being transported to Ohio, as seen on the map. Wright-Patterson AFB, the home of the Air Force's Project Bluebook is in Ohio.
240** In fact, if you look closely enough at the two maps that appear in the film, you find that the [fictional] town of Lillian is about twenty miles west of Dayton — the home of the aforementioned Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Woodward's map makes it clear that the train was indeed headed for Wright-Patterson before he intervened.
241** In-universe example: For their age, the kids seem to be pretty well-versed in the process of film-making. Which in the end makes their final product all the more ironic, although for a movie made by kids, it's pretty solid.
242* ShowWithinAShow: Type 1. ''The Case'', the film that the kids are making for the Super-8 Film Festival. Their involvement in the greater plot mostly revolves about being in the right place at the wrong time as they try to film the thing.
243* SickbedSlaying: Done by Nelec to Woodward.
244* TheSmurfettePrinciple: Alice Dainard is the only female in a group with five young boys making a film and navigating their way through their adventure. In fact, she's pretty much the only important female in the entire movie, other than Charles' mother and older sister Jennifer.
245* SpiritualSuccessor:
246** To the Spielberg movies of the late [[The70s '70s]] and [[The80s '80s]].
247** ''Series/StrangerThings'' is considered one to this movie.
248* SpoofAesop: A drive-by line when the kids' driver is too stoned to get out of the car while the town is being blown to smithereens. Charles exclaims, "Drugs are SO bad!" before running away.
249* TheStoner: Donny.
250* StuffBlowingUp: The train wreck, to which the crew on board is presumably killed.
251* StylisticSuck: ''The Case'', the zombie movie that the kids are filming, is shown during the credits. It is ''so bad''. Joe in particular is a horrendous actor during his one scene.
252* SurvivorGuilt: The reason that Alice's father, Louis, initially acted like a {{jerkass}} to Joe was because he felt indirectly responsible for Joe's mother's death. Alice even tells Joe that he wished he had died instead of her.
253* ThisIsGonnaSuck: The first two [[RedShirt poor bastards]] the Colonel sends out of the wrecked bus to tag the alien have "I hate my job" written all over their faces.
254* TitleDrop: It is the name of the film and camera the gang uses and it is the name of the film festival that Charles wants to enter.
255* TookTheBadFilmSeriously: InUniverse. Alice's character as the wife in ''The Case'' is just a SacrificialLamb, but during rehearsal, Alice acts out the part so emotionally the entire crew is in shock. And then it gets mostly edited out of the film anyway.
256* TotallyRadical: Justified, as the movie is set in the 1970s, but who really says stuff like "That was mint!" anymore?
257* TraumaSwing: The film opens with Joe sitting alone on a swing mourning his mother's death.
258* TwiceShy: Once they become friends and form a bond, Joe and Alice become this.
259* TunnelKing: The creature is this.
260* TheUnreveal: The alien's home planet or much of anything about its race.
261* VillainousValor: Nelec's last stand against the alien.
262* VomitIndiscretionShot: A few, courtesy of Martin. In the special features, cinematographer Larry Fong notes that this may the first instance of computer-generated vomit in a movie.
263* VomitingCop: Played with in that the boy who ''plays'' the cop in ''The Case'' just happens to be the one who keeps barfing.
264* WeNeedADistraction: One implied, one stated. Joe's dad blows up a tanker truck to provide cover for his escape from custody, and Joe asks Cary to set off some fireworks so they can get out.
265* WhatMeasureIsANonHuman: Before the end, the creature, when seen, had predatory-looking black eyes, killed people, and for the most part seemed utterly monstrous. When it picks up Joe, after he makes it clear that he understands what happened to it and just wants the creature to leave in peace, the black ''lids'' slide back, revealing startlingly intelligent and human-like eyes. It then proceeds to put the boy gently down, lets him and his friends leave, and makes its own exit.
266* WomenAreWiser: Downplayed. Alice is the same age as all the boys (14), but since women generally mature faster than men, her greater maturity makes sense. However, she's still shown to be just as emotional, impulsive, and quick to anger as the other teenagers. The only place where she ''is'' shown to be completely superior to all of the guys is in the filming of ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Case]]'', where she's apparently the only one who has any acting capability whatsoever.
267* WouldHitAGirl: Averted. Joe does slap Alice, but hesitantly, and only because it was the only way to wake her up so that they could run for their lives; previously, he kept trying to shake her awake, to no avail.
268* XDaysSince: A rare non-comedic example. Used at the very start of the film to instantly tragic effect. Joe's mother broke the streak.
269* YouLookFamiliar: InUniverse example. In ''[[ShowWithinAShow The Case]]'', Cary plays ''every single zombie'', all of whom get killed by Martin's character, except for when Charles and Alice's characters are infected.
270* YouMeddlingKids: Subverted. The kids are too scared by the threat of military action to actually do anything about the creature. It's only at the end of the second act when [[spoiler:Alice is captured by the creature]] do the kids actually do anything important to the plot. JJ Abrams even mention on the DVD commentary that he didn't want the kids be the ''WesternAnimation/ScoobyDoo'' gang.
271* YourHeadAsplode: The Colonel's entire upper torso appears to splatter across the window when the alien bites him.
272* YouShouldHaveDiedInstead:
273** Alice tells Joe that her father [[SurvivorGuilt wishes he had died instead of Joe's mother on the day of the accident]] and sometimes she feels that way about him too. Averted by Joe, who tells her she should never feel that way about her dad.
274** And during the finale when the two fathers are together hunting down their missing kids, Alice's father tries to apologize and admit he should have died instead of Joe's mother. Joe's father, after a few moments of soul-searching, finally says, "It was an accident."

Top