Though the title "Super 8" might reference an old school video camera, the first full-length trailer for the film, which was posted on the movie's Twitter feed early Friday morning (March 11), finally shows us that J.J. Abrams' latest is going to be about much more than just a mysterious event accidentally caught on film.
Plot details have been scarce since "Super 8" was first announced, but the latest full-length trailer shows that Abrams and producer Steven Spielberg are ready to give us some context for the film. If the teaser trailer and Super Bowl ad were all about the mysterious story, this latest look at the flick is about introducing us to the characters.
Enter the young children at the center of the film, led by newcomer Joel Courtney. The sparse plot details previously released about "Super 8" told us that the movie would follow these kids after they accidentally capture footage on their Super 8 camera of a mysterious "something" escaping a train crash. The new trailer sets this up pretty blatantly, but with a larger look at the setting for the film.
In addition to Courtney, Elle Fanning is introduced in the trailer as the object of the young boy's affections, and "Friday Night Lights" star Kyle Chandler is shown as Courtney's concerned father, who doesn't want him to hang around too much with his young filmmaking friends as they make a zombie movie. Turns out Chandler also is the police chief in town, and when whatever was in the train escapes, he is the one forced to deal with it as he gradually realizes that the government is hiding something from all of them.
Comparisons have already been drawn between "Super 8" and "E.T.," "War of the Worlds" and "The Goonies," but this trailer hearkens back mostly to Spielberg's 1977 classic, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." In the same way that the "Close Encounters" aliens were something to be revered and not despised, the "Super 8" creature could possibly be more magical than evil — then again, how to explain all the missing dogs?
Abrams has proven with his previous projects like "Cloverfield" and "Lost" that he is the master of creating five questions by answering one, and the same can be said about this latest, more plot-driven sneak peek. The second half of the trailer raises about a million more questions about the plot of the film. What exactly was released during the train crash? Why is it having a strange effect on the townspeople? And is it really as dangerous as the government would lead the characters to believe?
Unfortunately, we have to wait until June 10 to find out.
Check out everything we've got on "Super 8."
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