J.J. Abrams
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Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Super 8 (2011)
Themes
Like a conjurer who can technically copy his hero's trick but fails to find the "magic," Abrams objectively understands and gathers many of the narrative elements that make Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T. memorable, but puts his heart more into the references to Dick Smith's Do-It-Yourself Monster Make-Up Handbook than into telling a story that, like those of Spielberg, feel real.
Sure, by technicality, the story is original, but when the entire picture is an homage to ’80s Spielberg and borrows heavily from Steven’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., and more than a share from Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me, it’s hard to really call it original.
"Super 8" not only pays homage to pictures like "E.T.," "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and "The Goonies," it acts as a tribute to a time when all you needed to make a movie was passion and ingenuity, rather than $200 million and the rights to a hip comic book.
The effect of such a modus operandi is initial coziness quickly giving way to disheartening familiarity, with Abrams’s own preoccupations (if he had any to begin with) becoming subsumed beneath the root themes, dynamics, and imagery of Close Encounters of the Third Kind and, more fundamental still, E.T. Set in a small Ohio town in 1979, this is a trial-by-fire tale of middle school kids falling in love, strengthening relationships, and reconciling with distant parents that’s so clearly modeled after the work of its spiritual godfather (and producer) that, though Abrams’s comprehension of his chosen genre tropes is exhaustive and his technical skill is impressive enough to create stirring atmospheric déjà vu, there’s little genuine heart to his drama.
Though you could also detect echoes of Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and even The Goonies in Super 8.
Produced by Spielberg and reminiscent of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even War of the Worlds, it also has some of the coming-of-age quality of Rob Reiner's Stand By Me.
If it deliberately recalls films from the 1970s and '80s -- "E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial" and "The Goonies" especially -- then it also powerfully evokes its own distinct sense of time and place.
From familial discord, the death of a parent, and the like “Super 8” channels these themes from classic Spielberg fare like “Close Encounters,” and “Jaws” with a sprinkle of “Stand By Me” and “The Goonies” for good measure.
In a way, Super 8 is as derivative and familiar as anything in theaters today, only the movies it’s copying are all over a quarter of a century old: Spielbergian fare like The Goonies, E.T., Gremlins and Close Encounters, with echoes of earlier and later films.
The Bigger Picture: We hate to say it, but while Abrams was trying to channel E.T. , The Goonies , and The Monster Club , he accidentally ended up reminding us of M. Night Shyamalan instead.
Less obviously, the rowdy and uncool boys who accompany Joe and Charles through much of this adventure recall Spielberg’s The Goonies, not a comparison you generally want to inspire.
It's clear right from the get-go that Abrams is looking to evoke the feel and tone of such similarly-themed fare as The Goonies , Poltergeist , and, especially, E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial , as Super 8 hits on many of the touchstones that one has come to associate with the youth-oriented blockbusters of the 1980s - with the scrappy kids at the narrative's core certainly standing as the most obvious example of this.
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Super 8 (2011), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Plot Themes Visuals
“Super 8” was basically “E.T.
What they're trying to do is evoke the innocence of an “E.T.” while introducing a more recent level of special effects.
And if you grew up watching E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, you’ll appreciate the references, but a flat-out nostalgia-fest isn’t really enough.
You only have to compare “Super 8" (unfairly perhaps, but inevitably) to the Spielberg film it most resembles, the impeccably entertaining “E.T.,” to see the ways the earlier movie felt fresh and inventive while the new one has the aura of stuff we’ve already seen.
The movie is a touchingly self-conscious homage to early Spielberg, to Jaws and Close Encounters and E.T., and if it's not at the level of those films, neither does it embarrass itself with the comparison.
Without giving too much away, let's just say there's a lot of "ET." here (albeit in a fairly modified form), along with obvious material related to "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," and even some bits of inspiration from "Jaws" as well as the boy group dynamic from "The Goonies" (that Spielberg didn't direct, but did produce and obviously similarly inspired way back when).
From familial discord, the death of a parent, and the like “Super 8” channels these themes from classic Spielberg fare like “Close Encounters,” and “Jaws” with a sprinkle of “Stand By Me” and “The Goonies” for good measure.
Sure, by technicality, the story is original, but when the entire picture is an homage to ’80s Spielberg and borrows heavily from Steven’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T., and more than a share from Rob Reiner’s Stand by Me, it’s hard to really call it original.
Besides Richard Donner’s Spielberg-produced “The Goonies,” the scenes with the kids most directly recall Rob Reiner’s “Stand by Me.”
Produced by Spielberg and reminiscent of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even War of the Worlds, it also has some of the coming-of-age quality of Rob Reiner's Stand By Me.
That starts with the central characters, a group of young teenage misfits who may remind you of the kids from The Goonies or Stand by Me .
It definitely feels like an homage to great movies past, particularly E.T. , Stand by Me , and Close Encounters of the Third Kind .
Jaws (1975)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Super 8 (2011), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Themes Visuals
And I recall seeing Jaws (1975) and All the President’s Men (1976), which were both quite a big deal.
Despite Steven Spielberg having ushered in the modern day blockbuster two years earlier with "Jaws," few saw the enormity of "Star Wars" coming.
From familial discord, the death of a parent, and the like “Super 8” channels these themes from classic Spielberg fare like “Close Encounters,” and “Jaws” with a sprinkle of “Stand By Me” and “The Goonies” for good measure.
There are also elements of his "darker" efforts - Jaws , Jurassic Park , War of the Worlds - and nods to some of the titles Spielberg leant his name to in a production capacity - Poltergeist, Gremlins, The Goonies.
“Jaws,” that other touchstone of Spielberg-directed summertime thrills, no doubt taught Abrams the importance of nothing giving us a good look at the Something until the time is right.
The movie is a touchingly self-conscious homage to early Spielberg, to Jaws and Close Encounters and E.T., and if it's not at the level of those films, neither does it embarrass itself with the comparison.
Basically, it felt like an homage to “Super 8,” J.J. Abrams’ homage to Spielberg; an homage to an homage.
Stranger Things, much like J.J. Abrams' 2011 film, Super 8, is an overt piece of nostalgia for everything early '80s.
The whole thing has more than a touch of Stand By Me or Super 8 about it, but doesn't strain to place itself in period.
That was J.J. Abrams talking about his 2011 Spielberg-produced, Spielberg-homage Super 8, but it could have just as easily been the Duffer brothers talking about Stranger Things.
Lo que Super 8, de J.J. Abrams, fue en el cine es Stranger Things, de los hermanos Duffer, en la televisión.
…much like J.J. Abrams did in his similarly hued Super 8 (a dreamy wonder of a Spielberg paean)…
And it’s at least as solid a tribute to Steven Spielberg as J.J. Abrams’ uneven simulacrum Super 8, which reached for the same childlike combination of awe and uncertainty and had the advantage of the participation of Spielberg himself as a producer.
Other filmmakers, like J.J. Abrams with his muddled Super 8, have tried to evoke a Spielberg vibe and wound up ripping him off.
It will be unfashionable to think so, I’m sure, but that homage fabulist J.J. Abrams did this routine better in Super 8. Midnight Special is a pretty good film; its best moments thrum with mystery.
The influences of J.J. Abrams and Steven Spielberg are palpably felt in Midnight Special, particularly when Nichols harnesses the aura of the fantastic young Lieberher in the same manner as his predecessors did with their preteen leads in, respectively, Super 8 and E.T. Nichols lets his story develop naturally, with the themes of faith, family, and mankind’s place in the universe emerging fluidly amidst the backdrop of rural America.
As the story triangulates itself towards a climactic encounter in which the extent of Alton's true unearthliness is revealed perhaps a little too literally, echoes of Spielberg's Close Encounters or JJ Abrams's Super 8 start to jingle distantly.
J. J. Abrams’ Super 8 was an unreserved Amblin tribute, while Rian Johnson’s Looper riffed on early Cameron and Verhoeven.
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Directed by Tim Miller
influenced by Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Themes Plot
Dark Fate will undoubtedly get some negative comparisons to titles like Star Wars: The Force Awakens for toeing a bit too close to the nostalgia line but one of the more interesting things it borrows from it (aside from some cute winks to camera) is something becoming more prevalent in storytelling as a whole today: reminding us all we’re important.
Posturing itself to be something akin to the solemn-eyed nostalgia trip that The Force Awakens was to Star Wars, this Tim Miller directed movie ignores the franchise’s multiple past continuities in the aim of crowning itself as the originals’ lone worthy heir… It’s still not even in the same sport, much less ballpark, as those movies, but it’s the closest we’ve come.
It can best be compared to Star Wars: The Force Awakens in that it returns the brand to form by paying homage to classic plot threads while using legacy characters to guide new leads in taking the wheel.
Dark Fate essentially borrows the formula of Star Wars: The Force Awakens: It mostly re-enacts the plot of a past film in the series, while bringing back the key players in the original cast and teaming them up with a younger and more racially diverse cohort of new actors.
Terminator: Dark Fate reminds me of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.
The filmmakers have lifted a page from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens,” taking a temporal sidestep that sets up a new future to give us two very different terminators and two very different protectors while the story remains very much the same.
When Frost’s sci-fi geek asks whether he can understand Paul because the latter is using a Star Trek style “universal translator,” the scrawny extraterrestrial with the giant brainpan and the voice of Seth Rogen says, “I’m speaking English, you fucking idiot.”
There are so many references to science-fiction classics, including Star Wars , Star Trek and Close Encounters of the Third Kind , that a drinking game borne of the DVD seems a lock.
Jurassic Park (1993)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Super 8 (2011), Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015)
Themes Visuals
There are also elements of his "darker" efforts - Jaws , Jurassic Park , War of the Worlds - and nods to some of the titles Spielberg leant his name to in a production capacity - Poltergeist, Gremlins, The Goonies.
From its mysterious otherworldly presence with unknown motives to the late ’70s suburban kids whose vast imaginations are swept up in its path, “Super 8” contains echoes of “E.T.,” “Close Encounters,” “Jurassic Park” and even less essential entries in the Spielberg canon, like “War of the Worlds.”
Spielberg himself might have been able to weave this into something coherent (indeed, strong elements of Close Enounters�, The Goonies, Jurassic Park, E.T., Jaws, and Poltergeist can be detected here), but the combination never gels.
The thing is, J.J. Abrams adored the same Steven Spielberg classics that we all did, and if youâ??ve seen E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jurassic Park and Jaws, then you have a rough idea of whatâ??s in store.
The train scene is one for the ages, and the bit in the bus is this generation’s “Jurassic Park” moment.
It’s like Abrams wanted to make Jaws (or Jurassic Park) and E.T. at the same time.
The Empire Strikes Back (1980)
Directed by Irvin Kershner
influenced Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Plot Themes Visuals
After Rey blasts off from Jakku (that's inevitable -- it's Star Wars ), the journey becomes a mirror-universe version of its source material, staging pivotal moments so as to invoke Star Wars , The Empire Strikes Back , and Return of the Jedi , and peppering the dialogue with references galore (hey, a trash compactor joke!).
Abrams’ first turn at the franchise controls combines the freshness of 1977’s “A New Hope” with the darkness and intensity of 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back.” “The Force Awakens” opens 30 years after Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill) defeated Darth Vader and restored balance to the Force in 1983’s “Return of the Jedi.”
Abrams and screenwriter Lawrence Kasdan ( The Empire Strikes Back ) also bring back a sense of prior history and continuity, invoked in old Ben Kenobi’s references to “a more civilized age” and Han Solo’s glib remarks about the strange things he’d seen flying from one end of the galaxy to the other.
Working from a script he co-wrote with Lawrence Kasdan (who also wrote the best film in the series, “The Empire Strikes Back”) and “Toy Story 3” and “Little Miss Sunshine” writer Michael Arndt, Abrams beautifully combined the elements of the first three films that we loved so much with a fresh sense of purpose.
The backdrops even echo the original trilogy as the story zips from a desert planet, as seen in "A New Hope", to forest and ice worlds, like those of "Return of the Jedi" and "The Empire Strikes Back", stopping in on a bustling bar filled with weird and wonderful aliens just like in the very first film.
The screenplay (by Abrams, Michael Arndt and Lawrence Kasdan, who co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back ) oscillates between extending the masthead narrative through rearranging plot variables – chasing, being chased, sneaking into places, escaping etc – and tapping into a rich vein of nostalgia.
In a way, Super 8 is as derivative and familiar as anything in theaters today, only the movies it’s copying are all over a quarter of a century old: Spielbergian fare like The Goonies, E.T., Gremlins and Close Encounters, with echoes of earlier and later films.
Yes, many classic Spielberg-produced kids’ action adventures also had domestic drama (The Goonies, E.T., and Gremlins come to mind), but it somehow never detracted from the awe and wonder that got you into your seat to begin with.
Toss in a healthy measure of Rob Reiner's bonding classic "Stand by Me" and passing winks at "WarGames," "Independence Day," "Gremlins" and even "Duel," and you've got one grand mash of a movie that's trying to capture the innocence and energy of an earlier time while bringing it into the right here and now.
While cast in the mold of late-Seventies/early Eighties films such as , E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, Gremlins, and The Goonies, Super 8 has a sense of being the most personal of all Abrams’ projects (which include his creation of the popular TV shows Felicity, Alias, Lost, and Fringe).
Going back to the style and structure of films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, Gremlins and The Goonies to create engaging narratives that rely on a developed build-up rather than a series of quick gratifications is an outstanding way of making engaging mainstream family entertainment.
Hopefully you recognize him from Gremlins.
When he notices a train unexpectedly approaching, the excitable Charles yells "Production value!" and sets the camera to include it, little knowing that a pickup truck will pull onto the tracks and be deliberately positioned to create a collision that will far exceed the spectacle of the train wreck in Cecil B. DeMille's The Greatest Show on Earth, Abrams' and Spielberg's acknowledged inspiration for the sequence.
After a while, the film references – Goonies, E.T., Close Encounters, Cloverfield, Aliens, Poltergeist, and The Greatest Show On Earth - seem to be more important than the story fused together from all these various parts.
Our young, undersupervised heroes are filming a cheesy zombie movie one night at a closed Ohio train station when they are nearly flattened by a train wreck straight out of Cecil B. DeMille’s “The Greatest Show on Earth.”
It’s close to a pseudo-origin of Gene Roddenberry’s Starfleet in Star Trek but never overemphasised for the sake of making a point, it’s subtle, and fits in with Scott’s theme of peace.
It’s easy to miss a lot of the banter that Watney and other characters throw around to lighten the mood, and the calculation-based dialogue eventually gets so dense that it might as well be Star Trek techno babble.
Cloverfield (2008)
Directed by Matt Reeves
influenced Super 8 (2011), Star Trek (2009), Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Visuals Themes
What we have here is a clichéd combination of just about every hulking, goopy, multi-tentacled creature seen prior, made even more disappointing by how similaryet inferiorit is to the alien in 2008's " Cloverfield ."
Abrams adepts will recall a similar story, of young people banding together to face a ravenous monster, from Cloverfield, the 2008 alien-invasion film he produced.
But I didn’t like Cloverfield and unfortunately, Super 8, your period piece tribute to the Spielbergian era of sci-fi optimism feels at times like it has more of the Cloverfield emptiness, action for action’s sake, than Spielberg’s patented emotional connection with his protagonists.
Abrams also includes offhand references to Alien, Transformers and his own Cloverfield.
As written and directed by J. J. Abrams ( Star Trek ), Super 8 comes across more like a creative combination of Goonies and Cloverfield .
This being 1979, their movie—about a zombie cover-up—is being filmed on a Super 8 film camera, with the intention of entering a Super 8 film festival (hey, just like J.J. Abrams did with Cloverfield director Matt Reeves, in their early teens!).
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Super 8 (2011), Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Visuals Themes
But Spielberg, when he did his homage to those films, brought his own almost preternatural sense of innocence, his unparalleled ability to entertain, and he made "Raiders of the Lost Ark." J.J. Abrams, a far more self-aware citizen of the movie jungle, isn't Steven Spielberg, no matter how much he wants to be.
Abrams’s now-standard pre-release veil of secrecy does the movie a massive service, and going in cold gives you the chance to experience a movie as pre-internet audiences would have seen Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Jaws, ET, Close Encounters and all those other Spielberg gems – in blissful ignorance, ready to be amazed.
So when contemporary filmmakers who were raised on Raiders and other films in the Spielberg/Lucas ‘70s/’80s blockbuster canon attempt homage of their own – even in generally good films like Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Super 8 and Midnight Special, or promising efforts like the forthcoming Stranger Things – they’re in a much trickier position.
The kiddie-filmmaker stuff in Super 8 feels like the stuff Abrams was most interested in � the kids, particularly the flick�s director (Riley Griffiths), are passionate about what they�re doing, and it reminded me of the real-life teens who spent most of the �80s making a shot-for-shot remake of Spielberg�s Raiders of the Lost Ark. Anyone who�s seen the results of that seven-year experiment has found it completely charming.
Whether it's fair to Abrams or not, we've come to expect a little more from him, and as likeable as both the movie and the characters were, the film still failed to connect for me on the gut emotional level of a Close Encounters or a Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Clearly, it’s not the perfect geek storm of an opening gambit that evokes not only the old-school boldly-going adventures of the crew of the starship Enterprise but also — hilariously — Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yeah, in a Star Trek movie.
Maybe that’s why I spent much of the film thinking of movies that depicted the clash between human and alien civilizations more convincingly: Spielberg’s own War of the Worlds, Bong Joon-ho’s The Host , Neill Blomkamp’s District 9, or, in a far more humorous vein, Greg Mottola’s Paul , which is too recent to have been an influence on Super 8 but which has a plotline that almost exactly matches the one here.
Produced by Spielberg and reminiscent of E.T., Close Encounters of the Third Kind and even War of the Worlds, it also has some of the coming-of-age quality of Rob Reiner's Stand By Me.
From its mysterious otherworldly presence with unknown motives to the late ’70s suburban kids whose vast imaginations are swept up in its path, “Super 8” contains echoes of “E.T.,” “Close Encounters,” “Jurassic Park” and even less essential entries in the Spielberg canon, like “War of the Worlds.”
Part “The Goonies” part “War of the Worlds,” J. J. Abrams’ Steven Spielberg produced monster movie, “Super 8,” is entertaining stuff.
In fact, if there’s any Spielberg film that we should really be likening Super 8 to, it’s War of the Worlds , which was as dark and ruthless a family genre film as he ever made (and also similarly employed a Fanning to maximum effect).
And though an Alien gag is priceless, recapturing a little of the dada sensibility that gives Brooks' early work its immediacy * , it, like references to the "Star Trek" transporter and the money shot of Planet of the Apes , presumes to lump Star Wars in with hard(er) sci-fi, which seems a rather philistine thing to do.
True Lies (1994)
Directed by James Cameron
influenced Mission: Impossible III (2006)
Plot Themes Characters
Some may look a little borrowed (like the missile attack on the bridge, a la True Lies), but the rest hums along with breathtaking buzz.
He’s in love with and preparing to marry Julia (Michelle Monaghan), a nurse who thinks he works in the public transportation field (cue one of many blatant True Lies rip-offs).
MI3 has a lot in common with the last great Arnold Schwarzenegger movie True Lies.
And in spite of a few visually striking locations, we've seen all this stuff too many times before and better, most notably in James Cameron's True Lies.
The first two acts of M:I:3 (or MIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII) move with a nice energy, distracting us as best it can from the not-so-vague similarities to both Mr. & Mrs. Smith and True Lies (one of the action scenes � involving jets & missiles, no less - is even set on the bridge of the Florida Keys) and Hunt turning into 24�s Jack Bauer during an airplane interrogation.
Taking a page (scads of pages actually) from On Her Majesty’s Secret Service with a dose of True Lies tossed in for good measure, Abrams decided to give Impossible Mission Force Agent Hunt a girlfriend/fiancee/wife, Julia (cutely called “Jules”).
Spielberg himself might have been able to weave this into something coherent (indeed, strong elements of Close Enounters�, The Goonies, Jurassic Park, E.T., Jaws, and Poltergeist can be detected here), but the combination never gels.
"Super 8" is set in the working-class community of Lillian, Ohio, the kind of average but still quaintly picturesque suburban location where one imagines the Freeling family might have lived in 1982's "Poltergeist" had they been one salary bracket lower on the annual wage scale.
Better to trot out the movie's obvious influences, which include about every decent thing Spielberg himself presided over in the '70s and '80s — "E.T.," "Close Encounters," even "Poltergeist" and "Goonies."
Alas, it's in Super 8's meticulous attempts to recreate that magic (think E.T. + Close Encounters x Poltergeist) that it ultimately comes up short, fizzling at the moment is should detonate and instead revealing a Frankenstein soul grafted together from predecessors to the point of overdependence, rather than finding its own, one organic to the proceedings at hand.
In the late 70s and early 80s, with movies like "Jaws", "Close Encounters of the Third Kind", "Poltergeist" (which he co-produced) and "E.T."…
Spielberg, another movie-reared child, made his name with fare comparable with Super 8 ( Close Encounters , ET , Poltergeist , for instance) before moving on to Schindler's List and more serious SF activities such as AI and Minority Report .