Super 8 vs Close Encounters Of The Third Kind

In the summer of 1979, kids hopped on bikes and sped away, sans helmet. At dark, they’d come home for dinner, as likely at a neighbor’s house as their own. They piled into tiny, action figure and model car-covered bedrooms. If they had a dad who worked on cars, they learned to drive early, and were probably sent on errands, like picking up smokes or a jug of milk. They were kids in a way their kids would be denied. In 1979, a kid had freedom. In 1979, if a train carrying something dangerous and government-forbidden crashed in your town, kids were probably the first to know.

Joe’s mom died a few months ago. It’s summer now, 1979, and he’s settling back into his old routine of hanging out with his friends, working on a zombie movie. He’s got a new routine as well, of being raised by his nice but under-equipped single father, a deputy played by Kyle Chandler. His dad wants him to spend the summer at baseball camp, but there’s no indication Joe even has an interest in baseball. It’s more of a distraction, for father and son, than an athletic pursuit. Joe hates the idea, but if he’s seen the trailer for Super 8, he knows he’s not going anywhere. Joe is played by Joel Courtney,  natural younger actor that of the sort that seems so seldom cast. He’s not one of those haunted movie kids, and he’s not over-precocious or emotional. Like Elliott in E.T., he’s a sensitive, smart kid, and one well versed in the fictional world that’s about to come true in his neighborhood.

Late at night, down at the depot, Joe and his buddies are setting up an important shot for their movie. Every movie with a group of kids is a collection of types, and Super 8 integrates this into the plot ingeniously by giving them each jobs on the film crew. Joe does make-up. There’s also a fireworks-obsessed pyromaniac doing special effects, a director, a quiet kid who does props and serves as an extra, and a tall slow kid to be the actor. The leading lady is Alice (Elle Fanning); she’s the leader off-camera as well. Alice is streetwise, cynical and tougher than the boys. She’s the Jodie Foster character, and in Elle Fanning’s hands, the heart of the movie. Alice is in a unique position of being young enough to believe the things the kids believe, but on her own long enough (her dad means well, but is even less prepared for parenting than Joe’s) to know some of the things adults know as well. She runs through her lines and blocking for the scene, and is so in touch with the material and her emotions that the boys are stunned. So was I.

Something fantastic happens: a train approaches from the distance, providing a perfect jolt of realism for the kids’ movie. They rush into costumes, position the camera, and start the action, both in their film and in Super 8. The kids shout their lines, a truck pulls onto the tracks, the train screeches and crashes, everybody runs. Why did the truck approach the train? More importantly, what was on the train, and where is it going now? When the dust settles (it takes a while. Super 8’s trainwreck is even more impressive and scary than the one in The Fugitive), the kids regroup and find an ominous adult with a dire warning. Something is out there, and the kids’ lives are in danger. They agree not to speak of this night again.

The rest of Super 8 continues the storylines of Joe’s troubles at home, and of the zombie film shoot. It’s funny and emotionally accessible, with Joe and Alice growing closer, and the mystery surrounding the death of Joe’s mother coming more into light. There’s a slight class distinction between Joe and Alice, and their fathers, that gives Super 8 a layer of storytelling not seen in your average sci-fi movie. In fact, the sci-fi takes such a backseat to the characters, you’re as likely to compare Super 8 to something like Stand By Me or River’s Edge as you are any genre movies. But to be certain, Super 8 is a science fiction movie at its core.

That something that’s out there? It’s definitely out there, and it means business. People die mysteriously; dogs run away; down at the cemetery, something is…happening. All those military trucks are moving into town, but no one will answer any questions. As I’ve said, Super 8 is a sweet, special movie. But it’s also a great thriller, and one of the best (spoiler) alien-invasion movies I’ve seen in quite some time.

Super 8 was directed by J.J. Abrams. It stands firmly as a J.J. Abrams movie while also, obviously, being a tribute to the early Steven Speilberg movies he loves so much—I love them too--like Jaws, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, and E.T. There’s a visitor, but its reveal is delayed. The setting is summer in the suburbs. The kids understand first. Super 8’s originality in terms of visual style is hard to gauge, of course, since the retro nature of it is necessary as both a style and an exercise. Is he aping Speilberg? Probably. Is it necessary? Yes. The reveal, since we’ve seen so many (spoiler) aliens in other movies, is a bit of a letdown, but only for us. The kids in Super 8 haven’t seen anything like it before. That’s how Abrams spins it, and I was sold. The wonder and fear on Joe’s face is all we need to get what it’s like to stare into the eyes of the other, and have it stare back, and because there’s a Speilberg homage, it blinks, because it gets that kids have feelings just like adults.

Speilberg’s own Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, even though it came out thirty years prior, is Super 8 for adults. In place of the kids, we have Richard Dreyfuss and Teri Garr, who have such an easy-going, sexy comfort with each other, I’d believe it if you told me they lived together at the time, Blue Valentine-style. Dreyfuss is Roy. He sees a UFO, and becomes obsessed and distracted by things like lights, musical notes, and a strange object he can’t quite place. He has a compulsion to build this thing, to recreate it from his hazy memories and visions. Is it a column? A monolith like in 2001? He doesn’t know. It’s a potentially comic dilemma, but Dreyfuss invests Roy’s obsession with as much gravity as Jack Nicholson in The Shining. I was surprised at the creepy and neurotic tone of Close Encounters. Speilberg never made anything as weird and thoughtful as Close Encounters again (even if he’s ultimately made some better movies).

Nearby, a toddler has seen and heard the same things. Lots of people have. They’re drawn somewhere, for something else to see and hear. They understand, without much evidence, like Joe in Super 8. Close Encounters has virtually no action, in the traditional movie sense, and it’s only frightening in that the unknown can be intimidating. The government gets involved in what those people saw, preparing for the best and worst. (Spoiler) When the aliens arrive, they aren’t what we’ve been trained to expect in movies, and they’re unlike anything we’ve seen since. Roy does something bold and shocking, but you won’t blame him. Somewhere, across the country, a seventh-grader is staring into the eyes of the unknown himself. He needn’t feel alone.

Super 8: A

Close Encounters Of The Third Kind: A