We got a chance to see the “Super 8” trailer this morning (this isn’t a secondhand reader’s report) and we’re pleased to report it’s a fairly engaging piece of teasing fun. We didn’t catch the Amblin logo, but it very well could have been there.
It starts off with a shot of an open field. This is middle America, for sure. The text then pops up that says in 1979, the government decided to move the contents of Area 51, the famous Nevada air force base that’s supposedly home to a whole host of otherworldly artifacts, including the crashed space saucer from Roswell, New Mexico (It’s also where the abysmal opening set piece of “Indiana Jones: Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull” was staged).
We cut back to the action, which has a very “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”-vibe, with a vintage pickup truck racing down a railroad track. (Truth be told, it also looks very J.J. Abrams-y, with lens flairs galore and his patented, slightly slick hand held camerawork. There’s also a really cool shot from underneath the truck as it rumbles towards the train.) Is the truck being driven by a drunk driver? Or is it a deliberate act of sabotage? These are the things we’re left to ponder.
Somewhere in here we get the words “From Producer Steven Spielberg and Director J.J. Abrams.”
The truck is careening towards the train. They collide. It’s a massive pile-up, with explosions, wrecked train cars, and it’s all very well realized. This doesn’t look like some crummy pre-visualization stuff, it looks like finished, polished, straight-from-ILM business.
The words “Next summer” appear, as we get a closer look at the wreckage. It’s clearly the train that was transporting all that mystical mumbo jumbo from Area 51. As we near an overturned train car, we hear something pounding from within. Something is trying to get out!
“Super 8.” And boom, we were very excited. According to the credits, J.J. is writing and directing this beast, too.
If Abrams is going for a vintage Spielberg feel, he succeeded, big time. J.J. is a talented dude, and this could be a whole lot of fun. At the very least, it’s nice having one Spielberg-produced blockbuster to look forward to next summer (sorry, “Transformers 3”). In short: it’s not “Cloverfield 2,” but it is that homage to the Amblin heyday previously reported.
–Written by Drew