Topic: Super 8

Special thanks to Snail for his help with a bit of data recovery in the last third.

Special screw-Zarbans to Zarban for peer-pressuring nice, normal people into just doing commentaries all the time.





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Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Super 8

The one thing I remember from the live commentary the needs to be corrected. That kid is TOTALLY not young Kirk. Whatever you guys were on, I want some. That kid was however one of Changs guards in season 3 of community (The one Britta "seduces"). And yes, his teeth, are actually like that.

Secifically, his name is Ryan Lee

ZangrethorDigital.ca

Re: Super 8

It's corrected in the episode, if I recall correctly.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Super 8

Damn, I've just recently lent out my blu-ray of Super 8 too! >.<

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Re: Super 8

Teague wrote:

Special screw-Zarbans to Zarban for peer-pressuring nice, normal people into just doing commentaries all the time. neutral

Wait... was he successful?

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Re: Super 8

Sigh.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Super 8

zarban

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Super 8

I have to correct something in the podcast that was my fault. In the chatroom, I said that My Sharona was released in April 1979 but that is when it was recorded. It was actually released in June '79 but that still means the film was set in that year. Especially as it is noted that his mum died in February 1979.

I had April '79 stored in my head but, obviously, that was because I remembered when the song was recorded, not released. Sorry.

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Re: Super 8

http://img1.ranker.com/list_img/40487/385342/full/the-very-best-of-the-success-kid-meme.jpg

For the record, I've got nothing against the let's-talk-about-the-industry-and-by-the-industry-I-mean-the-business Intermissions. But the recent non-commentary commentaries on one movie still in the theater are weird.

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Super 8

But......then we have to wait a year for them to talk about new releases ):

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Re: Super 8

Not sure I get why it's weird to discuss new movie releases... that Ebert guy used to do it on the teevee all the time.  Other folks still do.

Unless you mean it's weird the way WE do it.  That I can believe.   wink

Re: Super 8

How I'd "fix" this flick.

First of all. I think it had the wrong lead character. It should have been about The Girl. She was the only one who had any real fucked uppness in her life that needed fixing.

I would have made it about her making friends with the film making kids, the main boy not wanting her there because of what happened with his mum, but the fat kid insisting for the flick and them slowly getting to like each other.

The movie plays out as is, with the train crash and the Alien attacking and going ape in town and the evacuation.

But rather than the Alien just being angry and attacking and killing stuff seemingly at random. I'd make its motivation be, it is looking for those alien cube things the military were transporting with it and have collected up and loaded into trucks.

The movie sets up that the kids have one of the alien cubes and that it seems to float and bang against the wall of the room. I would then have that be the mystery the kids can solve when they see the super 8 video and see the blocks make up the alien ship. The kids work out that the alien isnt just going ape shit and destroying the town and killing because it's evil... it is actively trying to get home and the army are attacking it...

Oh.. and it would be the grieving Boy that is kidnapped by the alien, not the girl... Just as they were starting to like each other...

With everyone now evacuated on the edge of town, the kids realise that they need to get back in and save the Boy, and help the alien by getting it's alien cubes/ship back to it..

The girls dad and the boys dad still end up working together in their own attempted rescue mission, but this time to save the boy not the girl, in doing so the girls dad tries to make amends to the cop for what happened in the opening scene.. He doesnt even know his kid is in town. thinks she is safe. He is doing it to help the guy. Not himself.

So the kids form a plan and sneak into town as the army are doing their final big for the Alien and destroying the town in the process. But this time... rather than just dropping two of our main characters with an injury right as things are getting exciting, I'd have the group slit up. Fat kid and the other kid (rather than hide in a house). would sneak off and steal the trucks that hold the alien cubes (call back to the scene about them not being old enough to drive earlier)and bring them to a rendezvous, While the girl and the firecracker kid head to their house to get the alien cube, that after seeing the super 8 video, they now realise is part of the alien ship and is trying to return to the alien. They take the cube, release it and follow the floating cube. Using it as a tracking device to find the hiding alien and they hope, the Boy.

Now we have these kids following a magical flying object around town, avoiding the army while the other two kids have their own adventure stealing the truck with the rest of the cubs.

They find the boy, find him cocooned with all the other assumed dead residents and realise the alien was not evil and killing at random, but only taking and hiding the humans that saw him. Keeping them hidden away until it escapes... They realise that it's a "good" alien all along.. they have their confrontation...Give the alien it's cube back or maybe have it follow them with the cube, communicating they know where the rest are...

they meet up with fat kid and the truck full of other cubes just as the two dads turn up along with the army.. Just in time for the kids to open the truck, release the cubes, watch the space shop form and the alien escape in the a similar moment of awe and wonder that the film already has.. But this time it's awe and wonder at a misunderstood, scared alien going home, rather than a fuckin killing machine that just had pity on one kid because "bad shit happens"...

I'm not sure if any of that makes sense... I think the movie has every ingredient to have been really good.. They just mixed them up the wrong way.

well. that's my take.

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Re: Super 8

Dean wrote:

How I'd "fix" this flick.

Tons of awesome.

I want to see that version of the movie now. Only thing I'd change is the little cube. Instead of floating around, how about it rolls and bounces along the ground? You could have a scene where the kids have to sneak around a group of soldiers while the cube just bounces through them. Soldiers don't notice cause it's on the ground and they're preoccupied with trying to find the alien, but the kids have to get around them without being spotted and then have to find the cube again on the other side.

Movies like that tended to be about how kids can see something while adults will overlook it. A scene like that would be reinforcing that general theme, which the movie kinda has now, and which your version definitely has going for it.

Last edited by Squiggly_P (2012-06-12 22:26:35)

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Re: Super 8

My reaction when you called Giachinno the new John Williams:

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Re: Super 8

Give it up, man, this is happening.

Teague Chrystie

I have a tendency to fix your typos.

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Re: Super 8

If Brian can hate on JJ Trek, I can hate on Giachinno.  big_smile

And he can't be the new John Williams, cause John Powell is already the new John Williams.

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Re: Super 8

John Powell? He hasn't done anything that even touches Williams.

(Not saying Giacchino has either....)

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Re: Super 8

bullet3 wrote:

And he can't be the new John Williams, cause John Powell is already the new John Williams.

*looks up John Powell*

I'd post the Fry "not sure if serious" macro, but I'm sure you can't be serious.

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Re: Super 8

Yeah, I'm guessing he's taking the piss

Although, I do like the scores to Face/Off and The Italian Job remake big_smile

Last edited by Jimmy B (2012-06-13 01:51:24)

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Re: Super 8

Teague wrote:

Special thanks to Snail for his help with a bit of data recovery in the last third.

Anytime!   big_smile

"Life is about movies; anything else is a bonus!"- Me   cool

Re: Super 8

Trey wrote:

Not sure I get why it's weird to discuss new movie releases... that Ebert guy used to do it on the teevee all the time.

But he never spent more than half the running time of the movie talking about one movie, with spoilers, while Siskel tried to participate without having seen the movie.

/just sayin'

Warning: I'm probably rewriting this post as you read it.

Zarban's House of Commentaries

Re: Super 8

Internet needs sarcasm tags, oh well (although I do think How to Train your Dragon is an outstanding score).

I find it really interesting to hear Trey's perspective on having his childhood years treated like a historical bio-pic. That's going to be so weird when we're older and they're making movies set in the 90s, and having to immaculately set design game boy colors, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle posters, and pokemon toys.

Last edited by bullet3 (2012-06-13 02:17:02)

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Re: Super 8

Maybe we could make a   tag, where each letter between them is given a random color. This would create a 'rainbow of sarcasm', signifying that you were, in fact, not being serious about that.

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Re: Super 8

Needs to be a bit more subtle. Better would be some kind of text distortion effect, like italics on steroids

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Re: Super 8

Squiggly_P wrote:

Maybe we could make a   tag, where each letter between them is given a random color. This would create a 'rainbow of sarcasm', signifying that you were, in fact, not being serious about that.

Because that wouldn't get annoying at all.

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