YMMV / Super 8

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Since the alien was already established to be psychic and had a mental link with Dr. Woodward, did it realize when Colonel Nelec killed him? For that matter, did it feel the pain of his death? Suddenly, its massacre of all the soldiers on the bus feels even more justified in hindsight.
• Award Snub: The film was short-listed for the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and Best Original Score, and the BAFTA Award for Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound, and Best Special Visual Effects. Paramount submitted it for several considerations for the BAFTAs including Best Film, Best Director (J. J. Abrams), Best Original Screenplay, Leading Actor (Kyle Chandler), Supporting Actress (Elle Fanning), Supporting Actor (Joel Courtney, Gabriel Basso, Noah Emmerich), Cinematography, Production Design, Editing, Costume Design, Original Music, Sound, Makeup and Hair, and Special Visual Effects. What did it give them? Nothing.
• Awesome Music: But of course. Of particular note is the final two tracks, "Letting Go" and "Super 8 Suite".
• Critical Dissonance: Critics were, by in large, impressed with the homages to Spielberg, performances between the kids and visual effects. Audiences, on the other hand, were much more significantly mixed when it comes to the movie, citing problems with said homages, script and its ending.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Cary, due to his rather vulgar nature and his love for explosions and fire.
  • Colonel Nelec.
• Fan Nickname: "Cooper" for the alien monster, since it's a convenient portmanteau of "Clover" and "Super".
• It's the Same, Now It Sucks!:
  • Hardly exactly the same, but it's really very similar to Cloverfield (produced by J.J. Abrams) in a lot of ways. Which is probably part of the reason a lot of people have speculated the films secretly share a universe.
  • Considering that the entire movie is a splicing together of Cloverfield, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, and The Goonies, this could be said of the entire story. Though, YMMV on whether that makes this film a nifty homage to the films of Abrams' childhood, or an awful checklist of cliches from better movies.
    • Of course, the man behind 2/3s of those mentioned (and also Close Encounters of the Third Kind and Jaws which this movie also homages) was the producer of this film (and not just executive, he was greatly involved in it).
    • As a bit of a Take That! in the audio commentary, JJ Abrams says when the Amblin logo appears "to the people who say we copied E.T., he actually appears in the movie."
• Magnificent Bastard: "Cooper", the alien, landed on Earth back in 1958 and was imprisoned and experimented on by the disgraceful Air Force Colonel Nelec. Thanks to Cooper making a Psychic Link to Dr. Thomas Woodward and showing him his thoughts and feelings, Cooper is able to get Woodward to finally break him out by crashing the train he's being transferred in in 1979. Hiding underground, Cooper begins abducting humans and animals for food—including young Alice Dainard—while stealing electronic materials for the machine that will reassemble his ship and eventually is able to kill Nelec and his men as well. Making a psychic connection with young Joe Lamb and learning there are other good people despite bad things happening, Cooper lets his remaining prisoners go while he reforms his ship successfully and departs from Earth as the astonished town watches.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "PRODUCTION VALUE!" seems to be floating around all over the place nowadays.
  • "Mint!"
• Once Original, Now Common: The film comes across as even more of a Cliché Storm nowadays, due to the much more successful Stranger Things using the same gimmick of combining homages to late 70s/early 80s Spielberg movies with horror movie tropes.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Nowadays, most people will recognize Joe's late mother as Claire Fraser, in her acting debut.
  • Also Donnie, the neighborhood pot head is played by David Gallagher who was the sweet Reverend's son, Simon Camden, in 7th Heaven.
  • There is also Joel McKinnon Miller, who plays Charles' Dad, who more people would recognize as Scully from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
• The Scrappy: Martin for generally being whiny and useless.
• Squick: Seeing the flies that land all over Dr. Woodward's bloody wounds. Apparently, the flies were attracted to the karo syrup that was the main component of the fake blood.
• Toy Ship: Joe and Alice.
• Visual Effects of Awesome:
  • The train crash, absolutely.
  • Other than the scenes toward the end where we see the alien in full^note Shared between ILM, who did most of the effects up to this point, and Pixomondo, under ILM's supervision, there doesn't look to be a lot of conspicuous CGI. Which is actually damn good work.

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