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Sunday, March 13, 2011

New 'Super 8' Trailer's Five Key Moments

We take a look at the most fascinating scenes featured in the new promo clip for the upcoming J.J. Abrams-directed adventure film.
By Eric Ditzian

Joel Courtney, Ryan Lee, and Riley Griffiths
Photo: Paramount Pictures

"What the hell?" says a boy at the very end of the first full-length trailer for "Super 8," neatly summarizing our own thoughts about the footage from the mysterious action-adventure film: Um, what exactly did we just see?

Well, what we saw, first off, was an incredibly effective promo clip courtesy of director J.J. Abrams and executive producer Steven Spielberg. It managed to maintain the spirit of a teaser trailer — withholding far more information than is ever unleashed — while expanding our understanding of, and getting us seriously more excited about, what we'll see in the flick when it hits theaters on June 10. Here are our picks for the new trailer's five key moments:

What Kind of Military Trucks Are Those?
In we'd already seen the fiery train crash that unleashes some sort of very angry, possible very alien creature. So what we're focused on here is what's new, like those military trucks rolling through town with red cargo bins. What kind of military vehicles haul cargo like that? We see them pull right up to the train's wreckage, so we're guessing whatever is in them is important. As an Air Force leader, played by Noah Emmerich, says to Kyle Chandler's local policeman, "I understand you have concerns about our cargo," before telling him there's nothing to worry about. Right ...

9/11 ... for Dogs?
Though the film is set in 1979, there's no mistaking the allusion to September 11, 2001, in this shot of missing-dog posters. Apparently, all the dogs hightailed it out of town after the train crash. Why is it that animals always seem to grasp potential sci-fi terror before humans? And what ever happened to man's best friend, after all?

That Looks Like It Hurts
So dogs and people start to go missing. Things, no doubt, start to go from bad to worse. Just look at this bloody-faced guy who has a gun in his hand, a terrified look in his eyes, and one word of instruction: "Go!" This raises a question about "Super 8" that we've had for a while. Early reports seemed to suggest that this movie would be more of an alien-invasion film in the vein of "Cloverfield." But most of the footage we've seen thus far gives an impression of something more akin to "E.T." So which is it? Or is it both? In the new trailer, we definitely get a sense of a Spielberg-like focus on family-oriented fare, yet things clearly get very intense and very dangerous at some point.

Boom! Boom!
Throughout the trailer, we've seen how this alien presence can somehow manipulate electricity and exert a telekinetic power on objects. Here we see a prime example of that ability, as the local electronics store goes boom. At others points, power lines explode, a bus tips over, and, well, it's all leading to...

Look, Up in the Sky
The most eye-popping scene in the entire trailer comes at nearly the very end. Main Street is trashed, the citizenry is freaked out and the military is nowhere to be seen as vehicles rise up into the air. The kids (portrayed by Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning) — both looking very much like characters from "E.T.," he Elliot, she Gertie — take in the craziness. Like in "E.T.," it seems that only the children fully understand the implications of what's actually going on. For example: No one believes a man in the hospital, for instance, who claims to have seen the creature ... except the boy. As he tells the man, "I believe you."

What are your favorite moments in the new "Super 8" teaser? Tell us in the comments.

Check out everything we've got on "Super 8."

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