Persistence and Hope in Science Fiction Films Pt. 9 (Super 8)

The simple power of people being people should not be underestimated. People feeling lonely, showing love, receiving sympathy, experiencing joy: The greatest argument in favor of humanity’s future is its resonance as human. Super 8 is stylistically a love letter to Steven Spielberg, from its setting in late seventies Middle America to its construction of shots in three dimensions, building information and plot along every perceivable axis. It also resonates with the Spielberg oeuvre in its building and treatment of richly humane characters whose depth and nuance we learn through how they relate to each other in the face of catastrophe.
         
It tells the story of a small east coast town in the late seventies where an Air Force transport train derails and something seemingly sinister escapes. The main characters are a group of kids who spend every spare moment making a zombie movie. One of them has lost his mother to an accident at a local factory as the movie opens. As the movie progresses he becomes friends with the daughter of the man many blame for his mother’s death.

The film’s status as Science Fiction rests on the nature of what was in the derailed train. Its essential optimism rests not on a vision of the future but in its focus on characters searching for sympathy and the strength to move forward in the face of tragedy.

Its main characters are children, symbolic of the future, and what’s more these are profoundly intelligent, inventive, yet engagingly flawed children. They represent the best in humanity and in the end overcome a broad science fiction terror through empathy and courage. Super 8 shows us a universe larger and more frightening than we are apt to consider on a daily basis but one that is also amenable to human ingenuity, sympathy, and understanding. As far as Super 8 is concerned being a good person counts for a lot.