All The Tropes

Super 8: Difference between revisions

Page Discussion

Super 8 (view source)

Revision as of 13:35, 8 January 2014

10 bytes added ,  10 years ago
m
Mass update links
VisualWikitext
m (remove unneccessary quote box template)
m (Mass update links)
Line 25:
* [[Armies Are Evil]]: Not entirely so, but army men are not pleasant guys to deal with, and one of them {{spoiler|[[Being Tortured Makes You Evil|tortured the alien and turned him evil]].}}
** Though one could argue that they {{spoiler|evacuated the town so that they could protect the civilians}}.
* [[Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking]]: After the train derailment when the kids are all driving away, they're freaking out over Woodward's warnings. Charles is just as distressed, but not about entirely the same things.
** "You will die; your parents will die... this is not good information!" "I've never had a teacher aim a gun at me!" "That train could've killed us!" "Oh shit, the focus ring fell off my camera! The lens is totally cracked!"
* [[Artistic License Physics]]: A whole train was pulled off the tracks by just a truck, ''whose driver survived.''
Line 68:
* [[Chekhov's Hobby]]: Cary's obsession with fireworks comes in handy later on when they need a diversion.
* [[Chekhov's Skill]]: A double one. {{spoiler|The alien's ability to bond, and Joe's passion for train models, come in handy when it is time to build a new spaceship.}}
* [[ClicheCliché Storm]]: [[In-Universe]], "The Case" is all [[Night of the Living Mooks]] cliches rolled into one. A case of [[Reality Ensues]], because it's hard to expect [[Andrei Tarkovsky]] material from a bunch of 13-year-olds who've been watching too many zombie movies.
* [[Cluster F -Bomb|Cluster S Bomb]]: As summarized by none other than [[James Rolfe]], "Coming from a [[The Angry Video Game Nerd (Web Video)|guy that says shit a lot]], these kids say shit ''all the time''."
* [[Colonel Badass]]: {{spoiler|The Colonel spends his last few moments of life shooting the monster ''in the face'' -- despite knowing it won't work -- and staring it down before it eats him.}}
* [[Coming of Age Story]]: With, you know, an angry alien on the loose.
Line 91:
* [[Esoteric Happy Ending]]: The kids' film, "The Case," ends with the hero saving his girlfriend from the zombie disease...by wasting the only remaining dosage of the cure on her.
* [[Everyone Can See It]]: Between Joe and Alice.
* [[Evil -Detecting Dog]]: All the dogs in the area run away to other towns because they can tell there's a monster running around.
** Either that, or {{spoiler|the equipment it's assembling}} makes a noise or smell humans can't detect, but they don't like at all.
* [[Evil Laugh]]: {{spoiler|The noises made by the creature before it crushes the Colonel to paste sound suspiciously like a ''very'' nasty chuckle.}}
Line 98:
* [[Face Death With Dignity]]: {{spoiler|The Colonel appears to.}}
* [[Fantasy-Forbidding Father]]: Deputy Lamb.
* [[Five -Man Band]]: The amateur filmmakers.
** [[The Hero]]: Joe
** [[The Lancer]]: Martin
Line 113:
* {{spoiler|[[Forgiveness]]: One of the major themes of the film.}}
* [[The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You]]: At the end of "[[Show Within a Show|The Case]]," Charles talks directly to the audience, only to be interrupted by a zombie tearing out his throat. It's a [[Shout Out]] to grindhouse movies that did the exact same thing.
* [[Free -Range Children]]: The kids do sneak out at night, but they also spend all day on their own.
* [[Freeze Frame Bonus]]: The alien is first briefly seen in the reflection of a gasoline puddle.
* [[Friend Versus Lover]]: Sort of. Alice wants Joe to stand up to Charles and not let him blow up his train model, while Charles is annoyed by Joe's new-found independence (or, as he puts it, "bossiness") due to Alice's encouragement.
Line 142:
* [[Humans Are Bastards]]: {{spoiler|Basically, the creature itself has been stranded on Earth since the 1950's, and has been imprisoned and experimented on for the last couple of decades, and has only wanted to return home via its ship. More or less the reason for its aggression is because every human it sees (sans Dr. Woodward, with whom it establishes a mental link) is a potential threat, or expendable for the most part.}}
** Averted {{spoiler|with Joe, whose chat with the alien in the tunnel -- "Bad things happen" -- reveals to it that in a way, everybody hurts. And since the alien is holding Joe at the time and establishes a mind link by contact, the alien can see that Joe -- who had by then forgiven Alice's father for what happened -- is right.}}
** From the prequel comic's tagline: {{spoiler|"The Soviets sent a dog. The U.S. sent a ''[[Nuke 'Em|nuke]]''." This is actually justified: the Soviets' probe was shot down, causing all the worst reactions...}}
* [[Immune to Bullets]]: The alien, which is a bit of a problem for {{spoiler|Colonel Nelec when he's trapped in a bus by the alien with only an M-16. Even escalating to ''tanks'' doesn't help, as it's capable of making them veer off course with magnetism.}}
* [[I Wished You Were Dead]]/[[You Should Have Died Instead]]: Alice tells Joe that {{spoiler|her father [[Survivor Guilt|wishes he had died instead]] of Joe's mother on the day of the accident, and sometimes she feels that way about him too.}}
Line 149:
* [[Insufferable Genius]]: Charles can be quite arrogant and bossy when it comes to his film, but he clearly wants to make it more in-depth by adding emotional investment to it, such as giving the detective a wife. Which makes the amusingly awful result all the more funny.
* [[It Will Never Catch On]]: The sheriff is not impressed by the idea of everyone having their own Walkman. He isn't totally ignorant of its potential, though, and in fact sees how such an innocuous device could inspire an entire new trend. "It's a slippery slope," indeed.
* [[ItsIt's All My Fault]]: It's eventually revealed that {{spoiler|Alice's father}} blames himself for Joe's mother's death, {{spoiler|as she took on his shift at the factory on the day of the accident.}}
* [[Jerkass Facade]]: Initially, Alice and Louis both treat Joe with anger and resentment. As it turns out, this is merely a front.
* [[Karma Houdini]]: {{spoiler|The alien ultimately gets away with killing random innocent people. On the other hand, it's not really a straight-up villain.}}
Line 169:
* [[Night of the Living Mooks]]: The zombie movie the kids are trying to film.
* [[Noodle Incident]]: A more grim version: It's never revealed how Joe's mother died, only that it was rather nasty and involved i-beams.
* [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]]: The cure for the zombie virus in "The Case."
* [[Nostalgia Filter]]: Anybody who was a pre-teen between 1975 to 1985 is gonna get misty-eyed watching this movie.
* [[Nothing but Hits]]: "[[Electric Light Orchestra|Don't Bring Me Down]]," "Easy", "My Sharona," "Heart of Glass," and "[[Silly Love Songs|Silly Love]] [[Paul McCartney|Songs]]" all show up.
Line 177:
* [[Operation Blank|Operation Walking Distance]]
* [[Overprotective Dad]]: Joe's and Alice's fathers when they forbid their respective children from spending time with the other.
* [[Paper -Thin Disguise]]: {{spoiler|Jackson's stolen Air Force uniform. Everyone from town knows that it's him when he uses it to infiltrate the evacuee center run by the Air Force. It works for the soldiers, since the military is, obviously, a very big organization.}}
* [[Parental Abandonment]]: Joe's mother is dead, and his father attempts to send him away to a six week baseball camp over the summer, arguably so he doesn't have to deal with raising Joe by himself.
* [[Parental Neglect]]: Both Joe's and Alice's fathers share neglect towards their respective child, Joe's father due to his work and emotional baggage carried from Joe's mother's death, and Alice's father due to his resentment over Alice's mother leaving him {{spoiler|and his guilt over Joe's mother's death, which he is indirectly responsible for.}}
* [[Pet the Dog]]: What does [[Knight Templar|the Colonel]] do in his last few minutes of life? {{spoiler|[[You Shall Not Pass|Buy time for the kids to escape from the creature]].}}
* [[Precision F -Strike]]: Other characters swear plenty of times, but "fuck" is specifically saved for the perfect moment towards the end:
{{quote| '''Donny:''' [''looking at wreckage of bus''] What the ''fuck?!''}}
* [[Police Brutality]]: Mild case. Joe's police officer dad strongarms Mr. Dainard into the back of his police car and drives him away, apparently for the crime of... showing up at a wake. {{spoiler|Subsequent events explain his motive, though.}}
* [[Posthumous Character]]: Joe's mother.
* [[Post -Kiss Catatonia|Post Hug Catatonia]]: Averted with Joe and Alice. He looks astonished for a split second, but then hugs her right back.
* [[Prequel]]: The comic bundled into the second issue of the ''[[Batman Arkham City]]'' comic. Long story short, it's revealed that {{spoiler|the alien's ship had been monitoring Earth for quite some time and humans only discovered it with Sputnik; the Russians were scared shitless and so were the Americans, through OSS intelligence. The Russians sent Sputnik 2 (with Laika on-board) to investigate, while the Americans sent a probe of their own, which the alien ship promptly atomized. The U.S. response? [[Nuke 'Em|A nuclear warhead]].}}
* [[Product Placement]]: Budweiser, 7-Eleven, and Kodak are all over the place.
* [[Psychic Link]]: Humans develop this link with the alien if they are touched by it.
Line 215:
* [[The Stoner]]: Donny.
* [[Strictly Formula]]: {{spoiler|The fact that the monster is really just trying to get home and was something which the Air Force found but couldn't understand or control. The point-by-point recreation of The Hero's Journey for Joe.}}
* [[Stylistic Suck]]: "The Case," the zombie movie that the kids are filming, is shown during the credits. It is ''[[So Bad ItsIt's Good]]''. Joe in particular is a horrendous actor during his one scene in "The Case."
* [[Survivor Guilt]]: The reason that {{spoiler|Alice's father, Louis, initially acted like a [[Jerkass]] to Joe was because he felt indirectly responsible for Joe's mother's death. Alice even tells Joe that he wished he had died instead of her.}}
* [[Technology Marches On]]:
Line 226:
* [[Twice Shy]]: Joe and Alice again.
* [[Tunnel King]]: {{spoiler|The creature is this.}}
* [[The Un -Reveal]]: {{spoiler|The alien's home planet or anything about its race.}} Then again, it is a J.J. Abrams film.
* [[Villainous Valor]]: {{spoiler|Nelec's last stand against the alien.}}
* [[Vomit Indiscretion Shot]]: A few, courtesy of Martin. In the special features, cinematographer Larry Fong notes that this may the first instance of computer-generated vomit in a movie.
* [[We Need a Distraction]]: One implied, one stated. {{spoiler|Joe's dad blows up a tanker truck to provide cover for his escape from custody, and Joe asks Cary to set off some fireworks so they can get out.}}
* [[What Do You Mean ItsIt's Not Heinous?]]: "You can't drink that! ''It doesn't belong to you!''"
* [[What Measure Is a Non -Human?]]: {{spoiler|Before the end}}, the creature, when seen, had predatory-looking black eyes, killed people, and for the most part seemed utterly monstrous. When it picks up Joe, after {{spoiler|he makes it clear that he understands what happened to it and just wants the creature to leave in peace, the black ''lids'' slide back, revealing startlingly intelligent and human-like eyes. It then proceeds to put the boy gently down, lets him and his friends leave, and makes its own exit.}}
* [[Would Hit a Girl]]: Joe, but hesitantly and only because it was the only way to wake her up {{spoiler|so that they could run for their lives.}}
* [[X Days Since]]: Used at the very start of the film to (fleetingly) cryptic effect. {{spoiler|Joe's Mom broke the streak. It was an accident.}} May be the first example of this trope used for ''dramatic'' effect.
Retrieved from "https://allthetropes.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/484212"