SPOILERS ahead for both titles mentioned in the heading...
I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but I somehow saw Super 8 again this weekend - even though I’m almost positive I bought a ticket to Cowboys & Aliens. Super 8 isn’t even in theaters anymore, at least not at the one I went to, but the movie I saw definitely took place in a bygone era where a giant, slobbering alien terrorized a small town. That’s Super 8 for sure. And the main character, having lost a woman he loved, was eventually faced with tracking down said alien. Also Super 8. Then, with the help of a new-ish love interest, the hero ultimately discovered the alien’s underground lair, where all the towns-folk who were kidnapped by the alien were kept sedated, hanging from wires - yet also kept inexplicably alive - and were then finally freed by said hero and his new-ish love interest, all while a group of people fired primitive guns - effectively - at the seemingly super-advanced species just outside its lair. That’s totally Super 8, right? It even had the same alien... hulking, greenish brown... two legs, four arms, moved like a gorilla ... growled and snarled a lot too, and basically acted like a rabid animal seemingly incapable of the advance intelligence necessary to traverse insanely long distances across the universe. There’s no way that’s the same plot, and basically the same alien, featured in Cowboys & Aliens, right?
In all seriousness, I actually enjoyed the first act of Cowboys & Aliens almost as much as I enjoyed the first act of Super 8. In both instances, each movie (also coincidentally) started out with just the right amount of mystery, mastery, and nostalgia for a kind of film we don’t see Hollywood attempting to make much anymore. And I absolutely loved each cast in spite of the material they had to work with; material that not only shared the same basic plot, but also shared a slow-burn from pretty-great to not-so-great to holy-crap, this-is-the-road-you-actually-want-to-take-us-down?
Though, to the point, the main purpose of this post isn’t necessarily to review the plots of each movie (I already expressed/presented my and others’ gripes with Super 8 here and here). I’d actually like to express my frustration with not only the aliens themselves featured in these two movies, but also take issue with those ultimately responsible for these aliens, and to a larger extent, those responsible for the state of the current summer blockbuster (hint: they’re the same group of people - and it all ties together in a round about, though probably-not-super-coherent, way...)
Frankly, I’ve been growing so insanely tired of the hulking/slobbering/buffoon-like alien that the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci team keeps throwing at us time and time again. To say that all these creatures/aliens look alike is one thing (and they do - the Cloverfield monster, the Super 8 alien, and the C&A aliens are all basically the same creature, all designed by the same guy, Neville Page), it’s more the lack of creativeness from an execution stand point that leaves me wanting so much more, and literally (though subtly) face-palming in the theater.
On the left, a drawing of the Super 8 alien. On the right, a close-up of the Cloverfield monster. Or is it the other way around? Regardless, if for some reason you’re reading this and haven’t seen Cowboys & Aliens yet, imagine an exact hybrid of these two instantly forgettable concepts, and you’ve got your race of aliens featured in C&A...
The “aliens” from Alien / Aliens were arguably the first successfully-terrorizing, hulking/slobbering-type featured in modern film (and still, the most effective). But the difference is that those aliens weren’t meant to be an advanced race come to Earth to either enslave us or exploit our natural resources. They were basically nothing more than giant, slightly intelligent insects. In Alien / Aliens, we were in their territory, and for that reason alone, they didn’t have to be anything other than their own hulking/slobbering brand of terrifying. The same goes for the shark in Jaws. We were in his territory and that’s what ultimately made him (and the ocean) so terrifying. The shark didn’t need to be particularly smart. Nor did the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. They just needed to do what they do best, which was to hunt and to kill, and nothing more.
What Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci don’t seem to understand is that if you’re going to use that kind of model for the alien - the hulking/slobbering type - you can’t expect the audience to fully embrace the notion that that kind of monster is also capable of creating/using the technology it took to traverse the vast distances necessary to get here. Considering the extraordinary plot/circumstances, I realize that may be somewhat of a small, nit-picky gripe. But for me at least, it’s an oversight that always seems to undermine the plausibility of the entire scenario, thus undermining my ability to be truly terrified of these things. If the shark from Jaws were all the sudden capable of traversing land - and had also created the technology to help himself do so - obviously, no one would buy that for a second. Yet that’s exactly what Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci want us to do with these generic, moronic, buffoon-like aliens they keep giving us.
Granted, the group of aliens specific to Cowboys & Aliens were basically just miners - “worker bees” surely sent here by the more sophisticated/intelligent of their species (and don’t even get me started on the whole aliens-mining-for-gold thing - that may or may not be worse than aliens from Signs being “allergic” to water). But even so, why not at least show or hint at the more sophisticated/intelligent ones? The ones that could be honest-to-God scary instead of the cheap “scares” these space-gorillas have redundantly offered the last few outings? It’s not the ‘70s/‘80s anymore. The alien/monster hybrid these guys (and many others) keep insisting on throwing at us just isn’t doing the trick; these idiots beings that roar and gallop, who don’t even seem to posses a tool as simple as toothbrush, but have somehow figured out way to overcome the physics of interstellar travel. Give me an alien/villain that’s a bit more cunning, a bit more psychologically scary, and actually comes across as capably smart. Give me something like the aliens from Fire in the Sky (nearly twenty years later, those things still freak me out). And yes, if they were made to be something too cunning and too advanced, they’d wipe us right out and there’d be no movie. I get that. But there has to be a happy medium. And there has to be a fresh way of delivering that happy medium that doesn’t feel like the retreaded, shell of a movie that both Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens are.
It’s no secret that I really do like J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Bob Orci. For those unaware, Abrams directed Star Trek and Super 8 (and produced Cloverfield), while Kurtzman & Orci wrote Star Trek and Cowboys & Aliens. The three of them have worked together for nearly a decade and are all part of the same creative circle, which includes Damon Lindelof (co-creator of Lost), Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens), and Steven Spielberg (who serves as the “godfather”-type of the group), among many others. Between them, they’ve also churned out Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, and a ridiculous amount of TV shows (Alias and Fringe being their two most successful collaborations). I truly love the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci ambition, their infectious, fan-boy-like enthusiasm, and most often than not, I’ve had a great time in the theater watching their movies. Theirs has been a distinct brand of fun and adventure that, for the most part, makes up for the many, sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle, plot holes riddled throughout their films (Transformers and Star Trek, specifically). I’ve met both Kurtzman and Orci in person (and even played Wii Sports in their office), and can say from first-hand experience that they’re both genuinely nice, engaging guys. So I don’t particularly enjoy knocking what they do (and some might even call what they do, along with Abrams, a cancer, though I would’t go that far either),
Again, I appreciate their ambition, but there’s another side of their brand - the generic, piecemeal, been-there-done-that quality of their films - that has seemingly infected the entire blockbuster “genre” over the past four or five years to produce this new brand of even-more-shallow blockbuster. These blockbusters - from Terminator Salvation to TRON: Legacy to Thor to Green Lantern and a long lost of others - are merely shells of what could have been much better films. I won’t argue that the summer blockbuster hasn’t always been the whipping boy of critics. It goes without saying that they’ve always been somewhat subpar and rightfully mocked, at least critically. But these blockbusters of the past few years - which, coincidentally, started becoming a “thing” right around the time Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci came into their own theatrically in ’06/’07 - are a different kind of bad. It’s a lazy bad, where, if they just would have connected the dots or filled in the gaps a bit more, it might have actually made for a great movie. And that laziness comes not so much from lack of effort, but rather an attempt to take from these movies’ more complete and coherent predecessors, trying to meld all these various assorted pieces and inspirations together, ultimately ending up with nothing more than an echo of movie instead of trying something new. And it’s not a "malicious" act by any means. These film makers obviously mean good, and want nothing more than to entertain.
The Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand is actually a lot like Jurassic Park in that regard. Not the movie, but the park itself. An entity that, on the surface, is awesomely ambitious and one that ultimately wants nothing more than to thrill the masses. In doing so, they’ve each attempted to resurrect something beloved from the past and are now trying to market it as their own. Jurassic Park did this with dinosaurs, obviously, while Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci are doing this with a specific brand of movie nostalgia. We’ll call it the “Spielberg era,” and it encompasses everything from a “vibe” to properties like Transformers, Star Trek, and even Spielberg himself. It’s Ian Malcolm’s words to Hammond in the film, however, that ring just as eerily true to Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci (and yes, this is obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek, but that doesn’t make it any less applicable)...
“The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here staggers me. Don’t you see the danger inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun. I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here. It didn’t require any discipline to obtain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you didn’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it. Your scientists were so pre-occupied with whether or not they could do it, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Basically, this is exactly what Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci have done, the results of which are “Dino-DNA” movies like Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens. Movies that attempt to stand on the shoulders of giants, trying to wield the pieces of the great movies before them like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun (the pieces of Alien / Aliens and the “Spielberg era” for this argument, specifically), only to lack the necessary discipline to obtain and properly use those pieces in the first place. Now, the park is breaking down and the “dinosaurs” are multiplying. They’ve long-since left the island, reached the mainland, and we’re all left having to deal with them every summer, when they run rampant the most. In other words, the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand of movie-making has spread, and it’s affecting how each and every studio is making blockbusters. It’s not that they don’t make ‘em like they used to - it’s that they’re trying, and that very act is a failure in and of itself. It’s time to move forward.
Look - I could go on and on, though I realize I’m probably far past coming off like a cross between a disgruntled critic and Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Again, I didn’t want to complain about “movie aliens” so much as I wanted to express my frustration with the lack of creativity, imagination, and execution coming from the presumed best-in-the-business (box office-wise), which is what these aliens ultimately represented to me. I’ve just grown so tired of seeing the same thing over and over and over again, which finally reached a breaking point this summer - with Cowboys & Aliens, specifically - and I needed to vent. Overall, I can’t remember another summer that missed the mark so much as this one has. My favorite blockbusters of the bunch were the ones I simply disliked the least, like X-Men: First Class or Captain America: The First Avenger, both of which I somewhat “enjoyed” but will probably never watch again. Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens were supposed to be the exceptions this summer, not the symptoms. No one looks forward to the summer blockbuster season more than I do, but each year I gradually find myself gravitating more and more to the fall / holiday / Oscar movie season. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but September - September - with movies like Drive, Moneyball, and Contagion, has me more excited than any single month did this summer.
Ridley Scott, however, returns next summer to the world of Alien - the very property so many of these guys have unsuccessfully tried to pillage - and so my hope for the summer blockbuster remains (with the irony not lost on me that Damon Lindelof wrote the Prometheus script). More importantly, the one true cure of years’ past to the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand of blockbuster - Christopher Nolan - will be returning as well with The Dark Knight Rises. With Harry Potter finally coming to and end, and Twilight on death’s doorstep, there’s a window of opportunity here for the Scott/Nolen brand of blockbuster to finally take purchase and become the norm. Like it or not, though, Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci are the current taste testers and trend setters. Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolen are merely the exception to the rule. Let’s hope that one or the other - or both, preferably - are capable of ushering in at least the hint of new era next summer, maybe even finally inspiring the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orcis of the industry to try and build a new kind of "park," something wholly original and all their own...
[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 7/30/2011 2:57p).]
I don’t know how it happened, exactly, but I somehow saw Super 8 again this weekend - even though I’m almost positive I bought a ticket to Cowboys & Aliens. Super 8 isn’t even in theaters anymore, at least not at the one I went to, but the movie I saw definitely took place in a bygone era where a giant, slobbering alien terrorized a small town. That’s Super 8 for sure. And the main character, having lost a woman he loved, was eventually faced with tracking down said alien. Also Super 8. Then, with the help of a new-ish love interest, the hero ultimately discovered the alien’s underground lair, where all the towns-folk who were kidnapped by the alien were kept sedated, hanging from wires - yet also kept inexplicably alive - and were then finally freed by said hero and his new-ish love interest, all while a group of people fired primitive guns - effectively - at the seemingly super-advanced species just outside its lair. That’s totally Super 8, right? It even had the same alien... hulking, greenish brown... two legs, four arms, moved like a gorilla ... growled and snarled a lot too, and basically acted like a rabid animal seemingly incapable of the advance intelligence necessary to traverse insanely long distances across the universe. There’s no way that’s the same plot, and basically the same alien, featured in Cowboys & Aliens, right?
In all seriousness, I actually enjoyed the first act of Cowboys & Aliens almost as much as I enjoyed the first act of Super 8. In both instances, each movie (also coincidentally) started out with just the right amount of mystery, mastery, and nostalgia for a kind of film we don’t see Hollywood attempting to make much anymore. And I absolutely loved each cast in spite of the material they had to work with; material that not only shared the same basic plot, but also shared a slow-burn from pretty-great to not-so-great to holy-crap, this-is-the-road-you-actually-want-to-take-us-down?
Though, to the point, the main purpose of this post isn’t necessarily to review the plots of each movie (I already expressed/presented my and others’ gripes with Super 8 here and here). I’d actually like to express my frustration with not only the aliens themselves featured in these two movies, but also take issue with those ultimately responsible for these aliens, and to a larger extent, those responsible for the state of the current summer blockbuster (hint: they’re the same group of people - and it all ties together in a round about, though probably-not-super-coherent, way...)
Frankly, I’ve been growing so insanely tired of the hulking/slobbering/buffoon-like alien that the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci team keeps throwing at us time and time again. To say that all these creatures/aliens look alike is one thing (and they do - the Cloverfield monster, the Super 8 alien, and the C&A aliens are all basically the same creature, all designed by the same guy, Neville Page), it’s more the lack of creativeness from an execution stand point that leaves me wanting so much more, and literally (though subtly) face-palming in the theater.
On the left, a drawing of the Super 8 alien. On the right, a close-up of the Cloverfield monster. Or is it the other way around? Regardless, if for some reason you’re reading this and haven’t seen Cowboys & Aliens yet, imagine an exact hybrid of these two instantly forgettable concepts, and you’ve got your race of aliens featured in C&A...
The “aliens” from Alien / Aliens were arguably the first successfully-terrorizing, hulking/slobbering-type featured in modern film (and still, the most effective). But the difference is that those aliens weren’t meant to be an advanced race come to Earth to either enslave us or exploit our natural resources. They were basically nothing more than giant, slightly intelligent insects. In Alien / Aliens, we were in their territory, and for that reason alone, they didn’t have to be anything other than their own hulking/slobbering brand of terrifying. The same goes for the shark in Jaws. We were in his territory and that’s what ultimately made him (and the ocean) so terrifying. The shark didn’t need to be particularly smart. Nor did the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park. They just needed to do what they do best, which was to hunt and to kill, and nothing more.
What Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci don’t seem to understand is that if you’re going to use that kind of model for the alien - the hulking/slobbering type - you can’t expect the audience to fully embrace the notion that that kind of monster is also capable of creating/using the technology it took to traverse the vast distances necessary to get here. Considering the extraordinary plot/circumstances, I realize that may be somewhat of a small, nit-picky gripe. But for me at least, it’s an oversight that always seems to undermine the plausibility of the entire scenario, thus undermining my ability to be truly terrified of these things. If the shark from Jaws were all the sudden capable of traversing land - and had also created the technology to help himself do so - obviously, no one would buy that for a second. Yet that’s exactly what Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci want us to do with these generic, moronic, buffoon-like aliens they keep giving us.
Granted, the group of aliens specific to Cowboys & Aliens were basically just miners - “worker bees” surely sent here by the more sophisticated/intelligent of their species (and don’t even get me started on the whole aliens-mining-for-gold thing - that may or may not be worse than aliens from Signs being “allergic” to water). But even so, why not at least show or hint at the more sophisticated/intelligent ones? The ones that could be honest-to-God scary instead of the cheap “scares” these space-gorillas have redundantly offered the last few outings? It’s not the ‘70s/‘80s anymore. The alien/monster hybrid these guys (and many others) keep insisting on throwing at us just isn’t doing the trick; these idiots beings that roar and gallop, who don’t even seem to posses a tool as simple as toothbrush, but have somehow figured out way to overcome the physics of interstellar travel. Give me an alien/villain that’s a bit more cunning, a bit more psychologically scary, and actually comes across as capably smart. Give me something like the aliens from Fire in the Sky (nearly twenty years later, those things still freak me out). And yes, if they were made to be something too cunning and too advanced, they’d wipe us right out and there’d be no movie. I get that. But there has to be a happy medium. And there has to be a fresh way of delivering that happy medium that doesn’t feel like the retreaded, shell of a movie that both Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens are.
It’s no secret that I really do like J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman, and Bob Orci. For those unaware, Abrams directed Star Trek and Super 8 (and produced Cloverfield), while Kurtzman & Orci wrote Star Trek and Cowboys & Aliens. The three of them have worked together for nearly a decade and are all part of the same creative circle, which includes Damon Lindelof (co-creator of Lost), Jon Favreau (director of Iron Man and Cowboys & Aliens), and Steven Spielberg (who serves as the “godfather”-type of the group), among many others. Between them, they’ve also churned out Mission: Impossible III, Transformers, and a ridiculous amount of TV shows (Alias and Fringe being their two most successful collaborations). I truly love the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci ambition, their infectious, fan-boy-like enthusiasm, and most often than not, I’ve had a great time in the theater watching their movies. Theirs has been a distinct brand of fun and adventure that, for the most part, makes up for the many, sometimes subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle, plot holes riddled throughout their films (Transformers and Star Trek, specifically). I’ve met both Kurtzman and Orci in person (and even played Wii Sports in their office), and can say from first-hand experience that they’re both genuinely nice, engaging guys. So I don’t particularly enjoy knocking what they do (and some might even call what they do, along with Abrams, a cancer, though I would’t go that far either),
Again, I appreciate their ambition, but there’s another side of their brand - the generic, piecemeal, been-there-done-that quality of their films - that has seemingly infected the entire blockbuster “genre” over the past four or five years to produce this new brand of even-more-shallow blockbuster. These blockbusters - from Terminator Salvation to TRON: Legacy to Thor to Green Lantern and a long lost of others - are merely shells of what could have been much better films. I won’t argue that the summer blockbuster hasn’t always been the whipping boy of critics. It goes without saying that they’ve always been somewhat subpar and rightfully mocked, at least critically. But these blockbusters of the past few years - which, coincidentally, started becoming a “thing” right around the time Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci came into their own theatrically in ’06/’07 - are a different kind of bad. It’s a lazy bad, where, if they just would have connected the dots or filled in the gaps a bit more, it might have actually made for a great movie. And that laziness comes not so much from lack of effort, but rather an attempt to take from these movies’ more complete and coherent predecessors, trying to meld all these various assorted pieces and inspirations together, ultimately ending up with nothing more than an echo of movie instead of trying something new. And it’s not a "malicious" act by any means. These film makers obviously mean good, and want nothing more than to entertain.
The Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand is actually a lot like Jurassic Park in that regard. Not the movie, but the park itself. An entity that, on the surface, is awesomely ambitious and one that ultimately wants nothing more than to thrill the masses. In doing so, they’ve each attempted to resurrect something beloved from the past and are now trying to market it as their own. Jurassic Park did this with dinosaurs, obviously, while Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci are doing this with a specific brand of movie nostalgia. We’ll call it the “Spielberg era,” and it encompasses everything from a “vibe” to properties like Transformers, Star Trek, and even Spielberg himself. It’s Ian Malcolm’s words to Hammond in the film, however, that ring just as eerily true to Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci (and yes, this is obviously a bit tongue-in-cheek, but that doesn’t make it any less applicable)...
“The lack of humility before nature that’s being displayed here staggers me. Don’t you see the danger inherent in what you’re doing here? Genetic power is the most awesome force the planet’s ever seen, but you wield it like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun. I’ll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you’re using here. It didn’t require any discipline to obtain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn’t earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you didn’t take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you’re selling it. Your scientists were so pre-occupied with whether or not they could do it, they didn’t stop to think if they should.”
Basically, this is exactly what Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci have done, the results of which are “Dino-DNA” movies like Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens. Movies that attempt to stand on the shoulders of giants, trying to wield the pieces of the great movies before them like a kid that’s found his dad’s gun (the pieces of Alien / Aliens and the “Spielberg era” for this argument, specifically), only to lack the necessary discipline to obtain and properly use those pieces in the first place. Now, the park is breaking down and the “dinosaurs” are multiplying. They’ve long-since left the island, reached the mainland, and we’re all left having to deal with them every summer, when they run rampant the most. In other words, the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand of movie-making has spread, and it’s affecting how each and every studio is making blockbusters. It’s not that they don’t make ‘em like they used to - it’s that they’re trying, and that very act is a failure in and of itself. It’s time to move forward.
Look - I could go on and on, though I realize I’m probably far past coming off like a cross between a disgruntled critic and Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons. Again, I didn’t want to complain about “movie aliens” so much as I wanted to express my frustration with the lack of creativity, imagination, and execution coming from the presumed best-in-the-business (box office-wise), which is what these aliens ultimately represented to me. I’ve just grown so tired of seeing the same thing over and over and over again, which finally reached a breaking point this summer - with Cowboys & Aliens, specifically - and I needed to vent. Overall, I can’t remember another summer that missed the mark so much as this one has. My favorite blockbusters of the bunch were the ones I simply disliked the least, like X-Men: First Class or Captain America: The First Avenger, both of which I somewhat “enjoyed” but will probably never watch again. Super 8 and Cowboys & Aliens were supposed to be the exceptions this summer, not the symptoms. No one looks forward to the summer blockbuster season more than I do, but each year I gradually find myself gravitating more and more to the fall / holiday / Oscar movie season. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but September - September - with movies like Drive, Moneyball, and Contagion, has me more excited than any single month did this summer.
Ridley Scott, however, returns next summer to the world of Alien - the very property so many of these guys have unsuccessfully tried to pillage - and so my hope for the summer blockbuster remains (with the irony not lost on me that Damon Lindelof wrote the Prometheus script). More importantly, the one true cure of years’ past to the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci brand of blockbuster - Christopher Nolan - will be returning as well with The Dark Knight Rises. With Harry Potter finally coming to and end, and Twilight on death’s doorstep, there’s a window of opportunity here for the Scott/Nolen brand of blockbuster to finally take purchase and become the norm. Like it or not, though, Abrams/Kurtzman/Orci are the current taste testers and trend setters. Ridley Scott and Christopher Nolen are merely the exception to the rule. Let’s hope that one or the other - or both, preferably - are capable of ushering in at least the hint of new era next summer, maybe even finally inspiring the Abrams/Kurtzman/Orcis of the industry to try and build a new kind of "park," something wholly original and all their own...
[This message has been edited by TCTTS (edited 7/30/2011 2:57p).]
