In the other movies Abrams directed, the third Mission: Impossible and the retooled Star Trek, he ornamented familiar mythologies. Super 8, his first feature as writer-director, required that he build his own box — and open it. "Withholding things in a story is no good if you aren't building to something substantial," he says. "It becomes foreplay without the main event, and no one wants that."
在另外兩部艾伯拉姆斯執(zhí)導(dǎo)的電影《碟中諜》和新版《星際迷航》中，他利用了人們耳熟能詳?shù)囊恍┥裨挕６鳛樗撞孔跃幾詫?dǎo)的作品，《超級8》要求艾伯拉姆斯自主創(chuàng)造自己的“神秘盒”——并將其打開?！叭绻麤]有打好堅實的基礎(chǔ)，敘事過程中的懸念和包袱都是空談?！边@樣子的懸念只能是一些可有可無的“前戲”，沒有人想看這些。

Abrams adepts will recall a similar story, of young people banding together to face a ravenous monster, from Cloverfield, the 2008 alien-invasion film he produced. But Super 8 has a gentler vibe: it leavens the apocalyptic threat with the budding bonding of Joe and Alice. Joe's beloved mother has recently died in a steel-mill accident. His father (Kyle Chandler), Lillian's deputy sheriff, has his hands full trying to save the town. The lonely 12-year-old, clinging to his mother's necklace as a talisman, is aching for the sympathetic company of an older woman — even two years older.
艾伯拉姆斯新作讓人聯(lián)想到2008年他參與制片的外星人入侵類電影《科洛夫檔案》，在那部影片中，也是一群年輕人聚在一起面對可怖的怪獸。但是《超級8》更平和些：故事隨著喬和愛麗絲關(guān)系的的微妙變化而層層遞進。喬的母親剛剛死于軋鋼事故。他的爸爸作為莉莉安鎮(zhèn)警局的副警長，全部的時間全花在了拯救小鎮(zhèn)居民上。這個孤獨的十二歲男孩將媽媽遺留下來的項鏈作為自己的護身符，他渴望得到一個年長一些的女性的同情和關(guān)愛——甚至是只比他大兩歲的女性。

Alice, just crossed to the other side of the great puberty divide, possesses a maturity that comes as much from abiding her angry father as it does from her natural poise. She's lonely too. Their inchoate romance could prove therapeutic for both, with Alice finding pure friendship and Joe learning to let go of morose childhood. All these kids, Abrams says, are "on the precipice of something — the end of a time. I wanted to catch kids at the very edge of full-blown, raging puberty, in their last moments of innocence."
剛剛度過青春期的愛麗絲有著別樣的成熟，這一方面源于她對她那愛發(fā)脾氣的父親的忍耐服從，另一方面，是她與生俱來的。她同樣倍感孤獨。他們的懵懂之愛對于他們兩人來說都有療傷效果，伴隨著愛麗絲找到了純純的友誼，而喬學(xué)會了遺忘孤苦的童年。按照艾伯拉姆斯的解釋，這些孩子“都處在某種臨界狀態(tài)——時間的臨界狀態(tài)。我想要捕捉的正是純真時代行將結(jié)束之時孩子們尚未成熟的叛逆青春。”