Invasion Alert!: Special Blonde Edition + J.J. Abrams and Jon Favreau Talk Super 8, Cowboys & Aliens

By Jason Apuzzo. • I’ll start today’s Invasion Alert! with J.J. Abrams, Steven Spielberg and their forthcoming alien invasion thriller Super 8. A new trailer for the film ran during the Super Bowl – and although I’m very much looking forward to the film, the trailer itself didn’t do much for me, frankly. More interesting, actually, was a lengthy interview Abrams recently gave to The LA Times, in which he discussed the small town/middle America vibe of the film, its sentimental roots as a father-son reconciliation story, and the generally Spielbergean ambience of the whole project.

It’s becoming fairly clear that this film is going to be a return to the sort of family-oriented sci-fi projects Spielberg was doing in the late 70s/early 80s with E.T., Close Encounters and his TV work (incidentally, Close Encounters is coming to Blu-ray shortly) – although I sense a trace of anxiety in Abrams’ remarks as to whether such softer fare can still sell in the era of Michael Bay and James Cameron. My sense is that it can.

Many people tend to forget that most sci-fi films from the 1950s, for example (like Invaders from Mars or Invasion of the Body Snatchers), were actually set in small towns – and were highly evocative of middle American life and its values. Those films are still beloved today, not unlike Close Encounters (E.T. has aged somewhat) and if Abrams and Spielberg have done their homework on this one, they’re likely to pull off a crowd-pleasing hit – because I don’t yet sense any home runs in this current crop of edgier sci-fi invasion projects green-lit in the wake of Avatar.

I happen to like Abrams a lot, by the way. He talks in the interview about how he doesn’t do Twitter, how he still has a tape deck in his car, how he doesn’t really like the current film scene – in which everything has to be pre-marketed, pre-branded, franchised, etc., with no mystery left by the time a film is released. This remark from Abrams seems to sum up his thoroughly old-school attitude:

“We have such a challenge on this movie [Super 8],” Abrams said. ”Yes, we’ve got Steven’s name on it and my name on it — for what that’s worth — but we’ve got no famous super-hero, we’ve got no pre-existing franchise or sequel, it’s not starring anyone you’ve heard of  before. There’s no book, there’s no toy, there’s no comic book. There’s nothing. I don’t have anything; I don’t even have a board game, that’s how bad it is. But I think we have a very good movie.”

I know much of this is being said tongue-in-cheek, but isn’t it amazing that we’ve gotten to this point – a point at which a guy like Abrams, who is himself helming the new Star Trek franchise (the screenplay for the next Star Trek, incidentally, will apparently be delivered in about six weeks), feels compelled to say such things? I wish filmmakers working on the big scale would go back to telling personal stories, about actual human beings. In an era of formulaic entertainment, it’s the one formula no one seems willing to try.

• … and so now on to Michael Bay. Among the alien invasion movie Super Bowl trailers (of which there were no less than four) his Transformers: Dark of the Moon trailer certainly took the prize for spectacle, hands down. It actually looked a lot like Battle: LA, albeit in quasi-music video form.

At the recent premiere of his other alien invasion thriller, I Am Number 4, Bay actually compared Transformers 3 to Black Hawk Down – something which leads me to wonder why he doesn’t just do a movie like Black Hawk Down about our current war effort, rather than channel his energy into yet another toy franchise movie. Oh, wait! I think I know why; it has something to do with cross-platform marketing and casting Victoria’s Secret models. But that’s just a hunch.

Don’t’ get me wrong – I basically like Bay. He’s old-school in his own way. But there are reasons why he never really breaks through and has the Lucas/Spielberg/Cameron-sized hits, you know? There’s always just too much marketing there, and never enough imagination.

On the marketing front, incidentally, Bay and Rosie Huntington-Whiteley were out helping to hawk new Transformers toys recently (toys which seem to be revealing plot details about the movie), and Rosie finally talks about the project herself, here. So far she isn’t calling her director Hitler yet, unlike certain prior Transformers leads …

• Brooklyn Decker, of the forthcoming $200 million alien invasion thriller Battleship, is basically everywhere right now – appearing in the stupid Adam Sandler/Jennifer Aniston movie (two people who need to disappear for about five years), and now, of course, she’s on the pages of the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit issue. Did you really think we were going to miss that here at Libertas? Not a chance, amigo.

Also: the Hollywood Reporter just did a big feature on her, and you can watch the video associated with her SI photoshoot here. The video is probably NSFW (Not Suitable For the Workplace) – but at the same time, if your workplace doesn’t want you watching an American blonde prancing around in a bikini, perhaps you should simply work someplace else. This isn’t Iran.

• Cowboys & Aliens also had a Super Bowl trailer, and it was terrible – even though it featured the obnoxious Olivia Wilde going semi-topless. I’m getting the strong feeling that this film is going to be the turkey of the lot. If Jon Favreau’s got anything else to show us from that film, he’d better show it fast …

… although actually, he is doing that, as the LA Times followed Favreau recently to the Alamo Drafthouse where he showed the first two reels of Cowboys to an audience that apparently liked it a lot. Go figure.

One enthusiastic fan apparently even remarked, “You made Harrison Ford kick ass again!” Actually, Ford kicked alien and commie ass to the tune of $750 million worldwide for Indiana Jones 4 – but after all, who’s counting …

Also, Favreau recently talked to EW, and revealed some important clues as to his alien invasion film’s larger ‘meaning’:

EW: Instead of “cowboys and Indians” it was “astronauts and aliens.” So the idea of visiting an indigenous culture, invaders who in the Westerns would be the pioneers and settlers, is it reversed in this story? Are the cowboys essentially the natives and aliens are like the conquering Europeans?

Favreau: Yeah, in the frustration of not having the technology to allow you to prevail. It’s always the low-tech culture that feels powerless when faced with an enemy that has technology on their side. And of course the culture with technology on their side feels like it’s manifest destiny: They’ve been granted this gift by the divine and intend to use it. So yes, it is a bit of a flip, because the cowboys find themselves as the low-tech culture. And what’s also fun is it allows the cowboys and Native Americans to come together, which would be impossible had there not been a greater common enemy. It sets the Western up in a very classic way and then turns it on its ear.

I’m a little uncomfortable with this line: “[T]he culture with technology on their side feels like it’s manifest destiny: They’ve been granted this gift by the divine and intend to use it.” Why do I think he’s talking about us, when he uses the phrase ‘manifest destiny’? I thought Favreau was on our team; perhaps he’s now gone Eastwood/off the reservation.

In any event, it’s interesting – and somewhat grating – that from Avatar through to Cowboys & Aliens, V and Battle: Los Angeles, ‘imperialism’ and ‘oppression of indigenous populations’ are obviously emerging as key themes in this genre.

• The rumors have now been confirmed: Charlize Theron will be joining Noomi Rapace in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus; and, also, there is further confirmation – from cast member Michael Fassbender – that Prometheus is more-or-less going to serve as an Alien prequel. Fassbender says there is a “a definite connecting vein” in the film with the Alien series.

Incidentally, I’m not a fan of Charlize Theron – she’s a bit frosty and left-wing to my taste – but she can project intelligence and I’m otherwise glad to see that Scott is keeping the Alien franchise focused on compelling female characters. Prometheus may do Avatar-type business, if he plays his cards right.

• Speaking of blondes, Aussie blonde Teresa Palmer – who plays “a fearless, Ducati-riding alien” babe (every film should have one) in the Michael Bay-produced I Am Number 4 – talked to the Wall Street Journal recently; also check out this interview with I Am Number 4‘s highly perky blonde Dianna Agron.

• One of the other big alien invasion projects with a Super Bowl ad was, of course, Battle: Los Angeles – and Battle: LA also has a new extended trailer and a new TV spot.

The best thing this film has going for it, though, is this cheeky, History Channel-style documentary short about the original ‘Battle of Los Angeles’ from World War II. The video features Bill Birnes of UFO Hunters and is a real hoot. Check it out below.

The marketing campaign for Battle: Los Angeles has been nearly flawless, even without any blondes. We’ll see if the film itself matches up.

• In other Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion News & Notes: Men in Black 3D is experiencing more shooting delays, and the script is being re-written mid-shoot (ouch); Steven Spielberg’s/Fox’s hugely expensive Terra Nova TV series had an ad during the Super Bowl, and it looked like ridiculous Avatar-style liberal claptrap; Shawn Levy will be directing the James Cameron-produced 3D Fantastic Voyage remake; Logan’s Run is getting re-made; Roland Emmerich may be taking on Isaac Asimov’s acclaimed Foundation novel series, which he apparently would do in 3D, plus he confirms that there’s no action currently on an Independence Day sequel; Jerry Bruckheimer apparently wants to do a new space adventure film, to be written by the guy who wrote the first draft of what became Prometheus, and who also wrote the forthcoming alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour 3D; Roberto Orci talks here about his hoped-for adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s alien invasion epic Ender’s Game; the indie alien invasion thriller Attack the Block will be showing at the SXSW film festival; and, finally, for some unknown reason, Gareth Edwards’ indie alien invasion thriller Monsters – which hardly made a dent at the box office, and which nearly bored me to tears – may still get a sequel or even a TV series, although Edwards himself won’t be involved.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … you would think that with Brooklyn Decker writhing around the beach in a bikini for Sports Illustrated, she would be today’s official pin-up. Or perhaps the prickly Olivia Wilde, who goes semi-topless in the latest Cowboys & Aliens trailer. But the alien invasion genre has a deep bench, my friends, so instead I go today with Alice Eve, who just joined the cast of Men in Black 3D – playing a younger version of Emma Thompson’s character. Oddly enough, though, I don’t remember Emma Thompson looking quite like this in her youth …

And that’s what’s happening today on The Alien Invasion Front!

Posted on February 17th, 2011 at 7:30pm.