When J.J. Abrams wrote and directed this film, Steven Spielberg saw an opportunity he couldn’t refuse. “Super 8” is a modern-day re-telling of E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982) without the tale of friendship between the boy and his alien friend. Set almost 30 years apart, both films have their own problems to deal with. The modern-day “E.T. home phone” would’ve not worked had it not been for the complexity of the retelling. The film is era and politics-appropriate.

Even though the film is based around the late 1970s, the Soviet threat always loomed large for the USA. The biggest imagined opposition that the USA always had was the Soviets. This trend did not die down with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Part of being a democratic process or slight transgressions towards autocratic democracy, there’s always the need for the threat of an invisible enemy. This political anxiety...