MovieChat Forums > Midnight Special (2016) Discussion > Something must have happened during prod...

Something must have happened during production


(Spoiler-esque notes below.)

It seems they ended up with a disjointed half a movie where interesting concepts were introduced but then they screwed up all the scenes that developed those concepts and couldn't include them. What happened to the church/cult people and their leader? (Sam Shapard just disappeared in the middle of the movie.) Why does Kirsten Dunst do basically nothing for the second half of the movie except look concerned? Was she really not given anything to do or say? When the troops and the cops and the NSA folks all get an eyeful of the "greater reality" revealed, the best they can do is act like their main priority continues to be arresting people in a truck?

It looks like the poor editor was supposed to take whatever he could from what was left of the footage after a bad fire had consumed most of the stock (or after a digital wipeout), and this was the result.

I would vote for somebody doing a remake. This film has some very compelling concepts that get very poor treatment.

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It was definitley strange with Kirsten Dunst. I remember back at the start of the yeqr that she was doing a lot of promotional work for this movie, so much so that you would have thought she was the main character but her character only turns up half way throuh the movie and disn't really do anything at all.

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"I would vote for somebody doing a remake. This film has some very compelling concepts that get very poor treatment."

That might be a majority consensus - is with me. A remake with different writer/director. The credits indicate J Nichols pretty much controlled the content so the flood should be innocent. How did the newcomer get so much control - is he related to another nichols?

As for the rest: Ditto Shepard and his flock - Dunst's role looked to me to attract the female audience and represent the comforting mother for the scared boy. The movie had so many goof holes that you could say the same for the husband - he acted the father figure, but it still isnt clear what he did besides drive and shoot guns (like why?)
Dunst was also your witness to the light people (of a different dimension?). We couldnt see them through the guy's eyes because they were unconscious and missed it. She also was able to communicate the subtle "face tell" signifying "its OK" that the director over-uses here with several characters.

On the second viewing, looking for things i may have missed, only a few things were answered. But other goofs/holes appeared that i missed - so many that it soon became annoying. (Dunst needs to cut their handcuffs - i would have been trying to look through luggage but she went straight to the guy's leg holster. That helped them get free in time to chase and catch up to the pick-up as it got on the highway. He goes even faster, but the pick-up is replaced by a backed up line of cars. How far in front of them were they? No matter - They caught up to the cars that had arrived there a long time ago by passing on the right. When they were stopped, there conveniently was a space for line cutters reserved for them to get back in line. He looked to be in a frantic state of mind, but not enough to do what most chase movies employ - taking advantage of the open lane on the left. I would have, given the situation (the kid would know the gummint wouldnt shoot first). How did that truck get so far in front of them? Cutting the clip of catching up with the truck on the on ramp would have worked.
How did their faces get cut by the barbed wire if the windshield wasnt broken?
Did the editor forget about the air bags and the rest? There were too many goofs. Hope they can remake it soon and include a little meet and greet with the LED people. Ask them if they helped trump get elected?

Death, has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. Donald Rumsfeld

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