Super 8 Clip #3 Has Direct Viral Connection

The FOX network has had the privilege of hosting preview clips for the upcoming Super 8 that center around the train crash at the beginning of the film. The clips have debuted each night during the 8pm show, with the fourth and last one premiering tonight during American Idol. We’ve shown you the past clips, and after the break, we’ll show you last night’s, which clearly features a major character in the film’s viral campaign.

It’s not surprise that the clips are FOX exclusives as the film’s director and writer J.J. Abrams executive produces the FOX show Fringe. Before we get into the details, check out the clip below, which aired during GLEE. Notice the crash victim carefully.

The clip shows the kids finding the mysterious cubes we’ve seen in the S8 Editing Room file footage, then coming across the truck that caused the train wreck. The kids recognize the man in the truck as “Dr. Woodward”, and as we speculated after seeing the first trailer, he clearly looks to be Josh Minker’s father. Take a look at a still from the teaser and a picture we got of Minker’s dad way back in December (other pictures followed, but this is the best one).

In the scene, the good doctor tells the kids to keep their mouths shut or the government will come after them. Given the earlier clips we’ve seen, it looks like he was running from something, as the truck was going very fast. I can’t imagine he was trying to hit the train on purpose, but if he was trying to kill the monster/alien, that may have been his only way of doing it. The map he has clearly shows the train was coming from Area 51, which we already knew.

Minker’s dad has played a major role in the viral campaign ARG for Paramount Pictures’ Super 8, a film about a creature that escapes a wrecked train and wreaks havoc on a small town in Ohio. In the story told so far, we follow Josh Minker as he learns about his estranged dad and his role in studying the alien and its technology (i.e. the cubes). For the full details on the film and viral campaign, check out our Super 8 Hub.