Talk:Midnight Special (film)

Plot clarifications

I see three issues in the plot summary:

1. What happens as the four attempt to leave the motel. I believe it should say "ranch henchmen" not "government henchmen," but I missed that part of the movie so I won't correct it. From what I saw, it appeared the ranch henchmen took the boy, and then were themselves stopped by the government, who took the boy.
2. I corrected the line that says Lucas handcuffed Sevier. Lucas hands Sevier the handcuffs, who applies them himself.
3. The last line of the plot summary interprets the meaning of the glow of light in Roy's eyes, and describes a bunch of wires taped to his head as an electroencephaly device. My interpretation is that the wires were put there by Roy as a way of communicating with his son, and the glow in his eyes represents that communication is taking place at that moment. Since it's unclear, I'll just delete the interpretation included by another user.

Thousandrobots (talk) 02:51, 27 March 2016 (UTC)

Is it official script plot, that Roy was communicating with son? Actually - nothing in movie says, what is happening there... I would cut that part about communicating with son, because it makes no sense... because Sarah didn't had shining in her eyes - only Roy.

Actually, I've got completelly different impression - that Roy might be himself outcast of Sky-people, who might have dumped his parent(or both) on Earth, where they belonged(just like Alton belonged to Sky-people), because his shining of eyes was not strong enough to exist among Sky-people. Also there was that unfullfilled relation betwen Roy and Sarah, where Sarah was not responding to his body-language. Basically the whole movie was implying that Roy was stranger among people, as he did not trust anyone, and even his closest friends did know nothing about him and reasons why his parents joined the Cult(where he met Sarah). That might also be the reason why NSA, FBI, CIA or whatever kept him, hooked him up to wires, as Roy was test subject and also - he was not human. He might or might not know about that.

194.126.91.146 (talk) 03:44, 22 April 2016 (UTC)

174.52.233.159 (talk) 19:21, 31 July 2017 (UTC)

Regarding the statement "Sarah cuts and dyes her hair to conceal her identity" in the plot summary, I didn't think that she was cutting her hair primarily to conceal her identity, though that may have been an added benefit. When she physically left the cult she kept their dress and hair styling, showing that she shared their beliefs even though she couldn't bear to be there to watch her son suffer. The cult is isolationist, and seems to eschew technology and progress. At the end when Alton shows them the society that he's joining, the camera spends a lot of time showing Sarah's wonder, amazement, and joy at seeing the futuristic society that is completely different from the cult. When she's cutting her hair, it seems more cathartic. She's cutting her ties with the cult, and her former mode of thinking (the cult's confined, restricted thinking). She's embracing the future, and a cohesive society. Otherwise, the scene is largely unnecessary. She could have simply disappeared, and been mentioned as disappearing. The scene is included to show that the experience has changed her. If the scene was about concealing her identity, it would've been more to the point (not having her cut her hair twice, not spending so much time showing her emotions). I'll change the plot summary sentence to allow any interpretation. Maybe something along the lines of "Sarah cuts off her cult traditionalist hair braid".

Plot expansion

the plot needs to be completed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Drumerwritter (talk • contribs) 19:44, 19 March 2016 (UTC)

Naming error

The plot summary says that they go to the house of Calvin, a former cult member. But Calvin is Sam Shepard's character, the cult leader. I believe the owner of this house is Elton. I thought it was kind of strange they'd use a name so similar to Alton, so maybe I'm wrong, but either way, it's definitely not Calvin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tinoynk (talk • contribs) 19:15, 29 March 2016 (UTC)

That's correct. Thanks for noticing. SpiritedMichelle (talk) 02:15, 5 April 2016 (UTC)

Opinions in plot description

Opinions on the film don't belong in the plot description. Deleted these sentences.

"This movie had all the excitement of a one dollar popcorn matinee. It wasn't confusing or hard to follow but I could barely contain my desire to throat punch the writer who was lazy at best. This story could have had more, much more and maybe been a good flick." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phantomvoltage (talk • contribs) 20:09, 14 June 2016 (UTC)

Weather Satellite?

I know the TV news in the film reported that it was a weather satellite, but I had the impression that that was the cover story and it was actually a spy satellite. Does anyone remember details that would confirm this and move it beyond original research on my part? Skyraider (talk) 01:47, 5 September 2016 (UTC)

It's never confirmed what type of satellite it actually was. SpiritedMichelle (talk) 02:12, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

In the dialogue of the film they say it was an "Air Force satellite ... tasked with detecting a nuclear explosion" and then a moment later refers to it as "a satellite whose sole purpose is detecting a nuclear event." 134.41.89.199 (talk) 21:53, 13 February 2019 (UTC)

Country of origin

While AFI and IMDb list both the U.S. and Greece as the countries of origin, all other sources list only the United States, i.e.: AllMovie, The Numebrs, AFI, HOME. Since there is no agreed-upon method of determining the country of origin of a film, I believe the best approach is the one suggested in the template documentation of Infobox film: "If there is a conflict of information in various reliable sources, then list only the common published nations." – Zntrip 00:00, 16 January 2017 (UTC)

External links modified (January 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Midnight Special (film). Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

• Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20151222084559/http://www.berlinale.de/en/presse/pressemitteilungen/wettbewerb/wettbewerb-presse-detail_29588.html to https://www.berlinale.de/en/presse/pressemitteilungen/wettbewerb/wettbewerb-presse-detail_29588.html

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 18 January 2022).

• If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
• If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 19:02, 29 January 2018 (UTC)