‘Trek’ Captain J.J. Abrams Revisits Youth In ‘Super 8’

First Published: March 29, 2011 11:28 AM EDT Credit: Paramount

LAS VEGAS, Nev. -- Caption J.J. Abrams at the ‘Star Trek’ world premiereJ.J. Abrams is making good use of his boyhood apprenticeship making super-8 movies.

The director of 2009’s “Star Trek” and creator of TV’s “Lost” revisits his childhood with this summer’s “Super 8,” about a band of kids shooting a monster movie who end up documenting a train wreck that unleashes an alien force.

The movie is the most autobiographical he has worked on, Abrams said in an interview at CinemaCon, a Las Vegas convention for theater owners where he showed off footage Monday night.

The youths in “Super 8” are doing exactly what the 44-year-old Abrams was doing three decades ago, when he was obsessed with making his own horror films and monster flicks. Abrams said it was uncanny and surreal re-creating those experiences for a big Hollywood movie.

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