Explanation for the ending of Super 8

Question

Can someone explain the ending of Super 8 to me by helping out with the following queries?

1. What caused all the metal to be attracted towards the water tower?
2. Why in the world did the military leave the cubes lying around in the town even when they knew that the alien was there?
3. What was the Alien creating underground?
4. What did he need all the people for (the ones he keeps underground)?
5. How did the alien recreate the ship?

Answer 1

1. He might have built some sort of a large electromagnet in order to attract all the cubes, although I doubt that the child's necklace was entirely made of iron). The engines he stole from the cars were supposed to provide the needed power(maybe a giant electric current generator).
2. This probably happened because of their ignorance and self confidence: they always underestimate the alien and think of it more as a beast(remember they are soldiers, not scientists and they seem to be of the shoot-first-ask-questions-later type).
3. The alien was trying to rebuild it's ship in order to go back home.
4. He was eating them. He was not eating humans at first, but after so many years of imprisonment and torture, he began hating the whole human race. By eating people he fed himself and also got a feeling of revenge.(This is somehow stated by the children when they get into the lair).
5. He probably knew a few things about the way the ship was working. What is more, those cubes seemed to be like pieces from a puzzle, the alien only lacked the "glue" to piece them all together. Probably it was some kind of magnetic field, hence the answer to question 1.

Answer 2

I am going to answer all of your questions per my memory and I think all of answers are in the movie itself -

1. The Alien created a device, from the various stolen electronics, and attached it to the base of the tower, which attracts metal devices towards the water tower. The alien doesn't want to attract metal but wants to collect all his cubes.

2. The military didn't leave the cubes around in the town but they are trying to research the cubes' technology. The train crash is the reason for the cubes to be distributed in town but most of the cubes are still with the Military.

3. The Alien is trying to create a device which acts as a magnet to attract his cubes from all around the town.

4. I didn't get the 4th question, so I am not able to answer it.

5. The cubes are all responsible for making his ship. It's as if the alien has all of the pieces of cubes to easily make a ship.

Answer 3

There is an important message within the movie Super 8. How the ship was created is immaterial to this message.

The story of Super 8, like many other movies, is based upon ancient events. The alien in the story takes up residence in a semi-subterranean home, is a metal miner, and a ship builder that hunts and eats human beings. This culture actually existed during ancient times.

https://amp.dw.com/en/archeologists-discover-signs-of-mass-cannibalism-in-germany/a-4997309

This culture of ‘alien invaders’ migrated out of Northern Eurasia and the Pontic-Caspian Steppe (a “Russian invasion”) with the descendants of former mammoth hunters, people who spread corruption, the knowledge of evil, and the symbol of the swastika (the “Mark of Cain”) that is mentioned in the Book of Genesis.

https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wilson_(1896)_-_Worldwide_swastika_distribution.jpg

“Walking distance” represents the search for this alien within a perimeter of its origin. In the movie, lost dogs are being found far from their homes. Plotting where the dogs have been found on a map reveals a circular pattern, a migration that is spreading away from the alien invader, much like ancient events which caused the spread of ancient people throughout the world.

The train wreck which unleashed this alien invader may represent the Younger Dryas Impact event, an ancient impact event which brought metals (copper, iron, gold, silver, platinum, and uranium) to Earth.

https://sevenages.org/archaeology/platinum-anomaly-offers-new-evidence-supporting-younger-dryas-impact-hypothesis/

The metal cubes which are being transported by rail along with the alien have a cubical matrix, the same shape as elemental uranium. This metal, uranium (which is found in abundance in the Eurasian Steppe), is likely what caused an accelerated evolution (increased rate of genetic mutations) of some ancient humans.

https://www.webelements.com/uranium/crystal_structure.html

In the movie, the cube which has been collected by the young boy suddenly takes off at a high rate of speed, making a hole in the walls of the boy’s house. This is exactly what free neutrons released from uranium can do to human DNA (the cause of genetic mutations). The cube flys to the city water tower, which may represent the high amounts of uranium that can be found in groundwater in the Eurasian Steppe.

https://www.osti.gov/etdeweb/biblio/20823145

The city where the movie takes place, Lillian, is a reference to ancient mythology, to the ancient Enlil. In ancient mythology, Enlil and Enki are twin brothers that represent two ancient groups of people. The same groups are also represented by Cain and Abel.

https://historycooperative.org/enki-and-enlil/

Even the physical appearance of two main characters (the boy’s father who has darker features, who represents law and order, who wears a badge in the shape of the Star of David, versus the girl’s father, who is an aggressive, irresponsible, destructive, drunken, blonde Aryan) represent these two diverse groups of people. Also, the character’s names (Joseph Lamb and Alice Dainard) are a reference to their ancient origin.

https://gizmodo.com/europes-first-farmers-were-shockingly-violent-1724792763

In the movie, the girl’s father (who is partially responsible for the death of the boy’s mother) gives a sincere apology for what happened to the mother of the boy and wife of the sheriff. At that point, the sheriff accepts the apology and forgives the girl’s father for what has happened in the past.

Finally, the subject of the movie which the kids are making to enter into a film festival includes flesh eating zombies, and a scientist that is working on a cure to the cause of the violent, mindless zombies. At the end of the movie, the girl (who has been turned into a zombie) is given the antidote and is cured from her mindless desire to kill and consume human flesh, representing a very happy ending, one which the world is in need of today (the cure for mindless killing and destruction which began to spread out of the Eurasian Steppe about 13,000 years ago).