Happy Monday, Ryan and Tamara —
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out whether reader Sean’s theory about MI:3‘s Rabbit’s Foot being Cloverfield‘s Slusho is valid. I kid, of course, but I love the idea. Same with Andrea’s fear that Slusho is related to Rimbaldi. That in particular would be worth a laugh.
On the note of Earth-JJ and whether Arvin Sloane is the secret head of Dharma 2.0, what is Cloverfield‘s place in sci-fi? J.J. Abrams has said in interviews that he wants the U.S. to have its own Godzilla-esque monster, but seems to me King Kong takes that title. The best monster movies have messages — Godzilla and nuclear war; King Kong and the exploitation of nature for commerce — but the most I can glean from Cloverfield‘s alternate-reality game is that it’s bad to deep-sea drill… and then drink what you find down there. For me, that’s sort of a given.
Let’s be honest, I can watch any number of monster movies on the various sci-fi channels any day of the weekend. Some weekends, they show nothing but monster movies. New ones, too, albeit with special effects that cost a fraction of what J.J. Abrams gets to play with.
It seems to me that Cloverfield‘s biggest innovation (telling the story via hand-held camera, putting viewers directly in the path of a monster attack) is also one that may drive away viewers. Just look at the debate after the first of these roundtable installments, not to mention Tamara’s own reaction. More often than any other genre, sci-fi carries a message. I don’t see one with Cloverfield. The triumph of the human spirit, maybe? And yet the trailer’s opening, hinting that the camera was recovered in what was formerly Central Park, doesn’t bode well for our heroes.
Maybe, of course, I just need to sit back with my popcorn and cherry Coke and enjoy the ride. What do you think?
'Cloverfield': Roundtable day four
– January 7, 2008Posted in: Other Nerdery
Personally, I think it would be brilliant if JJ Abrams was able to interconnect all of the characters and situations within JJ-Earth to create one huge magnum opus (similar to Stephen King’s “Gunslinger” series, and how elements from that series showed up in seemingly unrelated King books).
The whole JJ-Earth revolving around Rambaldi? Genious! Arvin Sloane in charge of the new Dharma Initiative? Brilliant! The Cloverfield monster is Smokey the Lost Island Monster? Outstanding!
Now if he can only solve the Greg Grunberg conundrum!
Along the lines of your thinking, Andy, that we have had plenty of monster movies and can watch them at any time on tv – did you happen to read the last-page article on the most recent edition of Entertainment Weekly? I apologize, I forget the title or who wrote it (and I don’t have it with me at the moment), but it was an editorial on the sci-fi genre and the trap of continually reproducing the same work without much new insight or innovation for the genre. I hadn’t thought about it, but the article did make me nod my head “yes” quite a few times – take a look.
I, too, am worried that Cloverfield with fail only because expectations have been set so high given the innovative marketing and the Abrams name. If it is “just another Godzilla movie,” I will feel cheated. Yet, as I mentioned before, I will also feel cheated if it so complex that you have to know the complete backstories to Alias and Lost. I want something that stands on its own, but that is the brilliant creativity I’ve come to expect from Abrams. In fact, I hope that because it is a movie, it can avoid the problems that serial development have posed for his concepts in Alias and Lost (which, IMHO, both suffered from quality drop-offs at some point in their respective existences, even if they eventually got back on track). A movie, hopefully, wouldn’t give enough time for a drop in quality.
Andrea, I didn’t see that article. Could it be Stephen King? I remember him doing back-of-the-book articles for EW. I’ll definitely look for this one.
By the way, I do think the movie will probably stand on its own for viewers who aren’t immersed in all of this Slusho backstory. In that case, it’ll probably be a monster movie without the whys.
The EW writer was Mark Harris. The article is titled “Future Schlock.”
Have a great day!
I think there will be a heavy 9/11 parable behind this monster. You have a group of people living their normal lives, when something extraordinary and horrible occurs. The focus on the characters makes their interaction and reactions more important than the monster. The movie isn’t about what the monster is or why it’s attacking, it’s about how people react in the face of an overwhelming terror.
I’m afraid this will end up being like the TV show “Heroes”.
There’s no way possible it can live up to the hype, no matter how good it is. The public is going to be expecting very great action movie ever made rolled up into one. Methinks, what has happened is the movie is so-so. TPTB are hoping that the hype alone will make the masses of rubberneckers flock to the movies the first weekend….then pray for a second wave to go when they “don’t believe” the guy in the cube next him saying it was…so-so. It happened with Spiderman.
I will NOT be going to see CLOVERFIELD. I wanted to, but I hate the shakey camera thing.
I feel it is too distracting, looks amateur, and reminds me of someone with their first 8mm movie camera.
Bad decision in my opinion and
I am someone that always goes to the theater to see new sci-fi movies.
I just saw Cloverfield at an advance screening. Yeah, the shaky camera thing was annoying at first, and I definitely got a little sick feeling from it after awhile, but the movie was awesome and scary. I would say the only good reason not to see this movie is if you don’t like movies that are awesome and scary. The cinéma vérite style actually works, and makes the movie much scarier than a typical CGI extravaganza.