Utopia Talk / Movie Talk / Cloverfield Paradox

hood Member	Sun Feb 04 23:50:53 What a shit movie. It's like the writers weren't sure whether they wanted to be a scifi thriller, a horror movie, or the sickly offspring of Life (an already bad movie). Without any spoilers, if you REALLY want to know the explanation for Cloverfield and 10 Cloverfield Lane, give it a watch with low expectations. If you don't need to know or have your own theory and are ok with not having the "official" explanation given to you, just sit in happy ignorance with your own theories.
Cherub Cow Member	Tue Feb 06 20:26:42 Arg.. only on Netflix streaming, not in theaters, not on Netflix DVD, iTunes, Hulu, or Amazon. (I don't have Netflix streaming because video quality is too low on my connection.) It's available here, though, on TPTB's free site: http://www.tvmuse.com/movies/The-Cloverfield-Paradox_43509/ (unhide comments for openload links)
Cherub Cow Member	Wed Feb 07 03:06:14 *just watched* The writing was choppy, and the main character story felt ineffectual.. (( SPOILERS )) Hamilton's character journey was the main thing tying the story together, but its twists were pretty nonsensical. Like she decides that she wants to see her daughters again even if they're not her own, and viewers should probably react to that like the captain: "this is wrong" — where it doesn't make sense for her to try to see the kids because these wouldn't be her kids and her own double would be occupying her space and no one would accept her. She shuts down the argument with that ridiculous "no one could understand what I feel" fallacy, and then tries logic by saying that she could warn her double about the fire hazard.. but even then the easy response by the captain could have been "maybe just send a message when we can?", but instead he basically says, "okay, totes, yeah. Be crazy and wild!" You'd think that he'd later be involved in her coming to her senses, like, "I knew you'd come around and realize that it's crazy to insert yourself into other peoples' dimensions," but no.. maybe that scene was cut? I thought it would happen in his airlock goodbye, but it didn't... In other words: the main character was crazy, so there didn't seem to be much of a reason to want to identify with her or her mission... even in the moment when it should have been maximum emotional (she crying at images of kids that she'll never get to see in person), there wasn't much there because, again: someone else's kids; no real connection being broken. Difficult to see past her doppelgänger, so it's not some kind of great sacrifice for her to decide not to barge into someone else's life.. The writing also borrowed a lot and for no apparent reason. Like yeah, that last scene in particular was too close to "Life", and Hamilton's husband's reaction didn't really fit the story so much as it was a way to hype up the ending as a "Life" tribute (in reality, it wouldn't make sense for her to stay "safe" aboard the ship because they would run out of supplies and die.. so Earth, even with its apocalyptic problems, would be at least a little better). They also borrowed from "Alien: Covenant" by making the captain painfully religious.. but they only did it for one scene and didn't make it matter at all to his character. So why do it? Then for a while it was a slasher movie where random characters were dying for no particular reason.. like Mundy (Chris O'Dowd) who is attacked by suddenly sentient sealant. Kind of a strange death and out of nowhere.. like they wanted to have a creature aboard killing people but had forgotten that there were no creatures aboard the ship. Maybe they'll pull a "Paranormal Activity: Ghost Dimension" and show the other dimensions where those things make sense as a kind of lazy retcon. Later stage character twists also sort of fizzle, like Jensen's rampage. And the choppy writing.. like after Mundy's explosion where a big chunk of the ship should be destroyed, everyone finds time for a quiet, reflective moment where they soak in his death... what? And maybe that was part of a larger problem: all these monumental explosions and failures aboard the ship, but there was always space to be okay. Were those portions of the ship just spare parts or something? And after so much of the ship was destroyed, the particle accelerator still works in the end? What magician designed this ship? ;p Anyways, I don't think that the story of this one does anything positive to the franchise's overall direction... multiple dimensions just becomes a sort of cop-out where you can have anything happen and say it was explainable within one of the dimensions.. like the space ship in "Cloverfield Lane" could just be an alien dimension, and the Godzilla-like monster the result of a totally different dimension.. it's possible to write all of that under one multi-dimensional narrative, but it can feel over-saturated if it's just an "anything goes" scenario where they keep making different iterations of the story (different movies) that never meaningfully connect. "Resolution" (2012) managed to combine multiple genres of horror into one movie, but it did that by playing with the idea that the audience itself demands that the story be affected by horrors that it always insists remain never totally revealed.. I don't think "Cloverfield" will do that. There's no reason for them to connect the stories except as a means of cashing in on a familiar name ("Cloverfield"); it's a way to avoid taking a risk on individual stories that may have been forgotten without that name. Nice self-sabotage. But yeah... I also sort of agree about keeping one's own theories.. or, my thought is just that "10 Cloverfield Lane" worked fine by itself.. it doesn't need the first Cloverfield or this Cloverfield — it was still a good movie by itself and my favorite of the three. No sequel or explanations necessary.
hood Member	Wed Feb 07 08:33:52 Yeah, 10 Cloverfield Lane was a good standalone movie with a twist nobody saw coming. It's fine. It even could have been part of the Cloverfield saga - a decade after the monster, everyone thought they were safe. This happens coincidentally as the aliens who sent the Cloverfield monster arrive. Even the original Cloverfield worked - alien tech sent the monster to Earth as a harbinger. It was meant to sow destruction in advance of the main invasion force - they didn't expect Earth to be able to deal with it while keeping destruction contained to NYC (or whatever city it was). This movie was just bad. It was unneeded. My own conspiracy theory is that it bombed so bad in screenings that it was decided to cut losses and get Netflix to pony up cash, expecting Netflix to pay more than proceeds from theater tickets.
The Children Member	Fri Feb 09 02:54:12 if i need 2 know...but i dunt need 2 know.
swordtail Anarchist Prime	Mon Feb 19 13:14:49 it was way better than the last star wars. also,mundy's arm should appear in a sequel!!!!!!
hood Member	Mon Feb 19 22:19:29 "it was way better than the last star wars." That's too difficult to call.
The Children Member	Sun Apr 15 16:11:21 man this shit sucks donkey ass. it started off like an alien/ aliens. had so much potential. then it ended with weird other dimensinal bullshittos. wtf what a fuckin piece of crap.
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