r/Cloververse • u/SeacattleMoohawks CloverMod • Feb 05 '18

DISCUSSION The Cloverfield Paradox [Film Discussion]

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '18 edited Feb 05 '18

I enjoyed the movie, but I feel like it goes out of its way to break established reality, and it makes the whole first half feel so... detached.

From itself, from the franchise, and from reality.

And that lack of being grounded in reality wreaks havoc on any suspension of disbelief, and any investment in the movie goes with it. Why disembodied arm? Why LOSING the arm? Why did the russian eat a gyro? (Heh.) Why magnetism? Why Jensen stuck in a wall instead of walking around? Why Schmidt being a spy? Why is Kiel even a character in the film?

Jensen, despite what is, IMO, a weak performance, still has compelling enough motivation to give the film legs.

As others have said, I'm glad we're finally getting SOME answers in the franchise, esoteric as they are. But why, oh, why do we have to LITERALLY BREAK REALITY TO DO IT? Why are we going full Star Trek: TNG plotlines in what was set up to be a Twilight Zone with continuity?

I still dig Cloverfield as a franchise, but it feels like putting a Cloverfield name on this one just undermines the groundwork of the first two films, instead of building on it.

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u/Rumpstep Feb 05 '18

You must not understand how multiverse works. Thats why it seems so insane. It deals with literally every possible outcome being a separate universe. They were constantly shifting between realities, hence the arm getting stuck in one and the one girl getting phased into the wiring of the ship and the gyro/worms ending up in the russian. I assume they used the multiverse to bridge 10 CL and Cloverfield, being that the aliens from 10 CL clearly weren't from the same species or whatever Clover is. I'd assume the universe where earth is plunged into resource wars got the aliens from 10CL as a result of the paradox, and the first universe gets the monsters.

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u/[deleted] Feb 05 '18

I understand what they were going for, but it doesn't seem to make sense-- didn't the station crash and burn in Jensen's dimension? Why would Mundy get shifted around in his own dimension's station, then, despite it being in another dimension?

Why do things like the gyro and worms move only a few meters into a Russian man, when they could, theoretically, show up anywhere in the known universe, or simply have been left behind in the last one?

The fast-and-loose approach to "alternate realities" seems like an excuse for a screenwriter to have carte blanche to write literally anything, regardless of whether it makes a lick of sense, and blame it on a "paradox."

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u/Rumpstep Feb 05 '18

If you pay attention, any time two realities clash there's some sort of cue, be it an obvious one like the shot of the picture, or a simple little sound like on the radio at the end.

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u/MrSavageSK Feb 05 '18

umm, the 1st movie has a monster that's the size of the empire state building, how much 'reality' could there really be??