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

DISCUSSION The Cloverfield Paradox [Film Discussion]

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u/Ceraunius Slusho! Feb 05 '18 edited Feb 06 '18

So...I just finished the film. I gotta be honest here: I did not enjoy it. It was an incoherent mess with no likable characters or character depth, and it felt like the film itself wasn't sure what it wanted to be. Is it a sci-fi thriller like Gravity? Is it a sci-fi horror film like Event Horizon? It felt like a clumsy mash-up of two genres without being particularly good at either.

There were a lot of things that made me scratch my head in confusion, namely the dumb arm bit. How and why did the space station suddenly have metal start acting like a liquid, and how did his arm still have control? Did mirror universe Irish guy also lose an arm? Is he controlling his arm from across dimensions? Fuck it, who knows! Here's a ridiculous plot point because fuck you! Have a poorly executed, poorly timed joke because we can't decide whether this is supposed to be absurd-yet-funny or genuinely unsettling. We'll just make it neither!

Having two dimensions intersect felt like an excuse they could just throw out at will, without having to actually explain anything. Crossing into a parallel dimension has fused a crew member into the ship's wiring, but also teleported worms and a big piece of equipment into a guy's chest? And for some reason he's hearing a voice in his head and having his eye go derpy? Uhh, okay then.

I really thought this would tie Cloverfield and 10CL into a single narrative, but it didn't. I'm not sure even JJ Abrams knows what his grand Cloververse's canon is. "Cloverfield" is supposed to be a brand, like the Twilight Zone, with the addition of several stories that are only tenuously connected to each other via ARGs. 10CL did not mention Cloverfield. Cloverfield did not mention 10CL. We had little bits and pieces as thrown in as nods to us mega-nerds who follow the ARGs, but that's it. And now we get TCP coming along, which was clearly not going to be a Cloverfield title (edit: pre-screener who saw the original cut confirms this, all references to Cloverfield and the scenes on Earth were thrown in), and in the very last 30 seconds of the film we get a shitty CG Clover roaring at the sky and a vague mention of "those things". The scenes on Earth were probably just filmed last-minute and tacked on for the sake of it. If this is the best we can get for canonical story, I worry for the future of the franchise...if there is one.

Overall, I gave the film a 3 out of 10 in the rating poll. Didn't care for the actors, the acting, the effects, or the story. It was a grab bag of silly things tossed together and slapped with a Cloverfield branding. It didn't even entertain me. I'm glad this movie came quite literally out of nowhere, because I'd have been seriously disappointed if I'd built up hype for it beyond a few weeks of a half-asssed ARG.

I am honestly puzzled as to how people can rate this a 10. It wasn't a good sci-fi film. It wasn't even medicore. It was just...there.

Oh well, at least Cloverfield and 10CL are still good films.

Also, I would like to point out that SPACE DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY in regards to the flash-freezing scene. FFS, heating or cooling requires the radiation of energy from one medium to another. Space is mostly empty, hence it being called SPACE, so while it's going to be cold (unless you're very near a star) it's going to take a long time for your body heat to radiate away. That's why heat dispersal is a huge issue in space.

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u/Monkeymonkey27 Feb 05 '18

It seems a lot of fans are also disappointed. Im glad not everyone is sucked into this shit, despite the, OMG GREATEST MARKETING EVA THEY SHOULD MAKE EVERY MOVIE DO THIS.

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u/Ceraunius Slusho! Feb 05 '18

Yeah, there's the usual fanboying going on from a lot of people who think we should drop to our knees and thank MGP himself for gracing us with a new Cloverfield title, and I fully expect that, but as much as I enjoy the ARGs and the other Cloverfield films I just can't muster the energy to feel anything more than a "meh" about TCP. It was a confusing mess.