WARNING — SPOILERS AHEAD: This article contains background information and plot details on the film CLOVERFIELD and its viral marketing campaign, and recklessly indulges in spoilers and speculation, so beware.
Paramount’s Cloverfield broke the box office record for best January opening ever, earning an estimated $46 million this holiday weekend. Not so shocking since the J.J. Abrams-produced monster flick was probably the most anticipated film to be released in a month known for its poor box office returns. What is shocking is that special-effects-filled film was made for a mere $25 million, though, that’s not counting all the money spent all its well-known viral marketing campaign.
And what a campaign it was. You can say it all started on 2007’s Fourth of July weekend when an unnamed trailer debuted in front of Transformers. The teaser showed a group of friends at a surprise going-away party for their pal Rob, who’s leaving the next day for his new job in Japan. Right in the middle of the merriment, the building is rocked by what feels like an earthquake. When the party-goers hit the streets to see what happened, WHOA!, flying through the air comes the head of the Statue of Liberty.
Now that’s an attention grabber. Since the teaser didn’t have a name, it became known simply as “Cloverfield” to the hordes of Internet browsers wanting to know WHAT IS THIS MOVIE?!?! Soon after, viral Web sites began springing up, including www.1-18-08.com, which eventually became the film’s the official site. More cryptic were the other sites, which we’ve found out more recently may hold a key to the origins of the Cloverfield monster: slusho.jp, a fictional Japanese company that makes the “Slusho” frozen drink (seen previously in other J.J. Abrams projects); tagruato.jp, a site for the bogus deep-sea drilling company Tagruato; and tidowave.com, the environmentalist organization T.I.D.O WAVE which is fighting against Tagruato. (According to Cloverfield Clues, the T.I.D.O. site was recently locked by the “Internal Affairs Department” presumably for allegedly destroying Targruato’s Chuai oil-rig station and attacking the company’s CEO Ganu Yoshida.) UPDATE: There’s also a site called jamieandteddy.com (password: jllovesth)**.
What do all these viral sites have to do with the New York-based Cloverfield? Well, as it turns out, main character Rob revealed a few weeks ago on his MySpace Blog that the job he’s taking in Japan is as the V.P. of Marketing and Promotions for Slusho. Slusho happens to be owned by Tagruato and the company’s CEO Ganu Yoshida was planning a trip to NYC to meet with the owner of BevVo, the largest privatized water manufacturer in the world, to discuss distributing Slusho through pre-established public waterways and to tour potential Slusho manufacturing plants in the United States.
T.I.D.O. is against Tagruato because they claim that Tagruato’s research and practices are destroying our oceans, which would be the cause for T.I.D.O.’s alleged guerilla tactics.
Now, how does this involve the monster? A recently released Japanese online manga tie-in (said to be the first issue of four) follows the story of Kishin, a Japanese boy who, along with his mother, has something to do with the monster. Simultaneously, we’re shown a cargo ship at sea pulling something chained to the back; we don’t seen exactly what’s being pulled until the last panel when a pair eyes emerges from the water. The ship bears the Targuato logo. (Cloverfield Clues has an English translation; Wired also has coverage.)
So, that ship could be pulling the “Coverfield” monster OR possibly its mother. According to the film’s production notes, Abrams claims that “Clover” is a baby who’s been “down there in the water for thousands and thousands of years.” In the film, it’s insinuated that the confused, frightened monster sprung up from New York Harbor (hence, its first target, The Statue of Liberty) where it either overturned an oil tanker or was disturbed by a capsized oiler tank. According to Cloverfield News, the oil tanker looks like it too bears the Targuato logo.
According to FSR, director Matt Reeves revealed to them that in the final scene with Rob and Beth on the ferris wheel at Coney Island a month before the monster attack, something can be seen splashing into the water behind them. (The clue was to “Watch the skies, my friends. Watch the skies.”). Speculation is that this was the monster either falling into the water, or just splashing around in it. (See image just below at right of the splash in the water.)
But, if the monster was down in the water for thousands of years already, how could it have fallen from the sky? Another theory is that it could be the rogue piece that recently fell off the Japanese government’s “ChimpanzIII” satellite. Why? Because according to the Tagruato Web site, coincidentally, Tagruato scientists and engineers are working on tracking down the missing piece which disappeared into the Atlantic Ocean (the Targuato site is currently “down for maintenance”). Perhaps the fallen satellite is what disturbed the monster’s slumber. Also, according to Cloverfield Ending Credits, the main ingredient for Slusho is found at the satellite deep ocean dropzone and that while searching for satellite and ingredients, Targuato woke the Cloverfield monster. The main ingredient of Slusho apparently has the power to turn a tiny fish into a huge whale (explains the monster’s size) and since deep sea creatures naturally have very high heat resistance, this is why the monster was unaffected by the military bomb attacks.
Whatever the cause, the skyscraper-sized monster is awake now and seemly impervious to military assaults. The filmmakers realized that because of the monster’s size and strength, there’d be no way for the human characters to have intimate contact and combat with it. That’s where all those smaller spider/crab-like parasites come in. If the monster started out as a baby with maybe microscopic parasites on it, it would make sense that if the monster grew to a much larger size, so would the parasites. Apparently, once the monster tore into the city, it was able to remove these pests from its body by rubbing its back against a building, thereby setting the fast-paced and now very vicious parasites free to ravage the citizens of New York City.
And here’s where we get into the super-unknown territory. While we know that the monster is just scared and hungry, chomping away on the tiny little humans, what we don’t know is what the parasites are out for. Typically, a parasite will attach itself and live off a larger organism. In the film, the parasites are smaller than the humans and are attacking by biting. Perhaps they are just blood-sucking parasites? There’s no evidence that they enter the human bodies and take over their new host. Either way, the affects of their attack on the humans is unexplained. Soon after Marlena, one of the main characters, is bitten, she begins bleeding from the eyes and then it seems like her stomach explodes (the audience doesn’t get to see this up close, since Marlena is behind a tarp when this happens and only the outline of her body is shown).
Why don’t we see the gore? In case you didn’t know, Cloverfield is filmed from the perspective of Hud, Rob’s best friend, who was tasked with the recording of Rob’s going-away party. It’s Hud, who, armed with a handycam, captures the Statue of Liberty’s head crashing onto the street in front of their building. From there, Hud and Rob, along with their friends Marlena, Lily, and Jason, attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge during a mandatory evacuation of New York City. Rob then receives a phone call from the woman he loves, Beth, who’s injured and trapped in her apartment in midtown — the opposite direction of the evacuation route. That’s when the group decides to turn back to rescue Beth. Their journey — interspersed with footage of the monster’s rampaging — is all captured by Hud’s shaky video camera work, which is why certain aspects of the film are left to the audience’s imagination.
Where does Coney Island come in? Rob’s brother Jason took Rob’s video camera to use at the party, but never put in a new tape. (Why Rob would have a camera that still requires tape is quite interesting, considering the camera seems to have a very high battery life as well as night vision of all things!) Hud was inadvertently recording over footage taken a month prior when Rob and Beth spent the day together. (Rob had always been in love with Beth, but they had been “just friends” until that day when, unbeknownst to their friends, they slept together, then spent the next day having fun in Coney Island). This is why the old footage of Rob and Beth will periodically appear on screen and why the movie ends with the couple on the ferris wheel.
What happened to the monster, the parasites, and the rest of the city? Reports from movie-goers are that if you stay until the movie’s end credits, you can hear someone say “Help us.” This could mean that Rob and Beth, who at the end were trapped under a bridge in Central Park after the military bombed it, could still be alive. Also, it’s said that if you play the audio backward, you can hear someone say, “It’s still alive,” which could mean that the Cloverfield monster is still alive.
As far as the humans go, even if Rob and Beth didn’t survive, Lily was evacuated by military helicopter and last we saw, she survived. We know from the beginning of the movie that the reason we’re seeing this film is because some time after the attack the tape was retrieved. But, we also know that the morning after the attack, the military was going to destroy NYC if they couldn’t defeat the monster. Since the bridge in Central Park where Rob and Beth were hiding under gets bombed by the military that morning, it can be assumed that Manhattan is destroyed. OR, perhaps, since the monster conveniently showed up in Central Park, maybe the military was able to kill the monster and maybe even save Rob and Beth.
Judging by the tape’s survival and the new pictures that were posted on the film’s official site, either the monster was defeated or it gave up the attack and left the city. (I think it’s the latter.) One photo from the site shows a man in a small boat floating in bloodied water; another shows the bloody, bitten into carcass of a whale or some other sea creature. (See the images here after left; click for larger view.)
So, with a film this successful, what about the inevitable sequel? B-D spoke with director Matt Reeves, who said, “Only time will tell. While we were on set making the film we talked about the possibilities and directions of how a sequel can go. The fun of this movie was that it might not have been the only movie being made that night, there might be another movie! In today’s day and age of people filming their lives on their iphones and handy cams, uploading it to youtube”¦That was kind of exciting thinking about that.” So, if there’s a sequel, it might be chronicling the same events, but through the lens of another person’s perspective.
It’s obvious, though, that this is not the last we’ve seen of Cloverfield.
[Image Source: Unfiction forum]**UPDATE: I knew about the videos at jamieandteddy.com [password: jllovesth], but wasn’t sure how they were involved. Now that I’ve watched them all, I can tell you that the site is run by Jamie Lascano — she was the drunken, passed out girl on the couch at the party. A few months ago, she fell in love with Teddy and started posting video messages online to him. As of today (1/24/08), there are 11 videos posted. We see that after the first few videos that Teddy has stopped calling Jamie or and hasn’t been answering her messages. We find out that Teddy has been investigating the Tagruato corporation and their drilling operations. He was able to get some of Slusho’s secret ingredient and send it to Jamie, marked “Primary Evidence — Jamie, don’t eat this” (Video #5). In a recording, Teddy tells Jamie that if she receives his message, that means that he’s been abducted by Tagruato. Unfortunately, Jamie, thinking it’s Teddy’s way of dumping her, does not heed the warning and proceeds to eat some the evidence (Video #8). The remaining videos shows Jamie, who still doesn’t believe Teddy’s story, acting strangely, seemingly affected by what she ate. The last video (#11) has Jamie getting ready to go to “this thing that Lily put together” — obviously referring to Rob’s going away party, the same night of the attack.
UPDATE 2/2/02: Geeks of Doom now has a video clip where the monster is revealed!!! Watch the clip in our post titled Clip: “˜Cloverfield’ Monster Revealed!
Paramount’s Cloverfield broke the box office record for best January opening ever, earning an estimated $46 million this holiday weekend. Not so shocking since the J.J. Abrams-produced monster flick was probably the most anticipated film to be released in a month known for its poor box office returns. What is shocking is that special-effects-filled film was made for a mere $25 million, though, that’s not counting all the money spent all its well-known viral marketing campaign.
What do all these viral sites have to do with the New York-based Cloverfield? Well, as it turns out, main character Rob revealed a few weeks ago on 
And here’s where we get into the super-unknown territory. While we know that the monster is just scared and hungry, chomping away on the tiny little humans, what we don’t know is what the parasites are out for. Typically, a parasite will attach itself and live off a larger organism. In the film, the parasites are smaller than the humans and are attacking by biting. Perhaps they are just blood-sucking parasites? There’s no evidence that they enter the human bodies and take over their new host. Either way, the affects of their attack on the humans is unexplained. Soon after Marlena, one of the main characters, is bitten, she begins bleeding from the eyes and then it seems like her stomach explodes (the audience doesn’t get to see this up close, since Marlena is behind a tarp when this happens and only the outline of her body is shown).
Why don’t we see the gore? In case you didn’t know, Cloverfield is filmed from the perspective of Hud, Rob’s best friend, who was tasked with the recording of Rob’s going-away party. It’s Hud, who, armed with a handycam, captures the Statue of Liberty’s head crashing onto the street in front of their building. From there, Hud and Rob, along with their friends Marlena, Lily, and Jason, attempt to cross the Brooklyn Bridge during a mandatory evacuation of New York City. Rob then receives a phone call from the woman he loves, Beth, who’s injured and trapped in her apartment in midtown — the opposite direction of the evacuation route. That’s when the group decides to turn back to rescue Beth. Their journey — interspersed with footage of the monster’s rampaging — is all captured by Hud’s shaky video camera work, which is why certain aspects of the film are left to the audience’s imagination.
Excellent article. I am very curious about the origins, now that you linked this all together.
Comment by Jerry — January 22, 2008 @ 10:16 am
Thanks for this piece, It filled in a lot of holes in the movie.
Comment by Grim Santo — January 22, 2008 @ 11:38 am
it’s all marketing, and yet when sitting there watching it all unfold…i was bored
Comment by sir jorge — January 22, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
I’m pretty sure that in the first scene that says video recovered, cloverfield, yada yada, it says SD card retrieved, meaning it was a flash camcorder, which would have night vision (because the newer camcorders are moving to miniDV, Flash, or Harddrive. And as explained in the imdb FAQ, the battery isn’t extremely long, the tape is presented as is, Hud turned off and on the camera throughout the movie, the only scenes of Cooney Island is when Hud starts futzing with the video already recorded.
Comment by J — January 22, 2008 @ 4:39 pm
No one has taken into consideration the stuff about the little girl that became the “Littlest whale” after finding the sea nectar mentioned on the slusho site. Could she be the Monster? and could she have come to new york looking for her brother, the japanese VP that started the company?
Comment by j — January 22, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Rob’s brother’s name was Jason, not James.
[ED NOTE: Thanks, Jason! Fixed it in the article.]
Comment by Jason — January 22, 2008 @ 5:14 pm
I wanted to love the movie, but when you leave this much out of a movie it isn’t enjoyable to watch. I pay to go see a movie and be entertained, not come up with my own ending and back story.
Comment by c — January 22, 2008 @ 5:53 pm
@sirjorge:
I couldn’t imagine how anyone could be bored at this film—I was yelling for crying out loud. Then I went to your web site and saw that your favorite book is the Virgin Suicides. I’m so sorry—I won’t disturb your ennui.
Comment by ruzel — January 22, 2008 @ 6:03 pm
What i want to know about is, about a third of the way through the movie a Japanese man running past hud starts rambling to him in Japanese. All hud says is that he doesn’t understand and keeps going, but i’m willing to bet he said something relevant. Translation anywhere?
[ED NOTE: One translations have the man screaming in dutch “Don’t go that way. Many big smaller Monsters are coming.” while another has him screaming in Russian “The water/ice-God from the north has returned, they cannot kill it with fire, go back go back…“]
Comment by Thermos — January 22, 2008 @ 6:04 pm
@J (with a capital):
Yes, you’re right, the intro did have “SD Digital” or something like that written. BUT, during the party when Rob is feeling down about Beth, Hud comes over with the camera and Rob asks him if he switched “the tape” and he says “tape” a few times. And even though Hud turned the camera on and off, I still have a hard time believing the battery didn’t die sooner, since camcorders typically have shitty battery lives.
Comment by Empress Eve — January 22, 2008 @ 6:16 pm
The opening shot says the video was recorded to an SD card. I actually find that harder to believe than it recording onto a miniDV tape…A miniDV tape’s standard play is 60minutes while Long Play gets up to 90 minutes, enough to fit the entire movie.
Old VHS Camcorders even have nightvision.
Raw video footage is HUGE in terms of file size, nearly 90 minutes of video isn’t fitting on any currently available SD card unless it’s highly compressed, thus horrible sound and video, which obviously the movie isn’t (and the movie would suck if it felt like I was streaming it off of youtube haha)
It’s more beleiveable that it would be miniDV (which is standard video now) than straight digital to SD because of the Coney Island footage mixing in. Anyone who’s ever worked with miniDV and starting and stopping tape and turning the camera on and off, while recording over already used tape, you begin to have breaks in time code and the old video will cut in.
So the battery is believable because the tape is presented as is, meaning it didn’t run for the full 7 hours of time that events took place over (obviously, because the film is only 90 minutes long) Your battery life exceeds that of the tape’s capacity.
Again, which makes it more beleivable that they used tape, not SD. I think they used SD just to sound techy and cool to be honest.
Comment by Dan — January 22, 2008 @ 6:30 pm
My idea is that the ingredient in Slusho is wanted by the monster and the parasites.
Hence the exploding of stomaches.
Comment by Zac — January 22, 2008 @ 7:05 pm
“Why Rob would have a camera that still requires tape is quite interesting, considering the camera seems to have a very high battery life as well as night vision of all things!”
Right. Clearly the report of an SD card in the opening titles was a poorly thought-out mistake. On the other hand – my old-ass miniDV handheld has night-vision and a 5 hour battery.
Comment by Jeff — January 22, 2008 @ 7:45 pm
Yeah, the SD at the beginning was probably a mistake. If you record video on a card (coney island trip) and then a month later record more video (surprise party) it would use whatever empty space is left on the card. It wouldn’t record over video. That only happens on tape.
Comment by Chris Hallbeck — January 22, 2008 @ 11:20 pm
Dan:
You find that it was recorded to SD hard to believe but you seem to suspend disbelief regarding a monster ravaging NYC. Let’s get our priorities straight here. ;)
Comment by Joseph — January 22, 2008 @ 11:32 pm
has anyone thought of the fact that it may have been re-recorded onto the sd card by the military instead of playing it on a tape or mini dv or a Hi8 which i have that runs a 120min tape and has nightvision (thank you sony… just a thought…
Comment by Kyle — January 23, 2008 @ 3:10 am
Is it possible (I don’t remember who had possession of the tape) that they converted it from a tape to a SD card? Seeing that tapes can easily get ruined via eaten alive by a VCR or whatever else.
Comment by Steve — January 23, 2008 @ 9:11 am
viral marketing or not … i still need to see this movie …
why is everybody hung up on a SDcard …
there other bigger plot holes in other movies …
some time deliberate ones …
Comment by subcorpus — January 23, 2008 @ 10:00 am
@ Kyle and Steve
I was going to say the same thing. Why couldn’t it have been put on an SD card after the fact?
Comment by Jesse Jarzynka — January 23, 2008 @ 12:03 pm
The video was shot on a miniDV camera, then transferred to an SD card by the government because tapes degrade over time and with multiple playbacks. Remember that we’re watching the secret government archive footage, not the actual videotape.
Whoever said they can’t fit 90 minutes of video on an SD card is dead wrong. I’ve got an 8GB SDHC card that holds over an hour of uncompressed video on my Canon TX1. They already have a 16GB SDHC card out and the 32GB version is coming soon.
Comment by SJQchill — January 23, 2008 @ 12:15 pm
The dude mentioned above is rambling in Russian.
Comment by gk — January 23, 2008 @ 12:49 pm
Just wanted to say that the images that show “the bloody, bitten into carcass of a whale or some other sea creature”, look to be in fact, parts of the monster. The center piece looks like a tentacle, the one on the left looks like it has spikes on it…
Plus, another image on the 1-18-08 website shows jets/boats attacking something in the water, meaning that it may have moved back out to sea…
Comment by ThePeriodMan — January 23, 2008 @ 3:27 pm
Another quick note…
The time the movie begins is 6:42 A.M. at Beth’s place. At the end When Rob makes his confession to the camera with Beth it is 6:42 P.M. Interesting.
Comment by cekma — January 23, 2008 @ 3:43 pm
This movie is great! I was a upset about some of the 911 insinuations when I first saw it but later realized the genius behind it. I also think the onine “viral marketing” that gives you some background is possibly the best story-telling idea since the invention of the letter A. However, I beg the creators of this fine work, PLEASE TO NOT MAKE THE SEQUAL ANOTHER FIRST PERSON VIDEO FROM THE SAME TIME. That, while cute as an intellectual idea, is a terrible idea in practice. Be creative, make it “unfiction.” But please, don’t rehash the same hours. In the next move, we need to actually learn somethign about the monster.
Comment by Dan — January 24, 2008 @ 12:35 am
the carcass on the beach are from whales. Specifically the sperm whale. The one on the top left is “looking” our way. It’s mouth is open (btw, it is laying on its right side) the “horn” is its flipper and it has a huge bite out of its side. here is a link to one that had beached itself:
http://www.whoi.edu/oceanus/viewImage.do?id=10069&aid=4720
They are whales that were obviously bitten and munched on by Clovey and got washed ashore.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 24, 2008 @ 1:39 am
Plus you have the whole “jamie and teddy” thing,
you see her passed out on the sofa for like 2 mins in the film
and Teddy was working for targuato or something?
and he sent her that stuff he told her not to eat…
but she ¬¬
so….
maybe the second cloverfield movie will be from his perspective,
because teddy was trying to stop targuato
but they kidnapped him.
and before the site was hacked?
maybe this was teddy?”
what she ate was the deep sea ingredient?
i think if its from there point of the story in number two…
obviously we’ll find out more about the monsters origins…
etc etc…
Comment by MontyMoo — January 24, 2008 @ 2:44 am
[ED NOTE: One translations have the man screaming in dutch “Don’t go that way. Many big smaller Monsters are coming.†while another has him screaming in Russian “The water/ice-God from the north has returned, they cannot kill it with fire, go back go back…“]
Seriously guys, stop guessing, its not dutch, dutch people ( like myself ) in new york are ALWAYS near-native in english, i cant believe a countryman of mine would speak dutch, more probable is russian or czech as said before and he was ranting about not being able to live without his family, but we cant sya for sure, since the movie still hasent aired in the whole world, only USA till now, so be patient till someone native gets the word out.
Comment by mike — January 24, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Hello! What makes you think that the Military is going to keep that on the tape it was found on? Don’t you think they would have the capacity to pull it to a computer? The “video” was probably smuggled out or something, and it was maybe pulled to an SD card? I can’t believe I’m getting pulled into this discussion, but jeez, think about it.
Comment by Kabong30 — January 24, 2008 @ 10:00 am
Hey disregard my previous as someone had already said it and I missed it. Sorry, guys.
Comment by Kabong30 — January 24, 2008 @ 10:01 am
Listen guys u r sitting there talking about the sd card true it could have formatted by the military but think about how long it could have been buried maybe from 1998 to 2007 it could be anything and also think its says camera found at site “cloverfield” which means that central park is known as cloverfield not the monster the only reason why jj abrams said that was to give the monster a name but also everything makes sense also the monster is still alive and the other thing @ the end of the movie could be something has found us
Comment by simon — January 24, 2008 @ 11:09 am
Ok, the intro text is:
DIGITAL SD CARD
MULTIPLE SIGHTS OF CASE DESIGNATE
“CLOVERFIELD”
The next scene has the text:
CAMERA RETRIEVED AT INCIDENT SITE “US-447”
AREA FORMERLY KNOWN AS “CENTRAL PARK”
Therefore, we know that the camera was retrieved (that camera and the tape should be smashed to pieces, but whatever), and that the film we are seeing is being played from an SD card, BUT, that doesn’t mean that the original footage was on an SD card.
Also, @Simon: the Central Park site was not being referred to as “Cloverfield,” that’s the name of the case file. Abrams doesn’t call the monster “Cloverfield”; that was just the fake name for the project to avoid leaks, but the name stuck after people started calling it that after that unnamed teaser in front of Transformers. The production team calls the monster “Clover,” but that’s their in-house nickname for it. It has no official name.
Comment by Empress Eve — January 24, 2008 @ 11:28 am
are you sure that what woke up the monster was not Tagruato itself? drilling all the time and such? deep ocean drilling? i don’t know, it just seemed to fit that Tagruato’s drilling would’ve woken up the monster, not a flimsy piece of a satellite falling into the ocean. and also, how could the special ingredient of slusho supersize the monster when the ingredient comes from the monster itself?
Comment by shaun — January 24, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Awesome collection of all the spoiler bits!
Comment by Randy — January 24, 2008 @ 4:43 pm
Whether the monster was a unique creature, created by accident or design, the Slusho ingredient is definitely central. We should look into a link between Targuato and Slusho.
Comment by NinjaPenguin — January 24, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
Not sure if this has been answered, and it may be obvious. But, what is the explosion when all the people are on the roof, Military, satellite??? It appears to go off quite a distance away yet they hit with the remnants of the explosion.
Comment by PB — January 24, 2008 @ 6:44 pm
Seeing as how the camera and tape should have been smashed to pieces it makes even more sense that the military would have to transfer its contents to another format (IE: an SD Card)
Also since it says AREA FORMERLY KNOWN AS “CENTRAL PARK†it’s safe to assume that at the very least Central Park was completely destroyed and possibly Manhattan as a whole
It would be interesting to see a sequel revolved around Lilly after she escaped on that 1st helicopter and/or that Jamie chick who drank that stuff and I guess started to turn into a monster or something
Another idea could be the military’s point of view through all this
Comment by Fenriz — January 24, 2008 @ 7:17 pm
Just so everyone knows, because i see this issue popping up a lot over this movie- the video camera thing IS NOT IMPOSSIBLE! Go to your local Best Buy and do five minutes of research, for crying out loud.
Lesson: Many camcorders record on miniDV (digital tape). It is a very efficient, high quality form of recording. The camcorders cost about 200-300 dollars. Every Sony Camcorder, and many other brands have a NightVision feature included on them. As for the battery life- 90 bucks gets you a 6.5 hour battery for a Sony Handycam.
So, please people, quit speaking up about the far-farfetchedness of the handycam capabilities when you have no clue what youre talking about. Thanks!
Comment by CJ — January 24, 2008 @ 8:53 pm
Fantastic movie from start to finish. I hope there is a sequal but it won’t deminish my excitement of Cloverfield. Great websites and spoilers and Youtube stuff. The whole experiance was what helped make this movie as great as it is. Suspend belief and don’t worry about the holes…. like what a nuclear explosion would do to VCR tape and SD card…. Just enjoy the ride!
Comment by Jeff Mason — January 24, 2008 @ 9:02 pm
The explosion they witnessed from the beginning was the oil tanker that had capsized off not far from the statue of liberty.
Comment by Ako — January 24, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
I like the satellite theory.
What I don’t understand is that if Slusho was made from the stuff they found around the Satellite crash site, how did it become so popular in a month?
Comment by Vasquez — January 24, 2008 @ 11:12 pm
I have a Cannon Elura camcorder that is a relatively cheap camera that uses mini DV AND has an SD card slot. The standard, included battery lasts 2 hours and it records in widescreen. I see no problems with the camera issue.
Comment by GK — January 24, 2008 @ 11:42 pm
Ok…all VERY interesting viewpoints on the film! I just want to add my 2 cents on the whole camcorder/sd card thing… CJ is right. I have a Sony Hanycam, with night vision, that takes Digital 8 film. Batteries can be bought that have upwords of 6-7 hours of recording time, as well as tapes that take 2 hours of video, maybe more. (I have only had ones that take 2 hrs) MY point is the SD card. I recently purchased an RCA Small Wonder video camera. It’s the size of a small digital camera, (even smaller) and takes AA batteries. It has an hour of internal memory, and with a 2G SD card, is able to take 4 more hours of video, for a total of 5 hours. I use the new litheum batteries, which get about 5-7 hours of recording on this camera. (Should be 7.5, but it’s NEVER what they say…lol) But I have gotten 4 + hours so far, and they still have juice.
So, for all the ney-sayers, no issue with WHATEVER they used!..lol. Have a GREAT day!! :o)
Comment by PLS — January 25, 2008 @ 1:38 am
As of right now, there’s only one thing bothering me: What’s with the reaction to the parasite bites?
As it was seen in the movie, the medics stated that they had “another bite victim” as they carted away a man whose chest was somehow burst open. Afterwards, we saw Marlena explode behind the haz-mat tarp. My theory is that the bites cause either rapid cellular growth or inject a venom that quickly converts to gas which expands inside the victim. Parasites tend to live off of host organisms, so I wonder if opening the chest cavity of its “hosts” might be a way for them to lay eggs inside or something.
Theories? Comments?
Comment by Twiggy — January 25, 2008 @ 8:00 am
My personal take on the parasites were that the bites must contain some sort of hyperactive anticoagulant that caused the people to explode. They were attached to a huge deep sea creature which survives the pressures of the ocean and does not seem easily harmed by weapons. They would need a way to puncture and draw off blood like real parasites do.
Comment by biz — January 25, 2008 @ 8:55 am
AKO: thanks for the explosion answer. Now my take on the whole thing if the japanese cartoon related and translated to be the “prequel” to the movie has the tagruato boat tugging something behind it with eyes. The monster was already at sea level, it broke free from the chains behind the boat, destroyed the boat in the harbor next to the statue of liberty: the partygoers see the expolosion. The monster rips the head off the statue of liberty and tosses it, and we all know the rest. My take probably covered already, but it sheds some light on it for me anyways. Parasites: i really did not feel it added anything to the movie, very scary, but, was more of a nuisance and provided some shock factor, but, could of done without that.
Comment by PB — January 25, 2008 @ 10:58 am
I thing the movie was flippin’ great. The 2nd and 3rd time i saw ir i had to take dramamine. The thing falling in the water at the end is awsome once you see it. Now at the end of the movie it says “Stills provided by “king kong” “them” and “the beast from 20,000 fathoms” i did not notice any still in the actual movie. there are a few scenes where the camera flashes very quickly when it is knocked around.It seems like there are images layered when the camera gets knocked around. very quickly. less than a second almost. right at the beggining the sign for “dharma initiative” from lost flashes for a milla-second at the right bottom corner. can anyone check into this?
Comment by yodafish — January 25, 2008 @ 1:50 pm
HUD wasn’t recording for the full 7 hours you guys. The taped recording started with the mornign wake up and goes into the day at Coney Island. the party got recorded over that footage. The “tape” was played from beginning to end, so we saw the entire tape. That said, unless you guys went to a special screening that I missed that had a 7 hour movie, then I don’t see how any of you can argue about battery or tape length, it was just shy of 1 and 1/2 hours, that is all. This is one issue I wanted to stay away from but I can’t anymore. It got turned off and back on all night. if there was a time display during the whole thing we would have had better sense of hwo much time it took to get from an on-off period, but geez you guys, just like someone said ealier – THINK. Nothing was edited from the tape (supposedly, but that just then goes into conspiracy theories), HUD recorded 84 minutes of footage that got found and played back.
ALSO:
Cell batteries come precharged (not fully) but enough to at least go around a bit to go home and fully charge it.
Now, let’s try to actually discuss things that can move our enjoyment of this new franchise further rather than trying to break it and make it bad. Why find things wrong with it. There are things wrong with Michaelangelo’s David, and the Pyramids are Just not quite tall enough for the base they calculated, but who cares, there are things wrong with lots of things out there. But did you enjoy it? Did it scare you? Did this experience make you think about what you would do if you happened to have a camera when something horriffic comes to town? Do you love anyone enough to risk everything to save her/him? Is someone not a friend enough that you wouldn’t go with him to help him save her?
People say there is no plot, but there was no typical Hollywood formula plot is what you mean. You are the ones who want to be spoon-fed everything. God forbid a plot go from A to B and skip C. No one said yo uhad to like these characters. They just happen to be the ones on the tape that shows the best firsthand account at the time.
ALSO:
JJ put this out as the first intro to this new monster franchise. it is supposed to whet our appetites. He WILL go into origins etc. He will make a normal camera shot film next. but he wanted to wow us with this unique perspective on how you get introduced to something.
If it was your typical “we see everything” movie and know all about the thing, where is the fun?
I can’t wait to see you guys pick apart Speed Racer.
Just like with Star Wars Ep 1, all the naysayers couldn’t wait to see 2 or 3 before tearing apart the intro. we had to build Anakin before he fell to the dark side.
Like it matters, because no one will care about a single thing I’ve said here, but I could not just sit back anymore. So let the negative remarks fly at me if you want, but seriously, the camera nor its battery were running the full 7 hours of the attack, only the 84 minutes that you saw on the screen.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 25, 2008 @ 8:00 pm
Dingoboy I couldn’t agree with you more. This was one of the most unique films I’ve seen in a damn long time; the whole first-person camera take and the “flashbacks” of the time gaps due to filming over the tape put me on the edge of my seat the whole movie.
I didn’t even realize this whole vast viral marketing shebang that was in play for months and I watched the movie with NO expecatations whatsoever and was completely blown away. For God’s sake there was a massive lump in my throat all the way up to the bridge scene in Central Park. This movie made me lose sleep for cryin out loud, as dumb as it sounds.
You guys need to stop conspiring over battery life and actually let the story sink in. Those plot holes were put in there to provoke thought and to put you in a state of shock ’till the next movie comes out. As Dingoboy said, it was to whet our appetites.
BUT I really want to see Hawkins and Beth make it out alive, even if the second movie is a normal cam shot one. I got so drawn into the characters because of the movie’s approach and I can’t stop thinking about it
Comment by Aldebaran — January 25, 2008 @ 10:14 pm
Funny enough, JJ Abrams office is on a street called Cloverfield. :D
Comment by AFG — January 26, 2008 @ 12:34 am
@AFG
Yes, word has it that J.J.’s office address is exactly the reason Codename: Cloverfield first came about.
Comment by Dave3 — January 26, 2008 @ 12:59 am
The original name for the film was “Greyshot”. They were supposed to announce that at Comic-Con but the whole “Cloverfield” temporary title got leaked and so they ran with it.
No need to debate this. It’s fact from that Cloverfield Clues site.
Comment by Mike — January 26, 2008 @ 2:05 am
what date is the movie set to. Is it May 23
Comment by Joseph — January 26, 2008 @ 2:06 am
I liked the movie, and followed the viral marketing campaigns a bit, too – moreso AFTER watching the movie, actually. But I do have to say one thing: “original” isn’t a word I’d use to describe this movie. Blair Witch Project, Godzilla, and Aliens – put them in a blender. Cloverfield is born. Not that there’s anything wrong with that… I’m just saying. Again, I think it was a good movie, I enjoyed it very much. I personally don’t think a sequel is a good idea but I’d be more than happy to be proved wrong with a successful and creative approach to that.
Comment by david — January 26, 2008 @ 3:58 am
Ok For the last 6 months ive been trying to figure out what goes down in the movie. and With help of geekofdoom i have a good starting point.
1. Camera: it was Data transfer from tape to digital. simple done no more about it
2.The Bugs: i think when they bite someone they get a super high concentrate of what ever they put in Slusho, Like Over Dosing. The quote from the Slusho site kinda lead me in that direction.
3.The Ingredient: Tagruato was Drilling for oil and came across this stuff and found that its pretty much a drug; lots of energy tastes good and highly addictive. so they made a sister company Slusho to produce it and became the top seller for said reasons.
4. Monster: Im not sure but my best idea that When Tagruato Found the ingredient and deep sea creature got in to it and grew huge along with the parasites that was on it.
5. Videos: Ok first off that bitch needs to get a clue. when a box has a tape saying im pretty much dead. you might need to take it serious. Not much given in there but this. The Stuff In the drink all bad. it was like she was on crack and a half. though she dose not say but im pretty sure she ate all of it. Her Boyfriend is with tidowave trying to expose tagruato. Which is weird cause the main guy was heading out to japan to work for Slusho. And i might be wrong but there was a few times during the Interview somebody asked about Teddy and were he was. could be wrong.
As for another movie. im not sure there will be a second more traditional movie, with something like this it would take away from what the original was meant for. but there might be informational videos, Like Army Briefing or Stuff from Tidowave people
Comment by Geoff — January 26, 2008 @ 4:05 am
totally agree with Aldebaran and Dingoboy, i watched the movie because my friend introduced to me, if not i had totally no clue of this movie’s existence at all! (and needless to say, i am totally NOOB about these online stuffs that my friend later on told me had been going on since June ’07. LOL.)
Cheers to everybody who thoroughly sat back and enjoyed the movie just like i did!
AND I REALLY CANT WAIT FOR ITS SEQUEL!! ( i reckon to let the director decides his next surprise for us. :) )
Comment by melanie — January 26, 2008 @ 5:50 am
Apparently when you click on the picture of the bear, you need a password.
Does anyone know this password?
[ED NOTE: password: jllovesth – it’s in the article right after the URL.]
Comment by Bryan — January 26, 2008 @ 1:51 pm
Anyone else wondering about the Slusho slogan “can’t have less than SIX?” why SIX?
Comment by Less than 6 — January 26, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
It was an SD Flash Memory Card, not a cassette, like the DoD title card said. Most digital camcorder tend to use DVDs or MiniDV cassettes, though SD Cards are probably the most popular camera cards in the world.
@Geoff; who did the transfer? The DoD title card specifically says they found an SD card, not a tape. What are the chances that randomly falling debris would go through the menu options to transfer the video to an SD card? What are the odds that the average SD card would even be able to *hold* the whole video?
Comment by Jonn Wood — January 26, 2008 @ 11:33 pm
I’m convinced now after having seen it for the second time, that there were at least 2 of the big monsters. because the coloration of the one the last moments Hud gets is different from the pale white one that is hit with the bombs when they are in the chopper. And the white one’s face was longer and pointed more like a snout and its teeth shot more forward. the one in the Park that “kisses†Hud, had a flat face, more fish-like and its teeth were more like those deep-sea angler fish with the long needle teeth. And that one had definite gills on the side of its face, but the white one had a smooth skin almost salamander-like, no gills. Can anyone else who is going to go see it again try to keep an eye out for the differences?
Also I did definitely see the falling object at the end, so yes something does indeed fall into the ocean those weeks prior to the attack. i thought it landed in the water near the boat, but it lands right at the horizon, the path is directly above the boat and to it left.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 27, 2008 @ 12:39 am
Great site btw!
One thing i have realized after reading info for hours, is that you know how Marlena’s stomach explodes, well when they first enter that department store being used as a hospital, you see a troop being wheeled past with his stomach exploded (obviously dead).
Ok, that’s obvious, BUT!
Slusho!’s website says many times that ‘Slusho will make you stomach explode with happiness!’, also on the adds on the slusho.jp site, the man’s stomach is brought to life (well kinda – take a look :P).
Comment by LYNX — January 27, 2008 @ 1:24 am
The Jamie girl from those videos is in a picture with Hud and Rob on the 01-18-08 website. She mentions Marlena in the first video, and, well, that’s about all from that vid. There is so much to this.
ALSO!!!!!!! The guy speaking in that weird language? He is specifically referred to in the credits as “Russian Guy”. SO, he’s speaking Russian, not Japanese or Dutch.
Comment by ChristianH — January 27, 2008 @ 3:00 am
did anyone else see the Dharma symbol pop up for 1 sec on the intro text?
Comment by bMarc — January 27, 2008 @ 3:19 am
Also… Surviving a helicopter crash from that far up.. and being the only 3 survivors is a joke!
Comment by bMarc — January 27, 2008 @ 3:24 am
i was just checking out the “happy talk” section on the slusho website. a few of the random quote could be clues like:
“she’s one of them.” – maybe thats a reference to marlena once she was bitten by one of the parasites?
there was also another a quote, i didnt get it word for word but it said something along the lines of “Slusho makes my tummy explode with happy” – maybe when the parastes bite they release the ocean nectar making peoples tummies to explode?
also from the slusho website there are plenty of references of it being a high energy source and happy and since jamie tried some she was energised.
more happy talk quotes have references like “i no longer fidget with sadness” and “bryan happy, slusho happy, everybody happy” whats with all the happy references?
by the way who is bryan?
okay im rambling and looking into things too much now but but i think the slusho needs more exploring. who’s thirsty!
“slusho the world” is another happy talk quote. could that be a sequel hint or perhaps clovy may keep going?
Comment by drjeep — January 27, 2008 @ 5:23 am
another interesting point that hasn’t been touched on is the apparent “missing 6 minutes” of the film. The running time of the movie is 1 hour 24 minutes (or 84 minutes) the tapes usualy hold 90 minutes. Maybe it didnt record the full length of the tape. -or- as I believe there are 6 minutes missing that wil either end up on the DVD release or elsewhere… thoughts?
Comment by bill — January 27, 2008 @ 1:30 pm
At the news station I work at I use the Cannon XL1s camera with Mini DV tapes and the tapes that we have Last about 95 mins. And the little cameras that we have, have battery packs that last about 2 and a half hours. Also the little cameras that we have, have night vision and all the other effects that he uses in the movie.
So I think that it would make sense that they use mini DV, but I’m not sure what the whole thing in the beginning about the SD card is about.
Comment by Jeremy — January 27, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Also, if you go to the character’s myspace profiles, All of their “Last login” Dates are set for 1-18-08.
I also Found it surprising that They have such few friends, and their blogs haven’t been commented at all.
Comment by Jeremy — January 27, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
I noticed in your synopsis that you didn’t include the ending scene at Conney Island. About how if you look closely at the background, you can see that satellite that falls into the water and “awakes the beast.” The story behind that is, that the Satellite that falls is one of the satellites that belongs to “Slusho” the company that Rob is going to Japan To work for.
Someone May have already commented this, but there are too many to read through.
[ED NOTE: The information about Coney Island is indeed included in this article along with a photo.]
Comment by Josh — January 27, 2008 @ 5:11 pm
drjeep, don’t look too closely at the Happy Talk quotes because they are from anyone who sends in a quote. When you give Feedback to the site it asks, “Slusho! happy, are you HAPPY? Tell Slusho! RIGHT NOW!” and that part of the site is called “your” Happy Talk. But whoever wrote “she is one of them” might be referring to Noriko Yoshida, the woman who first went to find the seabed necter and never returned (read the History section).
Also, to bill, the missing 6 minutes might be what is during the credits and when the added music ends we then hear a final audio of (in reverse) “it’s still alive”, without the music it is probably mostly silent for that 6 minutes of the credits. Just a thought for your missing minutes.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 27, 2008 @ 7:15 pm
really filled in all the holes, thanks
Comment by Kyle — January 27, 2008 @ 8:41 pm
this website definetly covered a lot of questions about the movie. im not sure if anyone had previously brought this up, but when I saw the movie the only thing that really puzzled me was when hud looked up at the monster at the end it seemed much smaller than it was when they were viewing the monster from the chopper. any thoughts?
Comment by defconn — January 27, 2008 @ 10:20 pm
John Wood…and anyone else….this shouldn’t matter..it’s a MOVIE. A good movie…but again, here we go.
There is NO PROBLEM getting the 83 minutes on an SD card. I own an RCA Small Wonder video cam that, with an 2G SD card, (on lower quality) can tape up to 5 HOURS of video…2 1/2 hours on high quality. So 83 minutes would be no issue. And it takes 2 AA batteries. Those new litheum batteries are great. I have gotten appoximately 5 hours of use so far, and there is no sign of them dying yet. And wheteher or not it was taped on a standard video camera with a tape is not an issue. Rob is clearly heard asking Hud if he “changed the tape” in the camera…NOT the SD card. And as pointed out before, most all vieo cameras made from 98 or so on, had/have night vision, and batteries and tapes capable of playing well over the 83 minutes. So none of this should be an issue. It’s a great movie! Enjoy it!
Dingoboy, not sure whom you were talking to, but I never said ANYONE taped for 7 hours, only that cameras are capeable of doing so. I don’t believe anyone said that. (Though I’m not 100%..it was late when I read the thread…lol) You should probably read over the comments again.
Comment by PLS — January 27, 2008 @ 11:22 pm
PLS, I wasn’t talking to anyone specific, just the fact that there could be any reason to doubt that someone would own a battery and camera that could be turned on and off taping 84 minutes of their experiences over 7 hours the night all hell breaks loose. Like you even said, it is a movie, there will inevitably be things that go beyond a bit of actual reality even though it is supposed to look real. Things like seeing details of its origins, and what it was “hunting” or “looking” for in Manhattan, and the overall awe I had while watching this was what I felt should be mulled over rather than battery life, and tapes. It was the means with which JJ decided that this story should be told through, and that is all. I mean, in a regular horror film why doesn’t the scared actor just turn to the camera man and sound guy next to they for help? It is a movie and a POV.
But again, as you have also said, which I agree totally, it’s a great movie, and I did enjoy it.
I was only stating earlier that I wished we could share that enjoyment and our discoveries more than the previous bickering about batteries.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 27, 2008 @ 11:53 pm
Onto the characters: i just saw the movie again tonight and have to say Rob is the most hated character so far 2008. because of him his brother, best friend, and Marlena die, all to save his stupid girlfriend. i do hope there is a sequel and hope that Lily has some part in it or at least they update her myspace page, since the implicaton is that she lives. Geeky i know, but the myspace page has been mentioned too many times to not bring it up again. I stayed this time to hear the ending, but, it was hard to understand, thank goodness for the internet
Comment by pb — January 28, 2008 @ 1:44 am
My Apologies, I didn’t read that correctly.
Fantastic Article Sir =D
[ED’s NOTE: Apology accepted and thank you kindly, though, it’s “ma’am” not “sir” (unless, of course, I was an officer in Starfleet, in which case, “Sir” would be acceptable.]
Comment by Josh — January 28, 2008 @ 5:56 am
Is jaimeandteddy.com for real and if so what is the password?
Comment by Tad — January 28, 2008 @ 2:24 pm
Jeez I guess I just Suck then
Comment by Josh — January 28, 2008 @ 3:12 pm
That is Rather Interesting though, I have not met one female that liked this movie as much as I do.
And you have this huge article that says more than I even knew, I just find that interesting.
Nothing against you or the female gender of course.
Comment by Josh — January 28, 2008 @ 3:16 pm
the dharma symbol seen for a nano second could this be a tie in with lost?
heres an excert from wikipedia abput the dharma corp.
“According to the Blu-ray Disc exclusive feature “Access Granted” of Lost: The Complete Third Season, DHARMA drilled the earth and hit an area with large contained electromagnetic buildup. They broke into the anomaly which allowed the field to leak out. The Swan was built over this area to act as a sort of cork. DHARMA then came up with a scheme to “dam’ the leak but with the drawback that the field built up behind the dam and would eventually break it. The failsafe permanently “sealed” the leak.”
hmmm tie in with clover field monster?
J.J. what are you planning?
Comment by DC — January 28, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
drjeep, the Bryan referred to is Bryan Burk, one of the producers. At least that’s my theory.
Comment by Ravanos — January 28, 2008 @ 10:10 pm
OK! I got some intresting news. I have a question.What is the day that the attack went down.December 9th perhaps? Also i went to Robbie Hawkins AKA Rob’s Myspace blog and found a picture of his cousins baby.So if we could perhaps hack/figure out the password to his accout we could figure out some evidence that was not previously known before. Heres the thing
Robbys Photobucket
Lillys MySpace
Hud’s MySpace
Beth’s MySpace
Theres a Dude named Hawk and Jamies is on there too but i did find this dude named Aindriu and i sent him a friend request.
Comment by Adam — January 28, 2008 @ 10:57 pm
DC:
JJ is a crazy bitch. so a lost tie in is quite possible.
And this camera thing is getting retarded, i said something earlier but i digress.
And there being two monsters is kinda dumb. the reason he looks smaller in the park is because of the camera.And anything with color could just be a reaction to the sun. Deep sea=no Sun
PLS: Good Catch, they do ask about a tape also there wouldn’t be those gaps of there date on a SD card because they go right back to were you stopped recording.
But im going to watch it again but i plan to just enjoy it again.
Comment by Geoff — January 29, 2008 @ 1:35 am
I have the answers to many questions some are opinion, because there are just to many holes in the research i did.
1. The monster is a baby which means it had a mother. Targuato (whatever the name of the drilling company is) found the mother and took her away. That’s why the monster capsized the tanker, it saw the boat, it probably thought of the people who took his mom and went berserk. (oh and if you play it’s roar backwards or something like that slowed down it says “Please stop”
2. The monster was awakened by the falling targuato (again whatever the name of the drilling company is) satellite which had the targuato symbol on it. When it saw the symbol it again thought of the boat (maybe). Clover also lived off of the stuff that jamie was told not to eat (now on referred to as bigjuice)
3. Since the monster live off of bigjuice, the parasites also did in a distant kind of way. The venom that is in the parasites bite is the bigjuice. So it was injected into marlena and the bigjuice made her body grow at such an immense pace, that she exploded. Oh yeah and Marlena is a BAMF (bad ass mother fucker)
Comment by Hastheanswer — January 29, 2008 @ 12:13 pm
and i just want to make clear, THIS IS JUST A HUGE OPINION, SOME OF IT COULD JUST BE STUPID. like my old math professor would say, “never assume anything” which was kinda dumb but i guess correct in some ways. so somethings might be less likely to be true than others
Comment by Hastheanswer — January 29, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
These are all very interesting facts, I would love it if some of you with Myspace accounts joined my group and shared your insight of the mystery of CLOVERFIELD.
The Myspace URL is :www.groups.myspace.com/slusho2380
It would be well appreciated.
Comment by Josh — January 29, 2008 @ 3:48 pm
Geoff, watch the movie again, the white one’s head is an absolutely different shape, eyes and mouth than the darker one in the park. I wanted to make sure I paid attention to that the second viewing. With it being a baby, maybe the other one is mommy? It’s not dumb to have noticed a detail that in a movie full of obscurities, and a producer that thrives on hidden details that may not get caught the first time around (see the show LOST for that fact), I’m saying that due to the very different looks of the times we see what supposedly is only one monster that it might be at least 2. (and its not camera view because we saw both of them from directly below and the one when it was right over Hud before entering the subway’s eyes were very big and more forward and mouth snout-like, the park one’s eyes were more to the side (and had gills) and its mouth was flat to make a rounder head.
Comment by Dingoboy — January 30, 2008 @ 12:57 am
If you notice, the Hasbro Cloverfield monster collectable toy that is to be produced comes with two interchangable heads.
I think that perhaps, depending on the stress level of the monster, it has different forms. I definitely noticed a big difference in the way the monster looked from ground/aerial views early in the film, as opposed to its close up near the end.
Completely different.
But I still think it’s the same monster.
Comment by Noodles — January 30, 2008 @ 6:35 am
good observation Dingoboy I actually saved that
I think its time that we get some stills from the movie of the monster………
I just have one question, why did the monster didn’t chase after Beth and Rob when it ate Hud?
and where did it go when they retrieved the camera
Comment by William — January 30, 2008 @ 7:30 am
there is probably nothing deep behind why it killed hud…just the fact that jj didnt want to kill beth and rob because of the last scene, because basically there would be no last scene and its more dramatic if rob says that the monster killed everyone close to him..
Comment by Leighton — January 30, 2008 @ 3:37 pm
I think it is funny how the monster kinda picked Hud up, played around w/ him a bit and then dropped him.
Comment by Josh — January 30, 2008 @ 4:07 pm
I created a mock-poster for Cloverfield 2… along with a very detailed script outline on my blog: Planet Mat
It was this site (awesome, btw) that made me go back and make a couple of minor changes, but I think I got it mostly right. We’ll see… ;)
Comment by Mat Brady — January 30, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
William, I forget where I read it but someone had thought that maybe there was something more to Hud than we know. Also remember that the parasites grabbed Hud and were dragging him away (as he jokes to “make him their queen”), but they only then attacked when Marlena went to save Hud, then the one bit her. But if Hud WAS somehow special, then maybe the parasites were bringing Hud to their master, and maybe just maybe it wasn’t eating Hud but somehow rescuing him or protecting him but Hud got all freaked out and sliced himself up on its teeth which made it freak out and drop him, and maybe the fall killed him (or the teeth, we have to fill in the blanks ourselves).
But that also explains that maybe why the one in the stairwell (parasite) didn’t necessarily attack them, just kinda blocked them (till Rob bludgeoned it to death) to maybe once again take Hud away.
Not really much to go on beyond that, but like I said I forgot where I read this interpretation and it makes a bit of sense overall. But maybe it could care less for just anyone, but maybe only special people.
I think he also mentioned that maybe it was that these people it “eats” were big Slusho drinkers and it followed the scent?
Time and JJ will tell…..
Comment by Dingoboy — January 30, 2008 @ 6:32 pm
I am not about to read through all of this but I saw your sd card vs tape argument. Do you guys really not have brains? At the beginning of the movie its quite obvious its a copy of the taped version on a sd card. To think you idiots would actually believe its the same exact tape is way beyond me. The government, cops, fbi, cia, etc all copy everything to sd cards and hard drives these days… Ever seen a episode of csi? Notice the government tag on the beginning, thats done with a computer, aka a altered tape… Its really not hard to figure out… The film was to be viewed as is, stated by Abrams already.. That means it had a “85 min” run/record time. Maybe your stuck in the 80s/early 90s but we can record for 2+ hours with the cheapest cameras these days..
Comment by wow — January 31, 2008 @ 10:00 pm
Hastheanswer, it does not say “please stop” how you came up with that is insane.. Here go listen for yourself so you don’t post bad information again.. Your close with other stuff but way off on that.. Here go listen for yourself its EVERYWHERE very very hard to get this wrong.. Says “It’s still alive. They all watched.” Some could argue with “They all watched” no way you can argue over the first part its extremely clear.. “Please Stop” where did you hear that, do you know English? please explain..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZu-uHaVtFY&feature=related
Go check for yourselves, click on the multiple sound clips from the you tube links, pick any of them they are all the same, post what you think you hear..
Comment by wow — January 31, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
Oh ya one last thing. JJ did a interview already to back up a lot of theories and crush others. Go watch for yourself and decide..
http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=736
Comment by wow — January 31, 2008 @ 10:24 pm
so that’s the story behind cloverfield :D great post..! it’s really informative :D too bad i didn’t stay after the credits T_T
Comment by Jehzeel Laurente — February 1, 2008 @ 2:53 am
I know wow, the i checked out the roar afterwards and i didn’t hear anything so yeah. MY BAD
Comment by Hastheanswer — February 1, 2008 @ 8:07 am
jeez WOW, you don’t have to be such a twat about about it.
We are all on this board for info. It seems that you are just on this board to complain. This Women wrote an extremely long, detailed and fabulous article, and all you can say is how wrong everyone else is. C’mon man, have some class.
Comment by Josh — February 1, 2008 @ 5:06 pm
the funny thing is that it was supposed to look like a handycam but it was actually shot with one of the best HD cameras on the market
Comment by coolio — February 1, 2008 @ 7:04 pm
actually i don’t think that it was the oil tanker that caused the explosion. in The trailer you can see some buildings behind the explosion so it came from the land. Also, the news report said that the oil tanker tipped over. Still even if it was an oil tanker, having the the monster destroy the ship would probably only cause it to spill ,not explode. Thirdly, even if an oil taker did explode, the explosion would not be as large as the one shown
Comment by coolio — February 1, 2008 @ 7:13 pm
Hey everyone,
Geeks of Doom now has a video clip where the monster is revealed!!!
Watch the clip in our post titled Clip: ‘Cloverfield’ Monster Revealed!
Comment by Empress Eve — February 2, 2008 @ 9:30 am
without going back and re-reading all the posts to see if it was this or another message board, but there was argument over teh guy who comes to them on the street and is talking some other language. Just saw it for time #3 and if you read the credits cast list, there is “Russian guy in the street” so there ya go, he is talking to Hud in Russian, not dutch, czech or other. And paid attention again to what I believe are 2 different big monsters, and just maybe it is just one, I did notice that the one being bombed seen from helicopter did have the breatheing sacs on its head too. My new thought is that maybe at least its head is more like an octopus, in that it can change shape to a degree, maybe not a skulled head more pliable so that may account for its very different looks when roaring and at rest etc. And I think the “tentacle” that hit the bridge was just its arm, it was more armlike watching it so maybe. Hope this helps some confusions, but there is definitely something crashing into the ocean at the end (I have a new clue to its timing, the first beep beep of the tape running out is when it falls, so listen for the beeps and look above the boat) (and, yes indeed a Dharma insignia flashes at the beginning during the “property of U.S. …” Just a JJ tip of the hat to mystery, or is there a connection? Hopefully we will find out, maybe on the dvd?
Comment by Dingoboy — February 3, 2008 @ 2:58 am
It would make sense that it is some sort of gigantic Mutated octopus because it came from the water and it had been feed all the slusho drink mix on board the boat that the lady behind the slusho company died on
Comment by Josh — February 3, 2008 @ 10:02 am
I was led to believe “Cloverfield” is what the military calls sights after they have been completely bombed because clovers are known to grow there afterwards. Read that somewhere.
Comment by Ian — February 3, 2008 @ 3:36 pm
Am I the only one surprised that Hud, Rob, and Beth could survive the Heli crash? The pilots who were dressed with helmets and other protective gear didn’t survive.
Comment by Ian — February 3, 2008 @ 3:49 pm
Alright, something I found very interesting was the debate over their were two “main monsters,” and even more surprising is how little that’s been debated on here lol. The only good ‘trivia’ someone made about it was the fact that their are interchangeable heads on the hasbro figure (which to the horror of my girlfriend I WILL be spending 100 dollars on when it comes out.)
I don’t necassarily have any opinion on whether their was more than one or not, or if their was what the story behind it was. All I know is someone releases an HD frame of the monster from when they run into the subway towards the beginning of the film, and the frame looks totally different from the monster you see at the end, to me at least. Any comments?
http://img231.imageshack.us/my.php?image=monstersh9.jpg
Comment by Robby Toxic — February 4, 2008 @ 12:33 am
Robby Toxic,
You know what I noticed to strengthen my theory of 2 monsters is that in the pic you gave the link to of the encounter as they go into the subway, that the monster doesn’t have those little arms in the middle, like the one at the end in the park has. Thank you for posting this pic, I have been trying to find one from this moment to back my claim. It still could be the same one, but the arm thing is hard to dismiss.
Comment by Dingoboy — February 4, 2008 @ 12:57 am
there’s only one monster. Robby Toxic, it has interchangeable heads so you can switch between “agitated and calm”. and Dingoboy, the arms are there, they are just REALLY hard to see
Comment by Hastheanswer — February 4, 2008 @ 8:06 am
does anyone have a picture from right before the monster eats Hud.
I would like to do a little comparison.
Comment by Josh — February 4, 2008 @ 3:23 pm
The battery only needed to record roughly 2 hours because that’s as long as the movie was. That doesn’t seem far fetched to me.
Comment by Matthew — February 4, 2008 @ 8:26 pm
Just seen film cold (no ads other than transformers trailer + people from work recomending it yesterday).
Thought it was realy good, dissagreed with some of the media reviews. The ambiguities and open ends make it so much more interesting.
It gave me lots to think about. I’ve got to say this you guys seem to be focussing massively on what kind of camcorder the events were shot on. I don’t see it as that vital, it’s a way of framing the narrative.
Anyway if we are going to get a bit geeky regarding some parts of the film, personaly I don’t buy the whole “Godzilla” it’s a gigantic animal from the depths of the sea argument. (I am still suspending disbilief, honestly). During the film the big fella or fellas i’m not sure, got hit by Tanks, missiles, heavy artillery and near the end a B2 Spirit Stealth bomber dropped its entire payload on it! The thing was still functioning. So to me the laws of phsyics don’t seem to apply to it. Ain’t seen much Lost either but there’s something kind of odd floating around on that island as well isn’t there?
Anyway the bits that interested me the most from the postings I read were about what the possibly russian bloke was saying. I think this could be an interesting avenue for development.
The whole vibe of the film has got me thinking and in a kind of strange way it reminds me a lot of some of the ideas and story telling methods of H.P. Lovecraft (with a bit of H.G. Wells thrown in)
I dunno, I’ve had a few glasses of wine but for me the whole Cthulhu, Rhyleyh thing with a twentyfirst century twist would be more interesting to develop than a rehash of Godzilla.
Anyway dead cool film, got a jaded guy’s imagination firing again.
Please didn’t mean to offend by my ignorance of the assorted web stuff i’ve missed but I just wanted to fire out a few ideas.
all the best, the vino is calling.
Comment by Interestingtimes — February 5, 2008 @ 8:14 pm
ive just seen the film wow how good! but after reading this i wanna watch again i missed so much!!
Comment by Big-andy-t — February 7, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
So I decided I’d take a shot at some theory…I just watched the film tonight and have been obsessing about it since. I never really heard much about Lost, either. So all this theory/mythos is super cool to me. I constantly hear the number six…I’m just wondering, Lost is on season four, right? and Lost has sixes in it as well, right? Like Rob’s myspace about six beers (or slushos?) and the Slusho’s motto referencing sixes. A sequel for clover is planned for 2009, right? Lost season five would be 2009, and season six would follow in 2010(duh, I’m thinking this out as I type). Could that be a hint that that is the season of Lost when the Film and Series merge? We would have five lost seasons, 2 films, and possibly a third for 2010 (speculation on my part). I don’t know…just curious to other’s opinions on this matter. Oh, I think we have decided this OFFICIALLY: A camera filmed this, and we got to see it based on a transfer from tape to a mass media drive of some sort. I think that is all that matters. The details aren’t necessary. Thanks Admin for such a great compilation and sparking my interest into all this!!!!
Comment by Smallz — February 11, 2008 @ 5:31 am
Two monsters!!! I think that unless there is evidence that there is only one monster that this is not a theory that should be dismissed!!! Perhaps the monsters could be humans that have been mutated by Slusho’s secret ingredient? I have seen the film twice and love, I was aware of all the web sites and investigation that was taking place around this movie but had not had time to read in to it myself. The geeks of doom info has hopefully brought me up to speed but I am sure there is a lot i still don’t know!
Comment by zak187 — February 14, 2008 @ 8:43 am
ADDITION: ment to add in my post that the two humans could be the japanesse woman who dissappeared when the slusho ingredient was found and the second could be Jamie? This could explain why the second “monster” is smaller as it has only just mutated? Might be going the wrong way entirey with this but hey it’s a theory!!!
Comment by zak187 — February 14, 2008 @ 8:50 am
Hey guys, I don’t want to be “ants at a picnic” as peter griffin would say with this whole theory of people mutating into the monster and etc., but I thought everyone would find these production notes that I found very interesting.
http://download.cloverfieldclues.com/cloverfieldproductionnotes.htm
In them, Reeves and Abrams discuss how the monster is from a “deep ocean trench” and (something I don’t really understand) that it’s been “down there for thousands of years” but “it’s a new born baby and it’s spooked in a new environment.” (How “thousands of years” translates into “it’s a new born” doesn’t make much sense to me, if someone wants to elaborate…lol.)
Anyways, it’s an interesting read. It may be more interesting to skim the text in black and actually read the text in blue; the blue text is spoilers and Cloverfield-specific info that was “censored” out pre-release as to not ruin the surprise for fans.
On a personal note, I’ve been sleeping on my “two monster” theory and I have to say that by this point, I’m leaning towards their only being one monster.
Alright that’s about all, it’s fun to come back here and read through the forum, and it’s good to know that almost a month after it’s release Cloverfield-Fever is still alive!
Comment by Robby Toxic — February 14, 2008 @ 11:55 pm
Robby Toxic – found this stuff very useful – thanks pal!
Time to start drumming up theories on other areas of the film that raise queries!
Comment by zak187 — February 15, 2008 @ 6:07 am
This was a fuckin great article. I saw the movie last night and I liked it (not loved it, yet). then I started reading all these stuff online about all the clues/hints and websites (i.e. tagurato/slusho) that were made to give hints to viewers etc. fuck man, this movie has so many histories left for viewers to decipher. so all i say is thanks for puttin all these clues together. super good job!!!
Comment by Slothien — February 19, 2008 @ 8:51 am
oops, forgot to add to my comment, when i left the movie, i LIKD it, but after having research all this afterwards, i LOVE the movie, one of my fav movies of all time!
Comment by Slothien — February 19, 2008 @ 8:52 am
Has anybody read the blog on Hud’s myspace titled “Gather ’round the campfire kiddies! It’s time to write a story!”? Basically it is a blog where Hud starts a comic book story with some characters contributed from his myspace friends and users add comments that continue the story. In my opinion, the story in the blog parallels some of the events in the story of Cloverfield. And some of the pictures contributed by the user Vlad resemble what I believe to be some places in the movie. There are also small details in the pictures and the characters that remind me of either what I have read online about the movie or have watched in the movie.
On a totally different subject:
CAMERA RETRIEVED AT INCIDENT SITE “US-447″
AREA FORMERLY KNOWN AS “CENTRAL PARKâ€
This is just a question to inspire thoughts, but does one think that maybe the “US-447” part maybe ties in to the sequel? Or maybe the government already in real life names sites in that manner? Because it says incident site, so maybe the monster attacks more places?
Maybe in the next movie the monster moves to another region. A few of the myspace friends of the characters in the movie live in the colorado region, maybe they will tie that in somehow. There is also a few italian friends. Hmmm…
Comment by Sydney — February 20, 2008 @ 4:01 am
People, all minucea about the movie aside, IT ROCKS!!! WOW!! Rarely can you see a movie that totally captures your imagination as Cloverfield does. WHAT A JOURNEY! I only wish we had more of it to see. You laugh, cry, puke, scream, etc…. All for the price of 1 movie ticket? BARGAIN!
Comment by Argel V — February 21, 2008 @ 12:23 am
amazing film saw it again today.
but one thing why does the monster spit Hud out? & also when they get attacked in the tunnels Hud says it felt like the parasite things were pulling him away…?
Comment by playmate — February 28, 2008 @ 8:36 pm
I saw the film on Saturday without being aware of any of the viral marketing and LOVED it! Since then I have become really obsessed and have tried to find out anything I can about the backstory. I don’t think it was so heavily marketed in the UK as most of my friends have never even heard of the film. One of the things that has bothering me is the newborn baby/thousands of years old angle. Could it possibly be that the mother was fossilised and somehow was reactivated with the deep sea stuff then grew massively and gave birth to the rampaging baby? I know its far-fetched but then so is the whole story.
This site is the best I have found BTW!
Comment by MissLondon — February 29, 2008 @ 6:35 am
That angle has been bothering me, too. The only thing I could figure…alright…everyone take a deep breath here and try to follow me…….is the monster is thousands of “human” years old. Kind of like, how dogs have dog years? So, relative to human years the monster is thousands of years old. Perhaps the species that the monster is sprung from has been in the ocean for millions of years and have life spans that can be tens of thousands of years long….so, compared to it’s own species it’s still a newborn.
That’s all I got though, I’d love to see other’s theories. Sad that Cloverfield mania is starting to die down, and this forum won’t be going nuts again until sequel rumors start kicking up.
Comment by Robby Toxic — March 11, 2008 @ 3:34 am
As discussed earlier, the number six does appear in a lot of places:
– The movie was 84 minutes long, making it 6 minutes short of a full 90 minute tape.
– The Slusho slogan “Can’t have less than six!”
– Also, if you have a look at http://jamieandteddy.com and log in to the video-page, you will notice that the number6 video is the only one spelled with a capital letter, i.e. Number6.mov. Could be co-incidence, but i doubt it ;)
Also, a connection to Lost and the number six. In the beginning of Season 4, the survivors are refered as the Oceanic Six.
Comment by Grelbar — March 14, 2008 @ 7:27 am
Hey everyone, I found this interesting photo gallery of the new Hasbro toy. Still pretty breath taking…for me, at least. I think the interchangeable head is rad…one for happy clover, one for pissed/Hud eating clover. I could talk and talk about this, but it’s probably just better for everyone to have a look for themselves. Enjoy :)
http://tf08.figures.com/showphoto.php?photo=124
Comment by Robby Toxic — March 16, 2008 @ 1:25 am
Excellent review!!!! Your article must be placed in the end of the credits…. I really liked the movie, but it leaves you that taste of uncompletion……
Comment by alex tinajero — March 24, 2008 @ 1:31 pm
thanks for filling in a whole lot of holes. interesting stuff.
as for people saying that the camera would run out of battery….come on, we’re talking about a movie where a monster the size of a skyscraper attacks new york.
Comment by vegard — April 8, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
cloverfield is a terrorist attack from Japan…
put the clues together.
Comment by Man with the answer — April 27, 2008 @ 4:54 pm
Hey, i read the website but still dont understand something..If the monster really is a sea creature then why was it able to breathe without water..does that make sense??
Comment by Joe Johnson — May 2, 2008 @ 9:23 pm
WTF?!?! SO WHAT IF THIS..WAIT..so what if this movie has a lot of holes and stuff? Just fill in the empty parts of the story with your imagination and it’s all good. But I was still curios so I came here :P. For seriously …it’s just a movie, don’t get so worked up about it
Comment by Joe momma's friend — May 25, 2008 @ 2:15 am
In my opinion the second film should be from the perspective of the man filming on the bridge. But dont have this character and his group running from monsters all night, maybe they get caught up in the very innerworkings of tagruato itself, and its attempts to cure bite victims on the opposite end of the island that central park isnt on. Maybe we dont need a conventional film to explain to us the backstory on cloverfield, maybe we need another “from camera” perspective from someone who just happens to be in the right places at the right time.
idk if anyone cares about the comment or even follows it, but its an idea that hit me that i had to jot down on something.
Comment by TheBranders — May 26, 2008 @ 8:57 pm
I’d like to see an alternate cut where they still act like it’s a home movie, but stabilize the picture just a little bit.
Comment by Blaster Atoms — June 20, 2008 @ 7:47 am
To TheBranders: I think the second Cloverfield movie (Cloverfield2) will be shot from the perspective of the military. (They all had cameras on their heads, so… yeah).
I have a poster of the sequel “the Cloverfield 2 poster!” and a script outline of Cloverfield2. It’s fun to read, and you can read it here: http://planetmat.blogspot.com/2008/01/cloverfield-2.html
Comment by Mat Brady — July 2, 2008 @ 12:54 am
Wow. I wonder how they can come up with these amazing stories and tie-in seemingly irrelevant things such as an ex-girlfriends webcam rants about how much she hates her boyfriend, and bring together something amazing.
It also takes tons of work to uncover these stories, amazing work guys.
Comment by chrisjiggums — January 2, 2010 @ 6:54 pm
ok, so if slusho “makes my stomach explode with happy” and the monster, which was originally whatever the frick it was, why didn’t the pre-monster’s stomach explode? does deep sea nectar have a different reaction on animals/fish than on humans?
Comment by cloverfieldaddict16 — November 12, 2010 @ 9:30 am
Ten Years later… Still a great movie, and the series is going strong! I just got introduced to it and needed to follow the arg, it’s weird finding myself here, to anyone in ten more years: I hope you have the same fuel that I had to get here XD
Comment by jjk1029384756 (Machio98) — March 20, 2018 @ 10:50 am