There was some discussion around here about the trailer for J.J. Abrams upcoming monster movie that ran before Transformers earlier this year. Well, a new trailer is running before Beowulf. Apparently the movie codenamed “Cloverfield” is going to be called… Cloverfield. (This word “codename” you keep using. I do not think it means what you think it means.)
It still doesn’t tell us much beyond what we knew from the first trailer, but there are some nice bits in here. (Like, what is going on in the scene where we see the shadow of the woman struggling with the two soldiers. Something is going on there.)
If you make a movie where a giant monster comes out of the ocean and attacks NY, but you don’t name the monster “Godzilla”, have you in fact made a Godzilla movie?
Alternately, if you make a movie that you call Godzilla, but doesn’t involve a man wearing a rubber reptile suit, stomping all over some obvious miniature models, that isn’t set in Japan, and isn’t badly dubbed into english, is it in fact a Godzilla movie?
It’s remarkable how the various actors in the trailer are only audible for a couple seconds apiece, and yet it’s still so obvious how bad the acting is.
Cloverfield is a great name for a monster movie. It’s so resonant with horror. King Kong; Godzilla; The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms; Cloverfield. It fits right in. If this movie is a success, no doubt we can expect a slew of giant monster films with names like **Pine Ridge Crescent ** and Middlevale.
Seriously, this movie raises a good question: how do most movie monsters manage to wind up with such cool-sounding names? Godzilla and Kong both got their names from island natives. But what if the natives had chosen a really stupid-sounding name, like Flinkola or Poopacootle? Or what if the monster first attacks a place with a really unimpressive-sounding name, and the media just decides to latch onto that? They could spend their entire monstering career as “The Breezy Point Creature” or “the Pleasantview Horror.”
I’m sorry, but I just can’t see any monster being able to inspire terror with a name like “Cloverfield.” If the name can’t be convincingly shouted in terror by retreating Japanese Defense Forces, it’s time to schedule another round of focus groups and try again. *“Aaahhh! It is Cloverfield! Cloverfield is attacking the city! Look out! Cloverfield is headed for the power lines!” * You see how that really doesn’t work at all?
Frankly the name “Cloverfield” puts me more in mind of the big orange monster “Gossamer” from the Warner Brothers cartoons, or perhaps comedian Joe Besser in his role as Stinky from The Abbott and Costello Show. “Oooohhh… I’ll haaarm you…!”
a) I didn’t think they were all that bad. shrug Not Oscar calibre, but no worse than any average actor in Hollywood…
b) All we know is that somebody in the government has assigned this “case”–incident–the codename of Cloverfield; it could refer to any number of things (the name of a ship that discovers the thing? The name of an institute that researches it?). I don’t think it’s supposed to be the name of the monster, or if the monster has a name. Malodorous, I think J.J. Abrams actually came out and said at Comic-Con that he was trying to make the American equivalent of Godzilla, so the answer may, in fact, be yes.
I dunno… I assumed that at least some of them were trying to sound scared. But perhaps not.
“Okay, here’s the scene… Richard, you’ve been swept up in a massive, inexplicable attack on New York City, and you’re making a recording to document it in case you’re killed. You want to sound breathless, as if you’ve recently been jogging, but not particularly alarmed… Jennifer, you’re pleading with an Army officer that you have to get out of the city. Sound as whiny as possible without actually conveying any fear for your safety.”
The thing is, though: once the thing has knocked the head off the Statue of Liberty, it’s not really going to need a “codename.” At the very least, it’s going to be known as “the Thing That Knocked The Head Off the Statue of Liberty.” I find it difficult to believe that there are any government files documenting the 9-11 attacks that refer to the incident as “Codename: Brazilnut.”
Anyone ever notice how indestructible the Statue of Liberty is in these sorts of movies? Here the head can be punted for miles without losing its shape; elsewhere it manages to survive intact for thousands of years, or stands up to tidal waves and other civilization-destroying forces. If I ever find myself in a disaster movie, my first choice for shelter? Statue of Liberty.
Yea, but a lot of other stuff happens in Ghostbusters. It isn’t really “about” Stay-puft.
I replayed that part slower. I think its just one of the background noises that makes people think shes turning into a monster, she actually stays more or less the same shape.
Answer: No, you’ve made The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms, the 1951 Monster Movie that was the first 1950s “Monster Movie” . There had been other films with rampaging beasts in the city, but this one was the first to have all the classic elements of the stereotypica; “1950s monster movie” – The Beast, awakened/created by atomic energy, begins its trek to the Big City and leaves cklues to its existence. It bursts into the city, and the military can’t stop it, but our intreepid Handsome Hero and the Beautiful Female Love Interest (who might be accompanied by the Eccentric Old Scientist/Expert) have a plan. They have only One Shot, but it Might Work! It does, of course, and the world is safe, for now.
TBF20KF does this better than most, with an explanation for why the monster is coming to a dense concentration of humans (it;s returning, like a salmon, to its breeding grounds) and why the military can’t stop it (it’s carrying a deadly disease, and they don’t want to spread the infected blood all over the city). They also used innovative effects. Harryhausen didn’t have Willis o’Brien’s army of technicians and glass-painters, so he came up with his Dynamation/Dynarama “Reality sandwich” technique to drop his crreatioons into the scenes. Every other monster flick of the 1950s borrowed or stole from TBF20kF.
I bring this up because 1.) The original Godzilla, made five years later, was obviously influenced by Beast ansd 2.) The american “Godzilla” movie was much more a remake of TBf20kF than of the original Godzilla, righht down to invading the same city, and to the reason – the city was its old “spawning grounds” (with the added attraction of “Godzilla” actually spawning)
So “Gojira” is itself an imitation of an American “Godzilla” movie that beat it by five years. And there already have been at least two American equivalents of Godzilla movies.
There are rumors that the creature has… well, for lack of a better term crabs. Apparently, whatever affected this shadowy and unknown creature also affected the parasites that live on it. Apparently it has giant (relative: about the size of a person) secondary parasitic creatures that dislodge from their comfy abode under its scales and they are reminiscent of mites or crabs… or something… and are a secondary hunter killer to gargantua.
Anybody with any marine biology experience familiar with a type of marine parasite similar in descriprion to this?
It looks like they’re cutting something out of her stomach with a chainsaw. Which, of course, means someone will come face to face with the monster and say…
As someone who linked to the picture in question in an earlier thread, I regrettably inform you that it turns out the drawing is now purported to be a bit of fan-art and represents nothing official about the movie at all. I’ll try to find the link where I got that info and post it later.
Sir Dirx, I’d just heard it had been debunked, though I hadn’t known how exactly. Thanks! The fan-art explanation makes some sense, and it does look similar to what we see a flash of in the trailer. Is the fan-art based on any actual spoilers/descriptions, or is it nothing more than wishful thinking?
