So is what is the Spoiler policy of the thread. I have a question I want to pose to see what everyone thinks but it is a big spoiler and I think burying it all in spoiler boxes will get annoying fast. For now, I will put it in a spoiler box:
So do you think that John Goodman ever really had a daughter or was he just kidnapping a string of women and killing them at some point when they set him off and the "daughter " was a creation of his insanity?
As to that question,
[SPOILER]Emmett, who appeared to be sane, said that Howard’s daughter was a classmate of his sister. So I think the daughter really existed.
And did you notice in the game when Emmett tried to get Howard to say “Little Women” and said “Michelle is a . . .” to suggest woman to Howard, that Howard’s responses were “girl”, “princess” and so forth. He could not see Michelle as a grown woman. We don’t know what happened to the kidnapped girl, but I think his pathology was, in part, about protecting women who reminded him of his daughter. Perhaps something bad happened to her?[/SPOILER]
And I saw JJ Abrams interviewed about the movie. He hinted at a connection between this and the previous one. Did anyone see the connection?
Now that movie’s out it seems like folks want to discuss it openly. I’ve added an open spoilers tag to the title.
Judging by the voice, it sounded like there was a little kid in the row behind me. At the end, he said that he enjoyed it.
And given the open spoilers policy, what do you mean no monsters? That’s basically what that land animal was. And there was the thing in the aircraft (or was the whole thing just a flying monster)?
I won’t really spoil anything here, but I think this movie would’ve worked MUCH better with a different title. I know it’s all about marketing, but imagine if the big reveal had been the Cloverfield street sign near the end. Or if we gradually learned that John Goodman had some connection to the first movie (could Cloverfield have referred to a satellite project gone wrong in the first movie? I can’t remember).
I liked it but the title pretty much gives the game away.
Saw it today and enjoyed it a lot – Goodman was terrific, and the other two were great as well. I think the bunker scenes were probably the best part – the ending segment almost felt like a different movie, but I still enjoyed it overall.
One question that was not clear to me; how long was Michelle in the bunker?
I got the impression they were down there several months at least. I would think if it had been a full year, there would have been a scene of them stating it as much.
Agreed, and even so it’s still a pretty loose connection. If they really are set in the same universe I think the start of the move would have to be taking place at same time as the incident in NYC given that no one mentions it the entire time they’re in the bunker. Speaking of the bunker; did anyone else notice it’s major design flaw in? Its impossible for Howard to reach the room with the air filtration equipment without going outside, yet the hatch in that room is padlocked from the inside. :dubious: Which also means it would be impossible for Howard to reach it from outside without destroying the hatch.
How about this for a fun fan theory.
No, it’s not in the same universe as Cloverfield, but it’s in the same universe as another J. J. Abrams production, Alias.
They were drinking Slusho, the soda introduced in Alias. Michelle’s boyfriend, who’s voice we hear over the phone, was played by Bradley Cooper, who was on Alias. Now, yeah, his character on the show was named “Will” not “Ben” but let’s say he had to change his name and identity to get away from events on the show? Maybe she figured out he’s hiding something and panics and runs because she’s freaked out by his past. That would explain her behavior at the beginning of the movie and his rather cryptic phone call.
What do people think?
It was good. Time passed, her knee healed, Goodman’s head wound healed but other dude was still in a sling. The air filtration system being somewhere that wasn’t accessible, not very good bunker planning. Good movie, just don’t think about the tiny details all that much.
It seemed like the way John Goodman would normally get into that room was jammed some how. Before he told her she had to go through the vents he was trying to open a door or something as I recall. I mean, there was furniture in there so it had to have a doorway.
What about this for a theory? As far as I can recall, ‘Cloverfield’ referred to the project investigating the monster attack. What if John Goodman was a key figure in the design of the satellites that (somehow) caused the attack, which was actually part of an alien invasion? Maybe he named the satellite system after the street where he lived, so Cloverfield was the natural name to give to the project. Perhaps he was aware of what was about to happen, built the bunker, and the two movies basically take place at the same time. In other words, what appeared to simply be a giant-monster-on-the-loose in the first movie, was actually part of some kind of alien invasion?
I’m probably not making sense, but boiled down: everything ‘Cloverfield’ can be traced back to that street sign and John Goodman’s involvement in whatever happened.
Feel free to shoot this vague theory full of holes if it makes absolutely no sense.
Some (spoilers!) questions I have after thinking about it some more:
What was Howard’s (Goodman) ultimate goal with Michelle? I think he wanted a surrogate daughter, but it wasn’t terribly clear. Why did he run her off the road, or was it really an accident like he said?
Why did he show her a different picture and claim it was his daughter? Was the real picture too personal for him to share?
Why did he allow Emmitt into the bunker to stay?
Why did he deny that cars drove by above the bunker? He clearly believed that the air was highly contaminated, and clearly thought that opening the door would kill them all – but considering his reaction to the crazy neighbor lady, he had seen such people before. Did he just exaggerate the effects (as he understood them) to scare Michelle and Emmitt into compliance?
Why did he kidnap the missing girl (in the picture with the earring) and kill her? Was it another attempt at a surrogate daughter, and an escape attempt that went awry?
Goodman did such a good job in the role that I feel like I want to know more about his character, sick as he clearly was.
What I especially liked is that your opinion of John Goodman changes constantly.
He’s crazy.
He was right.
He was right and crazy.
When Michelle sees the geese flying overhead and removes her gas mask: he was crazy, and wrong.
Then she sees the alien craft: Oh shit, he was right.
I think it would have been awesome if the film had ended abruptly right there, without the bug fight and her decision to drive to Houston. A total Twilight Zone oh snap/unresolved ending.
Spoiler follows:
When the woman appears at the door screaming to be let in, I couldn’t make out everything she was saying, but she appeared to say something about being bitten but not badly…which sounds like the little aliens that dropped off the original beast in Cloverfield, which caused you to finally explode like a giant blood sac after you were bitten.
Here’s my fanwank:
Daughter, wife, or someone to repopulate the earth with. Credit to the filmmakers for not making this overt, I think what you think depends on how creep you feel Howard is. Other than a brief moment near the end talking about how they were going to be one big happy family, I didn’t get the molester vibe from him.
However, he did freak out about Emmitt and touching her. But that could mean “Don’t touch her, she’s my daughter” or “Don’t touch her, she’s my wife”
Either he has a real daughter and he kept that kidnapped girl as her substitute, or he never had a daughter and kidnapped that girl to make her pretend she was his daughter. I didn’t get a good look at the pictures. There was the one that looked like a school photo that Michelle matched the earring to and that old one that fell out of the book that looked like a polaroid of Howard and some girl sitting on the couch. Were those two girls the same person?
The only thing I could think of is that Emmitt helped him build it, so if he didn’t let him in, Emmitt may have been able to compromise the integrity of the bunker somehow, either lead other people there or destroy it from the outside. Though I don’t know why Howard didn’t just shoot him
I think so. He somehow got that other girl he kidnapped to stay put and even take a nice picture with him, so there must have been some psychological stuff going on
Probably she tried to escape
There was an off-hand comment by Emmitt that he had to “fight his way in” and that’s how his arm got damaged (broken? gun shot wound?) It’s unclear (to me) if she was admitted first or Emmitt, it could be that he was admitted, perhaps after he was wounded/injured, with the proviso that he help Howard in some way, either to calm her down or control her, but his better nature won out.
Creepiest moment in the film to me was when Howard appeared clean-shaven. The audience pretty much knew what Howard’s plan was at that point.
Yes, I forgot about the clean shaven! That was when you know he wanted to go for a mustache ride sans mustache.
As for Emmitt, I know I’m forgetting the exact words of the timeline, but did Michelle get in first or did Emmitt? Based on what I remember, I think Emmitt said that he was fighting to get in and Howard told him once the doors are closed, that was it, so if I’m remembering correctly, Howard got Michelle first, then Emmitt came busting through. But didn’t Emmitt tell Michelle he had been there a few days already? How long was Michelle out for, it wasn’t a few days was it?
Howard was crazy but I don’t think he wanted anything sexual from the women he kidnapped. I think he would turn them into daughter figures until he snapped from anger at something and killed them.