Cloverfield had one of the most far reaching and successful viral marketing campaigns ive ever seen. A series of bogus websites realting to a mythical japanese deep sea drilling company, a brand of soft drink and a whole raft of personalised photographs spilled onto the net, ages before the release of the film. Sound bites of the creatures roar were hidden in video clips of unrelated material and the whole thing was drip fed to a rapt audience for months before. I eventually found out what the creature looked like when someone leaked camera phone pics of the moment it corners Hud in Central Park and gives him the once over before chewing him up. I have to say I wasnt impressed. Eventually, after the hype died down, Hasbro released a very limited edition toy of the thing - 70 points of articulation, sound effects and two interchangeable heads on a 14" high figure. All for a cool 100 bucks. Hmmm.
As to scale, an early image that floated around the net purporting to show the creature was this - what I feel is a much better monster - a deformed cetacean complete with statue for scale!
I agree about the camera work -Let's hope a Cloverfield II isn't filmed on mobile phones! Or indeed the shakey video. The whole point of a good monster flick is to see as much of the said monster as much as possible. Prolonged glimpses just don't cut the mustard. Full on frontal creature action is what's wanted by fans!
ReplyDeleteI like the film in the main but hate the camera work and the lack of explanation as to origins etc.
ReplyDeleteI do like how the monster gets to do in the main characters though...that makes a change.
As to what "woke it up", in the final scene, when they show an early segment of the tape when the couple are on the ferris wheel, you can see something fall out of the sky and into the ocean. I have heard that this is a Japanese satellite that disturbed it when it crashed into the ocean.
The falling object is very difficult to see, here is a link that shows it.
http://img811.imageshack.us/img811/8956/21944324.jpg
I too have pondered it's size. I had a good link once that had the relative sizes of many monsters but lost it. All I can remember is that the Cloverfield monster wasn't quite as big as I had thought it was...according to the dimensions I read.
Wasn't the monster meant to be a baby one too?
I also thought the exact same thing about the Statue of Liberty head being too small for the gallery inside.
Eviled - i recall the satellite theory now - there were so many contradictory theories washing about it was impossible to make any sense of it all! Id never have spotted that satellite fall though! The creature must be about Godzilla size as when it gets struck by the airstrike prior to grabbing the copter,, you see its claw rake the side of a building.
ReplyDeleteis there a sequel ?
Some dimensions here Wotan...not sure if they are correct though. A lot more info at the link.
ReplyDeletequote:
The monster is a 350 foot high quadruped with long tri-fork finned tail. The uppermost double-jointed limb pair is longer than the other two, ending in a multi-fingered hand which can bend backward so that the creature can walk on its fingers. The double-jointed, squat legs are powerful enough to support the creature’s mass, and yet still allow it to move relatively quickly for an organism of its size. Each of its feet is 30-40 feet in length, roughly the size of a city transit bus. The creature is covered in gray skin that exhibits a white pallor, possibly due to an absence of light on the ocean floor. The skin is also host to thousands of dog-sized parasitic creatures.
http://cloverfield.wikia.com/wiki/Clover
Yeah Ed, I've seen the splashdown shot at the end of the film on a cloverfield fan clip [You Tube]. There's at least two debates raging from what I can gather. 1. Are there two different monsters in the film i.e the manhattan smasher and the Hud Chomper 2. Is one of them a Baby? I think we can assume that the dog-sized parasites aren't babies. Do you think they are like mites feeding on the Clover Monster?
ReplyDeleteRoll on CF II minus the shakes!
Now that is interesting, I had not heard about the possibility of there being two monsters in the film.
ReplyDeleteAs for the little beasties, I see them as mites/parasites, living on and living off the huge host monster...nice touch that.
I thought they were a great original idea and one of the reasons I like the Cloverfield concept. It has great potential for development too in a sequel (I hope there will be one) especially if the makers give us some more intriguing information about the monster...its natural history, its behaviour etc.
I like the "deformed crustacean" monster too. I saw that picture well before I saw the film and was a little disappointed it was so completely different.
Definitely the best monster film/idea for a long time as far as I am concerned, just hope they tone down the filming techniques in any sequel.