It’s incredible that nobody even knew about 10 Cloverfield Lane before January. Well, not by name, anyway. We know it was originally The Cellar and then Valencia. Had we been aware earlier that it was being turned into a sequel, of sorts, to Cloverfield, we surely would have had it on our list of most anticipated movies of 2016. And it would have been one of the first titles on that list not to disappoint. The film is here, and it is pretty good (see Rob’s review). But it still left us confused about some details.
Below are the questions we still can’t answer. Obviously they’re filled with SPOILERS.
1. Where is the Cloverfield Monster?
Isn’t this a sequel to Cloverfield? Why wasn’t it the giant creature from the first movie in this one? Shouldn’t he have been the threat revealed at the end? Okay, so we’re aware this isn’t a direct follow-up to the 2008 monster movie. It’s apparently not even in the same universe, though, despite anyone’s attempt to make up the idea there’s a Slusho Shared Cinematic Universe multi-franchise going on. Because surely if the events of Cloverfield had happened in the world of these new characters, there’d not necessarily be mention but there’d be at least some kind of implicit acknowledgment.
2. Are the aliens related to the Cloverfield Monster?
As far as we know, this new movie is really supposed to be entirely independent of the events of Cloverfield. It just has the word “cloverfield” in the title as a way of making an anthology series of small-budget sci-fi thrillers. It’s like Bob Hope and Bing Crosby putting “Road to” in front of a movie, sort of. The aliens seemingly tacked onto this movie at the end are as related to the Cloverfield Monster as the camels in Road to Morocco are related to the gorilla in Road to Zanzibar. Besides, the Cloverfield creature isn’t even an alien. It’s a monster from the ocean, like Godzilla. I guess we don’t know if these new aliens are extraterrestrial either, but they do have a spaceship. Or is that an organic creature that flies and just looks like a spaceship? It had a mouth. That was weird.
3. Is John Goodman the true Cloverfield Monster?
I think we can actually answer this one, at least in an interpretative if not concrete manner: yes. As the tagline for 10 Cloverfield Lane states, “monsters come in many forms.” In Cloverfield, the “Cloverfield Monster” is “Clover,” the giant creature that attacks New York City. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, the “Cloverfield Monster” is a human man who kidnaps young women and keeps them in his bunker, whether or not there’s a real threat of weapons of mass destruction or aliens outside. It just so happens that there is indeed an alien threat outside now, and facing that threat is kind of preferred to being in a bunker with the human man Cloverfield Monster. At least if you’re as resourceful as Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s character.
4. Did the Cloverfield Monster really know about the alien invasion?
The way the Cloverfield Monster tells it, he learned there was some sort of attack happening so he was rushing home to his get in his bunker. And he accidentally crashed into Michelle (Winstead), saved her life and brought her back with him to save her even further from whatever the threat was. But nothing he says is to be trusted, so maybe he really purposefully crashed into Michelle and kidnapped her, as he is apparently prone to do, and it just turned out coincidentally that aliens were really invading at the same time. Maybe he even killed his pigs as part of his usual ruse. Was he shocked to see his neighbor truly harmed by something? Did he ever learn the truth about what was out there?
5. Is the Cloverfield Monster partly responsible for the alien invasion?
We learn in the movie that the Cloverfield Monster worked with satellites. And satellites are in space. That’s where aliens come from. Obviously there’s a connection. After all, why else would there even be a mention of satellites? In a lengthy discussion at Screen Crush, bigger questions are raised:
Did Tagruato, via Bold Futura, once again cause an apocalyptic attack? Could Slusho!, which according to Tagruato’s site has recently been expanded into West Africa, have anything to do with it? Was Howard the one who discovered the incoming invasion first, or was he the one who summoned the aliens through satellite communications?
Of course, viral marketing materials aren’t actually relevant to the actual movie. Or so we’ve been told by plenty of people.
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