KC: The Cloverfield Trilogy

Speaking of good things to drink, mister Begley, have you ever had a slushow? No, have you ever had a fucking slushow? Because everybody a J j Abrams God Damn universe apparently has Apparently everybody in jj Abrams bad Robot Shit loves their slushow. Baby Queen god Lord man. You know, I have a very long relationship with clover Field and the fact that we're taught.

I feel like I've talked about clover Field once a year since these movies came out. I don't know why, with you mean, on your show or just like in general in life, It's like Cloverfield's always there. Clover There is a there is a true sequel coming now. But on this episode of the Culture Cast my Friends, I am joined by my good friend he Is. He's one of my He's one of my all time favorite people to work with.

He's a true mench he wakes up heavy every day. Your friend and mine, mister Mark Begley, Oh wait, a great episode which she is a great, big fat alien. I thought you were going to drop any number of the misheard lines from the original clover Field trailer. It's a lion, But do you remember all of that. No, I don't remember any of it.

I was that tune. Man. Oh the release of this film, the first film, So that's so, that's kind of the weird thing. So on this episode, Mark, I am dragging you to watch the three clover Field movies because this was my idea. Yeah, and and I'll tell you right now, I didn't mean, didn't mean.

I didn't mean I didn't mind being dragged. Actually on one of these movies, I already know. I really really like a lot. The other two I don't actively dislike in any way, shape or form. I was more curious as to how this viewing would go on the first and the third films because I've only watched those one time through completely prior to this.

So Cloverfield I've caught bits and pieces of multiple times over the years. Had no interest in it when it came out. I missed all of that Internet hype, you know, like with blair Witch project. I didn't catch any of that well when blair Witch came out. When blair Witch came out, I didn't even have a computer, a personal computer that actually had the Internet on it.

So when Cloverfield came out, what was that two thousand o one eighteen o eight. That day is seared in my memory. I saw the preview for Cloverfield attached to the first showing of the day of Transformers, and I went and saw Transfer the original Transformers. I went and saw that with a couple of friends. And this was this was before the trailer.

Anybody knew about it, like I Like, I said, I have to mention I saw the first showing of the day a because it was the cheapest, be because it was the cheapest. See it was the cheapest, and I wasn't gonna pay fifteen dollars see no Transformer movie. And I'm glad I didn't Searle's going on? What is this? Karros say something doing before he leaves.

Also, Rob have one in Japan? You will be eleven dollars. How you gonna survive without Rob? He's like your main dudes? Hey, how am I gonna survive without you?

I don't know, Like your main dude? What was that? NOI think any phone calls are pouring into the New York one News Road as a thunderous roaring sound. Can you see something the roof? What an animal size?

Like that? Like shaking everywhere? And it's like Climbers looks like you should have left town a little bit earlier. What is I thought, it's a line. It's you anyway, It's gonna be the best night ever.

It's a very weird inflection point. I kind of remember before and after clover Field as a movie goer, because Cloverfield is one of those movies that, like, if you were my age seventeen eighteen when this movie came out, there's probably part of you, if you were into movies, that got wrapped up in the arg and then it was like a summer of ARGs. It was this, it was Dark Night, The Dark Knight had a whole thing. And then I want to say the Dark Knight Rises did it. I want to say Prometheus did it as well.

Like this started a lot of stuff that we kind of almost take for granted now with I'm not filmmakers, but marketing companies really working with filmmakers to crap something a little bit more exciting than just, you know, a trailer or a traiser or a fucking panel at comic Con. But right like you know that, That's why I just kind of want to mention because we're going to talk about the ergy but I didn't know what level of exposure you had, because again, you were not I was seventeen when this trailer, when I saw the teaser, and I'm sure you rewatched the teaser, the teaser for this movie. The og Cloverfield is really successful. No, I didn't rewatch it or watch it. It's so it's amazing, like it's it's I read about it.

I didn't watch it. I remember watching it and just going, whatever this movie is, I don't even care how what the quality of the movie is. Like they've hooked me and then you know the movie that's a successful campaign then yeah, so yeah, So let's let's start with two thousand and eight's clover Field. So it's directed by Matt Reeves, who you know, friend of Richard had him Weird how the universe does that when you know people who worked with this guy. You know.

When our first product, Chick under Siege two written by Drew Goddard, produced by J. J. Abrams, who is a friend of Matt Reeves from I believe either high school or college because Richard Richard Well Richard tells a story on the under Siege two episode where J. J. Abrams came over and congratulated them the day that they sold the under Siege two script, which is like mind boggling and mind blowing to me to even think about.

But this is the this is the there's a bad robot movie. So jj Abrams is involved, and its stars a whole bunch of actors who look kind of familiar because some of them went on to do a lot more. Some of them went on to make terroristic threats, and some of them went on to do Get the Confused for Aubrey Plaza. I kind of uh so, yeah, talking about I don't feel like probably was uh t J. Miller and adebt Yostman, Mike Vogel, Michael Stall, David you got a bunch of people.

You got some character actors in there who were seen very quickly. But Begley, I'm gonna kick it to you since this is not a movie that you have a kind of history with like I do's what is your history with Cloverfield. I don't remember when I first watched it. It would have been some time in the last since twenty thirteen. Probably.

I know. I always say horror comedies are not my jam, and then I negate that by listing all the horror comedies that I actually do like. Found Footage, though, is even lower on my subgenre list, and it's just because of I just don't they have those certain things where okay, insert reason why we're still filming here insert you know, these these built in explanations for why we're doing this kind of thing that get well, there are some successful ones, and I'm trying to think of my favorite right now, and of course I should have written it down, but I don't remember what it is. They're not something I explore, like some people really love Found Footage and can't wait for the next thing. So anyway, I don't even know if I realized it was Found footage until I started watching it completely through the first time.

But having said that, watching it this time, aside from the fact of the explanation as to why we're still filming when our lives are in absolute peril, I actually think this is one of the more successful ones, and it worked for me because the whole time they were supposedly in the streets of New York, I was trying to figure out how in the hell did they do this, because that's one of the things that Found Footage can miss is reliant on CGI, and if you don't nail CGI and what's supposed to be real footage, you've lost half the battle already. Now, the creature in this doesn't look all that great sometimes, But I couldn't figure out how they did the destruction of New York City. I was like, is this all computer generated?

Kind of like how they do the Mandalorian Show and all those. I mean, I know it's not the same technique, but I bought into them being in New York City on those streets with buildings falling down and things crashing around them. So I bought into the location and the locale and the destruction very easily right. And so of kudos to that aspect of the production for sure. And enjoy I kind of cared about the characters other than our narrator, and I think I came away other than our near I came away really enjoying this a lot more than previous viewings, I think.

And again I watched it with my daughter, and that's always so yeah, you know what, just so yeah, you know. I listened to our Science of Lamb's episode and she, you know, her intro is very funny because she calls you her weird dad, which you are weird, but so am I. We're all weird. I mean you gotta be weird to sit and talk about you gotta be weird to sit and talk about a movie from fourteen years ago. Like you know, there's there's there's just a level of like strange of obsessivity with these kinds of things where it's like, why would it?

Why are people watching clover Field in twenty and twenty two? Is kind of what I'm driving at right. So what did she think as someone who like was it even a lie? She enjoyed? She enjoyed it and was when they first started showing bits and pieces of the creature, she was like, oh, did you tell her what this was before you started showing it to No, I'm sure she had some idea that it had to do with an alien invasion.

I think that may have been part of her Is that what this is? I don't know. Well, we'll talk about one of the guesses that was thrown out. So when they show the creature and it's enormous as opposed to like a xenomor for something that's more human size, I mean even the Queen Alien and aliens isn't as tall as a skyscraper. So I think the scale of it caught her off.

Guarden got her attention, gotcha, and it's just a pretty The tension is ratcheted up very well. You still get a lot of the why are you out? And we just kept saying getting the subway, getting the subway? Why aren't you going into the subway? That she kept saying, you know, they go into a convenience store, they do this, they do that, so it's like, go to the subway.

It's underground, go to the subway, I mean, and they tackle that issue in the movie very well. So there was a lot of that oh yeah, oh no. And I think because the destruction looked so real, that also kept us on edge, especially her since she hadn't seen it before and I vaguely knew that the vaguely remembered most of the twists and turns of the film, but was still surprised by some of the things they have to do, like rescuing the main the leads X oh yeah, oh yeah, that building's toppled over, and so it was fun to see how they did all that stuff. It's all of its super realistic. No, but you know, again, we're talking about a huge alien or sea creature or what.

Wichever way it is, it will die. Who knows. By the next movie it might be something else completely again. Yeah, look, yeah, you know. I hope my friend Yashar, who you have met now, is listening, and I wish he could have joined us for this episode, because this was a movie of mass contention between the two of us, and I feel like my opinion I remember really disliking this movie.

Remember, this is one of the first movies that I remember having an opinion about that I feel like was formed based on things that I draw from now, if that makes sense. I feel like at some point we as film you know, film watchers, and it's and you know, film I don't want to say film critics, but you know we talk about film. We are film but I know a film critic, whatever the hell you want to call what we do, movie podcaster. I feel like at some point there comes along a moment where you kind of realize the way you think about movies is starting to change, and it's starting to take on kind of a more I'm not going to say nuanced, but you start noticing things and making connections, and that's what's important.

With analysis of art, is making connections seeing how this draws from this and what this is trying to do. So this is one of the movies where I remember him and I just getting into these long drawn out conversations because when I watched this movie for the first time, I didn't like it, and I'm not sure I like it now, but I respect the movie for being probably the best found footage movie ever made. And it's definitely definitely the best for what the budget is because it looks like it's three times the budget of this movie. Yeah, it's like it's shocking. Like I when I rewatched this movie, all I kept thinking to myself was, holy shit, this looks like a two hundred million dollar movie and it's like a quarter of that budget, which is insane because again, like a movie like this may not I mean now, it's kind of, you know, up in the air, like a big budget release like Cloverfield ten.

Cloverfield Lane got released in theaters, but Cloverfield Paradox didn't Cloverfield too. I don't know where that ends up. But like, this kind of movie is very interesting to me because it's such a weird studio movie to exist. It feels completely outside of the studio system. In a lot of ways, I feel it honestly feels like a precursor of things to come in the industry because now you do have JJ Abrams and Bad Robot as a big production house.

They're not just the creators of Lost, because that's the other thing. I mean, at this point we're talking about JJ Abrams the creator of Lost. Now it's JJ Abrams director of Star Wars produce. I mean him being the producer of Cloverfield almost is unimportant now. I mean even with Matt Reeves.

You know, Matt Reeves would go on to do Planet of the Apes The Badman. So again, this is a starting point for a lot of people who fourteen years later are the movers and shakers in the movie, you know, in the in the contemporary movie industry. But for me, I think my biggest issue with this movie is, man, we're like a month away from nine to eleven, and this is just like, it's a lot. It's a lot of nine to eleven stuff in a way that I wasn't expecting because it's you know, as someone who was eleven when nine to eleven happened, and you were probably what in your mid twenties, early thirties. Yeah, I remember it differently than you remember it.

But I have in the last fourteen years seen or however many years it's been, I have seen twenty one years seeing all the footage as a lot of us have, and a lot of us who are younger unpacked that. And there's a shot in this movie that is a one one to one replication of a one of the more famous pieces of footage from nine to eleven, you know what I'm talking about, where the smoke comes down the street street. Yeah, And I was just thinking to myself, like, this is you know, this is pretty ghoulish, and I don't like this. But at the same time, that's the point I feel like, I don't I don't know if I needed it in my found footage movie, But if you're gonna draw from something, I guess I think it's pretty pretty clear point of reference for a lot of people at the time.

A lot majority of Western film going audiences are going to know what the fuck you're referencing, even if they've never seen that footage nine to eleven. That's the thing about this movie that, like, as an adult now, I really wasn't anticipating was like this movie is It's as close to nine to eleven in a movie as I think you can get. Like, I don't know what else to describe it as, Like it's just it feels like, I don't think like an allegory for nine to eleven, but like here is the closest you'll ever get to being in someone's shoes who was there, but it's a monster instead. It's not a surprise that the buildings that they go into are tilted on one another. I mean, it's just like some weird things that I feel like we're just thinking about them now.

It's oddly specific. Yeah, that's interesting because I didn't even that never even entered my mind. I caught that obvious reference with when the building collapses and the smoke and debris is going. It's like, oh and yeah, it's it looks exactly like some of that footage. I think even one of the characters, I think Rob even says like there are still people out there, Like I think that is what is said in that clip too, because it's like a very famous clip.

Yeah, yeah, shot from I think like a like a yogurt stand or like a sub like a sub shop. Like right near ground zero. It's haunting stuff. And I mean they do a good job of replicating. It's just like I don't know if I needed it, Like I'm not sure I need it now and fourteen years ago, I'm really not sure I needed it.

So then do we take it as a we were right for starting that war? Or are we just using something to manipulate viewers into feeling a certain way. That's what I don't I think it's the latter. I think it's just like again, you know, I feel like my issues with this movie and you your big issue, probably it's probably my same big issue, uh TJ Miller Right, like him being kind of a clown. Aside, the way his character is written in this movie is so unlike likable.

It's shocking that nobody else was like, are we are we really given the whole movie to this guy, because like, the way the characters written is so unlikable. It's just mind block. It's mind bogging. Frankly, I think if that were done today, I'm pretty sure that he wouldn't be as what I don't want to say predatory. But there's there's that thing between him and the Lizzie Kaplan character where it's just like constant, and that drove me nuts.

It drove me nuts as well as just the fact that I'm not the biggest fan of his. He's been funny in a few movies I've seen, but the stick gets old after a while. The only plus to having him holding the camera being the camera person for this film basically is that, yes, you hear his voice constantly, but you don't have to look at his fucking face the whole time. His face is barely in the movie, so you get his const stint. He's the least, is the least of all the characters in the movie.

He's the only one you see like once, Yeah, he looks in the you know, turns it around once or twice and that's it. But did you see him dead the month? But it's NonStop talk, like non stop talk, Oh oh good? Who? What do we do?

What is that thing? That's the other thing that kind of drives you crazy about found footage, and this is a prime example of that. That constantly like I can see what's happening, you don't need to react to it. What is that thing? Did you see that?

What are those oo? So the tropes have found footage. You're not a fandom, is that what you're saying? I mean, that's just over you. I'm like, can you imagine writing the script or found footage be like character says, oh no, character says like runaway.

Like, I'm trying to think of one that I I probably have a list somewhere of one that I think does it very successfully that avoids those tropes. And I wish I could think of what that particular movie is, but I'm more of a fan of like documentary style stuff. Yeah, mocumentary style stuff works better. Do that kind of found footage e Like you could lean into those tropes without going like, I understand why. Giving me a very believable reason why you have the camera on almost feels like for me, that's the big need in any found footage right.

Anytime anybody posts on Twitter, what's your favorite found footage movie? I always use this answer every single time because I actually believe it the Gray Gardens spoof of on documentary now And I can never remember what the title of that particular one is called. So it's Bill Hayter and Fred Armison, Yeah, as those two kooks you know in that famous documentary Gray Gardens the cookie ladies, you know, mom and daughter. I think that live in the old abandoned house out in Long Island or Martha's vineyard or whatever, and they're crazy and cat ladies and blah blah blah, and it fucking turns into a horror movie the last ten minutes. And I'm like, that's how you do it.

When I watched that, you start to feel the creepy things coming on with those two and then it goes full blown horror, and I'm like, that's how you do a found footage horror movie. Don't tell me it's a found footage horror movie until the last, until it's unavoidable and then and that thanks totally sucked me in, and I thought it was just amazing. So any that's that's my answer for best found footage horror at least is I didn't know it was a horror movie or a horror show or whatever. I love that. I need to watch that again actually, because it's it's done so perfectly interesting.

You know, I think for me, for something like horror and found footage, I mean they kind of bread and butter, peanut butter and jelly, like they go together so easily because again, like when it's done really poorly and cheaply. That's why they're doing it that way. It's because it is easy to do and it is cheap, and that's and that is the benefit to found footage because really it's like you could call it cinema verity or you could just call it found footage. I mean, it's those there is a most an interchangeability to it in a lot of ways. It depends on how it's being framed, I guess is probably the right way of putting it.

Depending on how it's framed, it could be cinema veritator found footage. So I mean, I've seen people argue that this movie is cinema verite. I think there are moments of it where they're kind of in the hospital, but they're feel like not the hospital, but when they're with the military, and like that feels very cinema verite. That feels kind of like verging on like Paul green Grass, like that very naturalistic style of filmmaking, because Paul green Grass is kind of like he's in the car with you type thing, like there's no camera there, Like I like that, and they kind of approach it here. But most of the time, it definitely feels like it's just mounted and it's you know, moving, Yeah, TJ.

Miller's head and you know what, and it's found and it's found later. That's to me for the deal with the Blair you know, starting with the Blair Witch, or even starting with Cannibal Holocaust where footage was actually found right after it was shot and right you know. So that's where you get into the whole pass effect of this being re recorded over an older tape with the lead and his girlfriend and their tricks to Coney Island, I think could have been used better to bring I mean, if they use it to break up the action or the suspense, the heighten the suspense kind of artificial twist at the end as well, you know, or not really a twist now, but the explanation at the end when they're in when they're when they're actually at Coney Island and in the water.

Yeah, yeah, I don't know what. Again, Like the whole thing with the arg was they quote unquote explained what was going on in the movie with the oil or not the oil company, the tag Ruatto company that made Slush Show and they were drilling at the bottom of the seabed for the stuff that they put in Slush Show, and the monster was at the bottom of the seabed eating that stuff. And by eating the stuff that they put in Slush Show, the creature grew larger, and so by drilling they awoke it. It came to New York and destroyed New York. That is what the ARG claims.

And then we have two movies later a completely different explanation essentially being given or something to that effect. But the ARG thing, like, I mean, I mentioned that he did it with this, but he, you know, JJ Abrams also did it with Lost a lot. I think he's kind of obviously he got his start doing the ARG with Loss. But that was the thing that I remember in the lead up to this movie was the ARG and like how excited you know, people were for seeing like, you know, there's all this like kind of like Facebook or I guess that would have been MySpace profiles for the characters in the movie and all it's, you know, and that I think the issue with Cloverfield even now, because again I went and looked at some of the ARG stuff and I was watching, you know, stuff on YouTube and reading about it, because again there's a ton of stuff.

They really did such a good job at laying the groundwork, and the movie doesn't take advantage of it. And I don't think it's the direction. I actually think it's the script. And I actually it is the script, it's not the direction. Reads His direction is fine, actually right elevates it way further than it needed to be.

And we know he's a competent director. I mean he was then, he is now, So it's not like I question his abilities as a director. But I really dislike in this script that all like the monster just seems to be following them. It's very lazy, and it's like this what this movie was trying to be was like on the ground. You see all these people all the time running from Godzilla, and you see it in all the Godzilla movies, you see people running, and so like, yeah, one of those now people would have cameras and you'd be seeing TikTok's and youtubes and blah blah blah blah.

So this is movie's obviously little oppression because we're little bit kind of on the cusp of you know, the iPhone coming out and wide adoption of smartphones with everybody has a camera. But I don't like that the creature is seemingly following them, because that makes it feel less like they're just people who are in the city trying to get away. It's more like the monsters following them and chasing after them, and it's just there's no nuance to the story. It's like they go from what's one set piece to another, and that's fine, but it feels by the end of the movie, you're just like, yeah, I guess that makes perfect sense that the monster just followed them to Central Park. Yeah, the end.

That's where I think both my daughter and I were kind of like, well, huh, But I took it. When I'm watching it, I just feel like the scale of the monster is so big that there really is no They could travel hundreds of blocks in New York and that's really like a step for the monster. So I never quite caught onto. Yes, it seems like he's ever or she is everywhere they end up, but I just took the scale disparity as like, Okay, they're traveling I don't know how many square blocks of New York first to get to save the leads girlfriend, I can't. I don't know any of the character's names sorry, Rob, Rob and Beth.

Oh that is it? Annabelle Odette or whatever her last name is. She was in what house? She from houses? She was in house.

She's been on a few. She's in that Tale of Two Sisters remake that I can never remember the title of. But anyway, you know, they go there from the party they were at. Where they go when they get to the military triage unit, that kind of stuff. I'm thinking, yeah, that's that's a lot of blocks covering New York, but that that monster just has to take one step and he's covered the whole city.

So but like you say at the end, when they get smacked down by it, it's like, okay, well why them. It could be traveling across country by now. Yeah, well and there and there's that shot and again it's it's it's there for the movie and not for reality, which is again it's like I'm having a heart. This is a roller coaster ride. This is a dark ride in movie form, because the characters do not act logically.

They act like dummies. And because they act like dummies, they are involved in you know, one of them exploding, them getting bitten in half and eaten by the monster. Because the script necessitates they be beyond morons and go and get involved when they say they're the kind of characters when they say don't go that way, not only do they go that way, they run at double speed added and that's and ultimately it's like, well, that's fine and all. I get that you want to make that kind of movie. The problem is the characters are so goddamn stupid that I have a hard time, like you said, remembering their names, feeling sympathy for them.

I end up just getting wrapped up in the footage and see it like just being impressed technically by the movie more than anything else really, and like that I think maybe is kind of the way I walked away from it this time is going. Yeah, if I think about the movie, I think about how visually arresting in a lot of ways that it is, and how evocative it is. It is an evocative film. I mean again, it's evoking terror I mean, you take the monster out and it's terrorists. I mean, you know, put the monster back in all of a sudden, it's a monster.

So's it's that it's like, you know, you're you have really succinctly replicated something that we don't have, which is a lot of life. I mean, there's not a lot of footage from nine to eleven inside of the buildings because people didn't have camera phones. And that's kind of what this feels like. It feels like in a way they're making that, and yeah, it is that part of it is scary and upsetting because again, you think more about the real life ramifications of what we're talking about here, less a fucking big gass monster with balloons on the side of its head. I did feel bad though, when Lizzie Kaplan blew up, I will say that, Yeah, I mean, that's the problem with this movie is the one character you do kind of care about dies immediately.

I would actually go as far as to say the two characters that they give more time to than our lead are killed very quickly. Lizzie Kaplan and Mike Vogel, who plays are the leads brother who's much more, much more entertaining than Michael Stalls David is. But that's not Michael Salt, dynamic guy. Yeah, yeah, I forgot. I kind of forgot that he gets it on the bridge.

Yeah, boy doesn't he It's just and it's it's sudden too, But again, it's like it's somebody has to go earlier. And it's those moments that are so scary where you see it just one of the characters that you've spent eighteen minutes with, because I was watching first eighteen minutes of this movie is solely nothing to do with the monster, right, And then you and then you have about like the rest of the movie is just like a complete nightmare. But you have this moment where you see his brother on this light pole and you're like, Okay, what's going on here? And then he just gets smashed and that's it. Yeah, and it's like that's horrifying again, Like and I think the movie does a good enough job of making it horrifying without lingering on how horrifying it is.

Mom, they have to keep moving. I mean, you've got it. You don't know, you don't have time to to really mourn your your fallen soldiers here. You got to get to safety. And there are some respites, of course, like when they do first go in the subway, we get a little break.

And I just kept saying, man, I hope they break into all the hot dog places and all that stuff and get some food. And that's what I would be doing down there. And I mean again, you know the you have the character of Rob has to go get his girlfriend at her building and she's pinned to the ground by rebar Like in that situation, I think you or I would do the same thing, and we would be called stupid for doing so, right, But like again, it's that's the hard thing about this movie is like the characters are acting stupidly, but like in that situation, I guess the conceit might be that we would all act stupidly. That's the thing. Like that the whole rescuing of the girlfriend thing is oddly not like heartwarming, but it feels very realistic.

Like that feels like I understand that, And there are some like stakes with that because then you know, we end up knowing what happens at the end of the movie, so there are some real steaks. Yeah, I agree that either of us would do that, for like I would try to se of course, save my wife and or daughter if they're in that situation. So that that's one of those instances of where they're saying, don't go that direction, and they go that direction. I get that. It's some of the other stuff, like we're talking about how dumb people have to be, and that is a common I mean, that's just a horror trope in general, like going on the goddamn bridge, Like that's right, right, And my daughter even said that, like why are they going on a bridge right without from the water?

Yeah, even regardless of that it's over water, you're stuck. Yeah, Like that's move forward, move forward, you can't go back. So yeah, I like it when movies avoid those tropes. And I wish I could think of a found footage example, but one example I can think of is for Home Invasion films, where you get a lot of those same kind of tropes of people doing stupid things. And the one that's very successful at avoiding that is your Next And because from what I've understand and what I've read, the guys that made that movie don't like Home Invasion films because of the tropes that are inherent in it.

So let's work our script so that we're avoiding those traps where you are pushing yourself as the writer to instead of solving a problem by having somebody act stupid, you just have to be a more clever writer. So the lead does something smart. What is there to foil that and then they have to react to that. So I think the second movie in this franchise quote unquote does that well, avoids those tropes well by having our lead be a smart character. That's my so.

I mean this works, and that's not a found footage film. It's not a home invasion film. But you don't have to have a dumb character simply to move the plot along and get your stuff in, get the fun stuff that you want to get in. You just have to be a smarter writer. How do you feel about some of the other things that Drew Goddard's worked on, Because he's worked on a couple of high profile things, Cabin in the Woods, World war Z, The Martian.

He directed Bad Times at the Al Royale, which I did not see. I like that movie. Not a horror movie though, No, it's not a horror movie, not a found footage movie either. Cabin in the Woods is pretty fun. When I think of that kind of movie where they're playing with horror movie tropes, I go with Tucker and Dale versus Evil over Kevin in the Woods.

Agreed. I think Cabin in the Woods is massively overrated, But looking at his I mean he's written a lot of stuff at is typically pretty smart. We watched Alias my wife and I I think she continued with it after I sort of lost interest. The Martian is fine. We watched that.

I think in World War Z. I mean, looking at his filmography, I've liked a lot of what he's worked on, either as a producer or a writer. Lost Alias in Cloverfield Lane, I like Bad Times at the l Royale or Battle Royale, or It's Culled. I just I think, I just think that writing a found footage film is hard. I think it's not something that should be approached lightly.

I think it is approached lightly because it is so cheap to make, and because because it's cheap to make, that means, you know, anybody and their mother feels like they can throw together a script and go out and have somebody wear fangs and pretend to be a vampire. I mean, it's right, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that. I have no problem with the democratization of filmmaking any more than you do. That's what makes found footage so good, is you know, the original the og found footage movie. I mean, yeah, you could say Cannibal Holocaust, but we're talking about success with the kind of success that drew the industry to it Blair, which I mean that is just two dudes going into the woods with their friends to make a movie.

You know, that's not there's nothing to it. I mean, that's just some friends going, let's make a movie. And that movie has one one hundredth of the visual effects budget that this movie one one thousand. But yet they draw on that same well of tropes and you know, again to levels of success that are varied between both projects. I think Cloverfield is kind of outside of Blair Witch.

It is the definitive found footage movie, even if it is kind of a big budget Hollywood movie, Like they don't make Move, They're never gonna make another found They're never gonna make another twenty five million dollar found footage movie. That's just like, right, that's not gonna happen. That doesn't sound like a realistic thing, right, I don't. Yeah, I just that's a lot. I think nowadays a people approach something like that at probably morphs at some point to just a straight out narrative, right, which I mean is the funny part because we have because I guess that's what the ultimate question at the end of the movie, is where did the creature come from?

Like you've mentioned, they mentioned in the aarg that the creature comes from the water. Maybe there's a falling satellite at the end of the movie. That seemed to be what they were going with at one point was kind of had to do with the monster, and then they changed it. Yeah, And that's always confused me because I just assume, oh, it landed right. But you know, in the end of the end of the movie, you have the two leads who go underneath a what is it like a little tunnel in Central Park and the tunnel do they get do they black?

I guess they died. I guess who knows? Doesn't say anything about the people who doesn't say if they found two corpses with that cam corder? So who knows? So I have no idea.

There was something on the internet on YouTube, the clover Field Files. It was a fan made film and apparently they got Michael staald Avid to be in it, reprising his role as Rob. They don't think that that's official. I mean, look, there's another movie coming out, so maybe they'll address it. I can't imagine.

Fourteen fifteen years later, anybody cares that was involved in the original movie, but who knows. I mean maybe Michael Stault David was involved in something as recently as twenty nineteen, so or I think even more recently than that with the Cloverfield Files. So hey, people still care about this movie though, and people like this movie a lot, and I still think that there are a lot of people that really want to know more about Cloverfield. So that brings us to tick ten Cloverfield Lane Yay. So yeah, this movie not directed by Matt Reeves.

It's directed by Dan Tracktonburg, who just had his own big franchise movie come out with Prey, which it's fucking good too. Man, haven't seen it yet. I am excited to watch it. Watched it with the kid and we both really really liked it. I will have to watch it then.

Because this movie is not written by Dan Tractonberg, that movie is praise right, I believe. So yeah. This movie is written by Josh Campbell, Matt Stuken, and Damian Chiselle You Had Damian Giselle of Whiplash and La La La, based on a story by Josh Campbell and Matt Stuken. It is produced once again by our good friend mister J. J.

Abrams and the stars Mary, Elizabeth Winstead, John Goodman, and John Gallagher Junior. And if that sounds like a very short list of people to have in your movie, that's because it's say three it is a stage play. It is a three person story. Yeah, it's a stage play in a lot of ways. So, mister Begley, tell me a little bit about your exposure with the first clover Field sequel Clover clover verse.

That's a stupid sorry, folks. Yeah, I just remember it. This was the first entstence of that very obvious We took an existing ip or property and squeeze it into this ip. That stuff has been done for We've we've talked about this before a lot of this, a little bit more about hill Raiser, a lot of the hell Raiser movies, a lot of the Saw movies, a lot of the Diehard movies. These franchise exactly.

Yeah, it's literally started as an X Files script. I believe they start as something else. They get bought by a company that has an existing property that's done fairly well or reasonably well, and they shoehorned in make some changes. So this I remember hearing the little bits and pieces of this didn't start as a clover Field movie. It was called this.

It was about this. You know, these things get tacked on at the end. But being a I don't even know if I had seen Cloverfield at that point when this movie came out, honestly, but I like John Goodman, I like the other guy that John gall Gerd Junior fairly well. But I really like Mary Elizabeth Winstead. So I was interested in seeing the movie because of that.

And when I read the description or maybe even saw the trailer where it's a woman in peril film, for the most part, I was like, oh, I like that. I like that idea, And then I watched it and thought, oh, yeah, this is great. Up until the end of the film, I think, and I'm just going to put this out there right at the beginning, and I understand why they didn't do it this way, but I think if you had left that clover Field name off of this film, it would have been more successful to have that be an absolute surprise at the end that they honestly are aliens. You mean, yeah, that there it's not that it's an alien attack, and it's though and it's those aliens or what you know. We know that whatever they shoehorned this into the clover Field universe, that's fine.

I don't think aliens in any way, shape or form were a part of it. Maybe they were originally, However, regardless of any of that, I think they wanted people to go because the clover Field name is in there. But I honestly think that if you had just released this as ten mocking Bird Lane and people are in the theater and they're seeing slush Show, they're seeing Kelvin, they're seeing things that are in the jj Abrams universe, and they're starting to go and then at the end, when she finally sees an alien, either the ship or whatever, she sees evidence that this is not a man made catastrophe or the tragedy or war or something like that, she sees, oh no, this is actually aliens. Then people would have gone, oh shit, this is part of clover Field, and that I think would have created the buzz post release.

I mean that would have come out. This came out what year, so people were very much Internet savvy, were very much this. I think that the buzz that they wanted originally would have been created that very first day that it was released, and people got out of the theater or even in the theater with their phones and we're going, it's a clover Field movie. It's a clover Field movie. Oh my god.

Then and word of mouth and it would have exploded, I think as much by attaching the clover Field name to it. That's just my opinion, my uneducated opinion on that. I'm not sure how educated they were, because what's the point of calling this clover Field Well that it ruins You're expecting a monster to show up at some point. You're expecting one monster to show up, the monster from clover Field, right, which is again like that I think for me is like, you know, this movie is really good, but at the same time, this movie is also not good at all because I can't I have a hard time at balancing the issues that this movie had coming into it once JJ Abrams and crew bought it and the movie that we get because I cannot take away the last ten minutes of this movie.

I mean, I'm not going to let it soil my entire viewing experience, but that, coupled with the hen Cloverfield Lane name, really does this movie no service. Because this movie is really good. The script about the bunker stuff is really good. It's really well thought out, it's kind of quirky. It's menacing without having to be overtly menacing.

John Goodman turns in a fantastic performance that I still contend should have been Oscar nominated for Supporting Actor and it wasn't. John Gallagher Junior doesn't show up in a lot of movies. He's more of a stage actor. He's in I think the third season a West World. And yeah, I mean, Mary Elizabeth Winn said, My god, I mean, I'm not even a fan of Scott Pilgrim and I like Mary Elizabeth winnsaid, And she makes that thing prequel halfway watchable.

She kind of does. But you know what, this movie should never have been called Cloverfield anything. I hear. That's that's what I was getting out. What are they wait?

Yeah, I agree, And I think it spoils any surprise at the end. You're not surprised when she gets out and it's alien. You're expecting that. And have some faith in viewers, have some faith in turning this into a marketing campaign just by virtue of it being part of that universe without the name attacked. Like I said, ten whatever, come up with the street you know that you lived on tin whatever?

Because for one thing, that's misleading because it's not ten Cloverfield Lane. Nobody's gonna have nobody's gonna live on a street that has the name of the first movie in a you know, it doesn't make any sense to call it that. It should have been a surprise for everybody in those first screenings of the film, like they did with the trailer for the first movie, right or if you went and saw Transformers at midnight or the next morning, you got to see this trailer that you did not know about the movie. And you know what, they even have a reveal moment that they live at ten Cloverfiled Lane, Like, why do you even have this revealed moment in the movie? We know that doesn't have any bearing on literally anything, but okay, yeah, what's okay?

So what's you know, we haven't talked about what this movie's about. So Mary Elizabeth Winstead is captured by John Goodman, who is a scientist I guess or worked with scientists, and he knows that the aliens are invading and so he's rushing home. He hits her car, puts her in the bunker with John Gallagher Jr. Who I guess he knew he knew him before, the whole thing with the bunker, and then the rest of the movie is her trying to figure out whether or not there actually is some sort of catastrophic event going on outside and John Goodman trying to prevent her from leaving the bunker. It's a great setup and then it just shits the fucking bed so hard.

Like, the last ten minutes of this movie are awful. They shoot it in dark evening light for a reason because it's it looks cheap, because it's not good. Because when you light things really low lit, it's because you're trying to hide the fact that they're not well made. Yeah, I forgive. I think I'm a little more forgiving of the last ten minutes because I enjoy the first.

However, many minutes come prior because like you mentioned, John Goodman's performance for one thing, and then, like I mentioned earlier, I think that she has written as a very smart character and it does pretty much everything right completely. I've never seen a character tie their thing to their leg and crawl through things like that. That's like it's like, that's so like this beyond well thought out character moment. She from the instant she wakes up in there, So she's leaving a bad relationship. At the beginning of the film's dicted mentioned that to Cleo when I don't know if she knows who he is, sure she does with Rockety Raccoon.

Same, Yes, that's right, that's right, that's right. She's distracted, she's distraught, she's a little bit on guard. She has a fucking moment at that gas station where she sees the truck behind her. It's the middle of the night. She's a woman alone, so she's on edge as well, gets hit, gets wakes up in the bunker with her leg in a brace and she is handcuffed to a bed.

So she's obviously her mind goes to the first place I think most of us go to in that situation, that she has been caught by a rapist or you know, worse right, and so's she has that mindset for a while, for a good while, and so she is trying to escape, even though John Goodman and John Gallagher's character both telling her, no, you don't want to go outside, And I'm always kind of relieved when we get to the point where the woman is outside and Mary Elizabeth Winstead realizes, oh, this part of the story is actually true. Something has happened. There has been some wide scale event that has poisoned the air, because you get it's hard up to that point. I think maybe knowing okay, yes something is actually happening to say, Okay, relax your this isn't the problem.

Escaping him isn't the problem just yet. It's it's this, what's gonna how are you guys going to survive? What is going on outside? That becomes the problem, and it's a little bit more interesting of a problem because they all have to figure out a way to work together to solve it. I mean there it's solved for them a little bit because they're safe in the bunker.

So you you almost expect more of those issues like the fan going out that they have to solve, and she has to go up in the you know, that gives her that experience of going into the vents to fix that, and so it's I just think it's pretty smart at every turn where the problems are solved by someone who's not acting like a dummy like they might do in the first film, Like I was gonna say, Rob from the first film would not cut it two seconds down in the ten I would contend that the ten Cloverfield Lane Bunker is more dangerous than the monster in Cloverfield is. And you know, the poster says monsters come in many forms, and you know it's fine. But I think my biggest problem with this movie is because there is that last ten minutes of abject stupidity.

The finale of the film feels truncated with John Goodman like oh yeah, like completely, like they give these stupid alien story screen time over John Goodman is what it feels like, and the alien story is only in the last ten minutes of the movie that they introduced the aliens for the first time in the last ten minutes of the movie, as opposed to hanging it on the John Goodman character having the finale, which is the important character for her to have a meaningful interaction. Yeah, I forgot. It's been a while since I've watched this one, but I have watched this multiple times before watched I watched it on my own. I think I had my my wife watch it with me one time, and I forget. I'm like oh shit, we're already to that point.

We're already to the acid bath point and thinking that that went like you're saying that their interactions were a little longer, because it seems like we go from discovering that the girl Megan that he keeps mentioning wasn't his daughter too pretty soon after that, John Gallagher's character is taken out, and then very shortly after that, John Coodman's character is taken out. So yeah, I forget that that happens so rapidly because prior to that, we're kind of moving along a little more slowly. The pace is a little more stretched out, and then it's like bam bam bam out to the aliens, because that's the important thing. I don't know if how I feel about the twist of it. Turns out Howard was keeping a girl down there anyways, So he's just a fucking serial killer or a murderer or no different than like the Toy Box Killers or Gary Hydnick, Like I guess is that what?

Yeah, it's like, that's kind of that's a twist for a different movie. It's they don't breathe twist kind of, you know. Yeah, I like it, though, I think it. It just doesn't serve this movie, not the narrative that this movie is going. Well, I think what we what we accomplish with that is, Okay, she does really need to get out of here, because at some point she's lulled into okay, yeah, well and they're so she's initially trying to get out because she doesn't believe him, thinks that he's is actually what he ends up being.

So we got to stop that. So we have the lady outside who ends up dying and because of the poison air, So okay, who he is telling the truthful? Maybe he's not a creep, Maybe he's just not a very well social you know, he doesn't have good social skills. And then oh no, yes he is a real creep, even worse than I thought, or pretty much exactly what I thought. He has kidnapped a girl and she apparently died, and most likely he killed her because she tried to leave.

And so I think that gets us back to, oh shit, I gotta get the fuck out of here right now. If they had done that with the aliens earlier, I wonder how that would play, But I think their their point is here. Oh I've gotten out, I'm safe. I've crafted myself this wonderful little hazmat suit and so now I'm now I'm safe. And then oh shit again, once again we have another twist that's like, no, you're not safe because he was right and it is this and there are aliens.

I guess there are aliens, and you're screwed, actual aliens who may or may not just be giant spaceship with mal I was that an aliens was the spaceship? The alien is it? Is it like the creature from the first movie where the little things they like shake him off and the big thing is just like a creature that looks like a spaceship. That's kind of what it seems like. Yeah, I am confused by that as well.

I'm not sure because you see a couple different things flying around. But then when she's getting sucked up, it's like she's going up into the butthole of the spaceship. But it's it's like a mouth, like a beat. It's I don't I you know. It could be that that's just their armor and they look like a spaceship.

Yeah, I don't know. I was not a fan of pretty much anything from when she gets out of the Bunk group. But everything else before that is so good, and I really wonder if that's where the script changed hands, like, you know, Yeah, I'm curious to as to what It's always been my understanding or I've always assumed it was pretty much a straight woman in peril, right. The seller was the name of the movie, and when she gets out, that's it. So I don't know if there was something else after she gets out in the original, But yeah, I mean, if you're going to do that, like I say, make it us total surprise.

Yeah, not give the audience a really big hint that at some point there was going to be an alien in this because it's got the clover Field name on it. So let me ask you, when you watch this movie for the first time, did you assume because there was clover Field the name, there was going to be some bullshit at the end. That was my assumption. Yeah, I think it's a fair assumption. At some point you go, well, maybe it's not.

When she gets out and then she takes the helmet off and it can breathe the airror and it's like, okay, I'm fine, you know, but he was crazy. I don't know what happened to that gal, But everything's cool now, and then you start to hear the rattling and the ship and it's like, oh, okay, that is where we're going. I mean, why why else would they call it this If that's not where we're going. You wouldn't call it that and have it be you know, like inbred zombie people or something that he had been creating. I don't know, I don't know where else you go, but well, and that's and that is.

I think that's the thing for me about this movie that I always think about is with the addition of the clover Field name, you've now set the expectation that it's going to be one thing. Yeah, and if it's not that, then people are going to be equally as upset because it isn't if there were no aliens at the end, I think people would be there would be a different group of people who'd be disappointed because it has ten clover Field in the name and it's not something akin to the original. I mean, that's the thing. If you like the original movie, you might not like this movie. It's completely different.

This is a really different This movie is a Honestly, this film is a film that would probably up until the last ten minutes feel more at place in the seventies. This could you know, this is akin to like a Polanski film in a lot of ways. That yeah, and that's why I really still like it. And excuse the last ten minutes because I think that first part is the first two thirds of the film are great. When that's I like those kind of movies when we say it's literally a different movie, it's because it literally is, right, I would be curious.

I would be satisfied with her getting out and that pretty much being it, and realizing he was lying, was I think everything that comes before it is great and she doesn't have to encounter any any other because that's what that's what a lot of those kind of films do, where you escape the one bad thing and there is another bad thing outside, like his cohort or something, or the guy that's like, oh, I'll take care of you, and then you end up right back in the bunker, right. You know, that's a lot of times how those movies play out. But knowing that most likely it had nothing to do with aliens at all, it's just it's kind of a head scratcher. I don't know, what. I don't know what drew them to that script to think, oh, we should attack on ten minutes of alien stuff at the end of this film, just to have something with the clover Field name on it.

You know. JJ Abrams has gone on record saying that he didn't want to do clover Field too because of films like Godzilla and Pacific Rim which I think the original clover Field I think is better than those two movies. I think clover Field is probably still the best American made Godzilla film too. In a lot of ways, it's better than either one of those three Godzilla movies. Now, never mind any one of those three fucking Godzilla movies.

But my god, Like, what in the holy hell they were thinking with this script, being like it's it doesn't make any sense why this is a clover Field movie. I think that's the big takeaway every time I watch this movie is like, what does this have to do with clovers Yeah, nothing, nothing, And they do, like, you know, people want to complain about and we'll talk about it when we talk about Paradox. I think Paradox actually makes sense why it's a clover Field movie. This movie like again, like that's why I said like this movie is at times immensely successful and then at other times a complete fucking failure because you can't reconcile the two. The last ten minutes are a different movie.

I'm sorry if people don't like me saying that, and I'm sorry that my opinion is I liked this movie up until that point, and then I would contend that the people who made this movie should have somebody should have put their fucking foot down and been like, this is this doesn't make any sense because it doesn't make any sense. Yeah, I agree, I agree. It looks cheap. Man. Save that money for something else, save it for the marketing campaign.

I don't know, Like what JJ Abrams couldn't make a movie that's not a clover Field movie. Yet, you can't just produce a good script. I don't get it, Like, you can't just produce a good script. I guess the point is, in a way, we can't really do the New York setting again, the New York City, Manhattan setting found footage. You know, let's have it a little ways out from there to people that don't know what's going on.

But again, why a woman in peril trapped in a bunker? What? What about that script. Maybe it could have just been a family almost like Color out of Space in a way where something weird starts happening on there far right, and maybe they have to deal with the small cloverfield like maybe maybe maybe this movie is set out in the middle of nowhere and they just have to deal with a bunch of those little parasites because those fucking things are scary. They make you explode if they bite you.

Yeah, I don't know, like a Kelly Hopkinsville Goblin situation where it's like a family under attack like straw Dogs, but with alien straw doggs with aliens, right, which is movie could have been? Yeah, you know, why not that, Mike, Fuck, let's write that movie me and use straw doggs with aliens. Does that exist yet? That's the Kelly Hopkinsville story pretty much a family under attack by aliens. That's what they should have been.

And you know what, then you do have a cloverfield tie in because at the end of the movie, you oh, the power finally came back and you see the oh we're we're reporting from New York. You know, the clover and whatever is dead, you know, but the you know, these people were in upstate New York. So the creatures have already made their way up there. I don't know. We're doing their job for him.

Fuck man, And there's your Cloverfield connection, and you don't And it doesn't have to be set in Louisiana, which is farther from New York than anything else, frankly could have been. And that may have been the thought process, and they go, well, you know, we actually have this script that's sort of similar to that just sitting here, so we'll just use this. Maybe who the fuck knows. That's the problem. It's not very clear where what got excised and what got grafted on, because that's what this feels like.

What dialogue is there in the bunker that they really added, right, right? I mean right, because it's all speculation as to what's happening outside. Right He mentions aliens, But that very well could have been an original part of the script because it didn't. He's lead anything. He's being pretending to be her savior.

He also just happens to be. It didn't have to lead anywhere. When she got outside, there didn't actually have to be a danger outside. Yeah, she could have been got she could have gotten out and then like the cops were waiting for her type thing, you know. Yeah, I mean in a different you know what, the other version of this movie there may have been like people looking for her and they find her at the end, you know, something like that.

You know, I don't know. I mean that's the Earth three twelve timeline. I think that you're talking about. Oh for that movie got released. God, yeah, it's And that's the problem with this movie.

It's a really good movie. It just man suffers, suffers so hard from being a clover Field movie. Yeah. I don't think it does any It does not do the film any service to have at the least that aim yeah on it. Yeah.

No. And then and it doesn't help the last one much either, right, yeah, because I was about to say, and then we come to the last one where the last one actually is kind of a clover Field and it has and it has its own problematic release that pissed everybody off. I mean, please, I mean again, if you're of a certain age with the original Cloverfield, you remember the arg but we're all of a certain age to remember what they did with Cloverfield Paradox, which was novel. Yeah, this one, I remember hearing about like, oh, we're going to do this again. Take We're gonna take an existing script, we're gonna jam in clover Field.

And I actually in this one can tell where they jammed stuff in. I mean you can tell them in Tin clover Phil Lane. It's just really the ending. But here around in clover ten Cloverfield Lane, you're here, it's very obvious as to what's been shoehorned in to make it a clover Field movie. And so you hear about this, you hear, you start hearing about, oh we're doing another one of these, and oh it's gonna be released some crazy way.

And then oh, I'm sitting at my parents watching the super Bowl and a commercial comes on that tells me I can watch it right after on the Netflix. So I believe we did actually go home and watch it. I were like, what in the hell is this the same thing? I know that I watched it. As soon as the super Bowl was over.

I was at my buddy's house and waiting for my wife to get off of work, and him and I sat down and we watched it. Yeah, and uh, I can I can I speak for the both of us and saying the first time we both watched it. We probably both didn't like it very much. I was just absolutely flemixed by it. Right.

It's like there was like why does this exist? There were some interesting visuals, and I liked some of the ideas, but what made me laugh was the whole the whole Donald logue scene where they're watching that news thing. And I didn't make the connection. Probably read about it or saw it online the next day. We had the same last name as John Goodman's character.

Oh, and they're not supposed to be the same character. But the lady, the newscast lady is the woman that was outside the bunker in the in tin Cloverfield Lane. I wouldn't have made that connection, and I think it's sort of irrelevant except as an Easter egg. But it's very obvious that that whole thing was slipped into the film to explain how this is a part of the Cloverfield paradox. Yeah, let us watch the television shot from behind the characters, so you don't have to see what they're Gumbatha raws like on her phone recording dialogue.

Yeah, we want to watch the screen now. Yeah, that's what it feels like, like this is from another movie again. Yeah, it's very obviously not a part, not a part of the original story. So what did you think watching it this time? I actually enjoyed it.

I still like a lot of the visuals. I like the idea well for one thing. I like this cast as well. I like just about everybody in it. I'm trying to think of if there's anybody I'm not super familiar with the blonde gal that pops up in the you know, with all the wires.

Oh, Elizabeth DEBICKI, yeah, I know I've seen her in some stuff, but everybody else on there has been in shows or movies that I've watched and really enjoyed. Googo is it? Imbatha raw Imbatha ra yep. She was on a show with keif for Sutherland that my wife and I watched, didn't laugh. I don't think it lasts more than a season, but she's in a lot of interesting stuff.

I like Chris Doubt, I like pretty much everybody in it, so that part's fun. And what's his name from? And Glorious Bastard's the German actor. I really like all of them. So I like the actors.

I like a lot of the funky body horror stuff. That's going on, and it grows to my daughter out So that was fun. The worms she's she has an aversion to on screen vomit, and so so when that scene happens with the Russian guy up there, she was like, oh God, and then it's all you know, it's just like all over him and stuff. She was not digging that. I again, I kind of like if they had just left it alone, I probably would have liked this even better than having that funky tact on ending and the insert of that news broadcast.

So the movie is directed by Julius Ona. It's screenplayed by Orion utzil Uzel or an Ouzel or a Newzel. It's produced once again by our good friend mister J. J. Abrams And like you mentioned, Googo both, Elizabeth Debickie, Daniel Brule, Chris o'dowll, David ol whioh Jesus Christ, how many more good actors.

And yeah, it takes place on a space station, the Cloverfield Station, where they're trying to solve the energy crisis by doing particle acceleration. As for me, yeah, so you mentioned kind of the weird marketing thing. After the super Bowl movie comes out, everybody watches it. I fucking hated it first time I watched it, and again it's just like what like it? I remember thinking, okay, so what does this have to do with Cloverfield?

And then it felt like in ten Cloverfield Lane it was tacked on on this it was like nailed on, Like it was like it was like hung on as it's running out the door, like Jesus Christ, they didn't even They was like, it's like the Lacroix of Cloverfield. You know, they whifted the Lacroix the Cloverfield name over it, like there, you know, it has the monster at the end. And then you know, I've gone and read things and listen to people postulate about how does this connect to Cloverfield And if you play this movie with Cloverfield the original movie, the moment they turn the particle accelerator on is the moment the creature shows up. Yeah, I've heard that, which is fine, but they've already explained where the creature came from.

And ten Cloverfield Lane had nothing to do with Cloverfield. This one does, question mark. It gives them multiple universes exist here. Yes, yeah, it gives them the opportunity to explain like, well, that's Donald Loge's whole speech. You can have these multiple un you know, it will even disrupt the time space continuum where you have multiple universes and where they will interact.

So you can kind of explain the different timelines of the first two movies and this one, this one doesn't have to happen before the events of Cloverfield or of Tin Cloverfield Lane. That can be happening simultaneously because we have alternate universes, right, So they're they're it's I mean, it's just it's like comics. It's like the comics multiverse, like Doctor Straight It's it's before it's like those like though, but when I was a kid, because they started creating that stuff, because you know, back in the day, back in like the Silver and the Bronze age, when people were writing different stories. So let's say Iron Man shows up in a Spider Man comic and does something, and that's now one timeline, right, you gotta keep track of that too, instead of just you know, it's just it's a one off.

It's just it's just a comic book. It's a one off. He doesn't have to adhere to what he does in the normal Iron Man, but it creates now this thing where oh, well we have to connect everything, and the only way that we can actually really do that is to say, oh, they're separate timeline, and it becomes cheap. And that's the thing about the MCU and other properties that do this that ends up making me tune out because I can't keep track of all that ship in my little pea brain. Well, and the stakes disappear to when you're like, well, Iron Man's dead in our universe, but and every other one it's alive, and it's like, well, what does it matter that?

Right? And for this movie, I was like, oh no, I'm not going to be able to keep track of what's It's pretty it's pretty simple. The movie doesn't even explain it. All. The explanation is really done after the fact.

Outside of the movie. It gives you some kind of gives you some kind of way, It gives you some ideas as to what it wants you to think, and you kind of have to extrapolate the rest on your own. Yeah. But as far as as far as the I'm thinking more of the two space stations that exist in this film because because of the Elizabeth Debecky character showing up in side a wall, It's like, oh, she was part of the crew. She's basically TAM's character in this universe, and so I thought, oh crap, they're going to start dealing with multiverse and I'm not going to be able to fall along.

But it's really just those two separate space stations where the crew is a little bit different. Google about the RAS character is not on the ship, and the one timeline that they're currently in now after they mess with the particle accelerator, she stayed home. That gives us that drama with her as to what her decision is going to be based on the fact that she in the previous timeline she had lost her kids because of this bad decision that she had made. Blah blah blah blah blah. So I was able to follow it, but that stuff can really throw me off.

And I understand why it's used. It's used to make these things able to exist at the same time, which is lazy in a way but can lead to creative things. I guess I just don't think that they really it really works in this well. And that's you know, that's the thing I guess. And this is going to be my interpretation of what's going on through reading all this stuff, and you know, my own kind of interpretation of the facts and things that were presented through these three films.

So the Cloverfield Station is the essential progenitor of all the bad things that happen both in the original film and in ten Cloverfield Lane. When they turn the thing on somehow, some way, no explanation is given. Frankly, no explanation is needed. It's very event horizony in a lot of ways. They turn it on, and by doing that, it's actual a doom.

I mean Event Horizon ripped Doom off because essentially the plot of Event Horizon is almost the plot of Doom. You're accessing the other side with a portal. They do the same thing here by smashing the atoms together. They have created a tear in spacetime. Happens in Spider Man with the Spider Man Show up.

It's used its magic there, but it's essentially the same idea. It's the weakened, weakened spots and then you rip it open with a particle accelerator, and I guess in doing that creatures from other places, like in the like in the Mouth of Madness, you're accessing somewhere else unbeknownst to us. I keep having to reference other things that don't explain anything either, because this movie's trafficking in Then I think that pisted a lot of people off. And I also, I'm a fan, but not a fan. I guess when they turned it on, they smashed these universes together, these four technically two different Cloverfield paradox ones, and then a clover Field and a ten Cloverfield Lane.

They had various kinds of creatures come through in ten Cloverfield Lane, the ones that we see in that movie to again not discounting there may be the clover Field Monster. It's just running around in New York. Who knows, We don't we don't know. They say seaboards, so you're led to believe there must be a lot of But she's only underground for like three days, so they've lost pretty quickly, which is kind of funny. And then in this movie you see the clover Field creature from the first one, so at least right at least in these three you know this, the two clover Field Station universes and the og clover Field universe, they're having to deal with this this creature.

Maybe now here's a thing that I've been thinking. Maybe that creature exists in our universe, it attacks New York. Whatever. The clover Field name has some importance somehow, Clearly, I don't think it's it's not. You know, they keep saying, well, these are all clover Field movies.

Maybe because the station's called Cloverfield, it makes other things like I don't know, I'm trying to figure out a way. Yeah, but clover Field the name is somehow important because all the events associated with Cloverfield Station have the name Cloverfield in them somehow whatever. But I guess maybe my interpretation is the clover Field months in the original movie exists on Earth. It comes from the bottom of the ocean, and somehow when they smashed the universes together, that creature ended or a version of it ended up somewhere else and it grew there because they say in OG Cloverfield, it's a baby, right, And that's the other thing they do, you know. JJ Abrams has said that in the OG Cloverfield movie, the clover Field monsters dead.

They killed it with the hammer Down protocol where they nuked Manhattan. I guess, so it's dead, which means it can die. But the version in Cloverfield Paradox is an adult, so maybe I don't know. I would like to believe that the Cloverfield Monster in the original movie did come from the bottom of the ocean. Just by smashing our universes together, it ended up in New York, or it ended up in wherever this universe.

I don't know. That's the problem with this movie. The tact on nature raises more questions than need to be raised, and I don't think those questions have any exciting or interesting answer because I don't think they were intending to ask them. I think they're just a byproduct of a disjointed quote universe unquote. Yeah, they're working backwards toward making the connections instead of having something planned out from the beginning, which is how a lot of people felt as they watched the show Lost Unfold.

Despite them saying, oh, no, we had a plan along, it's like, really did you? Because this last season don't feel like it anyway. But I think for me, like you know, to answer the question of what do I think about this movie, I don't mind this movie. Actually, I even with the Cloverfield connection, Like you know, the stuff with her husband on Earth feels as tacked on as it is because it's clearly it is clearly what is the addition to this that makes it cloverfield? Along with like you mentioned the kind of the news the news report with Donald Loge's character essentially just saying exposition here, I am let me explain to you what you're about to see.

Every thing I say, just like everything is relative. John Goodman says, you know comes to fruition, right. People always like to talk about this thing where it's like, well a character in the movie said, like if a character in the movie is saying that's what they think, this is, now stranger things aside, because they decided not to do that, even though they did it in the most recent season. They kind of said one thing and then it was something else. Nine times out of ten.

That is the writer telling you what it is right to ten times out of ten. Frankly, like they don't sometimes they don't feel obligated to give you backstory. They just have a character say that's what they think it is, and that serves as the backstory. Anyways, you see it all the time and all kinds of things I mean, Jesus Christ in Silence of Lambs, they traffic in that hardcore. It's Hannibal Elector talking about what he thinks is never confirmed in the movie.

That's actually what's going on, but you can be led to believe that Hannibal Lecter is probably right, and if the screenwriters telling you that, then that's what they believe. It is the internal logic that they're operating under. So, I mean, and that's a problem for a lot of people. And I don't blame them for not wanting to have a movie like this one really expecting you to work for it. It's like, it's not the narrative on its own does not need that.

It's it's a fucking space station movie. It's like Event Horizon Light. Yeah, And that's what I kept thinking of when I was watching it, because I am more familiar with that movie now than probably the first time I watched this, seen a two or three times since then, and thinking, oh, yeah, this is just that, but not so much with horror elements added or you know, satan like literal satan added. But I yeah, I enjoyed it too much more than the first time. I don't think I hated it.

The first time. I just remember, like I said, being kind of flummixed by again, what is the point of shoehorning these things into what probably could have been a fairly interesting, just drop on Netflix movie on its own, just a sci fi and they could have made and they could have done what you talked about this time, and it even made more sense, which was do the thing that they didn't split and leave it for the audience to find at the end. Leave the Cloverfield monster out until the end of the movie. Yeah, yeah, yeah, Like don't even know. I'm saying, like, don't even call it clover right, right, just again?

Right? Like they I don't think they can let themselves rely on word of mouth. They don't trust the audience. Is what this is because every I mean just think about it, either of those two movies, everybody would have been not necessarily spoiling it, but at least spoiling that surprise of it within the clover Field for hey, you'll never guess it's another club. So have you seen Overlord?

So that's what I wanted to ask you about, because so I haven't seen Overlord, but you've seen a quiet place, right, Yeah, I've seen a quiet place you know that was the other one. Oh, that was the other that was the right So yeah, so there are two and that that that kind of came to light a little bit more recently. I think that. Yeah, I think it was they were like it was being a quiet place was developed as the fourth clover Field movie, and they were like, Okay, maybe like it'll work as its own thing, which is really funny because man, knowing that those monsters in ten Cloverfield Lane looked just like the monsters in a Quiet Place, that same like the same like mouth thing where it's like an asshole mouth and it like opens.

Yeah, it's strange. That's interesting that that might have actually worked. And that one Yeah again, okay because that's sort of what we're talking about, that farm farmhouse. Uh, small dogs straw dogs with aliens. Yeah, and just lose the just lose the gimmick.

I mean, there's the gime. That movie lives on its gimmick, which is why I was not a huge fan of that movie. I was I'm not a gimmickmahan myself. So it's just kind of funny that they have made the decision like maybe this isn't the brightest idea and Overlord was going to be connected as well to this clover Field universe like this is. I think that the original talk was, you know, somebody at some point mentioned when the next one's going to take place in Nazi Germany.

And because you can have this happen anywhere, right, you can. Once they set that particle accelerator off and ripped to the time space continuum, the creatures can pop out at any point in history. So she's a cool fucking idea. It's a series. Huh, Like what are they Yeah, it's what they just did with Prey, because you can do that too, because they're aliens who have are obviously way more advanced, uh technical technically than us techno wise.

And so why not have it set in the seventeen hundreds, Why not have it set two hundred years prior to that? Why not have it set eighteen hundreds ninety? Why not that? And that doesn't have to include any kind of alternate universes. That's just Hey, this is an advanced species that can travel to other worlds already, even three hundred years in our past.

So yeah, that I like the idea of having these things, and they do it with alien. The alien franchise in a way as well. Why Underwater remember that movie? Yeah, they talked about that one being a clover Field movie too, And it makes sense TJ. Miller and John Gallagher Junior in it.

You know, I mean again, you fuck it. You know what's fucked up? You could make any movie a Cloverfield movie if you really went far enough, Like okay, I mean, you know, the conceit is that the Cloverfield station created a monster invasion of some kind. Okay, so what there's let's just go down the list of movies. You know, Battle for Los Angeles could be a clover Field movie realistically, you know what I mean, It's like where do you stop?

And that's the question that they have to ask themselves here because the next Cloverfield movie probably isn't gonna I mean, they've said it's not going to be found footage, but who knows, they may change their minds. I mean again, I don't know if I care about a clover Field movie that's not found footage? Would that be weird? Like do you want to see a clover Field clover Field too, not a found footage because that's what they've kind of said. But again, you know, under advisement until it actually comes down.

Yeah, I don't think, like, what does it just Godzillavin right, that's true. I mean I think it could work as one if they sort of stick to what works so well on the first one. Because I would actually not be being a huge fan of found footage, I probably watch it out of curiosity. Same. I mean again, the first one is a successful found footage movie.

Everything else is kind of up in the air. For a found footage movie. It's probably the best made found footage movie you'll find. Technically, it's a technically impressive film. Like it's technically impressive.

Matt Reeves does a lot more. Okay, everything else, everything else, even fucking Matt Reeves made a found footage movie. I mean that Planet of the Apes movie, the one with Woody Harrelson, was my favorite movie the year it came out. Everybody has raved on and on about the Batman. Matt Reeves knows what he's doing.

He's never gonna make another found footage movie. I can wage that, and from what I have heard, he probably didn't want to make the first one anyways. Yeah, I would director with the capitol D. Let's put it that way. An I'm a fan of let me end So matt Reeves is a great director, great screenwriter as well.

I like matt Reeves a lot. Like I said, that Planet of the Apes movie with Woody Harrelson, it's a great movie. Yeah, he's done again. Looking through his filmography, I've liked a lot of what he's done. I haven't seen The Batman.

I don't really have much interest in DC movies, but a lot of the stuff that he's worked on has. We should do an episode on it, because I'm not going to watch it unless I'm really good to talk about it. That's all right. It's three hours long, man, It's hey. You know what, though, it does draw on some people that you and I both do like apparently there's a lot of finchure in there with the whole Riddler is very much like the Zodiac Killer.

Interesting. Yeah, that was why I wanted to watch it, because everybody was telling me that, like, Riddler was very Zodiac esque, and there is that. There is that leading scene online that's pretty much just them doing the whole Buffalo Bill or the Hannibal, the whole Hannibal Lecter. Yeah, Jodie Foster thing with Batman, the Joker, which I thought was really clever, but also they did a parent silence of the dam but to put it in Batman's clever. I would watch it, but I'm not running out to us.

Yeah, I don't know. It's big. It's a big it's a big ask. It's three hours, it's two movies. And I like Robert Pattinson just fine.

So it's nothing against town. Yeah, No, Robert Pattinson is a great actor. No, I'm interested to see what we get with Cloverfield Too. If it does end up being a non found footage movie, I think that could be interesting. I would For me, I would do it something akin to like h like World War Z but the book where it's like telling the story after the fact of what happened with the like how the world reacted to the Cloverfield incident and then the fallout from that.

Like I think that could be interesting. But again it begs the question what version what is clover What is Cloverfield Too? Is Cloverfield to a movie that takes place in the original clover Field universe? Is it a movie about other universes where the clover Field that paradox, Because again, Cloverfield paradox is a real movie that exists that has now opened up a box of when they turned the switch on, all these bad things happened. So what is Cloverfield too, now that we know that, Now that we know Cloverfield wasn't just a monster from the bottom of the ocean, or maybe it was, but there was more stuff going on.

Yeah, well they've opened it up to any number of possibilities. But will they go back to the aftermath of that original because the movie opens with Rob picking the camera up like that would blow my mind. I would be like, that is not what I was thinking this was going to be at all. I mean TJ. Miller might not even be dead, you know, I mean, I'm bitten in half?

Didn't he? Oh that's true, that's true. He did. Yeah, I forget that. That that is he just lay in there for a minute.

That is just that. That that scene of all the like, of all the things in this entire franchise that has rubbed me the wrong way, and there have been plenty of things, that scene, I think is the thing that's rubbed me the wrong way the most out of anything, The scene where the monster is like staring at the camera like that was where I'm just like, this is this stopped being a random person with a camera a long time ago and you just put a pin in it. Yeah, because like everything else is random, and Marlina Lizzie Kaplan dying is random. Like there's all and then all of a sudden it's like, nope, the monsters following them around, come on, Well they might feel the same way about that guy that we did.

So but I don't. I don't know. I hope maybe clover Field too will be something completely just bonkers off the wall. I mean, that's my hope is if they've they've kind of gone all over the place as it is, like they've had plenty of time to figure out something smart. So not that that's what will happen, but they've had plenty of time to consider it.

And Joe Barton, he's worked on a BBC show called Geary Hoji that sounds pretty interesting. It's a Tokyo detectives who work in London. That sounds definitely like something interesting and worth checking out. So it's not like they're getting I mean, that's the thing. Drew Goddard is not unsecre accessible as a screenwriter either.

Maybe you know what, Maybe it's a good thing it's not going to be found footage because that means people who know how to tell narratives don't need to feel hamstrung by telling it in a admittedly strange narrative format. Yeah. Yeah, I genuinely think Cloverfield will be the biggest budget found footage movie we ever see. Like, I don't know how could anything ever exceed it? Right, it's its own thing, maybe, you know what.

It kind of was successful in a way when you say Cloverfield, like ultimately as this franchise, it has legs. It's going on fourteen years now. Yeah. Well, and if you say clover Field, most people are gonna probably think of the first film. I would think of a certain age, right, I think some people will think of the people my age will probably think of the original movie.

I think some people I don't know who would think of ten Cloverfield Lane. But I think you would get a lot of people also going, oh, the movie from the Super Bowl. Yeah, I was like everybody in their mothers saw the trailer for it. I'm not sure how many people actually watched it, even out of curiosity. If you say clover Field to me, though, I will I'm one of the people that will think of ten Cloverfield Lane first, right, which I totally get.

I mean, I totally totally get that it's the one out of those three at least that I will return to. I know I enjoyed actually watching all three of them watched. I think when I started watching Cloverfield Paradox, Cleio wasn't really paying attention, but it sort of sucked her in. I think she had just woken up. I was like, this was on Monday.

We were supposed to record on Tuesday, so I was getting it in and she hadn't quite woken up yet, but she came out and then I was like, oh, this is the final clover Field movie. And she was playing her game or something at some point stopped and kind of got herself hooked into it. So I didn't even mention like I actually liked Cloverfield Paradox a lot, like I think I may have liked it more than ten Cloverfield Lane. I liked it. I liked it a lot this time.

Again, the body horror stuff, you know, I think should have been there, muld have been more of it, like his eye going sideways really creeped both me and Cleo out. I was like, oh yeah, I forgot about that part, and then you think, oh no, what's going to come out of his eye? Come out of his eye? But stuff does come out. That idea of not only the shared universe but the stuff in their space station ending up in the wrong place is fun for me.

Christaud losing his arm. I enjoyed that part, and for the most part, I think that the effects are done very well in that. But yeah, I actually enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot more than I remember enjoying it the first time. I just think I was kind of like, oh, this was silly.

But Netflix has had a lot of silly movies over the last few years that are kind of fun. That woman in the Window thing with Amy Adams is just bonkers. But my wife and I really enjoyed watch. Never watched. It's insane.

It's insane. It's like it's everybody forgot how to act like a human being in that movie. It's so amazing, and they're all in they're all in different movies. It's based on a book, right, I think so. Yeah, and Amy Adams, Jennifer Justly carry Oldman Wyatt Rustle all these great people in it, it's just weird.

And then the one with Amanda Seyfrid too, that's I think sort of a similar story that they talk about shitting the bed at the end. Both of those movies do that, and this just feels like one of those weird Netflix films that they kind of just go all out on and make something weird. So I give them credit for that. And Elizabeth Debickie is good as the villain, like, and her motivation actually makes perfect sense. It's not even really the villain right way, Like she's just like, no, no, you don't understand.

I'll kill all of y'all if that means I save our earth right, And you know for a fact that these two other assholes would have done the same thing. I mean, yeah, the Daniel Brule and Googana are good, but they're I mean again, their characters are just like they It's like they can't understand why she's doing it. It's like, no, no, you guys like you would do the same thing. Yes, they that, And I was going, wait a minute, she's right, they're being selfish, right, like what is what really? What is she going to do?

Going back a version of her already exists. Just be just get solace from the notion that your children are alive with your husband and you in this universe that we're now sharing. You know that we're now in. But why can't you find solace in that? What are you gonna do?

Go kill the other version of your doctor Strange wonder woman or a doctor Strange and Wanda thing from multiverse, right, go scare the shit out of your kids. Well, and you'd have to kill the other version of yourself. Right. I wish they had done more Body Horror. Yeah, I remembered more acts, right me too.

I was like, I thought there was more here, because there's the Chris O'Dowd arm thing. There's the guy who's vomiting the worms, and that's it. And I guess the way Chris O'Dowd dies well on her in the wall. Yeah, you know, she's kind of connected to the interior of that space. Yeah.

I was like, wait a minute, Okay, that was the last instance. Okay, I'm just remembering this, and his arm is never explained, not really was his arm auto writing and knowing how to autowrite and knows that the guy has the thing inside it and knows things that he doesn't know, right, It's like his arm went to a different universe or is in a different universe. Yeah, like it's attached to his other self on the other ship. I guess maybe is how that's supposed to work. Yeah, so it knows what that version of him knows.

Maybe, I guess probably what they were getting at. Yeah, or did the other version of him lose his arm as well, and in doing so, that's his arm in his arms in the other universe? Sure? Why not? Who cares?

Right, I don't know. That was like, that's the only kind of like, that was the only kind of thing where I was like, I don't know. That's an unanswered question, but it doesn't need to be answered, doesn't add anything to the plot. But Yeah, I liked this movie a hell of a lot more this time than I did last time. Yeah, me too, And has been kind to this movie and so that I would watch it again for sure.

Yeah, And Julius ownA making a name for himself. He's directing the upcoming Captain America movie. So this movie being kind of a dud because I think overwhelmingly the opinion is this movie is not good. Didn't have a negative effect on his career, which is good, and it didn't really on anyone else. I mean, Google Batharaw, Elizabeth Debicki.

They would all go on to work with Marvel and other people and or have great careers of there, I mean Chris O'Dowd, Jesus Christ, David Older all, Yeah, they're all still Yeah, she's one up and all kinds of stuff. This movie was pretty heavily lambastad when it came out. I remember there was very very few, if any positive opinions about this movie being thrown around. Yeah, which is a shame because, like you said, the cast really is so strong. Yeah, everybody in it is.

I'm kept thinking, oh, oh he's an Oh yeah, she's an oh boy, good cast. Yeah. I really wish they had gone further with the Body Horror. I mean, there's a point where Elizabeth Debicki is asked first being sucked out of a window, and I wish they had done I always remember the last time I watched it, I was like, there's got to be like an alien resurrection style thing where she's getting sucked guts first out of the thing, and they didn't do that, and it feels like a missed opportunity. You know that that for me is the thing.

It's like they could have gone further, and it feels like, because there's a qualter fie old movie, they couldn't. Yeah. I remember when she flew into that glass. I was like, oh, clue, she's getting sucked out by her butt. Yeah, like that should have been a moment where it's like she's getting her guts ripped out and you know, just like an alien resurrection and they don't do it here, and it's it's a shame.

It's it's completely and totally a missed opportun and that kind of just feels like this movie in a nutshell and they have a great cast and there are some fun moments, and yeah, it is a clover Field movie. I guess. Yeah, I would like to live in the original universe that this Particle Accelerator didn't create, where I could see the versions of Tin Cloverfield, Lane and the God Particle, Yeah what those would have ended up being, Because again, I think they're interesting concepts on their own. I like the idea of a woman in peril film, and I like the idea of a experiment in space gone wrong. Deal where even if it was shared universe, which I'm sure was a part of the initial story.

Then you you've got all kinds of stuff you can do just with having two space stations in alternate timelines, trying to get home or trying to solve different problems. One's trying to repair itself, one's trying to get home or want you know, you know, at some point in that in paradox, they are shown news footage that shows that they've crashed. Right, So you have that interesting concept. You've got, Yes, her struggle with knowing that her family is whole and safe in this timeline. What is the compunction then to mess that up?

That could without a big, huge creature popping out at the end over the clouds. You don't need any of that to have a compelling story. There's enough in those stories to make an interesting film, I think, which is why then they stopped and let a quiet place be a quiet place, and let Overlord be Overlord, Like these are fine stories on their own. Yeah, and with this one, with the addition of the clover Field name, they had to contend with adding the footage of what was going on on earth with her husband, which nobody cares about. Yeah, I forgot how tact on that felt too.

Yeah, and let's tip him. He's got to do some stuff, so let's give him an orphan. Yeah. Yeah, And what's strange? I you know, as I was watching these two movies, I was trying to kind of figure out which one I felt was more tacked on, because ultimately, to talk about the clover Field movies, you know, we always talk about three movies.

At least that's what it feels like. You know, we're talking about what feels like one movie and then two other tonally different movies. Oh yeah, absolutely, And it's it's like, what does it mean to talk about the Cloverfield movies? And it's like, well, you're talking about a really well made found footage movie, and then you're talking about a really interesting kind of hitchcock in cernoid thriller. Yeah, and then you know, a midnight, mid to late nineties space station thriller, which is a thing.

I mean, event a fucking event horizon. My god, I mean that's what this hughes closest to event horizon. What's the other one? Supernova? Yeah, supernova?

There's one other? What am I thinking of? But anyway, but you know that's those are genre subgenre, niche genre in their own sci fi genre, and so that's fun that that's like, oh, we're gonna do this with these movies, and we're gonna it's kind of loosely attached. But if you're going to do that, be more adept at connecting them, because that is the real failing here is the way these movies are connected. If you're okay, we can't do anything about the fact they're connected, right, You keep saying you want to live in the universe where you could see them without the connection.

I agree with you, but let's take into account they have to be connected. How could they have fixed this is the question, and that is really doing a better job at integrating the clover Field, finding a better way to juxtapose the original clover Field and what happened in that movie with what you're going to be doing in these movies and how you connect them, because yeah, those original script, at least for the Seller, is clearly a really well done script. I can't speak to the God Particle because again it seems like that may have been but maybe not. I mean, the God Particle movie is good on its own. I mean, the non clover Field parts is good so yeah, those are probably good scripts on their own.

So the question is why not do a better job of integrating the Cloverfield parts as opposed to just tacking them on the end both time. Yeah, and I think it's mainly that again, they're working backward, and they're about as backward as you can get, the buying pre made scripts right, stuff that they just had sitting there, like we talked about earlier. That's where these other franchises have pulled a lot of their sequels scripts that they already had probably had no intention of doing anything with them, but you've paid for them, and you have a successful I p so make a diehard movie out of this otherwise banal action movie You've nobody is going to go and see, probably because you just haven't. I just rename, Yeah, you just rename a couple of characters.

It's really you know, it's as simple as that, and some of those films, and so I think I think the whole point for me is just start with an original idea, because now you've you've made it to where there has to be alternate universes instead of things taking place. I mean, the world is a big place, Chris, I don't know, if you realize this, it is and not everybody lives in New York City, So you can have the straw dogs versus aliens in some other state. You can have the clover Field paradox because it's taking place in space with an international kah. They can all be taking place at the same time. Yeah, or even like kind of after one another, even like the Cloverfield paradox created the event that brought everything through, and those things being brought through, like you said, are being brought in at the same time, and then all these other stories are maybe not that specific day, but the fallout of that, right, and it can continue on because we don't know how many monsters there are around the world.

But then they have to go and do multiverses instead to cover up the plot holes, the connecting holes between them, Like, well, if that happened, then how does garre washing down the water already or not? Well that and that's the thing like you were mentioning with the satellite landing at the end of Cloverfield, because it's like, well that, well that's something and like but it's not anything now, so I don't I don't know. I have kind of a love hate relationship with Cloverfield. I'm excited that they're making another one. It's kind to be weird as a like a grown ass adult to go see a Cloverfield movie possibly in theaters again for the first time since oh eight.

But depending on what it is, it could be pretty good. It could be a lot of fun, it could be something. It could be something that we can't even comprehend, like some sort of really strange idea again, like ten Cloverfield Pay and that's kind of weird. Cloverfield paradox is kind of weird. Maybe this will be kind of weird.

I hope it is. It's one of the weirdest franchises that I can think of for sure, that that has like a major name attached to it that people actually take seriously. Yeah, even though we've given all these examples of where we know this happens, and it happens, it's not a modern concept. This has happened over the ages with people, you know, studios, buying scripts or having even in the old studio system where you had somebody and then they change it, they change it to fit something that's already successful, right, And it's not a modern concept, but it's and Also, one of the things I hate about it is that it's a very cynical way of making movies to kind of try and fool the audience in a way when it's very apparent that these things didn't start out as part of this universe.

We're capitalizing on a on a name, on a successful because from what I understand, the first clover Field was rather successful. Well that's the thing. It's like, you know, blood the water right right, and yeah, exactly, but movie was twenty five million, made one hundred and seventy five Who it's just a weird who goes My big takeaway from any of it is like, who approaches films this way? Like like, like we've said multiple times, just come up with something that actually makes sense. You want the answer cynical industry types?

Yeah, I mean, and you would think that, I don't know, someone who apparently loves movies as much as J. J. Abrams would maybe lean more in the direction we're leaning in, Like why are we doing this and not just coming up well, because the script's already there and it's already bought. Okay, Well, this idea was Kaiju Movies. He was like he essentially has said you know I went.

I was in Japan with my son. I saw all these monster toys and I was like, why don't we have ours? And that's a good question, Like why is there not a Western I mean King Kong, but I guess King Kong's not good enough for you, so you got to make your own thing, which is fine, but you know what, and we didn't really even talk about it, And I think this is the best way to close this episode. Overfield Monster, Well, you don't ever really get the greatest look at it across three movies, and in two it's like a completely different creature. Yeah, but like not a grade design.

Yeah, it's what a memorable design. It kind of looks like the creature from Super eight. That movie. I didn't even mention that that movie that totally was apparently just clover Field. I don't know what that was.

I still don't understand what Super eight to actually tack that on, because again it's a different timeline, but the timeline doesn't matter. It could be the same. Honestly, I feel like I dreamed Super eight existed, right. It's weird, you, I mean really, I didn't even think about that film, but it fits in, don't they have slush shows. I mean it's a j.

It's a j. It's directed and produced by him. There's gotta be Kelvin and slush show and everything else and that. So that's a bit I'm calling it. It's a clover Field movie.

Well, I mean again, and is the alien and that altruistic? Is it a misunderstood alien? Yes, yes it is. So it's essentially just his et. I mean, isn't super eight just like his love letter to Spielberg movies.

It's just you know what the problem is, and then maybe it's not a problem. Jj Abrams may never be able to get out from underneath Cloverfield, is what it feels like, or lost or lost for that matter. He created that monster, so he sleep with it. That's my point. I mean, it for me has always been, you know, JJ Abrams has always been the mister mystery box man.

And Cloverfield's mystery Box was so good that it was like fucking HAROLDO. Rivera. Outside of that, al Capone's safe. I mean, Cloverfield's good, but it's ultimately empty popcorn entertainment. And it's like, okay, like that was great, but you know what, the arg was so good and everything else was so good, and then you get to the movie and the movie is it's okay.

Nobody nobody forced him to create this mess. Nope. That's when it feels like almost like a mess, Like it feels like someone gave jj Abrams a trowel and he started digging a hole. Then at some point he's like, give me a shovel. I want to keep making this whole bigger.

And then at some point you look down from your fucking hole you've dug yourself, and go, what can I do now? How do I get out of this? Make Cloverfield to a Godzilla movie with a fucking genuinely vanilla structure and narrative, and just make it the Godzilla movie that you were talking about making. I don't know, maybe as good of option as any I know. It's a stop motion animation film.

It's like, what if it was what if it was the character that Jennifer Garner plays from Alias and Chris Pine from Star Trek as James Kirk and Ethan Hawk from that one mission Impossible that jj Abrams directed Fighting the Cloverfield Monster and Bradley Cooper's got to be in it, right, He was on Alias too, oh right, yeah, right, that's where he got his start, and that's yeah, yeah yeah. Clover Field feels it feels like this weird, just like what are you doing? Man? Yeah, it's a it's a bizarre concept. There's nothing else like it.

If he was trying to make something, I mean, he was trying to make a Kaiju movie and instead he made something unclassifiably strange. So is Colossal apart? Can we include Colossal and the and Hathaway movie? Yeah? I mean again, prop that's my point, like it, like with anything, like, you could take clover Field and really apply it to anything where something happens that seems completely without reason or explanation.

Celd Yeah, then involves a giant monster Godzilla nineteen ninety nine. Sure, why not King Kong versus Godzilla? Why not? That's what we need. Godzilla versus King Kong versus Clover Clover, Clover, Clover.

That doesn't sound so bad. Look at Clover and opens its fucking mouth. It looks like goes bad. It looks like a bat is what it looks like. Really, so, mister Beckley.

Final thoughts on Final thoughts on Cloverfield, the Cloverfield Trilogy as it stands today, it's bizarre. But I think individually, each of these films is fun to watch. And I'm still a very big fan of Tin Cloverfield Lane. I think it's very smart, and the lead character is very smart and doesn't do stupid thing. She does a couple stupid things, but you can understand those stupid things based on what she thinks is going on.

They're all pretty fun, and I enjoyed watching all three of them this time around, So get out there and watch them. Yeah, I think for me, you know, my opinion on the first one is kind of definitely cooled off in the last fourteen years. It's a weird movie. I mean, this whole thing is weird. Again, There's there's no other way to quantify it.

It's just whatever is happening over at Bad Robot with Cloverfield is they? I hope they know, because I couldn't begin to have a fucking inkling of an idea what the hell is going on? First one is short, though, let's give it that at least. Oh it's eight minutes. Yeah, what a bud breezy, you know, And yeah, Culoverfield Lane is fun up until the ending in Cloverfield Paradox.

I had a lot more fun with it this time around, and I would, honestly my biggest takeaway from this episode is I would genuinely tell anyone who feels a certain way about that Cloverfield Paradox movie, go check it out again. It's not that bad, I think, removed from that whole weird hype thing and the super Bowl deal and that marketing push for that movie. I agree. I enjoyed it way more than I expected. I was halfway through and I was like, wait a minute, I don't dislike this in any way, shape or form.

It's not bad. Yeah. I just remember watching it the person and being like, my god, like this is off. So yeah, you know that. You know, that's the thing about clover Field, like I kind of mentioned in the opening, you know, Cloverfield has become kind of this weird inflection point for the movie industry because this is this weird thing that still exists and it's been involved in like big marketing events.

The arg for it. I would give a lot of the credit to why this movie made so much money as it's arg and then you have the Cloverfield Paradox, which was its own big marketing event so you know, Cloverfield has some cache in the industry, and if you've worked on it, obviously it's going to be something that people feel a certain way about. And yeah, I don't know where it goes from here. I'm excited. I can't believe I'm saying I'm excited to see another Cloverfield movie.

But at this point everything else has been so fucking strange, and all the things that were rumored to be part of this but weren't are also super strange, like a quiet place like Overlord. So whatever they come up with to be the true successor to Cloverfield the original film, should, I hope be fucking weird. Yeah, even if it's not good, it's going to be weird. That's my hope. I agree.

I be out there. Yeah, as out there as you can. Now. Guess what, you don't have to make a fucking tenuous connection to Cloverfield anymore. This is Cloverfield too.

You don't have to shoehorn anything in like you And you can have J. J. Abrams come out at the beginning of the movie and say hello, everyone, remember Cloverfield, and have him just lay out everything that's going on, and you know what that would be just as believable a movie as anything else, because again, it seems that anything can happen in this universe. But my point being like at this point, like JJ Abrams can do whatever he wants with this, and clearly he's going to, and I hope that they do. I hope that Cloverfield too is strange and weird and unlike the last two movies or the last three movies Email and that's that's I don't know.

I can agree both we both signed ourselves up to do the next clover Field episode. Whatever the movie come. I mean, hey, I whatever it is, I hope to god it's entertaining. Right, So until then, mister Begley, where can people find you? You can find me over at wake Up Heavy dot com and the show where Are We listen to podcasts and you can go listen to mister Chris stashuw himself and mister Mike White from the Projection Booth on our four year anniversary episode on the Silence of the Lambs, which I'm happy to say this is a very good epis so so you should check it out.

I would agree it is a good episode, and who doesn't like to talk about signs of lamps. I don't know should we brought it up on this episode. It's ever present. Yeah. As for me ce stash dot com.

That's my link tree. Go there for all the things that I work on, which are a vast and varied. As for this show, culturecast dot com, Patreon dot com, slash culturecast, all the places you can go to do those things. But like in rate review on iTunes, that's all you really need to do. And go listen to Mark Show because I've done a fair amount of episodes on Mark Show and Mark Show is pretty good.

Amityville. I mean that was the one prior to Silence. You and Andy were on that one. Got culture Geist, Hall Raiser, Kills, Hall and Kills is a shared believe Hell Razors is yours it. Fun Share, Yeah, I've shared four recently done as You Hear Me and You fun House man It, Crimes of the Future, Crimes of the Future are all kinds of good stuff.

The award for who I've worked with the most this year may end up going to use sir, because we're put we put in the time last month. Good Lord. Yeah, that well though, those four that came out and one fell swoop who yeah, so yeah. And as for this show, make sure to check out the next episode