Anyone excited for/going to see 10 Cloverfield Lane this weekend? The original Cloverfield was a bit of a guilty pleasure for me: Objectively as a film, I'd say it was OK. I loved the idea and the style of it but I thought the actors were just ok, and I hated that part in the middle when Hud looks at the monster for like a minute. It ruined a lot of the terror and Mystery of the monster.

I didn't know that this new one existed until about a week ago, and it looks totally different, although apparently it's definitely a Cloverfield film but it's more of a spin-off than a sequel (which kind of makes sense considering the end of the 1st one). It's been getting great reviews though and I'm definitely excited.

I don't know if any of you guys knew about/participated in it, but back in 2007-2008 I obsessively followed the original Cloverfield ARG (Alternate Reality Game) which set the events of the film in motion throughout 2007 and that was so cool. They've done a similar one with 10 Cloverfield Lane and like the original the ARG is filled with a lot of awesome clues and hidden website pages that are really intruiging (and I'm guessing like in the first one they probably will have little to do with the actual film's plot and will only serve to expand the universe, but it's so fun that I don't care). So yeah, anyone else interested?

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John Goodman playing some obsessive controlling guy D: It can't be, he's a "Good man"

That said I'm definitely intrigued it doesn't look like it's got anything to do with the original Cloverfield so I wonder if it's talking about "Monsters in different forms" with 10 Cloverfield Lane being a different concept of "Monster".

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Warning: Incoming crazy amount of text.

For sure, I think the "Monsters come in many forms" tagline is trying to tell people that that Large Scale Aggressor/Clover/The monster from the 1st one isn't going to be in this one. I'm pretty sure (at least hoping) that there will be literal monsters of some sort in the movie, but without a doubt that tagline is also going to be about the characters as well.

I'm really interested in how this is supposed to link to the original. When I first saw the trailer, it seemed like a no-brainer that Goodman went into the bunker after the events of Cloverfield 1, but I'm not sure. Abrams and the director are saying really weird things about the connections, specifically that basically right now we should treat "cloverfield" as an anthology series about similar thematic elements - meaning that probably the events of Cloverfield 1 didn't even happen in this one's backstory. However, Abrams has gone on to say that if this is successful they have really weird ideas for a 3rd film which would connect a lot of stuff and do really bizarre things (of note is that Abrams and Cloverfield 1 director Matt Reeves are making a flim called "God Particle" which some have speculated to be related to the Cloverfield universe but considering Abrams is saying all this stuff will only work out if this film makes a bunch of money I can't imagine them being already in production. The viral marketing definitely places them in the same "universal realm" (I don't say universe because that would imply that Cloverfield 1 happened in this one and we don't know about that yet). But of course this stuff is just backstory that won't even be in the movie:

Cloverfield backstory (film only): There's a giant monster and it's come to destroy the city
Cloverfield Backstory (ARG included): An entrepreneur took over control of a Japanese offshore oil company called Tagruato and pulled them out of financial and PR ruin. They found a green chemical or plant of some kind far below the waves that had bizarre effects and was basically like Cocaine. They began putting it in a soda they made called Slusho. At the same time, Tagruato became incredibly profitable through both Slusho and it's 6 offshore oil rigs. This meant development of more subsidiaries, most notably Bold Futura, a technology company with an emphasis on space exploration. While the company was incredibly successful, it was doing terrible things to the ocean, so a group of environmentalists called Tidowave began a plan to try and stop them. At this point, Tagruato opened a 7th drilling station off the course of New York. At some point early in 2008, company employees (AKA ARG players who applied at the Tagruato website) were sent leaked documents from a whistle-blower which showed unusual movement far below the New York station. Soon after the New York station was completely destroyed by the Large Scale Aggressor, who had been awoken/injured/angered by the oil drilling. He goes on to attack the city. Right before the attack, a satellite is knocked out of space by an unseen force. I don't remember if it was a Bold Futura satellite for not.

So as you can see, while all that backstory was pretty cool (especially when they'd put up fake news reports and send out emails, etc.) it has no real relevance to the actual film. The 10 Cloverfield Lane ARG makes it clear that Howard (John Goodman's character) is an employee at Targuato's Bold Futura division who has decided that the world is going to end and creates a bomb shelter for himself and his estranged daughter (who doesn't talk to him and hasn't actually heard any of this). Howard created a website with hidden logins so his daughter could communicate with him without her mother knowing, and the website is filled with survival guides and an Oregon Trail-style game about living in a shelter in an effort to help her prepare. He left a crate in a field in New Orleans - the box was real and someone on reddit found it. Inside it had USB recordings of a Military station's (I think) monitoring of something going wrong with something in space - I think something to do with a satellite going down. One of the files had a hidden image in it of something otherworldly flying through space. Howard also left a phone that another redditor found with voicemail messages to his daughter. This morning he sent a text to the user which showed he realized that his daughter wasn't the one with the phone. There's still a login people haven't cracked yet on Howard's website but I'm guessing that will happen soon.

So once again, fun stuff, but I doubt any of it will be in the film. I think the daughter will definitely be a subject of discussion, and if the monster in the film is alien-related then that stuff will likely be mentioned, but I doubt any of the Tagruato stuff will be there. At this point, I'm walking into it with the feeling that the series is like the Twilight Zone, where stories aren't connected literally but all have an unsettling vibe. We'll see if there's actually anything to do with the 1st film. In the trailer John Goodman does have a barrel of some kind of green substance, so maybe that could be the Slusho/Large Scale Aggressor ingredient, but that's a stretch.

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Yeah that's kinda what I was thinking about the "different concepts of a monster". That ARG stuff all sounds pretty incredible and In love it when companies do big marketing campaigns like that.

Its certainly got my interest enough to warrant a cinema ticket.

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Yeah the idea of ARGs is just mind-boggling amazing for me, I think because I really like puzzle solving and clue hunting. I always end up finding out about them late though (I followed Cloverfield the whole time but I was still a kid so I didn't want to - and probably shouldn't have - gotten directly involved. I'll just have to keep an eye out. Capcom make an Ace Attorney ARG where Maya's burger blog holds a dark secret about what's going on at Kurain. Then we call Nick's old phone and Apollo answers and talks about having to clean the apartment.

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