Cloverfield, Godzilla, and 9/11

[Originally posted 12/17/07] ATLMalcontent has linked a third (that I'm aware of) Cloverfield trailer; and I'll use that cue to vent a bit. Regarding Cloverfield...The part of me that's used to disappointment wants this movie to be a "Godzilla-done-right" that would atone for Hollywood's nerfing of Godzilla '54 and the Great Sea Iguana Redub Project of '99 (which is not deserving of the G. name). This means rendering the amount of carnage and death which would result from Godzilla stomping flat a city of 8 million pedestrians--blood and body parts strewn everywhere, amidst charred corpses and rubble, and abject terror. Now that 9/11 has occurred, there's enough comparison between Godzilla ('54) and those events (and the wars that have followed) that a ground-level remake, or even a new movie using similar story--derived from a 21st century "evil" of choice--would put its monster in proper context for Americans. I'd expend my "one movie per year" quota on such a project, in a heartbeat. Godzilla vs. 9/11 I worked out the 9/11 comparison while watching the original Godzilla on the 50th anniversary tour (2004), and if I can find what I did with my notes from that viewing, I can't find where I put those notes. Basically, they were along the lines of: Godzilla (the monster) embodies the fears of the atomic age in Japan, as existed several years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This fictional monster directly compares to the actual 9/11 jet liners' embodiment of the fears of the Western/Islamic conflict, including relative effectiveness of pre-attack preparations (that is to say, zero), among others. The main practical difference between the two, is that no Oxygen Bomb exists to rid the world of the threat of religious rule. A new movie, and perhaps a new monster, could represent the result of similar meddling with the Islamic world. If produced using current techniques and CG advancements, such a project would reintroduce the Monster Movie to a 21st century audience, and maybe even spur a review of the original. So, if Cloverfield is such a project, it will be a coup of sorts. Attack of the Meme? The trailers hint at something more insidious than just a monster, however. Some of the redshirts seem to be running from human-scale monsters that can chase them. So, perhaps there's a xenomorphic aspect to this monster, which would spread parasitic seeds to people, a la Alien. If so, the Cloverfield monster's offspring would embody the memes which are used to infiltrate, divide, and polarize our population for the past six years. In any event, parasitic/xenomorphic offspring add an extra dimension to the Monster Movie. A Godzilla that breeds Aliens? At least this one didn't lay as many eggs in Madison Square Garden as the Knicks have the past few years. Buy the rumor... Then, there's the part of me that recalls the saying "Buy the rumor, sell the fact." I see Godzilla and Alien aspects from the three trailers I've seen so far, the 'discovered tape' is straight out of Blair Witch Project, and the trailers employ Planet of the Apes' Liberty Head, along with 9/11's collapsing (Empire State?) building and ominous dust cloud. So far, I score -2 Landmarks, +1 body count (speared on Liberty's crown), and +1 Web 2.0 slam (everyone stop to take pictures) for the three trailers, for 3 or 4 cliche points. Combined with the "U.S. site #..." pretext, I assume we end up nuking (or otherwise disposing of) the city, and the intervening 1:45 is spent offing the assemblage of yuppies-turned-redshirts, in slasher-movie fashion. Lots of running, and yelling, and frequent scene cuts. This, by the way, is actually a better answer for filler plots; if you're not going to do something weighty like Godzilla's love triangle, don't bother. Then again, with so many aspects in play here, we may as well have a zombie invasion subplot, where victims turn into fast zombies and start eating people (and spreading zombie plague). This sounds silly , but if the movie exists to kill off the party, then it won't matter how many cliches are used, as long as the party is dead by the end of the movie. Cloverfield may as well be named Monster Movie, a serious version of Scary Movie. The production team is known for the television hits Lost and Heroes, which are both current shows (barring effects from the Writers' strike). Given that background, and the inrinsic incest of media conglomerates, I'll put a 50%+ chance of crossover/tie-in with one of the two shows (namely, whichever show is aligned with the studio's parent company). So, as tempting a prospect as Cloverfield is, I get a headache just thinking about how badly it will suck. I will, therefore, wait for reviews and spoilers before watching this movie.

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