Saw Cloverfield last week, on its first day of release. Waited to post this until a bunch of other people have seen it too. I enjoyed it a lot, but I had lots of issues with it too. There’s actually another post in me on the subject, if I get around to it.
This post, though, is full of spoilers. Don’t read if you haven’t seen (unless you don’t care).
This is how I would have done Cloverfield.
CLOVERFIELD – How I would have done it
First thing, about halfway through, you explicitly address why Hud is still filming everything. By this time, his “people are going to want to see this” rationale just doesn’t work any more. So you have a scene where Rob and Lily try and talk him into ditching it. It’s a hindrance, it’s a distraction and it’s annoying them. He keeps saying, No, I’m documenting. Then Rob reaches out and tries to take the camera from Hud, and Hud just FLIPS OUT. The camera tumbles and we see Hud totally beating on Rob, shouting at him, as Lily pulls him off. Then Hud, breathing heavily, take up the camera again and settles in behind the lens. The camera stares at Hud’s feet for a while. No-one talks about this again, and Hud’s goofball demeanour takes on extra resonance because it’s obvious just how close to the edge he is and that he’s using the tenuous distance the camera gives him to help keep it together.
Second thing, I’d play the parasite things very differently. Hud mentions that the one that got him was trying to drag him away. I’d play that up – they’re not trying to bite people so they pop, they’re trying to *collect* them for something. I’d make the parasites less aggressive and more weird and sinister. So one parasite gets wounded when they attack in the subway, but it gets away…
Third thing, I’d run the ending completely differently. (After all Miracle Mile already did it, way better, twenty years ago. Cloverfield is just a big remake of Miracle Mile, you see.) When the copters come in, everyone climbs aboard and they’re getting away and it’s the ending of Rob and Beth’s story because he rescued her and they love each other. Then – instead of the big monster improbably coming to smash them – that parasite from before turns up. Because, it jumped on the outside of the helicopter! And Hud realises it still wants to get him – to take him away. Him, personally, like it has his scent or something.
So he lets the parasite take him. It has wings or something, I dunno, but it grabs him and takes him away from the helicopter back toward Manhattan and the destructive monster. And he’s still filming. You see Beth and Rob receding into the distance in the escaping copter, and you see Hud’s view of the huge monster rampaging, and then Hud ends up in Central Park. And all the parasite creatures are there, and they’re… changing everything. It’s hard to even understand what we’re seeing. And the parasites are fascinated by the camera. They take it from Hud, and turn it on him, and we see Hud surrounded by many of the creatures as the great monster looms overhead – and Hud talks to the camera, something about Rob and Beth – how he’s glad they got out of there alive.
And then something weird and scary happens on screen and we don’t know what it is because it isn’t clear, and maybe Hud lives and maybe he doesn’t, but the footage cuts away to that final Coney Island shot. End film. It turns out that it wasn’t actually Rob and Beth’s movie. The movie was really about Hud, and about his growth, about how he faces his fears and rises above them.
Yeah, that’s how I’d do it.
Also, because it’s completely implausible how everywhere they went they ran into a big monster – well, have a reveal at the end that there’s, like, five big monsters. Why the hell not?
Also also, in the final frames of the movie you see in the background something splashing down to earth. The movie’s surrounding media claim that this is a falling satellite that does something or other and what the hey? No way, man, that falling object is the monster arriving on earth. The movie has to stand on its own two feet, and nothing else makes sense from the movie point of view. Satellite? Pah. That’s gotta be the monster, or the movie is lessened.
I missed the splash but thought it didn’t really matter not catching it. It doesn’t make much sense to me that it’s a water creature (walking? breathing? parasites with legs and feet?). What took me out of the film most was seeing Chris Mulkey in the Bloomingdale’s scene. 🙂
I think I catch your drift but I would sacrifice all of your innovations – and I agree that most of them further the plot mechanics – to retain the death of Rob & Beth.
Without this ‘chief feature’ your changes seem to me a little like improving one persons character by substituting another worthier one in its place. It’s not in this case an improvement but an entirely different film, or story if you like.
wow, i don’t remember that part where Hud is beating on Rob at all…
dritchie: really?? Heh! Well, perhaps he was visiting NYC?
brad: yeah, I’m being at least half-facetious with my version abandoning Rob and Beth. I did like the way their story ended, but it could have been stronger I think.
patrick: it’s a scene I just made up, that’s why you don’t remember it. 🙂
For what its worth I thought the whole final scene setup was utterly contrived and weak.
We’re in a helicopter, we’re safe. But wait, instead of flying AWAY from the monster and explosions, we’ll just fly alongside it for a while and do some sight seeing. Whatever. Anyway, in the real world being that close to munitions of those kind would be almost as dangerous as being monster swatted.
Disbelief on the floor.
And showing that scene in the trailer was dumb, in that you knew the helicopter was going to crash anyway.