Originally posted by Alpha CentauriHey, you called me out on it, and now you dont wanna point out what I got wrong, besides a country name.
I'm not a spoon-feeder, nor a hand-holder. If you want to find out, then go find out.You didn't pay attention, it's not my responsibility to cater to that.
-AC
Put your money up, baby.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
There was no plot? Clearly you have no idea what you're on about. If your next question is "What plot?", then you simply prove my point. You couldn't have researched it, or you'd know what the movie was about.You went in, clearly, expecting a C.G.I. fest about a monster, that's not what it was about. Go see Godzilla or something, it's honestly more suited to you. It's all nicely laid out, with genuinely no plot, lots of loud bangs and stuff. There are people here who dislike Cloverfield for understandable and logical reasons, even if I disagree, but people who say a movie had no plot because they're not smart enough to grasp it are just stupid.
-AC
Ok let me just explain a few things....
first of all here's the review I wrote the day after I saw the movie on Imdb....
"So lets just get this part out of the way; Cloverfield is most likely the most well advertised movie I've seen in the past few years. The teaser trailer shows two awesome clips; a distant building being blown apart accompanied by large chunks flying past the camerman, and the Statue of Liberty's head tumbling through the streets of manhattan. Now for those of you who viewed the trailer, you'll notice that in between these scenes, you see about 4 ridiculously quickly cut shots of people running down a stairwell. Guess What? That wasn't done just for the trailer... its actually one continuous scene in the movie.
Thats just one example of the irritating Blair Project-Rip Off of a movie that Cloverfield is. While the 1999 horror movie used the first person camera perspective as a way to trick the viewers to thinking that the movie was an actual documentary, Cloverfield uses this to make sure the audience gets the blurriest, and quickest shots possible of the limited amount of special effects in the movie. And as if that wasn't irritating enough, the camera man is retarded. I could most likely tape my digital camera to the top of my dogs ass while forcing him to run on my treadmill for a piece of steak and STILL get a better shot than the moron who recorded this movie. *end rant* Okay, with that out of the way lets focus on the movie's plot.
Oh wait... there isn't one. You see the other reason why I hate this movie so much is the fact that it scored a 7.8 on this website while Godzilla scored a 4.6. Because that makes a lot of sense. Okay sure, Godzilla may have had its issues with a couple of actors, and maybe all of the fans complained about him not breathing fire, but at least it had a plot.
Cloverfield opens up with a good 25 minutes of absolute irrelevant crap. The writers attempted to have some character development, but it never really works, or for that case matters in a movie with such ordinary boring characters. Have you ever gone over a girlfriend or boyfriends house and got stuck watching one of their god awful home movies? Well thats what this is... a really bad, boring home movie.
As far as the special effects go, they work... although theirs never anything really special about them, as most of the time the creature is covered in smoke, or so dark that you can't even see any texture on its skin etc. They aren't bad but theirs so few of them due to the ridiculous budget constraints, and that just sucks in a movie with such an epic scope.
The best part about this movie was its 85 minute run time...
For the love of god, save your money 3/10"
So just for the sake of clearing up a few things...
godzilla actually did have a plot. It explained where the monster came from, it had characters with backstories, and it follows Nick's conflict of convincing the military to concentrate on finding Godzilla's nesting area etc. etc. Ok having said that, this is what I got out of cloverfield....
The movie tried to have some character development, but it was all presented so poorly that I was about 2 seconds away from skipping the entire party scene, just so I could move on to the actual monster part. from then the entire movie's plot turns into a) find girlfriend and b) escape city.
so just so I understand why I'm so stupid, what was your version of the plot?
Originally posted by Spartan005
Ok let me just explain a few things....first of all here's the review I wrote the day after I saw the movie on Imdb....
"So lets just get this part out of the way; Cloverfield is most likely the most well advertised movie I've seen in the past few years. The teaser trailer shows two awesome clips; a distant building being blown apart accompanied by large chunks flying past the camerman, and the Statue of Liberty's head tumbling through the streets of manhattan. Now for those of you who viewed the trailer, you'll notice that in between these scenes, you see about 4 ridiculously quickly cut shots of people running down a stairwell. Guess What? That wasn't done just for the trailer... its actually one continuous scene in the movie.
Thats just one example of the irritating Blair Project-Rip Off of a movie that Cloverfield is. While the 1999 horror movie used the first person camera perspective as a way to trick the viewers to thinking that the movie was an actual documentary, Cloverfield uses this to make sure the audience gets the blurriest, and quickest shots possible of the limited amount of special effects in the movie. And as if that wasn't irritating enough, the camera man is retarded. I could most likely tape my digital camera to the top of my dogs ass while forcing him to run on my treadmill for a piece of steak and STILL get a better shot than the moron who recorded this movie. *end rant* Okay, with that out of the way lets focus on the movie's plot.
Oh wait... there isn't one. You see the other reason why I hate this movie so much is the fact that it scored a 7.8 on this website while Godzilla scored a 4.6. Because that makes a lot of sense. Okay sure, Godzilla may have had its issues with a couple of actors, and maybe all of the fans complained about him not breathing fire, but at least it had a plot.
Cloverfield opens up with a good 25 minutes of absolute irrelevant crap. The writers attempted to have some character development, but it never really works, or for that case matters in a movie with such ordinary boring characters. Have you ever gone over a girlfriend or boyfriends house and got stuck watching one of their god awful home movies? Well thats what this is... a really bad, boring home movie.
As far as the special effects go, they work... although theirs never anything really special about them, as most of the time the creature is covered in smoke, or so dark that you can't even see any texture on its skin etc. They aren't bad but theirs so few of them due to the ridiculous budget constraints, and that just sucks in a movie with such an epic scope.
The best part about this movie was its 85 minute run time...
For the love of god, save your money 3/10"
So just for the sake of clearing up a few things...
You prove nothing with that review, nothing more than the fact that you were too stupid to grasp the plot. You are the kind of person that The Fast & The Furious is made for; mindless, plotless, explosion filled movies. Proven by the fact that your interest was peaked by a few explosions in the trailer and then as soon as they introduced the story, you didn't like it simply because there isn't a massive, visible, starring role monster that's smashing things up in a manner you can understand, with a plot that you need your hand held through.
Godzilla was aimed at people like you. Big budget, big graphics, lots of fighting and explosions, no underlying purpose or intent. Just a lazy American director stealing a revered Japanese idea (Which despite its cheapness had a lot of other politcal messages), slapping some money on it, and putting it in the cinema accompanied by the plot: big monster shows up, fights, does stuff, they kill it.
As for your complaints about how you could do better, what a ridiculous comparison? "I could do better at filming my dog running on a treadmill than this guy did of a gargantuan attack on his city, which has seen a lot of his friends die, due to an unseen behemoth.".
Originally posted by Spartan005
godzilla actually did have a plot. It explained where the monster came from, it had characters with backstories, and it follows Nick's conflict of convincing the military to concentrate on finding Godzilla's nesting area etc. etc. Ok having said that, this is what I got out of cloverfield....
None of the characters have BACKSTORIES, and besides. Any decent director will tell you that it's far less important where they've been, it's more important about where your characters are going. They never really thought they could make it anymore than a big, hyped Summer blockbuster, which is what it was in the sense that it was big.
As you proved above, you need everything laid out for you and like other people, you are bitter because movies like this force you to realise that you need shit simple. Not like someone with reasonably perceptive ability that dislikes Cloverfield, yet understands what it's about or what it's trying to do.
Originally posted by Spartan005
The movie tried to have some character development, but it was all presented so poorly that I was about 2 seconds away from skipping the entire party scene, just so I could move on to the actual monster part.
Why are you even arguing against my points when you prove them with every paragraph you type? You wanted a big, flashy monster movie and Cloverfield was never, ever about that. That's YOUR fault. You saw an explosion in the trailer and you hyped the movie up to definitely be something it wasn't. You are to blame, not them, not the movie. I saw the trailer, thought it was interesting, heard the premise for Cloverfield about a week before it came out, then went to see it.
Originally posted by Spartan005
from then the entire movie's plot turns into a) find girlfriend and b) escape city.
This is especially hilarious for two reasons:
1) That's an overly simplistic analysis, because that's genuinely all your brain could grasp.
2) As if Godzilla amounts to anything more than every other basic action movie ever.
That is literally what Godzilla was, that's not overly simplifying it. Cloverfield was written and conceived as something entirely different, and it's executed in that way.
Originally posted by Spartan005
so just so I understand why I'm so stupid, what was your version of the plot?
My "version"? What the movie was actually about was the idea that in the face of a gigantic, tragic, unforseen event, focus will always be on the event, not the people enduring it. Cloverfield was an account of what it's like for these people, involving the audience in so far as keeping them as in the dark as the characters, army and city were about the monster itself. It wasn't about the monster, it just happened to use a monster as a cause of the event that causes the tragedy, and was a commentary on how first hand documentation of such events is becoming slightly more sought after than mainstream coverage.
Then there's the idea that the monster wasn't some flesh-hungry demon, it was a baby. An infant of a species that humans were unaware of, awoken and spooked out in a world that it has never experienced, and has never experienced IT. IT is just as frightened and scared by its surroundings as everyone is of IT. As Abrams said, there's nothing scarier than something huge that's spooked, like a rampaging, frightened elephant.
You'd know all this, and why it even awoke, if you bothered to pay any attention to the comments made about the movie and what it was intended to portray and convey for the director, without necessarily being obvious. By not telling everyone where it came from, what it was, or why it was there in the movie, they gave the audience no clue really how it would end, certainly not as much as Godzilla.
I knew, going in, where Godzilla comes from, why, and that he was gonna die in the end, cos it was obvious. I knew what he was capable of, what he was going to do, and could almost tell you how the plot would go. Everyone who has been a fan of those kinds of movies could. Nobody can say the same about Cloverfield.
Of course, this is all entirely lost on you because you hate the movie due to it not being a multi zillion dollar blockbuster about a dinosaur. Yet, if they make a Halo movie, you will undoubtedly go on for days about it has more layers of plot than Hell has circles. Then again, the critique of Cloverfield THIS time is coming from a man who cites Austin Powers peeing for three minutes as one of the peaks in comedic cinema.
I think we can all see the kind of quality you like, and the perceptive ability you have. It pleases me somewhat when people like you do NOT like Cloverfield, because the more idiots that ditch it, the better freedom Abrams will have to cater to those who appreciate what he did.
-AC
Really? My bad.
I specifically remember him having an American accent when I saw his promotional interviews with Godzilla, alongside Dean Devlin.
Obviously this doesn't mean he must definitely be an American, but seemed no reason to believe otherwise. A combination of the very American feel of the project and the way I remember him sounding caused my mistaken conclusion. Though it's possibly I even confused him with Dean Devlin, since I have no clue, generally, what directors look like.
-AC
Doesn't seem like a German director to make a bad movie, now, does it?
That's a tad of a generalisation there. No need to feel abashed, I simply thought you would be a little more informed before going on a therapudic rant like that. German interests in Hollywood are quite high, especially in the financial side if not the 'creative' side. It's hard to make a judgement of the whole when they have their big teutonic fingers in so many pies.
Also, recently J.J.Abrams, on the even of the DVD release mentioned that Cloverfield is better on the smaller screen. Whether that is true or not, it pales in comparison to the sheer audacity of the blatant self promotion.
To Bardock: Roland Emmerich actually broke through pretty well considering. Unlike Wolfgang Peterson andothers, he stays pretty much to his strengths, i.e. large shite movies. His movies usually always make a larger enough profit to warrant more large shite movies; even Godzilla made a profit, despite being a 'notorious' flop.
Originally posted by exanda kane
To Bardock: Roland Emmerich actually broke through pretty well considering. Unlike Wolfgang Peterson andothers, he stays pretty much to his strengths, i.e. large shite movies. His movies usually always make a larger enough profit to warrant more large shite movies; even Godzilla made a profit, despite being a 'notorious' flop.
I am not trying to discredit the man. He makes quite fun popcorn flicks. Personally, I enjoyed Godzilla, wasn't particularly smart, granted, but it doesn't always have to be.
What I was trying to say is more that there are very good German filmmakers, that make interesting, intelligent and fun movies...as well, Hollywood just prefers the ones that make the big action flicks....cause they sell...which, really, makes sense for them.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
Yet, if they make a Halo movie, you will undoubtedly go on for days about it has more layers of plot than Hell has circles.-AC
That would be nine, I believe.
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
You prove nothing with that review, nothing more than the fact that you were too stupid to grasp the plot. You are the kind of person that The Fast & The Furious is made for; mindless, plotless, explosion filled movies. Proven by the fact that your interest was peaked by a few explosions in the trailer and then as soon as they introduced the story, you didn't like it simply because there isn't a massive, visible, starring role monster that's smashing things up in a manner you can understand, with a plot that you need your hand held through.Godzilla was aimed at people like you. Big budget, big graphics, lots of fighting and explosions, no underlying purpose or intent. Just a lazy American director stealing a revered Japanese idea (Which despite its cheapness had a lot of other politcal messages), slapping some money on it, and putting it in the cinema accompanied by the plot: big monster shows up, fights, does stuff, they kill it.
As for your complaints about how you could do better, what a ridiculous comparison? "I could do better at filming my dog running on a treadmill than this guy did of a gargantuan attack on his city, which has seen a lot of his friends die, due to an unseen behemoth.".
None of the characters have BACKSTORIES, and besides. Any decent director will tell you that it's far less important where they've been, it's more important about where your characters are going. They never really thought they could make it anymore than a big, hyped Summer blockbuster, which is what it was in the sense that it was big.
As you proved above, you need everything laid out for you and like other people, you are bitter because movies like this force you to realise that you need shit simple. Not like someone with reasonably perceptive ability that dislikes Cloverfield, yet understands what it's about or what it's trying to do.
Why are you even arguing against my points when you prove them with every paragraph you type? You wanted a big, flashy monster movie and Cloverfield was never, ever about that. That's YOUR fault. You saw an explosion in the trailer and you hyped the movie up to definitely be something it wasn't. You are to blame, not them, not the movie. I saw the trailer, thought it was interesting, heard the premise for Cloverfield about a week before it came out, then went to see it.
This is especially hilarious for two reasons:
1) That's an overly simplistic analysis, because that's genuinely all your brain could grasp.
2) As if Godzilla amounts to anything more than every other basic action movie ever.
That is literally what Godzilla was, that's not overly simplifying it. Cloverfield was written and conceived as something entirely different, and it's executed in that way.
My "version"? What the movie was actually about was the idea that in the face of a gigantic, tragic, unforseen event, focus will always be on the event, not the people enduring it. Cloverfield was an account of what it's like for these people, involving the audience in so far as keeping them as in the dark as the characters, army and city were about the monster itself. It wasn't about the monster, it just happened to use a monster as a cause of the event that causes the tragedy, and was a commentary on how first hand documentation of such events is becoming slightly more sought after than mainstream coverage.
Then there's the idea that the monster wasn't some flesh-hungry demon, it was a baby. An infant of a species that humans were unaware of, awoken and spooked out in a world that it has never experienced, and has never experienced IT. IT is just as frightened and scared by its surroundings as everyone is of IT. As Abrams said, there's nothing scarier than something huge that's spooked, like a rampaging, frightened elephant.
You'd know all this, and why it even awoke, if you bothered to pay any attention to the comments made about the movie and what it was intended to portray and convey for the director, without necessarily being obvious. By not telling everyone where it came from, what it was, or why it was there in the movie, they gave the audience no clue really how it would end, certainly not as much as Godzilla.
I knew, going in, where Godzilla comes from, why, and that he was gonna die in the end, cos it was obvious. I knew what he was capable of, what he was going to do, and could almost tell you how the plot would go. Everyone who has been a fan of those kinds of movies could. Nobody can say the same about Cloverfield.
Of course, this is all entirely lost on you because you hate the movie due to it not being a multi zillion dollar blockbuster about a dinosaur. Yet, if they make a Halo movie, you will undoubtedly go on for days about it has more layers of plot than Hell has circles. Then again, the critique of Cloverfield THIS time is coming from a man who cites Austin Powers peeing for three minutes as one of the peaks in comedic cinema.
I think we can all see the kind of quality you like, and the perceptive ability you have. It pleases me somewhat when people like you do NOT like Cloverfield, because the more idiots that ditch it, the better freedom Abrams will have to cater to those who appreciate what he did.
-AC
Ok so I tried to be nice while typing that comment, but apparently you like to go down the childish route by calling me an idiot. Maybe I'll format this next paragraph differently so that you can understand it a bit better.
First of all, I'm #48 in my class of over 700 students, so no I are not idiot.
Secondly, in regards to all of your name calling... I made this nice visual for you to hopefully understand what I think about your opinion.
This is me.
o
/l\
/\
and this is care
o
/l\
/\
*Notice the distance between them
But in all seriousness...
Originally posted by Alpha Centauri
You prove nothing with that review, nothing more than the fact that you were too stupid to grasp the plot. You are the kind of person that The Fast & The Furious is made for; mindless, plotless, explosion filled movies. Proven by the fact that your interest was peaked by a few explosions in the trailer and then as soon as they introduced the story, you didn't like it simply because there isn't a massive, visible, starring role monster that's smashing things up in a manner you can understand, with a plot that you need your hand held through.Godzilla was aimed at people like you. Big budget, big graphics, lots of fighting and explosions, no underlying purpose or intent. Just a lazy American director stealing a revered Japanese idea (Which despite its cheapness had a lot of other politcal messages), slapping some money on it, and putting it in the cinema accompanied by the plot: big monster shows up, fights, does stuff, they kill it.
As for your complaints about how you could do better, what a ridiculous comparison? "I could do better at filming my dog running on a treadmill than this guy did of a gargantuan attack on his city, which has seen a lot of his friends die, due to an unseen behemoth.".
-AC
Ok first of all, yes, I love big explosions. They look cool and therefore keep me entertained. HOWEVER, that sure as hell doesn't mean that I think all movies that have big explosions are good. For example, Casino Royale is one of my favorite movies of all time (next to Pirates of the Caribbean and Raiders) while Die Another Day is one of my least favorite movies of all time. Nuff said
About the camera... the entire concept was retarded. I can almost guarantee that they used this idea because of their budget. I remember watching godzilla a couple of weeks ago and noticed how awesome cloverfield could have been if they shot it like the opening scene with godzilla. I actually found the last part of it on youtube....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5osUPPz2QUY
They filmed pretty much the entire scene from the people's perspective. It came out absolutely incredible, and you could actually see everything going on... not some half ass blurry shots like in cloverfield.
I'm way too lazy to quote everything else but anyway....
You clearly have no idea what your talking about, because in godzilla they DO have backstorys. Nicks job/relationship, Audrey's life in NY, etc.
by the way I'm not over simplifying the plot... at all actually. Please prove me wrong
and about your entire last paragraph you wrote...
Your version of the plot can be summed up by saying this: "Revolves around a monster attack in New York as told from the point of view of a small group of people." That is the actual summary on imdb. Grats
Godzilla was a scared creature as well, nothing more. Also Grats
They gave the audience no clue how it ended? Are you serious right now? The very beginning says "camera retrieved at blah blah blah CENTRAL PARK" The first thing I said when I watched this was "$20 bucks says they all die" Super Grats
By the way, just a few more points:
how exactly did you know godzilla would die at the end. Wasn't that obvious to me.
Don't assume that I'm going to love the halo movie no matter how it comes out. I watched the 5 minute short that came out and it blew.
And sorry for finding Austin Powers funny.... oh my god that must mean that I'm some immature 12 year old wandering these forums. or wait a minute... were you the 22 year old who has almost 32,000 posts on an internet forum, arguing with a 17 year old.
G
R
A
T
S
and for the record, how the **** did that camera survive the whole movie. I mean honestly. Every single main character dies, but the FREAKING CAMERA LIVES WTF??
Originally posted by Spartan005
First of all, I'm #48 in my class of over 700 students, so no I are not idiot.
You did that for comedic effect, right?
Also, would be more impressive if you were, say, 47th, for example.
[edit] Christ, there's so much wrong with your post...and I know AC will point it out, but I want to be first, cause that's how I roll, so here:
- Godzilla was a scared creature as well, nothing more. Also Grats
if I recall right, Godzilla was a pregnant creature. That was the point I believe.
-I remember watching godzilla a couple of weeks ago and noticed how awesome cloverfield could have been if they shot it like the opening scene with godzilla.
It's not supposed to be Godzilla. If you didn't like their idea, fair enough, but don't go 'round saying it's shit cause it's not Godzilla. That's kinda like me going around saying the Lord of the Rings is shit cause it is not Star Wars.