Okay, real first post. Um... Cloverfield?

So who saw it? Cloverfield, I mean. Was it not awesome? I'm rather pleased America gets its own Godzilla-Equivalent. I'm publically about to rant, so bear with me...

If you look at Godzilla as a metaphor of nuclear bombs and post-WWII shame, and mind you, this is original Godzilla here, any chance of a serious version in America is not going to work. When Godzilla first came out, our sci-fi metaphors were centered around invasion and infiltration, which coincided with our fears of having no-good reds moving next door and taking over. It could never compete with the pure terror of having miles and miles of your country leveled to the ground in less time that it takes to say "Jack Robinson."

Subsequent Godzilla films undermined the ferocity of suddenly having a gigantic monster fucking up your shit. Godzilla becomes a savior figure, and defends Japan so he can continually punish her people for... I don't know. Having a warrior culture that was obliterated, young people who don't respect their elders, and a unhealthy national sense of masochism.

The American Godzilla, high off of new found special effects and movies like Alien3, tries to hip up the myth, and turn Godzilla into the fault of the French, and turn what is more "Beast from 2,000 Fathoms" into another mindless animal. It lacks metaphor, purpose, and a suspension of disbelief (though having terrific visuals for the time...). America can have its big monster movie, but without something terrifible for it to represent...

9/11/01.

Terrorism's been around since the 70's, but really, until that moment, it happened elsewhere. Israel, Saudi Arabia, Lebannon... Whatever. Suddenly, though, it's happening to us. We are taken off guard, and there's nothing we can do but guess, theorize, and shit our pants over. It's random, unexpected, and faceless.

Cloverfield works, I think, because of that mindframe. Our monster (as opposed to Japan's monster) is hardly ever seen clearly, and when it is, it portends disaster. We don't know what to do about it, the government doesn't seem to know what to do about it, and the ambiguity of the ending suggests that a monster might attack us again, when we're least expecting it.

Check out this Cloverfields Wikiportal here. It's pretty awesome, and goes somewhat into detail over the alternate reality game.