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Author Topic: 10 Cloverfield Lane  (Read 9377 times)

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #20 on: April 07, 2016, 09:29:36 PM »
He's so vague as to how they are connected that while I may not be right about my previous post. I might not be entirely wrong either. I'm cool w/ my thoughts :)
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #21 on: April 12, 2016, 12:37:31 AM »
Wolf, I think the idea is that the woman on the radio is asking for help, and Michelle had the scene earlier in the movie where she described not helping a little girl, and how it was her regret. Then Emmett sacrifices himself for her, and she sees the bus ticket in his wallet, a reminder of his regret. So, now that she's out and alive, she's fulfilling her regret by helping those in need.

Excellent reading.
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DarkeningHumour

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #22 on: April 12, 2016, 04:54:51 AM »
Yes, from a character development perspective, she starts a runner and, without the ending, she would have ended the movie a runner. She fights back against the aliens, and then she makes the deliberate choice to go to Houston to fight some more. She sees the futility of running (there will always be more monsters), and understands the need to fight.

The last thing I was thinking to myself as she was escaping was « Pff, look at her running and not confronting that monstrous presence amidst the flames head-on. ». I take your point, but I have trouble considering her to be a "runner" when she gets out of the bunker.
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Jacek

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #23 on: April 29, 2016, 02:50:17 AM »
However, Josh and Adam did make a point that she was in constant danger in the bunker so the decision to flee that place was probably more motivated by her survival instincts rather than a decision to "not be a runner" anymore. When she chose to go to Houston instead of Baton Rouge, she did make that choice.

But while thematically, I am on board with Michelle fighting aliens I have two other gripes with that ending. Firstly, did she really have to destroy a whole spaceship? I mean really, that's a bit too skilled no matter how much she learned to fend for herself while in the bunker. It's almost as if a regular Joe took out a military chopper with a molotov coctail which is ridiculous. The other thing is, was it only me, or did the tone become much less gruesome during that fight than ever before? Because the "Come on." line shed said and the fact that not at any point was she harmed by the aliens in any significant way, gave this more of an Indiana-Jones-like feel to that action, rather than a feel of a survivor desperately clinging to life. What do you guys think about that?

St. Martin the Bald

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #24 on: April 29, 2016, 09:25:14 AM »
I think the point about being a runner was connected to the idea of turning her back on those in need instead of helping.
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dassix

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #25 on: June 18, 2016, 11:19:57 AM »
Just saw this movie and went in with zero expectation overall.  Wow, what a surprise!  The movie could have ended before she went "topside" and it would have been  top 10 of the year for me, but I know that wasn't really possible without infuriating a lot of people.  All in all a good flick! John Goodman is absolutely great in this.

sdb_1970

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #26 on: June 18, 2016, 07:39:14 PM »
Just saw this movie and went in with zero expectation overall.  Wow, what a surprise!  The movie could have ended before she went "topside" and it would have been  top 10 of the year for me, but I know that wasn't really possible without infuriating a lot of people.  All in all a good flick! John Goodman is absolutely great in this.

Hit it right on the head, dassix ... Even on rewatch, it feels very much like an 84-minute film followed by another 15-minute film.
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Bondo

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Re: 10 Cloverfield Lane
« Reply #27 on: June 18, 2016, 07:55:32 PM »
To some degree, the film sets up two responses to an apocalyptic event: You've got Howard's individualist approach, all about saving yourself...saving Michelle is really an extension of his self-interest; and you've got Michelle's choice at the end, to be part of a communal effort. Like was mentioned, this directly connects to her past failure to look beyond her own comfort (her need to avoid the distress of facing up the abuse her father visited on her) to help the girl in the store. Take it down a few notches, and it seems to be an argument against libertarianism more generally.

I'm a bit conflicted about the ending, though it does effectively secure the above theme. When she escapes the bunker and for a spell seems to think all is clear, it feels like a moment of her finally escaping the mental and physical abuse, of Howard and of her father before that. The whole bunker situation, with its pitch-perfect fluctuations between convincing you of Howard's mendacity and convincing you that what he says is true, is a great example of gaslighting...he's really playing her mind so she can't trust her instincts and her senses, in order to keep her captive. In revealing that his fears were justified, even as his morality was twisted, forecloses this interpretation.

The other issue with an ending that turns in one clear direction is that it is a bit of a Schrodinger's cat situation. It's a lot more interesting when the cat is both alive and dead. Once you open the box, you've just got a living or a dead cat, not both. The bunker is a closed box, the world has both ended and hasn't. It is this uncertainty that makes the film so gripping. With the film deciding to open the box and expose the dead cat, it can't help but become less interesting. The debatable quality of the gap between seeing the dead cat and the thematically rich decision at the end is really the film's only weakness. I just think that could have been handled better, having made the decision to go in that direction.

 

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