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LTTP: 10 Cloverfield Lane. SPOILERS

HellforLeather

HellforLeather

Member
I really enjoyed this film for the most part; it feels like a good episode of The Twilight Zone. John Goodman is great as the introverted weirdo/possible psychopath and theres some really great scenes filled with tension. It really pulls off the paranoia aspect of the whole situation really well.....until that fucking ending.

Its been a long while since ive seen a movie shit the bed so badly with the end. Who made this? It reeks of studio medling or even a totally different director....and it feels like it just keeps going on and on and on. Oh now shes gonna fight with the resistance? What the fuck!? Does anybody have any info on what happened here?
 
B

BorkBork

The Legend of BorkBork: BorkBorkity Borking
I loved the ending and thought it made the movie. Yes, it's polarizing. Go check out the official thread.
 
B

Brakke

Banned
I liked the swing from hard dread to hard purpose / victory / optimism. Movie was dope and then it delivered a fun catharsis to help you come down at the end.
 
C

civilstrife

Member
Basically the Portal movie rebranded.

Crafty female protagonist stuck underground with potentially murderous overseer while the outside world is destroyed/taken over by aliens.

Not surprising considering Dan Trachtenberg cut his teeth making this.
 
HellforLeather

HellforLeather

Member
The movie totally abandons its bread and butter to deliver some generic sci fi action BS at the end. Cathartic? Thats definitely not the impression i got. The girl goes from barely escaping Goodman to turning alien dropships into flamming wreckage on the span of 5 minutes. Feels kinda insulting, like the makers were thinkng that people couldnt put up with a drama like this unless there was some CGI monsters and explosions at some point.
 
R

ronaldthump

Member
Took a strange turn with aliens suddenly showing up at the end; even if it was alluded to and becomes a totally different film. The whole cast is excellent though.

Need to rewatch in 1-2 years. Bit too fresh in my mind.
 
K

Kuroi Gogeta

Member
HellforLeather said:
The movie totally abandons its bread and butter to deliver some generic sci fi action BS at the end. Cathartic? Thats definitely not the impression i got. The girl goes from barely escaping Goodman to turning alien dropships into flamming wreckage on the span of 5 minutes. Feels kinda insulting, like the makers were thinkng that people couldnt put up with a drama like this unless there was some CGI monsters and explosions at some point.
Click to expand...

I don't know if that's the case especially given the marketing of the film framed it as a type of thriller. I think that the ending was designed to add a twist to the whole thing. Goodman's character kept telling them that it's not safe out there, and you as the audience are supposed to think "this guy's clearly unhinged and is trying to trick these people into staying with him", but over time it turns out that he's right. The film doesn't really do anything with it though. It's just left there for you to say "woah turns out he was right" but are you supposed to feel bad for the survivor? are you supposed to feel bad for Goodman's character? Its message doesn't even make sense.

For over an hour you're lead to believe that isolation has driven a man insane, but then you learn that he's actually not doing what he's doing because he's crazy, but then you don't feel bad for the girl because she survives in a spectacular fashion, destroying the idea of her being vulnerable and what could have possibly been a depressing, but more logical ending.
 
D

Dusk Golem

A 21st Century Rockefeller
I liked it.

I did like the Goodman stuff more than the ending, and think Goodman delivered an amazing performance. The ending is supposed to throw you out of what the film established at that point in my opinion, which while I didn't like it as much since it feels out of left field I didn't dislike it and appreciated what they were going for.

Such a sudden shift is bound to have mixed reaction, though.
 
C

CloudWolf

Member
The ending is weird. I love the reveal that the world actually went to shit, but I really didn't like MEW destroying the ship by improvising a molotov cocktail.
 
C

caliph95

Member
Kuroi Gogeta said:
I don't know if that's the case especially given the marketing of the film framed it as a type of thriller. I think that the ending was designed to add a twist to the whole thing. Goodman's character kept telling them that it's not safe out there, and you as the audience are supposed to think "this guy's clearly unhinged and is trying to trick these people into staying with him", but over time it turns out that he's right. The film doesn't really do anything with it though. It's just left there for you to say "woah turns out he was right" but are you supposed to feel bad for the survivor? are you supposed to feel bad for Goodman's character? Its message doesn't even make sense.

For over an hour you're lead to believe that isolation has driven a man insane, but then you learn that he's actually not doing what he's doing because he's crazy, but then you don't feel bad for the girl because she survives in a spectacular fashion, destroying the idea of her being vulnerable and what could have possibly been a depressing, but more logical ending.
Click to expand...
I'm hoenstly fine with him being right and liked the twist and it's implied he was doing it before the invasion.

I just didn't care for the alien fight
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
HellforLeather said:
The movie totally abandons its bread and butter to deliver some generic sci fi action BS at the end. Cathartic? Thats definitely not the impression i got. The girl goes from barely escaping Goodman to turning alien dropships into flamming wreckage on the span of 5 minutes. Feels kinda insulting, like the makers were thinkng that people couldnt put up with a drama like this unless there was some CGI monsters and explosions at some point.
Click to expand...

Once again, remove the finale part and she's still a victim. The point of the film is that she runs from situations - her escaping isn't enough, she has to learn to run towards things. So her going to help others after all of her shit IS the pay off.
 
L

liquidtmd

Banned
Legit question and potential extension to the thread intent / question but I'd be very interested to hear Gaffers views on how the movie should have ended?
 
D

DeathyBoy

Banned
liquidtmd said:
Legit question and potential extension to the thread intent / question but I'd be very interested to hear Gaffers views on how the movie should have ended?
Click to expand...

The gist in the old threads was -

She escaped. The end.

Because they always ignore the point of her grocery store story. And her fleeing her fiancée. If there's a bad situation, she runs from it instead of staying to resolve/fix it. The film is her learning that she needs to stop running from and running to.
 
Falchion

Falchion

Member
I really like the ending because the whole time you're wondering if the stories he was telling about an invasion and the end of the world were actually true. This completely validated all of that and set it up so that she can be a resistance fighter which is really cool.
 
P

Plinko

Wildcard berths that can't beat teams without a winning record should have homefield advantage
I feel as if anyone who complains about the ending has never seen an episode of the Twilight Zone.
 
J

jokkir

Member
I didn't mind the ending.

I find it a shame that we probably won't get a sequel or explanation of the first Cloverfield film now :\
 
T

TheRagnCajun

Member
Having her discover there is an alien invasion made sense. Having her take down a dropship in her first encounter did not make sense.
 
G

gamz

Member
Plinko said:
I feel as if anyone who complains about the ending has never seen an episode of the Twilight Zone.
Click to expand...

I'm a huge TZ fan and never got the TZ vibe with the ending? TZ never would have ended like a slam bang action movie. The Mist was very TZ for comparison.
 
HellforLeather

HellforLeather

Member
I guess I could see the justification for the ending but I didnt like it one bit.

The meat of the story was the paranoia and the back and forth between the possibility of the outside really being attacked and Goodman's character being a maniac who abducts people. Her character arc
if you can call a few lines of dialogue in the middle of the movie an arc
was not worth jumping the shark for the big flashy ending.
 
F

Fury451

Banned
This is 90% a great movie, and basically being anchored on the three lead performances. It was exceptional and compelling.

The ending could've been tweaked to be better, a little more ambiguous what is really going along way. I would've cut out the actual conflict and confrontation part because that was just dumb as hell and seem like it was from a completely different movie, but finding out that there really was something outside of the bunker was a cool idea.

I would've either ended it right when she sees something flying on the horizon, or the best ending I think would be to have her jump in the car, drive away, hear the troubling radio broadcasts, see ships on the horizon backlit by the lightning, and have her make the same choice of going to help.

You would've lost nothing in terms of her character development because she already faced her problem and overcame it by escaping, and you would've had such a stupid ass action scene.
 
T

Toa TAK

Banned
I thought it had a lot of balls to go out on the ending that it did. If it didn't it still would've made for a great movie, but it's definitely going to stick in my mind forever just because it decided to take it up a notch. Ended up being my favorite film of that year.
 
S

slit

Member
My problem with the ending was that she basically turned into Ellen Ripley at the drop of a hat. That made no sense. Other than that I thought it was great.
 
G

gamz

Member
Toa TAK said:
I thought it had a lot of balls to go out on the ending that it did. If it didn't it still would've made for a great movie, but it's definitely going to stick in my mind forever just because it decided to take it up a notch. Ended up being my favorite film of that year.
Click to expand...

Balls? No man it was as safe as can be.

I didn't mind it, but I would prefer a more subtle ending.
 
F

Fuu

Formerly Alaluef (not Aladuf)
Quoting myself from a previous thread:

Solid and very enjoyable movie. I agree that the ending fits her arc, but it could have been her just fending off that single alien, escaping with the car, then deciding to head into the city and it would have worked just fine. It definitely didn't need to go full cartoon. Instead of exciting that whole sequence just got increasingly ridiculous, all it was lacking at one point was the Benny Hill theme. Exploding a giant spacecraft by hastily making a molotov while the truck is being sucked in was fucking hilarious.
 
T

thecouncil

Banned
The only problem with the ending was lobbing that molotov into the ship and destroying it. That part was very stupid.

Her breaking out of that underground bunker in her makeshift hazmat suit was freakin awesome though. So was seeing that spaceship grazing the cornfield and rushing to put her suit back on when that ship came over the house shooting green gas. That was all great.
 
D

dskillzhtown

keep your strippers out of my American football
liquidtmd said:
Legit question and potential extension to the thread intent / question but I'd be very interested to hear Gaffers views on how the movie should have ended?
Click to expand...

I had no problem with the ending, except the killing of a alien/ship with a molotov cocktail.

But...I would have had both people being held, kill Goodman, blow up the bunker alot sooner in the movie. Only to realize that Goodman was telling the truth. Battle with the alien ship, the guy loses his life in the fight and she drives to Houston to help the effort. Not terribly different than the movie and how it exists today, just a bit more time given to the realization that Goodman wasn't 100% a complete lunatic.
 
K

KDC720

Member
I agree that its like 95% a great movie, but I'm still a bit iffy on MEW taking out a ship by herself.

I also agree that if it wanted to truely go for The Twilight Zone ending, there would have been no epic fight and instead just have her seeing that there is in fact an invasion and then driving off to go join the resistance.
 
A

adamsappel

Member
Why do people have such an issue with her destroying the alien ship? The bottle of alcohol was set up several times, she notices the gas is inflammable; it's a far more clever solution than the "Oh, here's a belt of grenades" scene from WotW it gets compared to.
 
NYR

NYR

Member
Hated this movie and hated how they stuffed the cloverfield tie in during filming and after the movie was done, it was never intentional and just done to drive $. Pure marketing at its finest.
 
One Eyed Willy

One Eyed Willy

Member
BorkBork said:
I loved the ending and thought it made the movie. Yes, it's polarizing. Go check out the official thread.
Click to expand...

Same, the movie itself was very awesome through and through but the end and it's twist made it stand out among other films IMO. We're talking about it here for instance, instead of it slipping into the abyss.
 
R

Rockandrollclown

lookwhatyou'vedone
Overall an enjoyable movie. I don't much like the ending. As others have stated, alien reveal is fine. Her blowing up an alien ship is bad, and completely unnecessary.
 
R

Rayven

aka surume
I really liked it, ending and all. It knew what it wanted to do and got there rather than string out some mysterious Lost-style weirdness without purpose.
 
S

Shredderi

Member
I loved it. Incredible performances and a very effective thriller atmosphere. I also loved how the movie ended. Seeing the world gone to shit at the hands of an alien force surprised me pleasantly. Yes the molotov was silly, I would change that, but I wouldn't change much else. Goodman was, well, good as always!
 
F

friskykillface

Banned
Ending of just the ship off in the distance would have been cool but a huge tease so I'm glad we got to see aliens and that ship battle

I liked the movie, John Goodman gave an amazing performance , really had me tense during certain moments of the movie, that little women part, shit
 
B

Bobby Roberts

Banned
Someone explain to me how a woman who created a hazmat suit out of shower curtains is somehow unqualified to ram something flammable in a bottle of alcohol and throw it into a hole 10 feet away.

Hit me, if you could.

(this isn't 90-95% a great movie. It's a great movie)
 
HellforLeather

HellforLeather

Member
Bobby Roberts said:
Someone explain to me how a woman who created a hazmat suit out of shower curtains is somehow unqualified to ram something flammable in a bottle of alcohol and throw it into a hole 10 feet away.

Hit me, if you could.

(this isn't 90-95% a great movie. It's a great movie)
Click to expand...

The molotov isnt the issue for me. Its that the movie all the sudden shifts to action movie contrivance mode where a random woman with no combat or survival skills all the sudden is able to miraculously avoid imminent death several times in a span of 10 minutes and destroy an alien dropship.

The hazmat suit is at least somewhat believable in that its somewhat logical for a prepper to have DYI survival guides sitting around his fallout shelter.
 
T

The Scollard

Member
Fury451 said:
This is 90% a great movie, and basically being anchored on the three lead performances. It was exceptional and compelling.

The ending could've been tweaked to be better, a little more ambiguous what is really going along way. I would've cut out the actual conflict and confrontation part because that was just dumb as hell and seem like it was from a completely different movie, but finding out that there really was something outside of the bunker was a cool idea.

I would've either ended it right when she sees something flying on the horizon, or the best ending I think would be to have her jump in the car, drive away, hear the troubling radio broadcasts, see ships on the horizon backlit by the lightning, and have her make the same choice of going to help.

You would've lost nothing in terms of her character development because she already faced her problem and overcame it by escaping, and you would've had such a stupid ass action scene.
Click to expand...

That ending would have been awesome. As someone who liked the twist with the aliens and also liked MEW's character arc in the film, but had a problem with the alien fight at the end, this would have fixed most of problems with the ending while keeping it true to character arcs in the work.
 
B

Bobby Roberts

Banned
HellforLeather said:
The molotov isnt the issue for me. Its that the movie all the sudden shifts to action movie contrivance mode where a random woman with no combat or survival skills
Click to expand...

Except bullshit because the whole movie is showing you how she's developing survival skills. Which she then uses to survive.

The hazmat suit is believable because the movie specifically calls attention to how she's making it, so it's easy for you to understand/believe that she could have made it. It's not as handholdy-specific about what her experience down there is doing to her mentally/physically, so when she is asked to do something extraordinary in the face of the extraordinary, it gets rejected out of hand.

(that everyone goes to Ellen Ripley as their negative comparison, despite the fact Ellen Ripley was a fuckin warrant officer and not a trained marine doesn't really make any sense, either)

As in the last OT/Spoiler thread from last year, here's a link to Tasha Robinson's great essay on how this film's ending is great, and how people calling for the cheap, empty cut-to-black ending, are missing the point of the film's narrative.

Dunno why it is a large preponderance of young men are so firmly led to believe a lone woman couldn't possibly defeat an "alien dropship" as if "an alien dropship" is a fictional threat so serious that only some sort of space marine or super-soldier hardened and grizzled by years of combat training could believably do it.

from Robinson's (great) article:

One of the things that makes 10 Cloverfield Lane such a surprising, satisfying experience is that from the start, Michelle isn't a cowering victim, in spite of the later revelations about her history. She's terrified and injured, and she's badly thrown when she wakes up chained to a wall. (That chain is one thing Howard never bothers to justify or explain away, which makes it one of the movie's more interesting touches.) But she's also resourceful, clever, and determined, and she keeps coming up with creative solutions that also happen to be aggressive ones. She's always had the strength to fight. It just takes her experiences against different kinds of enemies to convince her of that. Conversely, the presence of actual aliens means that Howard's bunker isn't the practical option, but the cowardly one. He's effectively running away by hiding underground, not contributing to anyone's safety but his own, and threatening the people he pretends to offer safety.
Click to expand...

The failing isn't in the ending. It's in the imaginations of people who can't be bothered to pay attention to the things the film is telling you when it's not being explicitly obvious about its motives.
 
A

adamsappel

Member
HellforLeather said:
The molotov isnt the issue for me. Its that the movie all the sudden shifts to action movie contrivance mode where a random woman with no combat or survival skills all the sudden is able to miraculously avoid imminent death several times in a span of 10 minutes and destroy an alien dropship.
Click to expand...

I honestly don't mean this as screaming "MISOGYNIST!" in your face, but I do believe (subconscious) prejudice is behind some of the complaints. I don't think people would have cared if Emmett had blown up the ship. MEW showed plenty of fight from the beginning; one of the first things she does is try to stab Goodman with a crutch! And what exactly does she do that's so unbelievable for a woman "with no combat or survival skills to do"? Make a Molotov cocktail? Throw something accurately? We just don't afford the same suspension of disbelief to a woman as to a man.
 
A

Anung

Un Rama
The whole movie was great ending and all. I wish MEW was in more things because she has a very likeable screen presence. John Goodman steals the show.
 
B

Bobby Roberts

Banned
Interesting note via Robinson's essay: The film was originally a lot more like what its detractors (including internet favs Red Letter Media) were hoping for: A cynical horror movie type ending that hollows out her journey.

Damian Chazelle (Whiplash, La La Land) came in and rewrote it significantly (and added that ending) so that Michelle's characterization is much stronger, and has a complete narrative arc. The original story (and the suggested hollow ending by fans who disliked it) shifts sympathies from Michelle to Howard: It tells you "see, you shoulda listened to the creepy possessive man who knew better, little girl." That's the underlying lesson the original story was telling. Chazelle & Trachtenberg's rewrite rejects that notion. It uses an action sequence at the end of a sci-fi thriller to do so.

I don't see why that's a bad call in the least.
 
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