Tag Archives: cloverfield

The Cloverfield Paradox: An ARG Analysis (Part 3)

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6 of the people responsible for Cloverfield’s fall from grace / Credits to Netflix

With the 10 Cloverfield Lane ARG drawing in new fans to the franchise, things could only go up from there, right?

Sadly, The Cloverfield Paradox was released in 2018 on Netflix and met with overwhelmingly bad reviews. Much like 10 Cloverfield Lane hadn’t been originally a Cloverfield movie, this was originally intended to simply be a sci-fi flick called ‘The God Particle’.

The movie, with it’s Cloverfield references seemingly stitched on by the studio forcibly akin to Frankenstein’s monster, is considered easily the worst in the franchise. Reports even came out that the movie had already been filming before Cloverfield connections had even been written for it. This, of course, isn’t uncommon in Hollywood – films get rewritten and reshot all of the time – but when the entire movie revolves around the ‘Cloverfield’ concept and the original script (which is entirely lacking said concept) is already mid-filming, the cracks become very blatant.

THE ARG

Fans of the Cloverfield franchise (now dubbed the ‘Cloververse’) got excited when a Slusho! van was found at San Diego Comic Con in summer 2017, and was then spotted going around the country handing out free slushies. The tenth anniversary of the first film rolled around, and still radio silence of an ARG until the Tagruato website was updated with…

An error message.

It’s now stuck on the last error message update forever. This ARG was simply to tie in the Helios space station from the new film in with the Cloverfield universe, but it was done rather sloppily with no real depth. With the Tagruato.jp essentially gone and most of the old sites down aswell, Cloververse’s ARG has essentially become unplayable until the next film, whenever that rolls around. For a series with such a strong ARG marketing technique until the third film, it’s very disheartening as a fan to see it end in such a lacklustre state.

And with that, my blog series of chronicling my favourite ARG comes to a close, not with a bang – but a whimper.

Credits to Giphy

Visiting 10 Cloverfield Lane: An ARG Analysis (Part 2)

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Seconds before disaster in the 10 Cloverfield Lane bunker. // Paramount

Cloverfield wouldn’t receive a sequel until 8 years after the original’s release. Without hesitation, I booked tickets to see it on opening day.

10 Cloverfield Lane (dir. Dan Trachenberg, 2) is honestly a true marvel to behold. Some may argue it’s juggling of suspenseful thriller and sci-fi flick is flawed, especially when you realise that it wasn’t intended to be part of the franchise.

THE ARG

The sequel’s ARG focuses on one of the characters seen in the new film, Howard Stambler played by John Goodman. With MySpace now seen as culturally outdated, the Tagruato.jp website was updated with a new employee of the month section, which portrayed Howard – establishing to fans of the ARG that he worked at the company and thus was tied to the first film’s universe. After many finding websites (including the now defunct radioman70.com and FunAndPrettyThings.com), unlocked the access to see chat logs showing Howard’s attempts at communicating with his daughter and telling her to get to his bunker after she’d been taken to Chicago by his ex-wife. Howard, involved in a secret project by Tagruato in the past, is led to believe the events of the film are due to a nuclear attack carried out by the Soviets. We, the audience, know that’s not the case.

REALITY OR FICTION?

Without a doubt, this ARG was more in-depth and immersive than it’s predecessor. A text based survival game was made, after someone survived 1600 in-game days the real world location of a locker in Chicago was revealed, with a cell phone with voicemails from Howard found inside.

Credit to WalnutJSoap on Youtube
Credit to Cloverfield Clues

A ‘survival kit’ found in Louisiana which contained jigsaw pieces that were missing from the same puzzle seen in the film. Even an expired Craigslist ad was found of Howard’s ex-wife selling antique spoons, and allowed a correspondence to be set up with her.

10 Cloverfield Lane’s ARG is a masterclass in marketing with and will undoubtedly go down in the ARG history books, it’s such a shame that the franchise eventually took a tumble.

To conclude in part 3.

Credit to the channel ‘Younique by Crissy Terrio’ for their findings
Part 1
Part 2

further reading:

An article that gives a surface level look at the ARG

An almost full comprehensive history of the ARG

Cloverfield Clues

The Cloverfield Files: An ARG Analysis (Part 1)

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The iconic imagery of 2008’s Cloverfield // Paramount

Cloverfield (2008, dir. Matt Reeves), a found footage monster movie birthed by the thought, “What if the US had a Godzilla of its own?” was met with positive reviews upon it’s release. Praised for being an original creature-feature, many eventually simply brushed it off as just that. However under the surface, unbeknownst to the general public, it was so much more.

This is personally my favourite ARG due to it being the first one I actually found out about/got involved in. Each character was given a MySpace account which interacted with the other characters in the movie, providing more backstory to each investigator. Not only this, many tie in websites featuring puzzles, clues and secrets were also developed.

THE ARG

The Cloverfield ARG focused in on the fictional company ‘Tagruato’ and the slushy drink (which is now beloved to Cloverfield fans) ‘Slusho!’, the latter had already featured in producer J.J. Abrams’ show ‘Alias’ and eventually as an easter egg in many of his other works. Different phone numbers were given during the campaign, which ARG hunters could call and were met with various messages (such as the Cloverfield Monster’s roar and a Tagruato company voicemail). Aswell as this, people could sign up to the ‘Slusho!’ website, which eventually emailed them sonar pictures of a creature approaching Manhattan.

The general plot of the first film’s alternative reality game is that ‘Slusho!’, a subsidiary of Tagruato which the main character of the first film works at, is revealed to contain a highly addictive ingredient: seabed nectar, which is being secretly harvested from the seabed under the guise of an oil rig and has highly negative side effects if consumed in it’s raw form. By drilling for this seabed nectar, the Tagurato corporation wakes up Clover (the monster) and inadvertently begins the events of the movie.

And that’s only the beginning.

Stay tuned for part 2.

further reading: Cloverfield Clues (an entire catalog of the ARG) and an in-depth article.