Cloverfield Monster != Cthulhu
For those of you who are excited at the idea of Cthulhu holding the staring role in the upcoming movie “Cloverfield”, or any role for that matter, you’ll be sadly disappointed. Personally, I was of the opinion that the movie was going to be too “mainstream” to be good for Cthulhu any way. He deserves a movie that can wield horror like Alfred Hitchcock could, not a gigantic beast rippping up cities in a Godzilla sort of way. Not that theres anything wrong with a good giant-monster-about-to-eat-your-ass movie, but Cthulhu has so much more to offer than that to be belittling himself to such a role.
“Was the monster in the film inspired by H. P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu?
It was not. Here’s the thing—there’s been a lot of speculation, but J.J. has already answered the question. What really happened was that during Mission Impossible 3, J.J. took his son to Japan for the premiere. While they were there, they visited a toy store in Tokyo. They saw shelf after shelf, row after row, of Godzilla toys. Just this huge toy store filled with toys. The image was really striking to J.J. He said, “Look at this. This is like a national monster.” He started thinking, “You know, we need our own national monster.” Obviously King Kong is kind of a national monster but not really in that way. That’s a great movie and he’s a legendary figure in film lore, but it’s not really the same thing. So the way that Godzilla was sort of a metaphor for the time, and for that place, the idea of creating a new monster for this time and place came about. It’s an original monster, and a monster that was inspired, really, by Godzilla.”
…What?… You don’t sit down and say “we need an original national icon” then “borrow” someone else’s. Lets see…. Giant monster comes out of the sea and destroys Tokyo New York… Original! What we’re going to have here is Godzilla in a different costume… If we want something new, then create something new. You want something American, give us Cthulhu, Nyarlathotep, or Yog-Sothoth. Give us the Deep-Ones rising up from Y’ha-nthlei and the other sunken cities. Don’t just make Godzilla not-really-Godzilla and call it original.
OK. I’m done ranting. Don’t get me wrong; it looks like its going to be a fun and entertaining movie. I just had an issue with that bit. Read on at ScandalousCandice, and click further to the full interview.
Tags: Interview
January 11th, 2008 at 3:39 pm
That cartoon is awesome. You should do more editorial stuff.
January 11th, 2008 at 4:11 pm
Thanks John! I had thought about that actually. The problem is basically finding the time to essentially do another comic for that week, the time to write the article to go with it, and the material in the horror genre to do it on. But I think I will start throwing these in now and then.