The Cloverfield Paradox - The Problem In The Script
Thoughts On: The Cloverfield Paradox (2018)
The earth disappears when a crew on an orbiting spacecraft runs an crucial experiment.
The Cloverfield Paradox is a mediocre movie with a lot of annoying faults. As with most bad movies, the problems are in the script and have been emphasised by the direction and performances. In the script, this is then a bland movie that pretentiously contrives a set of characters it thinks we'll care about, a silly set of events around themes it thinks will resonate and then slaps some ill-advised moments of comedy on top of everything. The materialisation of the script on screen lacks energy, tension, mood and draw; nothing particularly notable is done by the director, actors, cinematographer, etc.
In regards to plot, The Cloverfield Paradox is muddled and uninspired. Everything that it does well has been done better in the Alien movies as well as a plethora of other sci-fi space pictures. And the minor original strands of plot are all semi-interesting, but explored poorly. The main contrivance of the film, which I won't hold back from spoiling as this has been on Netflix for quite a while now, is that the crew aboard a ship that is attempting to formulate a new energy source move into a different dimension. This is the source of all conflict--physical, mental and thematic. The struggle of the second and third act is then that the crew have to try to get back home, to deal with the loss of crew members, remain stable and, for our protagonist, Ava, she has to decide if she even wants to go back home. In this new dimension, there is a very similar earth to the one that the characters all came from. But, one of the key differences that is alluded to is that Ava's children, who died in an accident on the original earth, are alive. However, so is another Ava - and she is with those children.
We could all imagine that anyone put in this position would think of going down to meet those children. However, whilst that thought would pass through someone's head, I don't think anyone who had any sense, or anything to live for back on earth (which Ava does: her husband) would actually choose to try and go down. There are a large number of reasons why Ava wouldn't go down to that place. The most obvious one - which she is aware of - is that those children have their mother. Ava then couldn't take them; they wouldn't be her children - maybe she could be a weird kind of aunt. That said, there are far too many questions you could ask of the initial meeting alone, let alone Ava trying to integrate into the family - and all whilst a World War is raging. There is a pathetic attempt to justify why Ava would think she could go down there - she says that the other Ava would understand; she's just like her - but, the fact is that they are two completely different people. To lose your two children because of something you messed up would utterly destroy you. Who knows how long it would take, and what it would take, to get back to the seemingly normal place that Ava apparently manages? Think of Manchester By The Sea and how complicated the lives of characters there are. The other Ava hasn't gone through what the characters in Manchester By The Sea have. The Ava that has would understand this fact; would have, by now, come to terms with her mistake and her loss to some degree - and would probably be in a position in which she wouldn't actually want to see someone else's children. I'm reminded here of Inception, and the fact that Cobb knows that the children and his wife that he sees in his dreams aren't the real thing. Such is a somewhat common sentiment in many movies; characters who have gone through hell and have had it transform them as a person will not fall for a false version of reality. Why would Ava? How could she so easily?
In the end, and not entirely via self-revelation or introspection, Ava doesn't go down to meet the other children. However, as she leaves behind the other dimension, all she has to say to the other Ava on earth is that the children with her are not hers - are not the original Ava's. This is a truly ridiculous conclusion to a conflict that should not have come about. The fact that Ava rejects the dimension she is in because it is not hers, not because she already has a place in another dimension, shines light into how shallow and thoughtless she is as a person (or rather, how shallow and thoughtless the writers who contrived her are as people). There is a huge difference between leaving a place because it's not yours and going back to a place because you have a place there. Ava decides to not see these other children. She doesn't decide to go back to her actual husband who is waiting for her. In fact, whilst she plans to go find happiness in a false reality she doesn't think about her husband at all. We see him on earth, rescuing a girl in a plot line that really goes nowhere. He shouldn't have had a place in the narrative if it was going to go down the road that it does. If Ava had nothing on earth to go back to, then maybe the central plot contrivance would be passable. How it is, however, does not make any sense at all, it just leaves her an unrealistically naive character with her morals out of whack.
The other faults in The Cloverfield Paradox are more minimal, but nonetheless make for a rather tiresome experience. There are then a few significant plot holes to bring into question. Why does Tam, the Chinese engineer, speak Mandarin (or another Chinese dialect) when she can understand English, and when every other person from a non-English-speaking country speaks English - and, some, even Mandarin? It may be because she simply can't speak English even though she can understand it and was the best engineer China could send. This isn't said, however, and whilst there's nothing wrong with someone speaking Mandarin, it sticks out an awful lot and has very little reason for being there - especially when the German person doesn't speak German, the Brazilian never speaks Portuguese and the Russian person never speaks Russian.
Next, this is a stupid plot hole that could have been avoided with a minor Google search, but water does not freeze in space. A character in the movie gets trapped in a room that fills up with water, and then the air lock opens up and an explosion of water freezes instantaneously. This is not what would happen - at least, it doesn't seem that way. You can find a much better explanation of this here, but the water would initially boil and then turn into snow of some sort.
The last annoying thing we'll touch on is the representation of dimensions. What we are shown in The Cloverfield Paradox is (most probably - maybe definitely) not what a different dimension looks like. Dimensions, to my understanding, are like perspectives. Or rather, dimensions are realms of perspective. To decipher this, we need only touch on one basic thought experiment. What would everything look like if you were in only two dimensions? It's impossible to imagine this 'flatland' place, but, simply put, there wouldn't be an up and down. You would only look side-to-side and back and forwards. To be lifted out of the two dimensional plane and into a three dimensional space would mean that you can suddenly see up, down and all around. To go into four dimensional space... I think that'd be impossible to describe. Some say that a four dimensional space would grant you access into seeing time as having multiple faces - I don't know how much sense that makes, however. Others exemplify four dimensional space (in three dimensional space) with tesseracts, as having extra lines of geometric being - this is what makes sense to me.
But, truth be told, I find the whole visualisation too difficult and pretty tiring. The fact is, however, another dimension concerns the perspective you hold of the objective world. This has little to do with an alternate universe - which is what we see in this film. Alternate universes may be bound together by higher dimensions; you may be able to exist in multiple universes, or at least perceive them and maybe even travel through them if you have access to higher dimensions of spacetime. However, you most certainly are not in a different dimension when you are in a different universe - especially if everything is geometrically identical. The person living in flatland didn't go into a different place, did he? Did he? Did he... I'm not sure if he does or not. Nonetheless, it seemingly holds true that dimensions are different from alternate universes. This is a stupid thing that an awful, awful, awful lot of sci-fi gets muddled up, and The Cloverfield Paradox is yet another proponent of this fallacy.
There are a lot more minor things that could be picked up on, but, this movie isn't worth getting exhausted over. As said at the top, the core problem with this film is that the script is poorly written. As some may know, however, the original script for this movie was very different from the film. You can read more on this here, but the original script was basically adapted into a Cloverfield movie - something that I found out after watching the movie and noting all that I didn't like about it. And, interestingly, most of the problems that we've picked up on here, the problem of Ava's husband being forgotten and a useless part of the film, of the international crew and their language and the whole alternate dimension mess--all of these things, aren't in the original script; there is no husband, the crew is American and they stay near earth, never jumping into other universes. This isn't to say that the original script was particularly good - it could have had its own set of issues. However, what is very clear is that the original script has been shoddily overwritten by a group of writers, studios and a franchise that doesn't have the imagination to contrive its own story, nor the guts to push an original film. What we see in The Cloverfield Paradox is then quite literally an uninspired, clunky and lazy script forced into a money making thing. And I have to say, no one was really very impressed. Maybe everyone involved learnt a good lesson here then.
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The earth disappears when a crew on an orbiting spacecraft runs an crucial experiment.
The Cloverfield Paradox is a mediocre movie with a lot of annoying faults. As with most bad movies, the problems are in the script and have been emphasised by the direction and performances. In the script, this is then a bland movie that pretentiously contrives a set of characters it thinks we'll care about, a silly set of events around themes it thinks will resonate and then slaps some ill-advised moments of comedy on top of everything. The materialisation of the script on screen lacks energy, tension, mood and draw; nothing particularly notable is done by the director, actors, cinematographer, etc.
In regards to plot, The Cloverfield Paradox is muddled and uninspired. Everything that it does well has been done better in the Alien movies as well as a plethora of other sci-fi space pictures. And the minor original strands of plot are all semi-interesting, but explored poorly. The main contrivance of the film, which I won't hold back from spoiling as this has been on Netflix for quite a while now, is that the crew aboard a ship that is attempting to formulate a new energy source move into a different dimension. This is the source of all conflict--physical, mental and thematic. The struggle of the second and third act is then that the crew have to try to get back home, to deal with the loss of crew members, remain stable and, for our protagonist, Ava, she has to decide if she even wants to go back home. In this new dimension, there is a very similar earth to the one that the characters all came from. But, one of the key differences that is alluded to is that Ava's children, who died in an accident on the original earth, are alive. However, so is another Ava - and she is with those children.
We could all imagine that anyone put in this position would think of going down to meet those children. However, whilst that thought would pass through someone's head, I don't think anyone who had any sense, or anything to live for back on earth (which Ava does: her husband) would actually choose to try and go down. There are a large number of reasons why Ava wouldn't go down to that place. The most obvious one - which she is aware of - is that those children have their mother. Ava then couldn't take them; they wouldn't be her children - maybe she could be a weird kind of aunt. That said, there are far too many questions you could ask of the initial meeting alone, let alone Ava trying to integrate into the family - and all whilst a World War is raging. There is a pathetic attempt to justify why Ava would think she could go down there - she says that the other Ava would understand; she's just like her - but, the fact is that they are two completely different people. To lose your two children because of something you messed up would utterly destroy you. Who knows how long it would take, and what it would take, to get back to the seemingly normal place that Ava apparently manages? Think of Manchester By The Sea and how complicated the lives of characters there are. The other Ava hasn't gone through what the characters in Manchester By The Sea have. The Ava that has would understand this fact; would have, by now, come to terms with her mistake and her loss to some degree - and would probably be in a position in which she wouldn't actually want to see someone else's children. I'm reminded here of Inception, and the fact that Cobb knows that the children and his wife that he sees in his dreams aren't the real thing. Such is a somewhat common sentiment in many movies; characters who have gone through hell and have had it transform them as a person will not fall for a false version of reality. Why would Ava? How could she so easily?
In the end, and not entirely via self-revelation or introspection, Ava doesn't go down to meet the other children. However, as she leaves behind the other dimension, all she has to say to the other Ava on earth is that the children with her are not hers - are not the original Ava's. This is a truly ridiculous conclusion to a conflict that should not have come about. The fact that Ava rejects the dimension she is in because it is not hers, not because she already has a place in another dimension, shines light into how shallow and thoughtless she is as a person (or rather, how shallow and thoughtless the writers who contrived her are as people). There is a huge difference between leaving a place because it's not yours and going back to a place because you have a place there. Ava decides to not see these other children. She doesn't decide to go back to her actual husband who is waiting for her. In fact, whilst she plans to go find happiness in a false reality she doesn't think about her husband at all. We see him on earth, rescuing a girl in a plot line that really goes nowhere. He shouldn't have had a place in the narrative if it was going to go down the road that it does. If Ava had nothing on earth to go back to, then maybe the central plot contrivance would be passable. How it is, however, does not make any sense at all, it just leaves her an unrealistically naive character with her morals out of whack.
The other faults in The Cloverfield Paradox are more minimal, but nonetheless make for a rather tiresome experience. There are then a few significant plot holes to bring into question. Why does Tam, the Chinese engineer, speak Mandarin (or another Chinese dialect) when she can understand English, and when every other person from a non-English-speaking country speaks English - and, some, even Mandarin? It may be because she simply can't speak English even though she can understand it and was the best engineer China could send. This isn't said, however, and whilst there's nothing wrong with someone speaking Mandarin, it sticks out an awful lot and has very little reason for being there - especially when the German person doesn't speak German, the Brazilian never speaks Portuguese and the Russian person never speaks Russian.
Next, this is a stupid plot hole that could have been avoided with a minor Google search, but water does not freeze in space. A character in the movie gets trapped in a room that fills up with water, and then the air lock opens up and an explosion of water freezes instantaneously. This is not what would happen - at least, it doesn't seem that way. You can find a much better explanation of this here, but the water would initially boil and then turn into snow of some sort.
The last annoying thing we'll touch on is the representation of dimensions. What we are shown in The Cloverfield Paradox is (most probably - maybe definitely) not what a different dimension looks like. Dimensions, to my understanding, are like perspectives. Or rather, dimensions are realms of perspective. To decipher this, we need only touch on one basic thought experiment. What would everything look like if you were in only two dimensions? It's impossible to imagine this 'flatland' place, but, simply put, there wouldn't be an up and down. You would only look side-to-side and back and forwards. To be lifted out of the two dimensional plane and into a three dimensional space would mean that you can suddenly see up, down and all around. To go into four dimensional space... I think that'd be impossible to describe. Some say that a four dimensional space would grant you access into seeing time as having multiple faces - I don't know how much sense that makes, however. Others exemplify four dimensional space (in three dimensional space) with tesseracts, as having extra lines of geometric being - this is what makes sense to me.
But, truth be told, I find the whole visualisation too difficult and pretty tiring. The fact is, however, another dimension concerns the perspective you hold of the objective world. This has little to do with an alternate universe - which is what we see in this film. Alternate universes may be bound together by higher dimensions; you may be able to exist in multiple universes, or at least perceive them and maybe even travel through them if you have access to higher dimensions of spacetime. However, you most certainly are not in a different dimension when you are in a different universe - especially if everything is geometrically identical. The person living in flatland didn't go into a different place, did he? Did he? Did he... I'm not sure if he does or not. Nonetheless, it seemingly holds true that dimensions are different from alternate universes. This is a stupid thing that an awful, awful, awful lot of sci-fi gets muddled up, and The Cloverfield Paradox is yet another proponent of this fallacy.
There are a lot more minor things that could be picked up on, but, this movie isn't worth getting exhausted over. As said at the top, the core problem with this film is that the script is poorly written. As some may know, however, the original script for this movie was very different from the film. You can read more on this here, but the original script was basically adapted into a Cloverfield movie - something that I found out after watching the movie and noting all that I didn't like about it. And, interestingly, most of the problems that we've picked up on here, the problem of Ava's husband being forgotten and a useless part of the film, of the international crew and their language and the whole alternate dimension mess--all of these things, aren't in the original script; there is no husband, the crew is American and they stay near earth, never jumping into other universes. This isn't to say that the original script was particularly good - it could have had its own set of issues. However, what is very clear is that the original script has been shoddily overwritten by a group of writers, studios and a franchise that doesn't have the imagination to contrive its own story, nor the guts to push an original film. What we see in The Cloverfield Paradox is then quite literally an uninspired, clunky and lazy script forced into a money making thing. And I have to say, no one was really very impressed. Maybe everyone involved learnt a good lesson here then.
Previous post:
End Of The Week Shorts #52
Next post:
Project A - The Quintessential Action Hero
More from me:
amazon.com/author/danielslack
