Cloverfield Predictions — How Did I Do?

OK so I saw the movie, and it rocked. I really enjoyed it. Now I’m going to take a moment to take a look at my predictions and see how I did.

For this, I am taking only what we learned in the movie. There is a manga being printed in Japan that suggests, for example, that the monster was towed behind the Tag freighter. Which suggests that Tag drug the thing to New York. But that is still outside the movie, so it doesn’t count.

OK here goes.

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[P] The Chuai station was established to exploit a deep-sea region inhabited by extremophiles (i.e. hardy little buggers) that lived in the deep trenches. They found “deep sea nectar”, which is otherwise known as MONSTER POOP. The monster who produces this poop, and also creates a whole ecosystem around it, turned out to be bigger and more bad-tempered than the Tag engineers anticipated.

[A] Not addressed in movie.

[P] After a year of putting up with drilling and bombardment the ocean floor with sonar, this very large extremophile rose from the depths to tell them to knock it off. This it did with a distinct lack of subtlety. Then it followed the sound or sonar of a passing tanker, which it followed to the Big Apple.

[A] Not addressed in movie.

[P] It found the Big Apple, and its residents, to be very tasty. It probably thinks of them as “above sea nectar”.

[A] hehehe “above sea nectar” — I am funny

[P] Satellite parts? Coincidental.

[A] Not addressed in movie

[P] And Slusho? SLUSHO IS… MONSTER POOP!

[A] Not addressed in movie

[P] because of survival in a deep-sea trench, the monster probably burrows and has access to either volcanic vents or some sort of geothermal heat. This gives it an intimate relationship with natural gasses and heat, which above water produce FIRE and lots of it.

[A] BZZZZZZT! Nope. But the Air Force sure generated a lot of fire

[P] the monster is norished by fire

[A] er… BZZT! Didn’t look like it anyway.

[P] the monster is able to create fire in various ways, including having the little lifeforms that live on it produce sources of fire

[A] BZZZZT! Unless that is a hidden superpower the monster has

[P] because of its ability to survive in incredibly harsh conditions, it is really, really hard to kill

[A] DING! Yay my first correct answer!

[P] because it has to move a huge mass through water, above water it can move surprizingly fast and with unbelievable power

[A] Er… DING! It didn’t move super-fast, but it still moved fast enough to sneak up on Hud.

[P] the big thing is amphipious (for some reason) and is closer to a frog or a turtle than a reptile

[A] DING! At least, it looked more like a big shell-less turtle than a big lizard. It didn’t have scales, that I could see, anyway.

[P] the thing has two arms and two legs;

[A] well OK it had that little pair of extra arms

[P] its armspan is very wide, the same as its overall length.

[A] DING! Nailed it!

[P] It is incredibly hunched over, and walks primarily like an animal on all 4s, but can rear up and use its arms to grab things (like helicopters)

[A] DING! I win!

[P] The thing has a huge, triangular face with swivel eyes and a huge gaping mouth with big fangs that would be effective in eating whales

[A] BZZZT! OK the head was round. But it could easily eat whales.

[P] It does rub on buildings and knock off smaller creatures (i.e. I think that rumor is credible)

[A] DING!

[P] Marlena explodes, but literally, like in a big fireball

[A] BZZZZZT!

[P] The monster does something to Manhattan, like cover it in monster poop, that leaves it uninhabitable at the end of the movie.

[A] BZZZZZT! But still, the monster causes the Air Force to level Manhattan, so I was sort of right.

[P] Well …even more uninhabitable than it is now.

[A] DING! Manhattan is currently uninhabitable by humans.

[P] At one point, the monster seems to die and we get a close-up of its face as it lies in the street. But then it comes back to life (i.e. I think that rumor is credible)

[A] BZZZZZZT! Although it does pop out of that cloud.

[P] Ooooh… I just read a good post, so I am going to go with it. The monster evolves during the movie from a very blobby sea creature to a more well-defined, dangerous land creature 

[A] BZZZZZT! Although that is a really cool idea.

[P] The thing eats whales. That’s why it has fangs and arms, and is amphibious. So it can surface and grab them.

[A] Not addressed in the film, but it certainly could eat a whale, if it grabbed ahold of one.

So how did I do overall? Well, after doing a statistical adjustment for the size of the sample and the amount of the initial data set, spread out over the observation base and controlled by the participants, my score is:

Score: 95% correct! (adjusted)

I have to say, I am pretty good.