Something's Happening at Tagruato.JP
January 20, 2018 10:00 PM Subscribe
In April of this year, Paramount will release the third movie in the "Cloververse," an incredibly loosely tied together anthology, which began with Cloverfield in 2008, and 10 Cloverfield Lane in 2016. As was the case with the first two movies, an alternate reality game set in the Cloververse has begun in the run-up to the movie.
The first two movies in the series focused on very specific characters in larger than life situations - in Cloverfield, it was 5 friends who were under siege while a monster attacked manhattan. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, it was 3 people in a fallout shelter, alternately believing and doubting that an above ground attack had wiped out the human race.
The ARG ties these the movies together in ways that the films themselves do not. The primary protagonist of the first film is planning to move to Japan to work at nefarious Japanese Mega-conglomerate Tagruato. Through the ARG we learn that Tagruato was doing deep sea mining and which might have awakened the monster.
Prior to the second film, we learned through the ARG that the paranoid Howard Stambler (played in the film by John Goodman) was working for a Tagruato subsidiary called Bold Futura on transmission issues for governmental satellites. That work, as well as work he did on tracking Soviet Spy Satellites for the US navy convinced him to build the bombshelter that serves as the setting in the second film.
A few days ago (on the 10th anniversary of the release of the first film) the Tagruato website was replaced with a bizarre error message, and buried within a grainy image on the site, a message:
"Tokyo – January 18 2018: Tagruato has begun development on a revolutionary new energy technology in what Ceo Garo Yoshida called a technological great leap forward for our planet. This renewable technology will take at least 4 years to complete along with another six years International regulatory bodies to bring the powerful revolutionary energy source by April 18 2028"
Shortly afterward, a second website (warning: autoplaying audio) was found containing a short, looping video of mostly static with a couple of bizarre images.
The Cloververse subreddit is working overtime trying to figure out what's going on. Join them on the Cloververse discord server to help unravel the clues as they appear.
The first two movies in the series focused on very specific characters in larger than life situations - in Cloverfield, it was 5 friends who were under siege while a monster attacked manhattan. In 10 Cloverfield Lane, it was 3 people in a fallout shelter, alternately believing and doubting that an above ground attack had wiped out the human race.
The ARG ties these the movies together in ways that the films themselves do not. The primary protagonist of the first film is planning to move to Japan to work at nefarious Japanese Mega-conglomerate Tagruato. Through the ARG we learn that Tagruato was doing deep sea mining and which might have awakened the monster.
Prior to the second film, we learned through the ARG that the paranoid Howard Stambler (played in the film by John Goodman) was working for a Tagruato subsidiary called Bold Futura on transmission issues for governmental satellites. That work, as well as work he did on tracking Soviet Spy Satellites for the US navy convinced him to build the bombshelter that serves as the setting in the second film.
A few days ago (on the 10th anniversary of the release of the first film) the Tagruato website was replaced with a bizarre error message, and buried within a grainy image on the site, a message:
"Tokyo – January 18 2018: Tagruato has begun development on a revolutionary new energy technology in what Ceo Garo Yoshida called a technological great leap forward for our planet. This renewable technology will take at least 4 years to complete along with another six years International regulatory bodies to bring the powerful revolutionary energy source by April 18 2028"
Shortly afterward, a second website (warning: autoplaying audio) was found containing a short, looping video of mostly static with a couple of bizarre images.
The Cloververse subreddit is working overtime trying to figure out what's going on. Join them on the Cloververse discord server to help unravel the clues as they appear.
Seems very late '90s.
posted by octothorpe at 6:40 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by octothorpe at 6:40 AM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Perhaps this ARG will stick around outside the movie. Most of 'em seem to pop up and go away and leave people standing around wondering if it will ever come back and the people behind the ARG rarely say "we own this IP and the idea based on this IP isn't coming back. And no, we are not in favor of the ideas we created being just used by someone else like HP Lovecraft's mythos only because we don't want to be responsible for that use by someone else."
Heck I can't think of an ARG that's ongoing. Ciacadia may just be new people trolling VS whatever the original was and that is the only long-term ARG unless you want pokemon and ingres to be in the ARG class.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:27 AM on January 21, 2018
Heck I can't think of an ARG that's ongoing. Ciacadia may just be new people trolling VS whatever the original was and that is the only long-term ARG unless you want pokemon and ingres to be in the ARG class.
posted by rough ashlar at 8:27 AM on January 21, 2018
I'd throw Super 8 in with those other films - an alien that looks a lot like the Cloverfield alien is captured and eventually escapes - but perhaps not without leaving a little something behind for us? The timeline is right, the events of Super 8 take place roughly 40 years before Cloverfield. Perhaps enough time for an alien bioweapon to mature under the sea.
posted by Ansible at 9:30 AM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Ansible at 9:30 AM on January 21, 2018 [2 favorites]
Rewatched the two Cloverfield films in light of this news. 10 Cloverfield Lane is still great - a solid little(ish) film that still works on repeat viewing
The original Cloverfield has not aged well. Some of the special effects are ropey now and some of the acting is well wonky. Also I had forgotten that Hud, the camera guy, is played by TJ Miller... and oh god.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:06 PM on January 21, 2018
The original Cloverfield has not aged well. Some of the special effects are ropey now and some of the acting is well wonky. Also I had forgotten that Hud, the camera guy, is played by TJ Miller... and oh god.
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:06 PM on January 21, 2018
Ciacadia may just be new people trolling VS whatever the original was and that is the only long-term ARG unless you want pokemon and ingres to be in the ARG class.
Ingress does actually have a proper ARG component, and I think it's the only long-term ARG now that the Frog Fractions 1.5 ARG has wrapped up. They're a lot of work, it's very hard to monetise them, and they no longer get the buzz they used to so they're less attractive for advertising, Cloverfield universe not withstanding.
posted by Merus at 4:02 PM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
Ingress does actually have a proper ARG component, and I think it's the only long-term ARG now that the Frog Fractions 1.5 ARG has wrapped up. They're a lot of work, it's very hard to monetise them, and they no longer get the buzz they used to so they're less attractive for advertising, Cloverfield universe not withstanding.
posted by Merus at 4:02 PM on January 21, 2018 [1 favorite]
And the result is... The Cloverfield Paradox, dropping tonight.
From The Wrap,
From The Wrap,
Director Julius Onah’s film — which was once titled “God Particle” — was recently bumped from Paramount’s domestic release schedule (after bounding around the calendar).posted by CrystalDave at 7:15 PM on February 4, 2018
Netflix took over rights in most territories for the space station-set film starring Elizabeth Debicki, Daniel Brühl, Gugu Mbatha-Raw and David Oyelowo.
The film follows a team of astronauts aboard a space station who find themselves in danger after an experiment involving a particle accelerator makes Earth disappear.
The movie was re-engineered to be the third in producer J.J. Abrams’ series of “Cloverfield” films, which began with Matt Reeve’s 2008 found-footage monster-in-Manhattan movie and followed with Dan Trachtenberg’s 2016 thriller “10 Cloverfield Lane” starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Does "re-engineered" mean that it was done after production?
posted by octothorpe at 5:36 AM on February 5, 2018
posted by octothorpe at 5:36 AM on February 5, 2018
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posted by fearfulsymmetry at 2:19 AM on January 21, 2018