unforum

[brettoniasam]

I'm pretty sure your quote is from HP Lovecraft himself, Pegasissy...which would be appropriate and somewhat ironic.

And no, I'm not talking about a dream sequence per se, or a "surprise" ending (only M Night Shymalan does those "punchline" kind of Twilight Zone flicks anymore). Instead, I'm talking about a paradigm shift about midway through or slightly later in the movie. Anybody who's seen Vanilla Sky, or Fight Club, or even Hitchock's original Psycho knows what I'm talking about -- you think the movie is about ONE thing, but then it turns into something altogether different. I.e., from watching a standard Godzilla-esque monster stomp into a psychological movie that gets inside your head and takes you places that are faaaaar scarier than anything a giant kaiju monster could conjure up.

And Mr Toasty: yeah, I like the Unruhe angle, too...(great ep, by the way) And when you consider that ONLY the party pics have writing on them, that could very well indicate that the party took place in the "real" world; but everything after (including the other 3 pix on 1-18-08.com....note how they get progressively blurrier/harder to make out?) is hallucinatory/manufactured/whatever.

Hell, for that matter, the pic of Jason dumping the drink down Rob's throat might actually be SHOWING Hawk giving his own brother(!) the drug that's going to take him off to TimothyLeary-Land, accompanied by visions of giant monsters and the National Guard doing battle on the streets of New York.

[suckaH]

Not gonna lie, i would hate this idea. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Darko and how it deals with this, but i just don't think it would work in this instance.
One of my biggest pet peeves is movies that advertise as one thing but deliver something totally different (The Village and Lady in the Water advertising as horrors but don't dwell on this point, Pan's Labyrinth advertising as a 100% fantasy film but has more historical drama elements in it, etc.). I think JJ would be hated by many if this supposed monster movie ended up to be rob stuck in an asylum.

[Pathfinder]

BLAIR WITCH MONSTER

[Uninvited]

[TaninimBait]

Thats really cool article. The author makes a great point. In that vein, something that I would think would make a great movie is tinkering with the concept of reality. And I think everyone has been essentially talking about that but I fiugred I would throw my unorganized thoughts out there. What if everyone's view of the monster is different. Some people may see a huge clawes whale, a massive bipedal lizard, or hell, why not lions and enormous compartmental robots? The obvious problem with that is how do we the viewer see it, considering we can technically only be shown one image. The solution to that would be to not show the monster at all. Another thought, what if it more like the book Amnesia Moon, in that for whatever reason, reality seems to "break" and things that shouldn't exist come stomping or rolling through the streets. I dunno, just some thoughts I guess. Although I'm willing to bet we'll see something of the monster.

Or maybe it'll have a super power - IT'S INVISIBLE, hahaha

[Euchre]

Interesting ideas, and I think the element of mystery, especially questioning reality itself, are plot devices that JJ is almost certainly willing to use. I just haven't seen that to be his usual pattern though. I think keeping the monster a secret, almost completely hidden from us, is a fair bet. I think he won't 'spill the beans' too early but that we will in fact get to see the monster in question. I think part of the point of this secrecy about the monster is to stun us all with what it really ends up being. People are keen to mention the Blair Witch Project, but I'd rather point to The Last Broadcast which came out a year earlier with a similar concept. You are slowly moved towards the climax of seeing the 'monster' in question, and the suspense is built quite effectively. Considering how things are currently hinted to I think that'd be more likely of a way to 'almost' not show us the monster.

Overall, I could see this being a fantasy in someone's mind - if the film were by David Lynch.

As to the release in January, I think that's VERY intentional and NOT meant as 'dumping' it because it's expected to fail. I think it's probably because the 'suits' think it's risky (so 'dump season' is acceptable), and JJ (and maybe others) figure the competition will be weak at that time. Would you want to put together something you feel is very bold and clever, build lots of hype around it, and then have it compete with some other huge established name that the moviegoing cattle public would flock to like lemmings to the ocean?
Why not just schedule yourself on Ed Sullivan on the same night as The Beatles?

[IronJ146]

Does no one think that maybe the movie's being released on that date simply because 108 are numbers the Bad Robot folk seem to obsess over?

[Euchre]

[NYC5]

Wow

[Be@rbrick]

[Red Walrus]

[Pathfinder]

JP T-REX

[TaninimBait]

If the 108 is on purpose, making it significant, than I think there might be an actual chance that it plays into the Lost "mythos." Maybe not explicitly, like having Sawyer or Locke show up to resuce the Slusho 7 from the mighty beast. Moreso like the way that most of Stephen King's works exist in the same universe. (They were all tied together explicitly in the Dark Tower Series - awesome reads, highly recommended). They were connected on a far more subliminal level that linked themes, places, and minor characters (Castle Rock anyone?). Just throwing that out there.

[tygr20]

Re: Good point

[stugots]

I actually like this theory....but if it turns out to be true, thanks for spoiling it for us