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The big game may have dominated conversations in early February, but Netflix took over that mantle recently. Why? Right after the Super Bowl concluded, Netflix dropped the third installment of Cloverfield‘s confusing universe onto its platform — a huge surprise, as given hours earlier it wasn’t even officially confirmed the movie would be on Netflix, at all.
Cloverfield has always existed in a weird world. The original 2008 film premiered following an extensive marketing campaign that hid the identity of the monster and the point of the movie for weeks. The property wasn’t really touched again until the premiere of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a movie that stands as its own suspenseful thriller but with enough connective tissue in its ending to tie it to the original film. The Cloverfield Paradox is roughly the same way. However, this movie focuses more on the mythology and why of these massive monsters more than any other installment in this insane story. There’s always a lot of loose ends in the Cloverfield movies and a limitless number of multiverses, which means one thing. Internet fan theorists have embraced these interconnecting movies wholeheartedly. Welcome to Really Internet, a corner of the web dedicated to exploring and explaining the craziest fan theories out there.
Because the Cloverfield universe of movies is such a confusing and constantly changing thing, I’m doing something a little differently this round. Consider this your guide to three of the most interesting Cloverfield theories floating around the web. Also, if you’re looking for a cheat sheet about how The Cloverfield Paradox relates to everything check out this thread. Now get ready for some giant monster talk.
The “Duo” Theory
Out of all the theories around this franchise, this is likely one of the best known. The Duo Theory only applies to the original Cloverfield. However, as more movies have been added to the franchise, it’s started to carry more weight. After Cloverfield first premiered, producer J.J. Abrams confirmed that only one baby monster was responsible for destroying New York City. According to this theory, Abrams is a liar. There wasn’t just one monster attacking the city but two — the baby and another monster, likely a parent or sibling, that was looking for the baby.
A lot of the proof behind this theory comes from monster dimensions. For example, at one point in the original Cloverfield, Hud (T.J. Miller) records a giant creature destroying a bridge. This creature appears to be larger than the monster that’s shown throughout most of the movie. Though this theory has been officially disproven, the creatures that appear in 10 Cloverfield Lane and The Cloverfield Paradox prove that it is possible for more of these monsters to exist at once, even if they are on Earth 2.
The meaning behind “The Cloverfield Paradox”
Cloverfield has always been a weird name for a monster movie even when the found footage film premiered 10 years ago. However, one Reddit user has an interesting theory about why these movies are associated with clover fields and what exactly a clover field paradox could be referring to.
Based on this theory, the name “Cloverfield” only makes sense after knowing what we learned from Paradox. A field of clovers contains millions of versions of the same plant, all of which are practically identical. That’s analogous to the infinite alternate dimensions that Paradox has now revealed exist. However, buried among the three-leafed clovers in this clover field analogy, there are also a few, rare four-leafed clovers. That’s where the paradox descriptor comes into play. If there are a limitless amount of realities, or a limitless amount of clovers, how can a limitless amount of four-leafed clovers be considered rare? This Reddit thread also goes on to explain the paradox naming theory in mathematical terms. It also should be noted that the the original film came to be named Cloverfield allegedly because that was the exit Abrams had to take to get to his Santa Monica office. Still, that doesn’t mean the name can’t hold special significance now.
Everything is still the oil company’s fault — even the dimensional drift
As great as the Cloverfield movies are, and as much fun as it is to wildly speculate about different Kaiju monsters, there’s always been a fast and loose quality to the Cloverfield universe. After all, if Dan Trachtenberg or Julius Onah changed just a few minutes of 10 Cloverfield Lane or The Cloverfield Paradox, they would turn into a bunker apocalypse thriller and an outer space horror movie, respectively. Because of this, there’s been a bit of a disconnect between the three movies. Though the original Cloverfield clearly blames the emergence of the monster on a Japanese oil company that drilled in the Marianas Trench, The Cloverfield Paradox implies the monster emerged because of space experiments. So what triggered the original Cloverfield monster, scientific tomfoolery or undersea drilling?
According to at least one fan theory, it’s kind of both. This draws heavily on information from the Cloverfield Alternate Reality Game. As the game reveals, the energy and oil company, knowing that fossil fuels were coming to an end, wanted to build its own accelerator. This would allow the company to corner the free energy market. However, since the experiments could be consider too dangerous to perform in space, in at least one universe the oil company may have decided to try the accelerator in another environment that didn’t allow for ventilation — under the ocean. So “drilling in the Marianas Trench” could be what this company told the public and the press it was doing, when in fact it was doing something far more sinister and sci-fi focused.
