The 7-25-2007 dated article is of page 5/6, does not have any distinguishable English, aside from a Yankees logo (boo), “Godzilla [Japanese lettering] In USA” (I shit you not; Which is also on page 6), and a bunch of capital H’s and then “IDEKI,” though I’m not entirely sure if it’s just Hideki or Ideki.

There was also a 2nd article, again, only the top portion of it. It was of pages 7/8, but again more baseball related than anything since that’s what the pictures were of.

Either way, I’ll have the paper scrap scanned in later tonight for anyone that’s interested and wants to see some “real” evidence. I’m not inclined to believe that there’s something hidden in here, since both sides are sports related, but who knows.

EDIT: Here are some crappy (crappy, crappy) camera phone pictures of the article for 5/6 (too lazy to do more for 7/8) for the time being.

• Lascano
• Platt
• Robbie

Obviously “Jamie” has just written the order in the pictures, so we now have one full character’s name: Jamie Lascano. Since Myspace is all the rage these days, if you decide to venture on over to check to see if she has a profile up there, low and behold, there is a Jamie Lascano available. But get this, she’s also friends with a Rob Hawkins. Coincidence, or perhaps something legitimate? I think so because Beth has a profile which coincides with her appearance in the beginning of the trailer. There is also another picture of Hawk with his girlfriend Lilly.

These profiles are all “friends” with each other, so when you’re on one, you can just view their friends to see everyone else’s. :)

So, looks like something is starting.

However, the posters could have been delivered early by accident, or stolen, or whatever. When a high-resolution, up-close picture surfaced, the poster looked more and more real. Either someone made a full-scale mockup poster with some high quality art just for a hoax, or improbably enough the poster just ended up at a random comic book store for sale for $15.

So what do you think? Is the title Monstrous, or is it something else?

Since my last (and first) contribution here, I discussed 1-18-08 with my palz. It seems they share the sentiment I closed with on that article, but more so. And basically, they convinced myself to follow my own advice. So basically, at some point soon, I will probably distance myself greatly from all the online hype of Cloverfield - not because I am less enthused, or less willing to make an personal investment in this movie. No, I have to step away before I “know too much”. I’ve realized that a movie done in this fashion, with this sort of premise, that seems this well done should not be ruined by knowing too much. Heck, the less I know, the more I will enjoy it.

When does all this become too much? I’m not sure really. I’m probably going to ride that fine line till one thing takes me a little too far. Sorta like when your parents are talking frankly about something, and then one line that is riddled with TMI (too much information) about a personal/sexual/gastrological matter forces you to cover your ears, close your eyes, and attempt to run out of the room (1) before you take in any more sanity devastating info… and (2) without tripping over the coffee table. It’s a tough act, let me tell you.

One thing I can do to extend my tenure as First Assistant Guest Columnist (again with the assistant gag!) is to keep away from articles that are more like lines of investigation, and instead, focus on the unfounded speculation. Don’t get me wrong, I try to do my part to keep the false leads at bay. I am a fairly frequent editor of the wikipedia article on Cloverfield (verifiability, people!!!). So if you’re lookin’ for new nuggets of fact on Cloverfield, you got that, or one of the links on your right hand side… or, of course, most of these other articles. But when you think of Yooka, think of “wild theories”. And when you think of garbage, think of Akeem! (what movie, people?)

For starters, let me tackle the rumor (now totally debunked) that got me the most excited. The Lion rumor. Now, if you’ve been following the speculation since the beginning, you know there was a controversy about whether one of the few audible lines when the trailer (as in film preview, not as in Britney Spears) moves to the street seems to be “I saw it, It’s alive, It’s huge”. Now personally, as both a screenwriter (recreationally), and as one with an hobbyist’s interest in semantics and psychology, I find this line to be quite useless. I don’t just mean that it’s a bad line. If you are in the situation that this person is in, and you are somewhat level-headed, you would probably not say what is said here. For one, the words “I’m alive” were kind of confirmed by the roaring. Unless something happened where they assumed the cause of the roaring and the explosion was subsequently attacked big time (to bring into question the life status of the thing), then “It’s alive” holds no meaning.

I know what some of you are thinking. “Well, maybe he meant to confirm that it’s not a big tank, or robot? Maybe he meant ‘The threat is organic’ ?”. Well then, that’s a terrible choice of words for this case. Maybe he’s just not the brightest bulb on the tree, but if he saw what it was, and had new information, he probably would want to say something add to everyone’s knowledge of what it is (besides proclaiming it ‘huuuuge’), not just confirm what he, and most everyone else already assumed from what little they (and we) already know - that a big, earth shaking, roaring threat isn’t a missle, or a terrorist plot, or a meteor shower, or an earthquake, or a publicity stunt for NBC’s new fall lineup.

Like I said, other than the ‘huuuuge’ part, It’s a waste of breath. That’s why I was hoping it was lion. A big freakin lion looking monster. Well, that’s not really the reason I hoped it was a lion.

About the same time as I was making this observation, The Ethan Haas websites were also assumed by most to be linked to Cloverfield. This has also been debunked since then, but it intrigued me that one of the quotes you received from viewing the source code was that Apocalyptic reference that I believe someone somewhere attributed (or speculated) to paraphrasing a section of the Book of Revelations. Not everyone knows this, but in that Book, some pretty wild stuff happens. It’s pretty much the most controversial ‘official’ bible book. One interpretation I read years ago (admittedly from a more fanatical, over-the-top branch of Christianity, I wish I could remember which) was that the beasts (not to be confused with the Horsemen) were harbingers of the destruction of mankind. And after they come into the mix, special beings would be created specifically empowered by God to give mankind a fighting chance against a great evil. To summarize, they said the end would come by (1) Trumpets, (2) Beasts (the first of which was a lion) (3) Horsemen (4) Jesus. Man, I should teach Sunday School, all those kids would be out in time for football. Anyway, I think you see where I’m going with this.

I had high hopes that what would start out as just a monster movie would end up with deeply apocalyptical themes, and just a hint of a biblical interpretation/explanation. I mean come on - The Passion meets Godzilla?! Can you get more harsh than that?!?!!!1!!!!eleventy. In fact, I still think what the guy says sounds more like “A Lion” than “Alive”, and I’ve listened to the high quality trailer passed through an audio analysis program. Alas, the Ethan Haas sites are for a dice-and-paper role-playing game (and one, I’ll be taking a look at, BTW, as I love that stuff. Any White-Wolf fans out there?), and my hopes are crushed.

Anyway, that wraps up one of the few wild and improbable interpretations of what little we have on Cloverfield that I actually liked. In the future, I’ll be tackling more theories. Until then, happy net hunting!

Honestly, we know very little about this movie at the moment, but what we do know seems to draw a fairly clear line. I think is somewhat
obvious, and some feel it may not be worth stating, but here it is regardless.

The movie as best we can tell is a monster movie. Within the trailer, we hear someone yell something to the effect of “I saw it; it is alive; it is huge!” Many of the stereotypes of monster movies stem from Godzilla, and the string of Japanese monster movies. Not coincidentally, the character of Rob is moving to Japan.

There are rumors that internally the monster has been referred to as a parasite, but that doesn’t add up with “It is huge!” The monster may have been created in turn by a parasite, and that does seem consistent with some of the things we know about Slusho, a japanese drink maker, which brings us back to Rob.

Rob is the central figure in the trailer, and one would assume in the movie. I’m going to make a logical assumption that Rob is traveling to Japan because of Slusho, perhaps to work for them. Some have noted that Rob appears to react differently from anyone else at the party. Is this simply because he is the main character and thusly he needs to stand out and drive the plot forward, or is it because he knows something that no one else does?

If he had any knowledge that Slusho, its products, or anything was particularly dangerous, would he travel to Japan? Would he be having a party as opposed to warning someone? Like everyone else, he was watching the news, curious what the sound was. He did direct people to the roof, but again, if he had any knowledge of what was happening, I doubt he would go to the roof, which proved to be dangerous.

Given Hollywood formulas, one will assume that some of the characters will survive, and that there is some element of resolution to the film. The threat must be abated. Plots tend to run directly through the main character, and there is a possibility that Rob has a connection to the events unfolding through Slusho, and he might have unique access to information that is vital towards the resolution of the film, but personally, I do not believe he has prior knowledge of the events that lead to mass destruction in New York.

As to what exactly is occurring in New York, again there appears to be a singular monster. Given the history on the Slusho page, it is a fair assumption the monster is aquatic, and that also goes along with the projected path of the monster from the trailer, which shows the monster starting near the cost, and moving inward.

The Slusho history page gives us a few more clues. Ganu encounters this powerful flavor, but he is led to it by something that appears to communicate with him. Communication implies a level of intelligence. This flavor ingredient is no doubt a living organism, and possibly the parasite. Ganu knew it had to be frozen for freshness, which implies something bad happens if it isn’t kept cold.

Many people have also been noting that the news broadcast had the temperature listed, which is unusually high for January. Some equate this to a missed detail, but a news bulletin about a possible earthquake usually doesn’t list the temperature. Given BadRobot’s history with attention to detail, I believe this to be a plot-point.

I believe the parasite doesn’t merely live within its host, but alters it. Ganu returned from discovering the ingredient to running his business, so the transformation must not be drastic or immediate, however the prophetic dream did suggest that Ganu would go from a small fish to a large whale.

Assuming Ganu is the monster in question, was the transformation slow, or did it have a trigger, such as temperature? Or was there another trigger? We know JJ likes to focus on numbers. We know 6 and 17 have been reoccurring numbers so far. 17 + 6 = 23

We know the BadRobot guys are well aware of the many conspiracy theories about the numbers 17 and 23, and the evil powers they supposedly have. However, what is the significance of the number 6, and why is it so predominantly repeated that you can’t just have six
Slusho’s?

I am reminded of The Gremlins, and the rules that when broken, led to the creation of The Gremlins. If you drink more than 6 of the Slusho’s with the new ingredient, does that amount specifically trigger the reaction?

Is any of this part of the key to reversing the effects perhaps?

Written by T.J. Brumfield

Thanks T.J. for taking the time to send this in!

Anyways, where to begin with this whole Cloverfield thing? Well in all complex stories, I like to begin at the beginning. Which is neat, because at this point, 90% of us share the same beginning - we all basically saw Transformers, and said to ourselves afterwords “Wow, that exploding Manhattan thing seemed pretty freakin sweet.” The wiser of us also added “But Jeebus, it’s gonna be hard to find any answers when they released the trailer, but no title”. Yes, today in film marketing, some companies really like to fool around with the “Less is More” approach, to see if they can strike gold like The Blair Witch Project did.

Some of us (especially the ones who’ve become addicted on the seemingly endless well of information and speculation the internet can be if one knows where to look) have been pretty obsessed to be the first to find and/or share those tasty morsals of info. It’s probably safe to say that of all the people who viewed the most popular apple.com movie trailer of the last week or two, very few of them knew much about it, even after checking all the usual places.

Thankfully, that period is pretty much behind us now. We may not know alot for sure, but we know enough to get started drawing reasonable conclusions. Over the next few weeks, I feel that dedicated internet investigators, I’m guess the details are going to start pouring out - not just because Abrams leads are going to be uncovered, but since this marketing campaign has been pretty flawlessly executed thusfar, the excitement from it is just going to make those loose lips in Hollywood that much looser. And I’m not talkin about Lohan or Hilton. I mean actors and stagehands, boom grips and caterers, cgi guys and second associate executive assistant producer assistants (you always have to watch out for those guys).

Here’s what I think about this crusade to play along with JJ. As great as the participation is… part of the beauty of this kind of film is probably going to be the experience of being in the theater and not knowing. Sure, I’m glad that when I went to see Blair Witch, I knew it was fake. But I’m extremely thankful that I was told this hours before, from an unconfirmed source, who didn’t know the whole story. If I had been seeing paparazzi pictures of Heather Whats-her-name all week, I don’t know if the movie would have hit me that hard. Uncertainty can be part of the fun. It helps you suspend that disbelief and really immerse yourself in the experience. So my warning to all fanatics right now is to keep aware of how much info is too much, when it comes to the risk of ruining your night on the Eighteenth of January, Two Thousand and Eight.

Having said that, I’m so freaking glad we cleared up that Ethan Haas thing. Because all I need is to be worried that the new Ross and Rachel (from friends) were going to get vaporized together on the big screen as their season stars on the small one. That’s just all I freakin need.

Next Entry: More on Ethan Haas.

So now that we only have slusho.jp to work off of (and the correlation has more “hard” evidence [see above] then the Ethan Haas crap), Daniel and Jessica posted up a transcript of the history of Slusho at the 011808 livejournal community.

Noriko Yashida dedicated her life to refreshment! Her classmates called her the smallest Whale because she would drink endless amounts of beverages at every meal.

Truth was Noriko loved libations so much, and drank so much, she did not join while the other children opened their fun, she rather experimented with flavor mixtures - combining different fruits, vegetables and other ingredients naturally grown form her father’s (Ryouta Yoshida) farm to make great new beverages.

Her deliciousness made her loved throughout many towns and villanges on Honshu.

And every year she would try to beat herself by coming up with a new flavor mixture, so unique to anything else - she was never satisfied!

But tragedy struck for the Smallest Whale! Noriko set off on a sea adventure to find the greatest, most tastiest ingredient to the world, and was never heard from again!

She left behind her only son, Ganu! Ganu also liked to experiment, but not with the beverage-making enterprise that killed his mother, but for science!

He abandoned his mother’s drink business to his cousin, because the pain of her loss was so great with every flavor mixture Ganu attempted. Truth is that he became a lead ocean scientist. His accomplishments are many, he is very big.

And one fateful day, he and his teammates discovered a deep sea ingredient unique to anything else!!! While the team pondered miraculous was to use it, Ganu had the best idea of all!! Because that night he had a dream - he was a tiny fish, and a whale came and told him to drink the new ingredient. And as he did drink lots and lots of the ingredient, Ganu grew from a small fish into an enormous whale!!! He woke up with tears, he knew he had found the magic ingredient Noriko had set off to find!

He decided he would make his mother’s dream live - make the tastiest drink, unlike anything on earth! Because the ingredient was discovered on the deep ocean floor, under amazing pressure and in the most extreme cold, Ganu knew he had to serve the ingredient in a nea-frozen state to preserve its freshness!!

He re-joined with his cousin, and combining the incredible drink-making knowledge of Noriko’s business with the new ingredient, SLUSHO! came to life!!!!!!

Everyone who drinks a SLUSHO! tastes Noriko’s dream, and becomes a small whale like Noriko - because you want to drink huge amounts of SLUSHO!

BET YOU CAN’T DRINK JUST SIX!!!

If you aren’t aware, there are several websites talking about the film also being referring to as “Slusho.”

If google isn’t your friend, then you may not have found slusho.jp (alternatively you can use slusho.com since it redirects there. The only connection thus far has been the fact that J.J. Abrams show, Alias, had reference to the fake drink, as well as a character in the movie wearing a Slusho t-shirt.

And don’t forget that J.J. Abrams is no stranger to making a website for something that doesn’t exist! ((Lostpedia’s Thehansofoundation.org wiki article))

So with that being said, feel free to post any ideas you’ve got thus far or you can send me an e-mail and I’ll blog about it. Seriously, because if you don’t then this is the only possible explanation: The Parasite is a Voltron-esque monster made up when Robert Goulet, Dane Cook, Paris Hilton, Dennis Hopper, and Michael Jackson all get together.

The part that he’s highlighted contains some hair from the person of the left. That is definitely not some creature, ghost, monster, Cthulu, or your mom. It’s hair. Shaggy hair at that.

The audio bit was nice to hear especially since I haven’t paid attention to the background noises enough to actually hear some of what’s being said.

So check out that video and comment here with your thoughts on it, I’m all ears.. or eyes…

So who is going to register 7-01-08.com?