The Plot Thickens...

As you may already know, sometime yesterday, J.J. Abrams e-mailed Ain't It Cool News and said the following:

Regarding the online stuff you posted: yeah, we're doing some fun stuff on the web. But, obviously, if the movie doesn't kick some massive ASS, who gives a rat's about what's online? So as you can imagine, we're focusing mostly on THAT. For what it's worth, the only site of ours that people have even FOUND is the 1-18-08.com site. The others (like the Ethan Haas sites) have nothing to do with us.

Personally, I'm not completely convinced that the Ethan Haas Was Right site isn't related in some way, especially in light of the fact that it has now been confirmed that Slusho.jp IS related to the movie (at least in some way). The Slusho logo from the site can be seen on the shirt of one of the characters in the movie trailer and in one of the pictures on 1-18-08.com (although in the picture it is somewhat blurry).

With one seemingly unrelated website like Slusho.jp confirmed as being related to the movie, and with J.J. Abrams himself saying "the only site of ours that people have even FOUND is the 1-18-08.com site" (which sounds like it could be a lie to me since Slusho.jp is definitely related), I really don't think it's a stretch to think that EthanHaasWasRight.com is official and that there are (or will be) other related sites out there yet to be found. Let's also not forget that Paramount is the company responsible for removing both the Cloverfield trailers and the EthanHaasWasRight.com video messages from YouTube, which means at the very least, the company has legal rights to both.

Either way, I think we'll all know for sure by August 2nd. ;)

Official 1-18-08 Trailer Online!

The official "Cloverfield" trailer finally goes online at Apple.com, and I have direct links for you all right here:

• 1-18-08 Trailer - Low (480p)
• 1-18-08 Trailer - Medium (720p)
• 1-18-08 Trailer - High (1080p)

These are direct links, so you can left-click to open in your browser, or right-click and "Save Target As..." to download them and watch offline.

Special thanks to Kevin Huxford for letting me know about the trailer in the comments section.

If you're anticipating this movie (or at least anticipating finding out what it is) as much as I am, you'll probably like this next bit. I've created this countdown clock to count down the time until 1-18-08, the day the movie hits theaters:




In case you like it, I'm including the HTML code below so you can copy and paste it into your Web Site, Blog, MySpace, or whatever. Just click the button to select all the code.

<embed src="http://www.fancygens.com/gens/newcountdown/3d/show.swf?clickURL=http://haasunderground.blogspot.com&clickLABEL=HaasUnderground.BlogSpot.com&flashLABEL=HaasUnderground.BlogSpot.com&skin=http://asheboroselfstorage.com/1-18-08/haaswasright.jpg&text=&untilColor=14080466&textColor=16777215&datesColor=16777215&year=2008&month=0&day=18&hour=0&minute=0&second=0&x=6&y=77" quality="high" bgcolor="#000000" width="300" height="200" name="countdown" align="middle" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer" /></embed>

The Last "Cloverfield" Trailer

What very well may be the last "Cloverfield" trailer online (until someone at Paramount finds it) is available here for your viewing pleasure. Spread it around, and watch it while you can, as it will probably be removed very soon.

Who is Ethan Haas?

If you've found your way here, I'm sure you've got a few questions. Maybe, "What is Cloverfield?" Or, "Who is Ethan Haas?". Right now, I don't have a good answer to either one. What I do have for you are some links that just might help you find out for yourself.

First, the "official" websites:

• http://www.1-18-08.com/ (or http://www.01-18-08.com)
• http://www.ethanhaaswasright.com/
• http://ethanhaaswaswrong.blogspot.com/

The first, www.1-18-08.com, features a couple photos you can click and drag around your screen.

The second, ethanhaaswasright.com, is pretty interesting. It features five different puzzles, each more difficult than the last, and each with its own video message from Van. There's more to this site than meets the eye, as disabling Javascript reveals the following message:

...war came, no longer from the elemental nor from the star's rain of fire. The world was again remade, and the glow was as the coming of the sun upon the Earth. The children of the gods were again too few, scattered and divided and among them walked the ancients and those whose thoughts were not as to the towers and the marvels, but to the End and the destruction of the Earth and to the fires from which nothing could escape.

Not only that, but viewing the page's HTML source reveals a comment that leads us to this hidden page with hints for solving the puzzles. Hopefully that will give you a little help, but if it doesn't, you can skip the puzzles altogether as I've already completed them and have included links to the video messages below.

• Message 1
• Message 2
• Message 3
• Message 4
• Message 5

The only down-side to downloading the videos from the links above is that you can't watch them in your browser, and you'll have to get an FLV player in order to watch them. On the other hand, it does make it pretty convenient if you feel the need to share the video with friends ;).

The last of the official websites, http://ethanhaaswaswrong.blogspot.com, is fairly short. Apparently created by an unbeliever - it may or may not have much to add to the mix.