Cloverfield's visual gaffe — stuff movie sf usually gets wrong

William Gibson's been to see Cloverfield, and he's made note of a visual miscue that tells us the film was not "made by native science fiction minds." Hollywood sf is far removed from written sf, largely due to stuff like this — tossed off, poorly-thought-through fit-and-finish details that miss opportunities to really conjure the future.

I saw Cloverfield last night, and nothing about it bugged me more than those quotes around "Central Park" on the DoD evidence tag that opens the film. It immediately tells us that this film has not been made by native science fiction minds. If Central Park is no longer called Central Park, but is officially referred to as "the area formerly known as 'Central Park'", but the DoD still exists, we know that this is not a *far-future* evidence tag. So if Central Park is now known as "The Killing Fields", or "The Ghastly Black Glass Ocean", then *tell* us. Those quotes are extraordinarily clumsy (and the card itself is typographically unconvincing).

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