‘The Cloverfield Paradox’ Ending Explained

One of the more enjoyable elements of the Cloverfield franchise was unraveling the many mysteries each film has presented viewers, leading many to hypothesize how all the films tie together. The latest film, The Cloverfield Paradox, both exists in a world outside of what came before it while tying directly into it. Learn more about the significance of the film’s ending below.

***WARNING: Spoilers below for The Cloverfield Paradox***

In 2008’s Cloverfield, New York City falls under attack by a monstrous creature whose origins are unknown. The film follows a group of characters attempting to flee the city, with the film ending before audiences can discern any real answers.

With The Cloverfield Paradox, a group of researchers head to a space station, named “Cloverfield Station,” in hopes of unlocking the key to solving earth’s energy crisis. When they fire up their impressive piece of equipment, the vessel is transported to a different dimension, with one of the characters pointing out that this was an anticipated drawback to the power of their earth-saving device.

After a series of inter-dimensional incidents, the surviving crewmembers manage to make their way back to their own dimension, with another drawback to their machine’s power being the arrival of beasts from another dimension now inhabiting their planet. In the film’s final moments, a massive creature roars into the sky, which appears to be a mature version of the creature seen in Cloverfield.

One of Paradox‘s shortcomings is its ambiguity with its timeframe. While the events unfold in outer space, we also see some of the events taking place on earth, with a monster seemingly terrorizing America. One confusion is that audiences don’t know how much time has passed in the original dimension while Cloverfield Station was missing, making audiences wonder if the monster at the end is an older, larger version of the monster seen in the original film or if enough time has passed that multiple monsters have invaded our dimension.

Another complication is that, at the end of Cloverfield, we see footage that took place before the events of the film which shows an object falling from the sky and into the ocean. Potentially, this is something that could have been teleported from another dimension when Cloverfield Station used its device, yet why this creature would appear in outer space and fall to earth is anyone’s guess.

Possibly the only clear indication of what happened in Cloverfield Paradox and any other films in the franchise can be summed up by Mark Stambler’s (Donal Logue) comments early on in the film in which he warns the device could feasibly rip open the fabric of reality as we know it, shattering all sense of time, space and dimensions in any ways the filmmakers saw fit.

While audiences may ultimately uncover a variety of subtle clues that draw direct connections between the original film and Cloverfield Paradox, for now we have to settle for a movie that clearly had nothing to do with the mythology and merely had “Cloverfield” branding slapped on at the end to draw in more viewers.

The Cloverfield Paradox is now streaming on Netflix.