Brad

Chosen answer: The actors and crew were kept in the dark as much as possible, unless the information was needed for their performance. They didn't know what the parasites looked like until they began filming the subway scene. Actual-size, realistic puppets had been made for filming but were decided to look too artificial and slow on camera, but it gave the actors a chance to see what they would be running from, how their jaws and legs worked, etc. As for the main monster ("Clover"), actors would only know what was in the script and what the director told them.

Chosen answer: No. The DVD features show he isn't most of the time. Pro camera men did his camera work, and they would have Hud's clothes on to show his feet and pants when the camera pointed down. Miller is an actor, not trained in how to get the most from the camera, so pros did that. Ironically, he couldn't be trusted to make the camera work look amateurish enough!

johnrosa

Chosen answer: The extra tentacles placed on the monster where originally to make the more dangerous towards the people below. In the Japanese comic regarding cloverfield, he uses these tentacles to eat people. For the movie, this premise was the same. Rumors of CGI effects that were created to be in the movie of the monster eating people with these "feeding tubes" where made, however, no actual footage has been made public via DVD or internet sources as of yet. In essence, since the monster was SO large, the creators wanted a way the monster could eat people without having to bend over like the scene at the end depicted. Even the final scene was a disappointment to the editors, as scaling issues made the monster "look" smaller than it really was.

Chosen answer: The main monster is terrorizing the entire city. It only seems that the movie's main characters run into him a lot is because while most people are running away from the monster, they're running toward it to save the girl. And the spider-crab parasites are shown falling off of the monster by the hundreds, so they're probably all over the city by now. Since the backstory for the creatures and monster is that they come from the deep sea, the parasites might enjoy the subway tunnels because the environment is sort of like "home" for them.

Chosen answer: News reports indicate an oil tanker has overturned in the harbor. We can presume this is just beyond the Statue of Liberty, possibly in the area of upper Bayonne, NJ. Considering there are lights and other electrical devices aboard, as well as static electricity, almost anything could have sparked an explosion aboard, the concussion of which tore the head off the statue and hurled it and other debris onto Manhattan island.

johnrosa