John Carpenter's The Thing

[JakeSully]

Excellent sci-fi horror film that has great performances by an all male cast, tension, scares, awesome effects and memorable quotes as it's a true cult classic in every sense.

It flopped when it first came to theaters 31 years ago due to being around the same time as ET but found new life on video, cable, laserdisc, DVD and blu-ray over the years and has became a beloved film.

[Pterobat]

"The Thing" is one of those strange items where, despite claiming I have a low tolerance for gore, I had almost no problem with it, and in fact I love the hell out of this movie. Maybe I just love gore when it's seen through the medium of monsters.

The film is really fun. It's not a profound exploration of human nature, but it's fun to watch and see who gets Thing'ed and who might already be. There's tremendous imagination put into the monsters, and some funny scenes ("You've got to be ****ing kidding me!")

I try to ignore all the video game and comic continuations, because the ending is just perfect. I agree with the increasingly-drunk Carpenter in the audio commentary: it IS an inspiring ending, because MacReady and Childs are giving up their lives to make sure the Thing never gets free.

(We'll just ignore the alternate cut with the escaping dog, because really.)

I also ignore the prequel. It sounds completely unnecessary, and, ugggh, some things just don't need CGI effects, especially BAD CGI.

The Blair-Thing action figure on top of my bookshelf speaks to my love of this movie, though I've never been interested in fandom or speculations regarding it. However, I love Outpost #31, the extensive fansite with all the good things fansites have: http://www.outpost31.com/index2.html

[The Sewer Lord]

I was about to make this thread! How did you read my mind?
Anyway, it's an awesome film. If it only got more re-cognition.

[JakeSully]

Originally Posted by Pterobat

"The Thing" is one of those strange items where, despite claiming I have a low tolerance for gore, I had almost no problem with it, and in fact I love the hell out of this movie. Maybe I just love gore when it's seen through the medium of monsters.

The film is really fun. It's not a profound exploration of human nature, but it's fun to watch and see who gets Thing'ed and who might already be. There's tremendous imagination put into the monsters, and some funny scenes ("You've got to be ****ing kidding me!")

I try to ignore all the video game and comic continuations, because the ending is just perfect. I agree with the increasingly-drunk Carpenter in the audio commentary: it IS an inspiring ending, because MacReady and Childs are giving up their lives to make sure the Thing never gets free.

(We'll just ignore the alternate cut with the escaping dog, because really.)

I also ignore the prequel. It sounds completely unnecessary, and, ugggh, some things just don't need CGI effects, especially BAD CGI.

The Blair-Thing action figure on top of my bookshelf speaks to my love of this movie, though I've never been interested in fandom or speculations regarding it. However, I love Outpost #31, the extensive fansite with all the good things fansites have: http://www.outpost31.com/index2.html

The prequel isn't half bad but originally did had pratical effects but too bad no thanks to interferance from the studio they were forced to repaint the effects with CGI, now they might have some workprint copies at conventions to see the real effects but the ending was epic as it lead to this movie.

Don't you just hate it when this film is foolishly labeled as a "remake" of The Thing From Another World from 1951? I DO, they have little in common other than hostile alien and snowy place. Sure there were 2 homages to the Howard Hawks film like circle of men and opening title card but those are just it! it was soo different than the "original" that it's a remake in name only.

They share a name but everything about the two films like the location (one in the north pole and the other in the south), the characters and backgrounds, the discovery of the alien, discover and origin of the spaceship, the nature/methods of the alien (one is a humanoid vegetable plant man who can reproduce itself and suck blood but didn't imitate anyone where the other is a parasitic organism that could imitate other lifeforms by cell structure), the ways to kill the monster (one by electricity and one by fire) etc. are worlds apart from each other.

I consider them 2 separate and completely different adaptations of the original source material being the John W. Campbell novella "Who Goes There", The 1951 film is a very good film on it's own but it's a poor poor adaptation that had little do with the short story it was suppose to be based on. Carpenter's film is a standalone film that is an excellent and faithful adaptation of the novella as Carpenter has stated many times his film is not a remake as he did grew up with the Hawks film but it was the studios's idea to remake the film but he took the job but he did not want to compete with Hawks but instead of doing a remake he went back to the original source material which the earlier film ignored as his film is it's own film and it's a re-adaptation rather than a remake.

Afterall remakes refer only to films being based on original films with original screenplays not based on anything like say The Blob for example, a great example of a true remake. Re-adaptation means another adaptation of a book/novel/comic aka source material like say War of the Worlds, I Am Legend, Dracula, Frankenstein, Carrie, The Thing, Invasion of the Body Snatchers etc. all based on source material and not the films before them.

[Candy Kappa]

I love the Thing, from the hammy Norwegian in the beginning to guns and flamethrowers on outposts. It's a great thriller movie and Kurt Russel is awesome.

I do enjoy the Prequel, even though you know what is going to happen. And it is nice that they actually use real Norwegian actors, although the guy not knowing a speck of English is kinda silly (but necessary for the silly beginning in the original) I know it's the 80's but in Norway we do have English classes, and should be everyones second language. he may not speak it very good (like my father) but at least he should have know some broken English.

[Rockvoanjd]

One of my favorite films of all time, awhile back I was close to pulling the trigger on a custom 1:1 sculpt of the spiderhead. But at least I have this Mondo Varaint, signed by Drew Struzan, has glow in the dark inks in various places