― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:46 (twenty years ago) link
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:53 (twenty years ago) link
I thought that Blair WAS a "thing" by that point, that it had assimilated him just before he could hang himself (a noose in the background, isn't there?). But according to this, realising a lack of difference between the thing and the not-thing = becoming the thing-in-itself?
― Neil Willett (Neil Willett), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 20:13 (twenty years ago) link
so maybe I do like this film after all.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 23:21 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan I., Wednesday, 14 January 2004 00:19 (twenty years ago) link
Dan I think the point is that it's just the two of them, so the "thing" could obviously just eat the other since there's no other people around to get in its way, or it could just wait until they both froze and only it would wake up, or etc. i.e. there's nothing to be done.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Wednesday, 14 January 2004 00:43 (twenty years ago) link
i like the dig at humanity: the ultra-perceptive dogs realize that the new dog is the thing within 20 seconds, we have to watch a 90 minute movie and still don't know!*
*i think we do know though... in the last scene when Childs takes a pull of whiskey, MacReady shoots him a kinda "knowing" glance, which i interpreted as "why the hell would the thing be drinking alcohol?"... the thing wants to proliferate, not impede it's spread by killing it's own cells with alcohol!
also, there's this i ran across while trying researching spelling.
RayM:Also, do you think there's a clue as to where Blair gets infected>short scene: the dog walks down the hall into blair's(?) room and the shadow of blair's head(?) turns his head real quick followed by a quick fade to black edit.
other thoughts:i was impressed on how well the thing always cleaned up after itself off-camera because on-camera it was always making a bloody gooey mess.
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 18:06 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 18:07 (twenty years ago) link
A long time ago I did a report at school comparing The Thing to this book. (Probably terrible writing and I don't have it any more, but anyways.) I don't know if anyone ever explicitly acknowledged a debt, but there are big similarities. Maybe it's a case of second-hand influence or something. Regardless I think this movie in fact does more justice than any other movie to the style of HP Lovecraft writing. Which is really cool, seeing that aside from his cult followers- his stuff gets a lot less use than it should, after doing more than anyone else to influence the best and most popular of the horror genre like Stephen King. I've seen it written that many horror movie fans are waiting for the day when someone does a really good Lovecraft movie (with arguable exceptions like the comedic Reanimator or Dagon) but until then The Thing comes closest.
― sucka (sucka), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 23:39 (twenty years ago) link
― gygax! (gygax!), Tuesday, 20 January 2004 23:44 (twenty years ago) link
― sucka (sucka), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 00:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Gear! (Gear!), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 00:51 (twenty years ago) link
Occasional poster Matt Maxwell mentioned this in conversation to me a few years back; it's an understandable comparison to draw.
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 01:39 (twenty years ago) link
― sucka (sucka), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 03:50 (twenty years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 16:41 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 16:47 (twenty years ago) link
crucially, there are no mountains in The Thing, or giant penguins, or shoggoths.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 17:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 17:17 (twenty years ago) link
― DV (dirtyvicar), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 17:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 21 January 2004 17:28 (twenty years ago) link
-In Mountains of Madness, before discovering the mountains, the Antarctic expedition from Miskatonic U. used special drills and dug up what they thought were petrified remains of an unknown life form. The remains are left on a dissection table in a tent. They turn out not to be petrified at all, the heat allows them to revive, and they eat everybody in the camp. The 2 main characters have been away on a scouting trip in a plane, and they return and find nothing but tracks in the snow. For the rest of the book they are haunted by what might, or might not be the Old Ones hunting them outside in the snow (they can't tell if it's howling or just the wind.)
In the movie the frozen alien was left to thaw on a dissection table, and ate an entire Norwegian outpost leaving nothing but tracks. The two main character Americans figure this out after a helicopter trip. When they return to their base they are haunted for the rest of the movie by what might, or might not be the alien hunting them in the shape of their friends.
-If I remember right, Carpenter's vs. of The Thing has some kinds of hints that the shapeshifter was able to reach populated areas, but the two remaining characters are already going to die and can't warn anybody. A paranoid, doomy ending instead of a victory (like in the original movie) is a pretty Lovecraftian touch.
― sucka (sucka), Thursday, 22 January 2004 05:55 (twenty years ago) link
the ancient things in the Lovecraft story are not like the Thing (although arguably the shoggoths kind of are).
anyway, tekeli-li.
― DV (dirtyvicar), Thursday, 22 January 2004 10:23 (twenty years ago) link
― Jordan (Jordan), Monday, 1 March 2004 20:04 (twenty years ago) link
Really cool story, the movie retold from the Thing's perspective: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/
The last line is pretty cringey though
― Dan I., Monday, 11 January 2010 08:53 (fourteen years ago) link
re: Carpenter and Lovecraft: anybody seen In The Mouth of Madness? I watched it with some friends and the general consensus was that it did a great job of capturing the feel of Lovecraft, but we were all v. high and I am having trouble remembering specifics.
― I got gin but I'm not a ginger (bernard snowy), Monday, 11 January 2010 12:42 (fourteen years ago) link
I knew about the reboot or whatever but wait a goddamn minute:
So what makes "The Thing" different? First off, the film isn't so much a remake as a prequel, or what the producers are calling a companion piece to the original. As "Thing" fans may recall, early in the film, trying to understand why a Norwegian helicopter had been chasing a runaway husky before it crashed, Kurt Russell returns to the Norwegian base camp where he finds evidence that its research team -- now all dead -- had dug something out of the ice, apparently awakening an extraterrestrial creature that had been buried for thousands of years."That's the story we tell in this film," says Marc Abraham, who is producing the movie with his Strike Entertainment partner Eric Newman. "We go back to that original Norwegian camp and try to figure out what happened. It's like a crime scene, with an ax in the door, and the audience gets to be the detective, trying to piece together what horrible things have occurred."
"That's the story we tell in this film," says Marc Abraham, who is producing the movie with his Strike Entertainment partner Eric Newman. "We go back to that original Norwegian camp and try to figure out what happened. It's like a crime scene, with an ax in the door, and the audience gets to be the detective, trying to piece together what horrible things have occurred."
In the fine tradition of the prequel to The Exorcist.
― Ned Raggett, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 19:23 (fourteen years ago) link
except... that there was a fairly recent video game that covered all this ground already!
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/bigboxshots/4/457774_front.jpg
― ✌.✰|ʘ‿ʘ|✰.✌ (Steve Shasta), Tuesday, 16 March 2010 20:11 (fourteen years ago) link
Kinda thinking about playing that at some point, just out of curiosity. I heard that it was kind of a buggy mess, but still interesting? It might already be too dated to go back to, though...
― Nhex, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 20:19 (fourteen years ago) link
really great game imo. i bet it would still play great. has a nice squad system and manages to work in some nice scares. quite tough tho.
― aarrissi-a-roni, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 20:28 (fourteen years ago) link
haha the biologist who goes crazy and builds a spaceship in a cave in the ice = called BLAIR do you SEE?
wait, um no I don't see!
what was Mark on about here...?
― Get the Flaps Out (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 16 March 2010 21:16 (fourteen years ago) link
probably a Tony Blair reference...?
― smoking cigarette shades? it doesn't even make any sense. (HI DERE), Tuesday, 16 March 2010 21:22 (fourteen years ago) link
or the facts of life
― kingkongvsgodzilla, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 21:26 (fourteen years ago) link
I thought the game was a sequel rather than a prequel
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 21:56 (fourteen years ago) link
if it wasn't though it should have been
― Tracer Hand, Tuesday, 16 March 2010 21:57 (fourteen years ago) link
game was a sequel
― Sex Sexual (kingfish), Tuesday, 16 March 2010 22:10 (fourteen years ago) link
it's a good sign that the new movie is going to have a cast of complete unknowns. that at least gives one hope. isn't it weird that NONE of the original '82 cast have ever done much since?
― piscesx, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 01:48 (fourteen years ago) link
Well I'm sure Kurt Russell would like us all to forget Cap'n Ron and all but he has done other things.
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 01:50 (fourteen years ago) link
ah yeah i meant aside from the big guy.
― piscesx, Wednesday, 17 March 2010 02:06 (fourteen years ago) link
keith david & wilford brimley kept p busy
― :3 (cankles), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 02:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Love this movie and enjoyed the game a lot too tbh.
― t(o_o)t (ENBB), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 02:19 (fourteen years ago) link
called BLAIR do you SEE?
ref to exorcist yes?
― bracken free ditch (Ste), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 09:16 (fourteen years ago) link
and try to figure out what happened. It's like a crime scene, with an ax in the door, and the audience gets to be the detective, trying to piece together what horrible things have occurred."
erm but we kinda know already
― bracken free ditch (Ste), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 09:18 (fourteen years ago) link
Yeah, David Clennon, Richard Masur, Richard Dysart and Charles Hallahan did, too. Solid, well-known TV work if nothing else. (I mean, leading roles on "thirtysomething" and "LA Law" for several seasons are hardly "nothing.")
This prequel strikes me as a perfect example of audience-insulting misguidedness. Does anyone really need a road map as to what happened at the Norwegian camp? Not really hard to piece together.
― Like a sausage or snake, smooth and soft (Pancakes Hackman), Wednesday, 17 March 2010 10:24 (fourteen years ago) link
http://io9.com/5659890/first-thing-prequel-footage-cracks-open-the-alien-ice-block
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/46868
http://io9.com/5659148/the-thing-prequel-same-name-new-tagline
god, this is gonna be terrible
― soon to be major motion picture starring john wayne (latebloomer), Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:14 (thirteen years ago) link
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2010/10/the_thing.jpg
― soon to be major motion picture starring john wayne (latebloomer), Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:16 (thirteen years ago) link
i can just smell it: another joyless, poorly edited shitfest that adds nothing to the previous movie apart from needless backstory that could have been guessed by anyone who saw the original.
and it probably won't even make that much money! there is literally NO REASON to make this movie!
― soon to be major motion picture starring john wayne (latebloomer), Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:26 (thirteen years ago) link
wtffi hate this to the core of whatever disgusting mass of faux-humanity concocted it over a fusion-food speed-lunch meeting
― obliquity of the ecliptic (rrrobyn), Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:30 (thirteen years ago) link
xp!nothing is sacred :(
yeah but carpenter was remaking! and that was good! cmon people be hopeful!
― drawl the whine (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:32 (thirteen years ago) link
I gotta vote with rrrobyn and latebloomer here just because that photo looks so wrong.
― Ned Raggett, Sunday, 10 October 2010 04:33 (thirteen years ago) link
lol
― Billion Year Polyphonic Spree (James Redd and the Blecchs), Friday, 7 June 2024 15:42 (two weeks ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/L3sg6Vg.jpeg
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 21 June 2024 11:33 (six days ago) link
look i know it’s alien but i thought you guys would appreciate
― Humanitarian Pause (Tracer Hand), Friday, 21 June 2024 11:34 (six days ago) link
an alienne cheftburfting vpon the table of a man
― katy perry (prison service) (bizarro gazzara), Friday, 21 June 2024 12:12 (six days ago) link