― Pete, Thursday, 15 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
(the secret nagging question is: SO WHAT IF THE THING IMITATES US EXACTLY? If we are all turned into exact copies of ourselves, what has changed? "Go with the flow maan, resistance is futile... gooey tentacloid palps? bring em on!!")
― mark s, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
Arctic circle is a grebt place to set a vampire film btw.
― Pete, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
i read the story when i was like 12 and it *really really* spooked me (the monster is described, apparently dead, in the first para, oh no!! it has THREE EYES!! OH NO!!): in the bit where they do the blood test, mcready is testing 35 ppl!! carpenter cuts it down to a slightly less pedantic four, i think
― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ray M, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
the gender thing she says was probably the last possible moment they could cast the way they did: actually not strictly speaking "realistic" (antarctic stations had been mixed sex since the 50s), it was for emotional-narrative focus as much as anything
the question of blair's infection is interesting, because so deliberately left ambiguous i. on hand he jumps to the "it's a shapeshifting alien much too quickly", ii. on the other, he destroys the helicopters/radio etc, iii. on the third hand he misdirects mac towards clark (who ends up being shot and then turning out NOT to have been thinged) => billson points out that the unspoken question is, if you become a thing and it becomes you, how much of YOUR behaviour wd be a mask and how much wd be real...
i suspect childs's thing-dom is kept exactly as ambiguous (and remember someone finds a bit of mac's torn clothing: so he's not out of the picture, just cz he's the hero => yes he's behaving mac-like, but then the thing-that-became-mac WOULD, to fool the others or fool us!!)
http://www.arahne.si/Arachne06.jpg
― Sean, Friday, 16 August 2002 00:00 (twenty-one years ago) link
― g-kit, Monday, 19 August 2002 08:45 (twenty-one years ago) link
― toby (tsg20), Monday, 19 August 2002 09:16 (twenty-one years ago) link
Any other films with absolutely no women in at all. Actually - nu thread...
― Pete, Monday, 19 August 2002 09:20 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Ray M (rdmanston), Thursday, 22 August 2002 17:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Thursday, 22 August 2002 22:29 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Friday, 23 August 2002 10:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
(also it stars frodo)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:11 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Graham (graham), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:22 (twenty-one years ago) link
― vic (vicc13), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:23 (twenty-one years ago) link
(the caffeine (= coke obv) scene = brilliant loving parody of the scalpel/test-tubes scene)
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:25 (twenty-one years ago) link
― vic (vicc13), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:32 (twenty-one years ago) link
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:35 (twenty-one years ago) link
― vic (vicc13), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:41 (twenty-one years ago) link
http://www.hbo.com/films/laramie/img/photo_cast_clea.jpg
jordana = cookiecutter brunette "looker" zzzzz
― mark s (mark s), Sunday, 8 September 2002 21:46 (twenty-one years ago) link
Hott brasilian-american with wonderful hairhttp://www.tiramillas.net/cine/atodo/jordana.jpg
and goth poseur(real goths have black hair)http://www.hbo.com/films/laramie/img/photo_cast_clea.jpg
― Chupa-Cabras (vicc13), Sunday, 8 September 2002 22:02 (twenty-one years ago) link
― boxcubed (boxcubed), Sunday, 8 September 2002 22:03 (twenty-one years ago) link
(Actually I only like her cos she reminds me of dreamy skate-punk princess Lois, who has way better hair)
― Graham (graham), Sunday, 8 September 2002 22:49 (twenty-one years ago) link
― Chris Barrus (xibalba), Monday, 24 February 2003 23:53 (twenty-one years ago) link
coz ok i just watched the movie and then "remembered" this whole mark s bit where he's totally sympathizing with the "thing" and spins this great hypothesis about how mcready is clearly "thing" but has decided by the strength of his will to be human that it doesn't matter. and also about how the "thing" is always in us, and in fact is our mutual fear and at the end, reduced to panic, everyone is reduced to "fire cleans all" which is as unscientific as you can get (and clearly the surface-opposition is science v. grotesque).
also about how blair ceases to panic and becomes "okay" when he reaches the same conclusion w/r/t the "thing" -- i.e. that it doesn't matter.
all of which i guess is part of the "so what if the thing imitates us exactly" except it's also all the BAD things the thing does are entirely human. except the thing gets to make k-cool spaceships too!
i may also have read all this elsewhere.
okay I need to read the book and see "the faculty" now.
also the initial scene with the thing and the dogs is totally horrifying as is the arms-getting-chomped scene, and the way the narrative closure with the two burned stations kicks this whole "statement of human nature" thing into high-gear.
― Sterling Clover (s_clover), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 06:21 (twenty years ago) link
(if true, this is the coolest thing evah btw) (best aspect: it can be totally real and totally unproveable simultaneously)
― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 14:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 16:34 (twenty years ago) link
― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:44 (twenty years ago) link
― Pete (Pete), Tuesday, 13 January 2004 17:45 (twenty years ago) link
― 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
so what's the cons of being thingified? That guy who was thingied built an entire spaceship, seems like pretty neat skill to me.
― Ste, Friday, 24 June 2022 10:02 (one year ago) link
quotation from campbell (note how he writes dialogue):
"I wonder if we ever saw its natural form. " Blair looked at the covered mass. "It may have been imitating the beings that built that ship but I don't think it was. I think that was its true form. Those of us who were up near the bend saw the thing in action; the thing on the table is the result. When it got loose, apparently, it started looking around. Antarctica still frozen as it was ages ago when the creature first saw it and froze. From my observations while it was thawing out, and the bits of tissue I cut and hardened then, I think it was native to a hotter planet than Earth. It couldn't, in its natural form, stand the temperature. There is no lifeform on Earth that can live in Antarctica during the winter, but the best compromise is the dog. It found the dogs, and somehow got near enough to Charnauk to get him. The others smelled it heard it I don't know anyway they wwent wild, and broke chains, and attacked it before it was finished. The thing we found was part Charnauk, queerly only halfdead, part Charnauk halfdigested by the jellylike protoplasm of that creature, and part the remains of the thing we originally found, sort of melted down to the basic protoplasm.
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 10:06 (one year ago) link
this question is not resolved afaicr and plus i don't consider blair a reliable narrator-explainer: he's not yet thingified i dont think but it has telepathically got into his mind and is directing-confusing him; we are already guessing that it bewilders its prey telepathically and hypnotically
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 10:08 (one year ago) link
Blair's dialogue sounds like Campbell talking to one of his writers.
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 24 June 2022 10:13 (one year ago) link
it's here if you want to enjoy the rest of the "conversation": https://wp.nyu.edu/darknessspeaks/wp-content/uploads/sites/3674/2016/09/who_goes_there.pdf
(i mean it's a good story but the expositionmeter is off the charts)
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 10:16 (one year ago) link
I watched this at the cinema on Sunday (part of a Morricone season) - was great to see on the big screen. We'd all seen it before loads of times but none of us could remember who was assimilated when they were testing everyone's blood so it was still pretty suspenseful.
― even the birds in the trees seemed to whisper "get fucked" (bovarism), Friday, 24 June 2022 10:50 (one year ago) link
Was just reading some theories about whether Childs was a Thing at the end - apparently not as John Carpenter has said the computer game is canon and in the game he is a human when he freezes to death.
― even the birds in the trees seemed to whisper "get fucked" (bovarism), Friday, 24 June 2022 10:51 (one year ago) link
anybody got a flamethrower suitable for use in an antarctic research station? it's for a thing— mutable joe (@mutablejoe) June 23, 2022
― koogs, Friday, 24 June 2022 12:51 (one year ago) link
it's very good at getting you to forget who is and who isn't bcz imo carpenter cheats lol: the spreadsheet will never clear!
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 13:19 (one year ago) link
haha xp
― Ste, Friday, 24 June 2022 13:31 (one year ago) link
i've read a handful things over the years where people plausibly solve for X re:who is & isnt a Thing, when they get turned, etc, and theres never been one that has convinced me more than others, but i've also become convinced that carpenter made the movie with a clear blueprint in his head about who was human and what was happening.
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, 24 June 2022 13:49 (one year ago) link
a weirder little question than eg WHAT HAPPENS TO NAULS OMG!!11 is this: macready says "there's a storm hitting us in six hours" and then a couple of scenes later "the storm's been hitting us hard for 48 hours" -- what did they get up in between to for two whole days??!!
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 14:09 (one year ago) link
Was just reading some theories about whether Childs was a Thing at the end - apparently not as John Carpenter has said the computer game is canon
I had always assumed that Childs is infected, given that he appears not to be conventionally alive (no plumes of breath, unlike MacReady) - but looking at the Wiki page just now, I see that this "has been explained as a technical issue with the filming."I have also always assumed that the reason that the saucer crashed on Earth in the first place was that the Thing had killed its crew. Its flight path in the prologue sequence suggests that it's out of control, I think?
― Vast Halo, Friday, 24 June 2022 15:29 (one year ago) link
i read a thing that posited that Childs is a thing based on the fact that he drinks from the bottle Macready passes to him, since previously been careful to prepare their own meals so a human would have balked at sharing a bottle with a potential Thing, and Macready's knowing chuckle at seeing him drink is Mac realizing that... which is interesting, but i also can easily see Childs being human and just doing it bc hes tired and dying and dgaf
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Friday, 24 June 2022 16:10 (one year ago) link
watching childs actor keith david right now in an old law and order, playing a rival DA refusing to help unconvict an innocent man and quoting scalia = he is clearly a THING
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 16:57 (one year ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrZ7PnolbQ4
― xyzzzz__, Saturday, 25 June 2022 19:31 (one year ago) link
https://c.tenor.com/aLora3YAfDYAAAAC/pingu-noot.gif
― mark s, Saturday, 25 June 2022 19:44 (one year ago) link
Just grabbed tickets to see this in a local theatre - so pumped!!
― FRAUDULENT STEAKS (The Cursed Return of the Dastardly Thermo Thinwall), Saturday, 16 July 2022 15:53 (one year ago) link
nice. i guess once upon a time one would have said “hope it’s a nice print” but now i guess… hope it’s a recent blu-ray?
― Tracer Hand, Saturday, 16 July 2022 15:55 (one year ago) link
or at least hope it's better than this
I just got back from seeing John Carpenter's masterpiece at the Fathom Events 40th anniversary screening at the Universal Citywalk AMC... and I will never EVER see a Fathom Event again, and I recommend that you avoid them like the plague. pic.twitter.com/FQbkp1OjV9— Mick Garris & The Post Mortem Podcast (@MickGarrisPM) June 20, 2022
― nate woolls, Sunday, 17 July 2022 21:08 (one year ago) link
I saw it and didn’t notice any of the issues that guy talks about - maybe they fixed it after he kicked up a fuss
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Monday, 18 July 2022 12:58 (one year ago) link
lol this thread is 20 years old, anyway merry xmas ilxors whatever yr cells are up to
pic.twitter.com/wNrVs3not9— Caligula (@TheHolyKnife) December 19, 2022
― mark s, Tuesday, 20 December 2022 18:47 (one year ago) link
watching christian nyby's version for the first time in 40 yrs
― mark s, Friday, 10 February 2023 20:17 (one year ago) link
it's p good but it's no THE THING
in conclusion: watch the skies!
― mark s, Friday, 10 February 2023 20:59 (one year ago) link
clear up a debate for me re: this dialogue exchange
Macready: Blair, have you seen Fuchs?Blair: I don't wanna stay out here any more. I wanna come back inside.I hear funny things out here.Macready: Have you come across Fuchs?Blair: It ain't Fuchs. It ain't Fuchs.
Blair: I don't wanna stay out here any more. I wanna come back inside.I hear funny things out here.
Macready: Have you come across Fuchs?
Blair: It ain't Fuchs. It ain't Fuchs.
to me it's obviously saying "the guy you think is Fuchs isn't Fuchs anymore" (either paranoia from real Blair or misdirection by Thing Blair, depending on if he's been turned yet.) The flipside to that argument goes, Blair is saying Fuchs isn't a "thing".
a shocking number of people online believe the latter.
anyway, a GREAT movie.
― omar little, Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:21 (nine months ago) link
Just came in #3 in an '80s critics' poll:
https://www.indiewire.com/gallery/best-80s-movies/the-thing-1982directed-by-john-carpentershown-kurt-russell-2/
― fair but so uncool beliefs here (Eric H.), Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:30 (nine months ago) link
xp You're right.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:52 (nine months ago) link
I am in the camp that believes that exchange is Thing-Blair stalling so that he can finish constructing his ship and possibly needing to forage for more supplies.
― citation needed (Steve Shasta), Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:58 (nine months ago) link
I saw this film probably half a dozen times back in high school, mostly while shitfaced.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 August 2023 22:02 (nine months ago) link
Nice list - I mean, it would be better with less American films but it's pretty good xps
― xyzzzz__, Thursday, 17 August 2023 22:20 (nine months ago) link
Just read the Billson BFI book in one sitting. Really excellent stuff, and very interesting to me for its sections focusing on compare/contrast with the Campbell novella and the Hawks film.
She really has a good eye for Carpenter's directing and structure, too. The little moments of brilliant misdirection (Clark's scalpel, Childs and Garry pushing back on Mac during the blood test), the singularly excellent casting and characterization, the escalating isolation (winter, storm approaching, no one answering, destroyed comms), etc.
Not much of this is really extremely new to me, but it's still so fascinating and nice to read something from someone who was deeply, deeply getting it at a point when so many critics were still thoroughly missing the point.
― omar little, Wednesday, 27 December 2023 16:15 (five months ago) link
Just saw this in the theater for the first time. It’s a totally different movie with a crowd.
― Marten Broadcloak, mild-mannered GOP congressman (Raymond Cummings), Friday, 16 February 2024 15:29 (three months ago) link
Finally got round to watching this before the apocalypse
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 26 February 2024 23:14 (three months ago) link
This story is an interesting take
The Things by Peter Watts
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Monday, 26 February 2024 23:23 (three months ago) link
There is also Adam Roberts's THE THING ITSELF.
― The Ginger Bakersfield Sound (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, 26 February 2024 23:31 (three months ago) link
"This was one of the first movies where the Black guy lasts to the final scene. I don’t think I’m the only brother who’s ever survived in a horror or sci-fi movie, but I’m certainly one of the few. It was great foresight on John’s part"
https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/25/john-carpenter-kurt-russell-the-thing-horror-classic
― xyzzzz__, Monday, 25 March 2024 18:13 (two months ago) link
And in a situation where you don't really know which, between two people, actually "survived," adding to the fun
― Rich E. (Eric H.), Monday, 25 March 2024 19:48 (two months ago) link