http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2007/12/21/goldencompass.article.jpg
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:08 (twelve years ago) link
http://withfriendship.com/images/i/44827/at-the-mountains-of-madness-is.jpg
^^êveryone who goes to the antarctic has read this, why be unprepared?
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:11 (twelve years ago) link
that was at the north pole tho xpost
― Number None, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:13 (twelve years ago) link
the events pullman described were north, but the bears are from svalbard which is in norway, so why wouldn't evil norwegian scientists bring them south also?
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:16 (twelve years ago) link
well OK, killer microscopic invertebrates
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:38 (twelve years ago) link
Guns would kill them for sure
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:40 (twelve years ago) link
i: obv you need guns in case someone goes mental ii: everyone who goes to the antarctic MUST already be a mental
QED
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:49 (twelve years ago) link
it's like i'm the only one that understands the meaning of the word normal
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:50 (twelve years ago) link
to anyone who adores this film, i highly recommend this book:http://www.calamaripress.com/images/Snowmen_cover.JPG
― sold my soul to satin (the table is the table), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:56 (twelve years ago) link
xpost Yeah, there are no machine guns in this movie. And most of these dudes seem the type of cats to carry weapons regardless of location.
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 13:58 (twelve years ago) link
Did "Alien" start the whole team of characters being called by a single name thing (Ripley, Macready, etc) or is there a war movie precedent I'm not thinking of?
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:16 (twelve years ago) link
MASH is pretty single-name isn't it?
many of the characters take their names directly from the john w. campbell original: copper, blair, norris, macready, commander garry -- so it's already pretty single-name, and the all-maleness presumably amplifies this; there's a military tinge to it even though the film's camp isn't military
alien is slightly diff -- and at the time more startling -- bcz women get militarised
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:28 (twelve years ago) link
good god, i had never known this aspect of campbell's life:
His mother, Dorothy (née Strahern) was warm but changeable of character and had an identical twin who visited them often and who disliked young John. John was unable to tell them apart and was frequently coldly rebuffed by the person he took to be his mother.[3]
!!!!!!!
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:34 (twelve years ago) link
omg that is what this film is entirely about!
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:35 (twelve years ago) link
this changes everything
― ledge, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:36 (twelve years ago) link
i mean, how completely insane is that.
(was searching wiki cause i thought i remembered campbell having been in the military (hence the slightly military tone of Who Goes There) but no)
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:36 (twelve years ago) link
except "penetrated with slimy tendrils" instead of "coldly rebuffed"
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:37 (twelve years ago) link
ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:37 (twelve years ago) link
oh wow
xp
― hardcore oatmeal (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:38 (twelve years ago) link
dunno ... MASH is fairly two-name, characters with nicknames, titles (Hawkeye Pierce, Hotlips Houlihan, Father Mulcahy, etc)
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:38 (twelve years ago) link
As Sam Moskowitz has written about Campbell in his early critical study of science-fiction writers, "From the memories of his childhood he drew the most fearsome agony of the past: the doubts, the fears, the shock, and the frustration of repeatedly discovering that the woman who looked so much like his mother was not who she seemed."
hope this moskowitz guy wasn't pulling our leg
― ledge, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:42 (twelve years ago) link
i just remembered everyone saying "hotlips, hawkeye, radar" etc, but yes, we were aware of titles and non-nickname surnames, so poor guess on my part
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:44 (twelve years ago) link
Sgt. Bilko
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:47 (twelve years ago) link
... tho he was called Ernie occasionally.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:48 (twelve years ago) link
So, yeah, war movies basically.
― Duncan Disorderly (Tom D.), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:49 (twelve years ago) link
"Where Eagles Dare" has a one-name-only cast but "Dirty dozen" has first names, ranks, etc
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:50 (twelve years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ssiWgTA1qk
― dell (del), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 14:50 (twelve years ago) link
...and a mere 9 years later: i recently obtained and read the Anne Billson book mentioned by mark s when opening this thread...
(It is, as he said, very readable)
― Snowy Mann, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 19:46 (twelve years ago) link
I saw the trailer for the Thing remake/reboot the other day and all I could think of was mark s on this thread -- it remains one of my favorite things from ile.
― ¯\(°_o)/¯ (Nicole), Tuesday, August 23, 2011 8:21 AM (7 hours ago) Bookmark
same!
― http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_i_qxQztHRI (Princess TamTam), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 19:54 (twelve years ago) link
amazing anecdote if true
― satisfying punishment for that thing he said about lesbians (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 19:56 (twelve years ago) link
the doubts, the fears, the shock, and the frustration of repeatedly discovering that the woman who looked so much like his mother was primarily composed of chitin and radioactive mucus
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 20:01 (twelve years ago) link
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51V7K8HACAL._SL500_AA300_.jpg
― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 20:14 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.tylerham.com/pics/thing1.jpg
^want
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 21:01 (twelve years ago) link
One thing I noticed is when PalmerThing's blood hits the floor, it's right next to a stack of puzzle boxes and model kits.
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:22 (twelve years ago) link
what kind of name is Windows anyway?― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, August 23, 2011 4:13 AM (10 hours ago)
― Ask The Answer Man (sexyDancer), Tuesday, August 23, 2011 4:13 AM (10 hours ago)
Windows is the radio operator - his nickname comes from being the "window to the rest of the world" or something.
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:24 (twelve years ago) link
Most of Sam Fuller's war movies have single name characters. Steel Helmet from 1951 might be the first (can't remember if it has a "Griff" in it though)
― Stockhausen's Ekranoplan Quartet (Elvis Telecom), Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:27 (twelve years ago) link
bah forgot to look out for the puzzles and models by palmerthing blood (it was on telly again so i watched it again)
― mark s, Tuesday, 23 August 2011 22:58 (twelve years ago) link
what i keep coming back to about this movie is weird (uncanny) contradictions inherent in the monster's m.o.
as childs says, "if i were a perfect copy of myself, how would you know?" - to which the doc replies he's thought of a "blood serum" test. but this test makes no sense - if the thing is an exact copy, surely childs' blood would be exactly the same if he's really childs or if he's been taken over by the thing.
but further, imagine that the thing comes into contact with the rest of civilisation - and the entire world becomes thingified..
how would we know?
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:45 (twelve years ago) link
it's uncanny valley time!
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:49 (twelve years ago) link
http://www.openthefuture.com/images/second%20uncanny%20valley.jpg
"radical post-human" = "never does the washing up"
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:51 (twelve years ago) link
'human likeness' axis figures curiously elided beyond 100%
― ledge, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 09:53 (twelve years ago) link
maybe the answer is that actually it is NOT an exact copy. the dog, for instance, is preternaturally calm, and the other dogs react to it; thing-blair builds a spaceship (real blair wouldn't know how and wouldn't want to); so along with superfast body-morphing The Thing's real talent is for subterfuge. it is more, and different, and less than human but it is good at hiding it.
but maybe not perfect: i remember a scene when they're putting blair up in the shack above the camp and somebody (bearded nerd scientist dude?) plonks down a bottle of vodka in front of him - blair's favorite tipple. blair doesn't touch it. macready picks it up, takes a big swig, sets it right back down. blair ignores it..
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 10:07 (twelve years ago) link
cf. gygax upthread:
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!
― ledge, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 10:16 (twelve years ago) link
http://mlkshk.com/r/6G0G
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 15:53 (twelve years ago) link
lol
― satisfying punishment for that thing he said about lesbians (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 15:53 (twelve years ago) link
The weird thing is, in the Alan Dean Foster novelization, "Windows" is called "Sanders." >>shrug<<
― Ad hom . . . in em's cock? (Phil D.), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:08 (twelve years ago) link
is that the only difference?
― mark s, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
I always thought Windows was an allusion to a) his role as the radio/comm guy and b) the fact that dude is always wearing shades. even inside, at night.
― satisfying punishment for that thing he said about lesbians (Shakey Mo Collier), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:20 (twelve years ago) link
it was the film's one gesture in the direction of utopian science fiction: a world where Mac kills Windows ?
(i'll get me coat)
― Snowy Mann, Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:52 (twelve years ago) link
uggghhhhh
― TracerHandVEVO (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, 24 August 2011 16:55 (twelve years ago) link