Thanks Josh! I bookmarked that and will view during my next bout of insomnia.
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 3 December 2020 17:26 (three years ago) link
The flying saucer opening is good partly because it leads you to believe that you're about to watch something relatively routine, whereas the body of the film turns out to be rather more WTF
― Harthill Services (Neil Willett), Thursday, 3 December 2020 19:19 (three years ago) link
you could take it as Carpenter signaling the stakes, saying "REMINDER: treat this as seriously as you would any movie that begins with a flying saucer crash landing on earth". Which could be good or too bad, depending on your take. (I forget the exact quote but I once read a critic describe Carpenter as something like "hes good, but he settles for too little".)
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Thursday, 3 December 2020 20:02 (three years ago) link
some historical links that need to be posted:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhgJ82sDDuU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jURaHXAPbPQ
― Jersey Al (Albert R. Broccoli), Thursday, 3 December 2020 20:08 (three years ago) link
you can hear carpenter light his first cig before the 2 minute mark on that commentary, ha
― turn the jawhatthefuckever on (One Eye Open), Thursday, 3 December 2020 20:13 (three years ago) link
Another favorite detail comes during the infamous blood test sequence. After they slice the finger open, they have a shot of the small wound being disinfected and pressure being put on it to stop the bleeding, just like when donating blood.
― Josh in Chicago, Friday, 4 December 2020 16:55 (three years ago) link
it's on my tv again
― mark s, Thursday, 23 June 2022 20:05 (one year ago) link
Horror Channel? Awesome.
― Doodles Diamond (Tom D.), Thursday, 23 June 2022 20:09 (one year ago) link
seems to be carpenter week on the only good terrestial channel
― mark s, Thursday, 23 June 2022 20:11 (one year ago) link
never entirely convinced that explosives are a helpful device round a THING: surely not all the little bits are going to be burnt beyond regeneration ??
― mark s, Thursday, 23 June 2022 21:45 (one year ago) link
Even setting them on fire and dumping the body in the snow to extinguish the fire seems un-thorough once they know that any wee giblet contains the full consciousness of the thing
― Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Thursday, 23 June 2022 22:10 (one year ago) link
full capability anyway
if it's full consciousness then THINGS have also to be somewhat telepathic IMO (which it was in the original story) (this is discussed upthread iirc)
― mark s, Thursday, 23 June 2022 22:15 (one year ago) link
One of the most unsettling images in the film imho is the drops of blood on the floor all moving around in unison when macready drops the dish during the blood test
― nobody like my rap (One Eye Open), Thursday, 23 June 2022 23:53 (one year ago) link
I get the impression that the rampaging Thingses don’t have similar thought / consciousness to humans — it takes a good while after an absorption for a Thing to be able to pilot the speech and memories of a biped, and the way the doggie thing scopes out the base and picks a human to thingify might be a hint of telepathy too.(Does the film specify whether the saucer was piloted by the Thing, by a Thing, by another species or class that was transporting the Thing, or was a drone?)
― Vance Vance Devolution (sic), Friday, 24 June 2022 01:49 (one year ago) link
in campbell's version the ship is straightforwardly a THINGship: the one they dig out (no norwegians involved) had frozen within minutes of stepping beyond the crash 20 million years ago
― mark s, Friday, 24 June 2022 09:31 (one year ago) link
presumably the thing that stepped out of the crash would have been in whatever form it had assumed the last time it took over a host, that of an e.g. alpha centauran given that to our knowledge there is no stable, ur-thing form
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 24 June 2022 09:46 (one year ago) link
at least that's how i've always pictured it
ah reading back in the thread i can see we've already excavated this assiduously
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 24 June 2022 09:53 (one year ago) link
https://i.imgur.com/jFDAlFF.jpg
― Tracer Hand, Friday, 24 June 2022 09:54 (one year ago) link
Can the Thing spaceship change its form?
― Ward Fowler, Friday, 24 June 2022 09:55 (one year 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 (ten 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 (ten months ago) link
xp You're right.
― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Thursday, 17 August 2023 21:52 (ten 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 (ten 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 (ten months ago) link