The Thing

The Fog is the most underrated Carpenter. Scared the poop out of me when I was little.

did you get your poop back

John Carpenter stole my childhood poop, and now I will never get it back.

The Thing: "Man is the warmest place to hide."
The Fog: "What in the living hell is out there?"

Now these, my friends, are tag lines.

The Fog, the scene near the start with the guys on the boat. Fucking superb shit.

I guess i don't have very high expectations for this prequel, but that trailer looks alright.

i'm sure this will be terrible, but i still got chills in the first ~20 seconds of the trailer just because i love the original premise so much. show me an antarctic research base and i'm set, i'll watch you even if you're a prequel to alien vs predator.

whoa, this just seems masochistic (if true):

Annual viewing on "The Ice"

The Thing is typically viewed by members of the winter crew at the U.S. South Pole station after the last flight out (usually in a double-feature with The Shining). [31]

Might as well, otherwise people would be making inevitable requests/references to it for the next six months.

masochism kind of goes w/the territory

Just re-read Ebert's old review. He misses the point on a couple of fronts. One, he complains about the lack of characterization, but the fact that these characters remains so vivid to us today is surely because of the way Carpenter drew them; most films today, I leave not knowing half the characters' names. Two, he complains that the dudes would have benefited from the buddy system, but how so? If Ebert was paying attention, it's introduced way, way early that someone may have already been Thing-afied by way of the Norwegian dog wandering around. The buddy system would not have helped.

Anyway, re-watching again tonight, this movie is just tight.

With this and Blade Runner, 1982 seems like some kind of high point of special effects. It's essentially all been downhill since then.

I think it's spiritually significant that I was born in 1982. It's one of the best years for genre movies ever.

ET, Blade Runner, Poltergeist, Dark Crystal, Conan/Beastmaster, Star Trek II, Tron ...

Plus a host of other touchstones: Porky's, Fast Times and . Diner, Liquid Sky, Fitzcarraldo, Fanny and Alexander, Sophie's Choice, Tootsie, The Verdict, White Dog, 48 Hours, First Blood ...

Ruddy hell, seeing it written down like that...what a year for films.

Yeah, it was really something in my memory, a lot of things happening all at once.

Also, Road Warrior came out the very end of December 1981, so I'd count that in there, too.

Right, I was ten years old in '82 so only saw ET in the cinema, the rest on VHS over the next few years. Given that the space shuttle has been retired, couldn't those funds now be reassigned to a u&k time-machine-building project to get us back there? deadly srs.

the thing is on telly right now! there is literally nothing wrong with this film

you've got to be fucking kidding

\o/

£%$

there is literally nothing wrong with this film

― mark s, Monday, August 22, 2011 6:02 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

i think the early silhouette is norris's: which means his heart-attack is

1: genuinely faked to take norris-thing out of the firing line
2: real in the sense that a thingified norris has norris's bad heart
3: "real" in the sense that the thingified norris can give itself a heart-attack as a ruse

haha at the diff between 1 and 3

who gets into the blood cupboard? copper and garry are both proven non-things, judging by subsequent events -- unless copper too is already a thing when his arms get bitten off and he's faking death? (but his body gets tested, doesn't it...)

can the thing in one body recognise other things in other bodies? everyone in the film assumes yes, but maybe no? maybe it's only as aware as the body it's hiding in

there is literally nothing wrong with this film

― mark s, Monday, August 22, 2011 6:02 PM (24 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

double OTM

the world needs a book by mark s about this movie, 33 1/3 style.

x-post - Triple.

I tried to get my parents to watch it with me last weekend because it was on On Demand but instead they made me watch some Gerard Butler crapfest. I was displeased.

The nature of the Thing:

It has a heart-attack when it's hiding in Norris's body.
It is stoned when it's hiding in Palmer's body, and in fact says "You've got to be fucking kidding"

what kind of name is Windows anyway?

I am still a bit perplexed as to why that scientific research station in the antarctic had so many machine guns knocking around. Is this usual?

war with Norway iirc

who gets into the blood cupboard? copper and garry are both proven non-things, judging by subsequent events

OK, so Bennings and Windows are in the storage room, and Bennings tells Windows to go get the keys from Garry. Windows leaves, comes back in, finds Bennings being assimilated, and you can hear the keys fall to the floor. From that point on, it's chaos, and the keys are unaccounted for. But here's the important thing (lol) -- while all this is going on, Blair is missing, and when they're burning the bodies from the Norwegian camp along with Bennings' remains, they notice he's missing. Blair was probably already a Thing, got the keys when Windows dropped them, destroyed the blood supply knowing that Copper or Fuchs would think of the serum test, then either returned them to where they were dropped or slipped them into Garry's room.

aha YES! though actually bennTHINGs could also have them and pass them to A.N.OTHERTHING when off-camera -- or just split, unless things only split when under attack?

we have always been at war with norway

also: conservation of mass is way more of an issue here than machine guns

"is this usual?" <-- it is an unusual situation all round really

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.

"is this usual?" <-- it is an unusual situation all round really

oh sure, but fantasy-horror only works if the inrusion of the bizarre and grotesque is the only thing marking things out as an otherwise normal situation.

the antarctic is only a "normal" situation in quite an extreme sense: i'm not startled by the idea that a US base, even a research base, has a small stock of weaponry

a: the antarctic treaty has always a fragile affair and military activity is not beyond the imagination
b: if this is US territory, then the right to bear arms applies!

i don't actually remember any machine-guns, as opposed to rifles, and isn't the flame-thrower souped up from items to hand?

i believe guns are pretty standard in the antarctic - you might need them for wolves, bears, psychotic penguins, etc

wolves and bears ?!

if they got lost

packs of feral huskies descended from countless polar expeditions

mutant experimental bears and wolves introduced by the evil norwegians

http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Technology/Pix/pictures/2007/12/21/goldencompass.article.jpg

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?

that was at the north pole tho xpost

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?

well OK, killer microscopic invertebrates

Guns would kill them for sure

i: obv you need guns in case someone goes mental
ii: everyone who goes to the antarctic MUST already be a mental

QED

it's like i'm the only one that understands the meaning of the word normal

to anyone who adores this film, i highly recommend this book:
http://www.calamaripress.com/images/Snowmen_cover.JPG