The Thing

Occasional poster Matt Maxwell mentioned this in conversation to me a few years back; it's an understandable comparison to draw.

crucially, there are no mountains in The Thing, or giant penguins, or shoggoths.

-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.

the ancient things in the Lovecraft story are not like the Thing (although arguably the shoggoths kind of are).

anyway, tekeli-li.

Really cool story, the movie retold from the Thing's perspective: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

The last line is pretty cringey though

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 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."

In the fine tradition of the prequel to The Exorcist.

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

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...

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.

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...?

probably a Tony Blair reference...?

or the facts of life

I thought the game was a sequel rather than a prequel

if it wasn't though it should have been

game was a sequel

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?

Well I'm sure Kurt Russell would like us all to forget Cap'n Ron and all but he has done other things.

ah yeah i meant aside from the big guy.

keith david & wilford brimley kept p busy

Love this movie and enjoyed the game a lot too tbh.

called BLAIR do you SEE?

ref to exorcist yes?

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

keith david & wilford brimley kept p busy

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.

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

http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/8/2010/10/the_thing.jpg

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!

wtff
i hate this to the core of whatever disgusting mass of faux-humanity concocted it over a fusion-food speed-lunch meeting

xp!
nothing is sacred :(

yeah but carpenter was remaking! and that was good! cmon people be hopeful!

I gotta vote with rrrobyn and latebloomer here just because that photo looks so wrong.

oh come on like you guys would have been all "oh for sure that's gonna be awse" if it was 1982 and you were seeing this

http://www.moviecritic.com.au/images/kurt-russell-john-carpenter-the-thing12.jpg

Yes! Because that does look awesome!

Hell I remember when the Escape from New York ads and posters were running and I couldn't understand why my mom wouldn't let me see it.

right now is not a good era for remakes, as far as i've witnessed, that's the thing :/
xp
it looks so awesome

x-post

this isn't a remake, though! it's a prequel to a remake.

we live in an age of movies-as-fan-fiction. it's really depressing.

right now is not a good era for remakes, as far as i've witnessed, that's the thing :/

exactly

we live in an age of movies-as-fan-fiction. it's really depressing.

― soon to be major motion picture starring john wayne (latebloomer), Sunday, October 10, 2010 12:40 PM (4 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

prequel is worse, it's true! can nothing remain mystery? fan-fiction with big budget! gahhhh
i do wish it could be good, as i wish all sci-fi movies could be good. but then, i wished so hard about Alien 4. never forget.

gotta say, wtf is with that brutalist ice tunnel they are running through. did antarctic researchers really have time to hire architects to stylize their bases.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/The_Thing_From_Another_World_01.jpg

this is pretty awesome

I mean, the picture. haven't read the comic