The Thing

I think what happened is that Carpenter got old but, like so many of his peers (Romero, Craven, et al.) , no longer had the vision or energy to make something great on a low-budget. So many of his later movies are like half-assed big-budget aspirants hampered by their limited resources. I mean, I can only guess how much more "Escape from LA" cost than "Escape from NY," and the difference between those two says it all, really.

the great aspect of this film is really all in the casting and the characterization. you've got a bunch of dudes who are already bored and trapped by their situation, some of whom clearly don't like each other already and some of whom are power-tripping or misanthropic or weak-willed, others who are utter pros and smart as hell. it's essentially '12 Angry Men' vs a super fucked-up alien.

YES!

this film is perfect

the making-of featurette on the DVD is probably the best one of those I have ever seen (except for maybe Tron)

The Thing: A 140,000-Year-Old Organism Discovered in Antarctica's Ice-Shrouded Lake Vostok

An ancient living laboratory of our planet's past in Antarctica may have provided a preview of what we can expect to find deep below the barren surface of Mars and in the ice-shrouded seas of Jupiter's Europa. Two of the world's leading experts on life at the lower temperature extremes, Buford Price of the University of California, Berkeley and Todd Sowers of Penn State observed that microbes colonizing life appear to have two levels of metabolism: a survival metabolism in which they remain alive but become dormant until exposed to nutrients or higher temperatures, or, a maintenance metabolism for steady sustained growth.

The team observed that some organisms in permafrost appear to have "protein repair enzymes that maintain active recycling of certain amino acids needed for cell repair for at least 30,000 years." They added that the "extremely low expenditures of survival energy enable microbial communities in extreme environments to survive indefinitely."

In the Antarctic's ancient ice-bound Lake Vostok they reported that nitrifying bacteria with low but active metabolisms have been found encased in liquid veins at minus 40 degrees F for more than 140,000 years. And, it takes about 108 years for carbon to turn over in the cells.

They projected from their conclusions that life moving so slowly that it appears to be frozen, dormant, or undectable may survive in the cold, icy and "cosmically radioactive conditions of outer space."

so fuckin awesome

It's also just...comforting, in a cosmic sense. I love knowing that life exists in such complexities.

I adore Lake Vostok. Did not realize it was only discovered in '96!

Ready or not, here comes the prequel...

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-35t-TUq0_Bw/ThwUBZKMD0I/AAAAAAAAAG4/8bQP8nDGttQ/s640/the-thing-teaser-poster.jpg

fucking swedes

Terrible poster.

fucking swedes

Norwegians. And yeah, terrible poster. Doesn't the tagline directly contradict that image?

IT'S NOT HUMAN. NEARLY THOUGH. ONLY HAND TO GO. BRB.

There was a (pretty great) computer game that already told the story of what happened before the events of The Thing.. I wonder if that story's been discarded?

"from the producers of Dawn of the Dead"

no need to say more.

x-post - If it's the one I'm thinking of, I loved that game.

I'm not ready for this.

I just find interesting how all these awful remakes (no wait, they're calling them reimaginings), for all their excess and ultra graphic violence, look like highly sanitized, disinfected versions of the original movies.

will this have model work? (this will not have model work)

yeah that games talked abt upthread iirc

lol

I am nothing if not consistent

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

― t(o_o)t (ENBB), Tuesday, March 16, 2010 10:19 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I just find interesting how all these awful remakes (no wait, they're calling them reimaginings), for all their excess and ultra graphic violence, look like highly sanitized, disinfected versions of the original movies.

― Marco Damiani, Wednesday, July 13, 2011 10:25 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark

^ this

Texas Chainsaw Massacre is a great example of this

it's 100% gorier than the original but it still can't replicate the low-budget sleaziness

The wikipedia entry for this sounds vaguely encouraging, though. They WILL use animatronics for a lot of it. And they're going with a deliberately slow pace, to match the 1982 version. I dunno, this could be pretty rad as long as somebody gets to pour bourbon into a computer

Why is it being pushed as a prequel? "Three days before the astonishing events of the original film... exactly the same thing happened!"

IGNORE ME

I dunno, this could be pretty rad as long as somebody gets to pour bourbon into a computer

― 40% chill and 100% negative (Tracer Hand), Wednesday, July 13, 2011 8:11 AM (4 minutes ago)

J&B scotch iirc

Ha I should have remembered that, I love J&B

They WILL use animatronics for a lot of it. And they're going with a deliberately slow pace, to match the 1982 version

this is all PR bullshit

Oh yeah? Dish, dish!

Xp You're all PR bullshit

j/k

the makers of these remakes/"reboots"/reimaginings ALWAYS say this kind of thing. "We love the original movie because it's so perfect - we are going to be very faithful to the tone and spirit of the original" yadda yadda. It's part of the schtick.

Yeah, all these remakes all go filter-happy in an effort to recreate the original scuzzy visuals, with the result being this surreal disconnect between reality and some TV commercial version of reality.

hey shakey you know who else says that kind of thing? your mom. she reimagined my schtick last weekend, though, was pretty awesome

*cries*

*does the knucks with imaginary friends*

Wellllll here's the trailer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=uHzlAjpDSEM

Yeah, all these remakes all go filter-happy in an effort to recreate the original scuzzy visuals, with the result being this surreal disconnect between reality and some TV commercial version of reality.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, July 13, 2011 8:43 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark

^ this this this, more than anything, this. fucking hate the tendency in contemporary horror to make everything look like a fucking audi commercial with added "grit".

where do i know that "hey lo lo ley" scandewegian yodelling song in the background from?

Sound of Music

LOL Uncle Owen from the Star Wars prequels is in this.

trailer predictably reveals several bad decisions right off the bat

oh my gosh that looks shit

ie, mixed-gender cast, CGI face-morphing, car crashes, various shots cribbed from the original

that's the funniest tagline ever.

in a place with nothing...they found....BWOMMMMM.....SOMETHING

lol it stars "Kim Bubbs"

Sound of Music

rly? have never seen sound of music, guess it's achieved full background media ubiquity tho.

ie, mixed-gender cast, CGI face-morphing, car crashes, various shots cribbed from the original

don't see why any of these are bad or uninevitable.