The Thing

a monster that can sprout spider legs from someone's decapitated head needs to be scientifically realistic, yup

everything that happens in a story needs some sort of rationale, unless it's art for art's sake or deliberate dream logic or something.

the thing is a creature that can control the organization of its cells at will. that's a stretch, perhaps, but the fact that it's an alien lifeform does give us a good deal of wiggle room wr2 the seemingly fantastical. though we don't really know, it seems that the thing can't make itself into just anything. in reshaping itself it has to work with the patterns it's "learned" in the process of absorbing and copying other creatures, even if it's riffing more than faithfully duplicating. this is a nice touch, imo, as it sets some limits and implies a process.

this "issue" is elided in the original because it doesn't fucking matter

It's not elided. It's made clear that it destroys your clothes when you get taken over. Made clear more than once. It's a plot point and everything.

MacReady: [talking into tape recorder] I'm going to hide this tape when I'm finished. If none of us make it, at least there'll be some kind of record. The storm's been hitting us hard now for 48 hours. We still have nothing to go on.
[MacReady briefly turns of tape recorder and takes a drink of whisky. He looks at the torn longjohns and turns it back on]
MacReady: One other thing: I think it rips through your clothes when it takes you over. Windows found Bennings' torn and bloody clothes in the storage room after he was taken over. Earlier, Nauls found a pair of shredded and dirty longjohns in the kitchen trash can, but the nametag was missing. They could be anybody's. Nobody... nobody trusts anybody now, and we're all very tired..

it destroys the clothes because of the violent nature of the transformation, not because of any inherent relationship to dead tissue

also, the sprouting spider legs tell us something interesting: that the thing has probably absorbed not only humans and dogs, but other types of creatures.

you are just now realizing this

Maybe spider legs are part of its "natural form" xp

it destroys the clothes because of the violent nature of the transformation

just to elaborate - it needs to physically contact/get to the living tissue to copy it, the clothes are just in the way.

it destroys the clothes because of the violent nature of the transformation, not because of any inherent relationship to dead tissue

yeah, this is how i've always taken it. just assumed that once the duplication was complete, the creature found more clothes. i mean, we never see the clothes any of the infected characters are wearing transform. they always change from within.

It doesn't have to go under your clothes, your face will work as well as anything, as Windows finds out to his peril.

And that's why Fuchs recommends they all prepare their own meals.

you are just now realizing this

uh, no. that's always been clear. but it's interesting in watching the movie to speculate about what the thing might have copied. dogs and humans we know about. spiders/insects seem likely. but beyond that? are the other things we see, like the weird "flower" that erupts from inside the dog, elaborations on the internal structures of those creatures, or are they deliberate indications of other creatures absorbed? or are they more or less meaningless special effects designed only to look cool?

You guys are terrible at watching movies.

or are they more or less meaningless special effects designed only to look cool?

― Fozzy Osbourne (contenderizer), Wednesday, March 21, 2012 1:44 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

I think you just answered your own question

I like how with a simple line of dialogue you can bring a hokey and unbelievable effect back into the realm of believability with a realistic and honest reaction. I always helped that the fact that an onscreen character voice what's in your head.

You have the scene where the detached heads sprouts legs and we're treated to this massively absurd thing, so Windows(dude from the Warriors, I think) actually says "You gotta be fucking killing me."

This is one of the bits that make me love the film, where you have believable character reactions in an unbelievable situation. The first thing Mac does when he spots something bad-weird in the dog kennels is to grab a shotgun and hit the fire alarm. Real people do that. Most horror films do not feature real people.

are the other things we see, like the weird "flower" that erupts from inside the dog, elaborations on the internal structures of those creatures, or are they deliberate indications of other creatures absorbed?

as Blair notes, who knows how many lifeforms from how many planets it's copied

"You gotta be fucking killing me."

I think it's "kidding" actually

Have we posted that short story on here, the one from the pov of the thing?

BTW the flower things is made of dog tongues lined with teeth. Really.

http://thing.popapostle.com/images/episodes/The-Thing/flower-of-dog-tongues_med.JPG

That said, I don't think it enhances anyone's enjoyment of or understanding of the movie to know that? Would it be a better movie if we cut away to a planet full of flower-headed creatures that might have been absorbed by the Thing?

You're right, it is kidding. I'm tapping this out on a phone with predictable autocorrect fuckery.

I think you just answered your own question

yeah, of course. that was my implication. but it's still fun to speculate. another possibility might be that these strange structures reflect the thing's "actual form", though i prefer to think that it has none, that it's basically just a collection of single-celled organisms.

thanks for the info on the flower, phil! never caught that.

as Blair notes, who knows how many lifeforms from how many planets it's copied

yeah, i remember that, but it's weird that we never see much but dogs, people and the spider head - especially given phil's explanation of the flower. maybe the other stuff the thing has copied wouldn't be viable on earth (temperature, gravity, atmosphere, etc)?

idk man, down that road lies midichlorians

Maybe we can get Lucas to digitally add Darth Maul into the giant monstrosity we see at the end of the movie.

idk man, down that road lies midichlorians

or mitochondria! tiny little cell mice!

to the peeps that are getting all "oh who gives a shit" re: this whole organic tissue deal im bitching abt can i be clear that i am complaining about the prequel whatever, not the carpenter one because in the prequel the organic vs non-organic is the central driver of the plot so it is a big deal when its mismanaged

That said, I don't think it enhances anyone's enjoyment of or understanding of the movie to know that? Would it be a better movie if we cut away to a planet full of flower-headed creatures that might have been absorbed by the Thing?

― bring back the dream of buzz bin (Phil D.), Wednesday, March 21, 2012 5:53 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the flower headed creature is actually dog teeth!

how do you like my poetry

I'll say this - being able to replicate non-organic material would go a long way towards explaining how the Blair-thing builds the spaceship in the first movie

wondering how the thing went from fully copying humans to being three dogmutants to being a spiderhead and all that kinda jarred me a little, i kept trying to work out how it worked. still awesome though (carpenter)

jjjusten ot bloody m

carpenter thing didn't matter because it was never brought into the front of the picture. The stupid prequel went and made a big deal about it, but failed to handle it with consistency. and thus it became a noticeable mistake.

carpenter thing didn't matter because it was never brought into the front of the picture.

right - this is what I was getting at upthread. original works without bothering to address this distinction

sigh, so sad that lucas could have done all three prequels without addressing midichlorians

Got this (Carpenter's) for $9 on Blu-ray last week. Glorious.

and still fucking Gross.

BTW the flower things is made of dog tongues lined with teeth. Really.

This is also referenced in either the commentary track or the "Terror Takes Shape" documentary on the DVD.

As much as I love the "you gotta be fucking kidding" line, Clark's "I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is" is just as terrific.

This is one of my main apprehensions about Prometheus: that they'll succumb to idiot studio or fanboy pressure or something and do the medichlorian thing. Where they feel the need to over explain some thing irrelevant to the actual story and in doing so fuck up and ruin some of the core mystique or vibe that helped made the franchise interesting in the first place.

They're already treading on dangerous ground by having an entire flick dealing with the Derelict and the Space Jockey, two things that still have some coolness because of the awesome design mixed with us knowing fuckall about it.

So how do you thread that needle where you show a little to scratch the itch of necessary backstory or exposition to make the flick compelling without going overboard and over-explanatory? Hell, John Carpenter couldnt do this nowadays, can Ridley Scott? Hell, can any major 21st-C American summer blockbuster do this?

Where they feel the need to over explain some thing irrelevant to the actual story and in doing so fuck up and ruin some of the core mystique or vibe that helped made the franchise interesting in the first place.

I will bet money that this happens

Me too, that's what I'm afraid will happen. My head is wired such that disappointment is connected to depression, so I try not to get my hopes up about genre entertainment that my geeky friends online or elsewhere are openly slathering about in anticipation.

I think the RedLetterMedia vids and reading Film Crit Hulk and whatever detritus left over from a coupla undergrad film classes have gotten me to the point of not trusting any heavily marketed entertainment aimed at geeks, shall we say.

okey, i just watched the prequel/remake. it's okay, decent if unspectacular for quite a while, then kind of off the rail ridiculous and ott towards the end. not a patch on carpenter's masterpiece, but not a complete failure, either. there is, however, one thing that puzzles me...

there's a lot of talk upthread about the film's inconsistency in handling the "can only replicate organic matter" business. i didn't notice any. the scenes involving the metal plate, the fillings and the earring all made sense to me. as in the original, it seemed pretty clear that the thing doesn't replicate clothing, but instead only copies the flesh inside. again and again we see it tear its way out of a character's garmentry to expose the boiling, pedipalpous tissue frenzy within. the clothes themselves never transform, never become monster tunics or anything. of course, this leaves us to wonder where and how the newly created thinglets keep getting fresh duds, but as they seem able to think like educated humans from the get-go, it's reasonable to suppose that they can figure out where to dig up the odd extra pair of pants when necessary. and carpenter's never provided a clear answer to this question, anyway, so the clothes mystery here is at least in keeping with the franchise.

pedipalpous eh?

uh-huh. film's biggest failure of logic is the thing's decision to reveal itself on the helicopter. this is the only moment in either film during which the thing "uncloaks" for no clear reason, and it's suicidal in a way that the creature would surely understand. while the creature's motives and actions generally make good sense in carpenter's original film, the prequel/remake leaves us to wonder why an intelligent creature that can hide out in a host body for as long as it wants (???) would attack others in such a thoughtlessly brazen fashion, with little regard for the likelihood that its victims might raise an alarm or escape to warn others.

i was also bothered by what i saw as the remake's jingoistic streak. at the outset, one of the american helicopter pilots warns the protagonist that "the last place" she wants to be during as storm is "cooped up with a dozen norwegian guys." subsequently, the film's four principal american characters are all portrayed as honest, decent, brave and rational people of the sort you'd like to have on your side in a crisis. the leaders of the norwegian team, meanwhile, turn out to be a paranoid, ego-driven cowards, and their underlings are more "inscrutable" than sympathetic or helpful.

the second half of this thread exactly replicates the first half, except for the zips and stuff

theatrical thread vs DVD

as in the original, it seemed pretty clear that the thing doesn't replicate clothing, but instead only copies the flesh inside.

fox ex, when the thing absorbs henrik in its first attack after escaping the block of ice, we see it draw him in fully dressed. yet when kate and dr. halvorsen dissect the creature afterwards, the half-replicated version of henrik they find inside the creature is apparently nude. there's no indication that the organism was making clothes for him, too.

http://i.imgur.com/HwOD6.png

There's no implication in the original that the Thing is particularly smart, or that it's got a long-term vision or anything. There's no definitive answer as to whether that's even the Thing's ship, or just some ship it hitched a ride on. The only thing we know is that it's all about immediate survival, which may explain its less than rational behavior. Like the Blob or something.

not so sure about that. in the original film, the thing is able to communicate "in character" in a way that will advance its ends*, which seems likely to require a high degree of adaptive intelligence. and we find out at the end that it was, in the guise of dr. blair, building a small spaceship, right?

* i may be misremembering this, but doesn't it talk sensibly while posing as both blair and windows?

My read on this (see several posts way above) is that it can only think as well as the brain it just mimicked: it carries a protocell-level instinctual impulse to absorb and prosper, and -- but how? -- presumably transfers its will-to-plan across to whichever body it arrives in, presumably during the non-instant transformation process: and also (presumably) it would prefer to trade up, intelligence-wise, ie not from saucerbuilder down to dog IF POSSIBLE, let alone down to spiderleg tongue-orchid, but sometimes needs must in the danger of the moment... i don't actually think the THING is that bright in itself*; it's just that sometimes (as with blair) it lucks into an excellent brain to piggyback on...

(it doesn't ever really get to "be" windows: are you thinking of palmer?) (in which case, all palmerTHING says is "you've got to be fucking kidding!", which is as sensible as you wish to take it, i guess, but not rocketscience --of course the entire norris/palmer/puppetshow sequence is incredibly pregnant with contradictory explanations)

*eg its LET'S ABSORB THE ENTIRE PLANET strategy is a bit self-defeating, since it will -- once it has eaten all the other living organisms -- have to start (a) eating itself or (b) dying

One of the possibilities the puppetshow sequence raises is that while a contiguous thing will happily sacrifice the larger part of itself (norris's body, complete with dancing hideous bennings-head) to distract from the scuttling smaller part (norris's head with legs), there is clearly no honour among separated things: palmerTHING dobs in spiderheadTHING and gets it torched... of course this does distract attention, including especially viewer attention, from HIM as THING...

...also tho the THING that mimicked him inherited a total dopehead's brain, so may be really not that quick