The Thing

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.

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

Blair's dialogue sounds like Campbell talking to one of his writers.

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)

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.

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.

anybody got a flamethrower suitable for use in an antarctic research station? it's for a thing

— mutable joe (@mutablejoe) June 23, 2022

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!

haha xp

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.

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??!!

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?

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

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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrZ7PnolbQ4

https://c.tenor.com/aLora3YAfDYAAAAC/pingu-noot.gif

Just grabbed tickets to see this in a local theatre - so pumped!!

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?

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

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

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

watching christian nyby's version for the first time in 40 yrs

it's p good but it's no THE THING

in conclusion: watch the skies!

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.

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.

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/

xp You're right.

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.

I saw this film probably half a dozen times back in high school, mostly while shitfaced.

Nice list - I mean, it would be better with less American films but it's pretty good xps

Just read the Billson BFI book in one sitting. Really excellent stuff, and very interesting to me for its sections focusing on compare/contrast with the Campbell novella and the Hawks film.

She really has a good eye for Carpenter's directing and structure, too. The little moments of brilliant misdirection (Clark's scalpel, Childs and Garry pushing back on Mac during the blood test), the singularly excellent casting and characterization, the escalating isolation (winter, storm approaching, no one answering, destroyed comms), etc.

Not much of this is really extremely new to me, but it's still so fascinating and nice to read something from someone who was deeply, deeply getting it at a point when so many critics were still thoroughly missing the point.

Just saw this in the theater for the first time. It’s a totally different movie with a crowd.

Finally got round to watching this before the apocalypse

This story is an interesting take

The Things by Peter Watts

There is also Adam Roberts's THE THING ITSELF.

"This was one of the first movies where the Black guy lasts to the final scene. I don’t think I’m the only brother who’s ever survived in a horror or sci-fi movie, but I’m certainly one of the few. It was great foresight on John’s part"

https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2024/mar/25/john-carpenter-kurt-russell-the-thing-horror-classic

And in a situation where you don't really know which, between two people, actually "survived," adding to the fun

Playing the next few days at Film Forum as part of their Out of the 80s retro.

Enjoyed this but maybe the Hawks is still better

tying james redd to the rec room sofa and making him decide which film is better is my mcready moment

*pulses flamethrower a little, to test it has the juice just in case*

lmao

You're gonna find out what you already know, MacReady.

Have you watched the Norwegian prequel?

It’s pointless.

Yeah, seemed to be from the description

Hadn't realized John Carpenter had directed the Kurt Russell made-for-TV Elvis.

One thing this one has going for it is that Carpenter restored much of the original plot of "Who Goes There?" including the characters's names but also the shape-shifting aspects of the alien and the related testing at the end.

TIL (well YIL) that Charles K. Feldman was Howard Hawks's agent, that Hawks's business partner in the 1951 production Edward Lasker was married to Jane Greer (much to the consternation of Howard Hughes) and that Margaret Sheridan who played Nikki was a Hawksian protogée orignally slated to appear in Red River (where Nyby supposedly saved the day with his editing which is why he was rewarded with this directing job or credit) but was pregnant which is why the role went to Joanne Dru instead.

Also liked the homage of the title sequence image.

Really need to read that Campbell bio properly.