THE THING (2011): Discussion, Spoilers, Reviews

[RAMA]

Immolatus wrote:

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interesting read. it would have been interesting to get the Things point of view or at least comunicate with it. alway wondered was it just an animal, was it afraid, was it evil.

I prefer not to look at the Things' point of view story, however, my opinion is that it is clearly hyper-intelligent and certainly not an animal. It built a spaceship and had a plan of action for survival in the '82 version. Question is, was it violent because it was scared, or because it was a scout for an invasion? It seems to me if it wasn't an invasion, it would have communicated with the natives...

RAMA

[Worf2DS9]

The DVD/Blu release has been pegged for January 31st and will include deleted/extended scenes, a "Fire & Ice" featurette, and a director/producer commentary, as well as a number of Blu-exclusive stuff.

Full details

[Reverend]

RAMA wrote:

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I prefer not to look at the Things' point of view story, however, my opinion is that it is clearly hyper-intelligent and certainly not an animal. It built a spaceship and had a plan of action for survival in the '82 version. Question is, was it violent because it was scared, or because it was a scout for an invasion? It seems to me if it wasn't an invasion, it would have communicated with the natives...

RAMA

I tend to think that while these things are intelligent enough to be cunning, they're driven by overpowering and aggressive survival instincts. Assuming it's not some alien genetic experiment gone horribly wrong, but a creature that naturally evolved; it's native environment must have been extremely hostile to produce a creature like this. Think of a situation where there isn't any such thing as a predator-prey relationship but it's all predator on predator. I mean these things attack on the cellular level, that speaks volumes of where they're from.

If such was the case then I think it's more likely that it (or it's progenitors) infected or were captured by a visiting alien race before getting loose and spreading. For all we know these things have wiped out whole galactic civilizations before this one stray made it to Earth.

I think the fact that it was alone and that it crashed in an inhospitable environment rather than safely landed in the middle of a nice safe prehistoric savannah, says that it was on the run and the ship was somehow damaged and not the vanguard of some mass invasion.

I think Carpenter says on the DVD somewhere that these things are instinctual mimics are are utterly selfish. So much so that if an entire group of people have been taken over, they'd all still play their parts and try to implicate each other as they don't know for sure who is still human. It's interesting to think that the Thing from these two films might have been fleeing from a civilization full of it's own kind who are all still keeping up the pretence of being whoever they had absorbed, to the point where they're all hunting each other down. Indeed, if I'm right about their native environment being ultra-hostile then I wouldn't be surprised if, when removed from their homeworld, the Things will (eventually) naturally drive themselves into extinction.

Which brings me to communication. I don't think they can. Just watch and see that even when we know for sure that several people had been taken over, there's no indication of collusion or co-ordination. It's a total free-for-all. Sort of like the xenomorphs from the Alien franchise; they're very intelligent but also apparantly totally driven by animal instinct.

[davejames]

Ok, finally saw this, and man, it was even more dull and lifeless than I was expecting.

The '82 version was creepy and atmospheric as hell from the opening seconds, but this one just felt completely artificial all the way through. You've got the typical cute heroine (in some very un-1980s jeans, btw), the typical horror movie score that oversells every moment, and a lot of modern, show-offy CGI that is well-designed but never remotely believable.

Where was the sense of isolation? Or paranoia? The movie makes a half-hearted attempt at the "who's really human" thing, and then quickly turns into people simply chasing monsters around with a flame thrower. The only moment that felt remotely inspired or had any tension whatsoever was the Tooth Fillings scene, but that was about it.

Overall, it just felt like a really safe and watered down version of the '82 movie. When we saw the burnt out camp in that movie (and the frozen guy with the slit throat), you imagined something MUCH darker and creepier going down there than what this movie showed us.

[Pauln6]

I really enjoyed the movie, especially their efforts to tie into the 80s 'sequel'.

However, I do agree that the cast was just a bit too cute and tidy, the CGI, while really good in some places, just couldn't quite replicate the slimy realism of some real life props. It did feel more formulaic than the original and the paranoia quotient wasn't as high.

I totally called the possibility and circumstances of a possible sequel before I went in. Still, as horror films go, I wouldn't mind seeing another one if they can avoid turning it into some kind of effects heavy bug hunt.

[davejames]

Yeah the CGI was pretty strong for the most part (especially loved the shots of the faces splitting open), but it still didn't feel nearly as real as the '82 effects did.

[TremblingBluStar]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah the CGI was pretty strong for the most part (especially loved the shots of the faces splitting open), but it still didn't feel nearly as real as the '82 effects did.

I just caught the film, and agree with others that it was a good movie and the critics seem to be judging it rather harshly. The effects weren't as good as they could be. Every time they showed the creature in it's full CGI glory, I kept thinking how much scarier that would look if it were something real instead of obvious computer animation.

The only real issues I had otherwise were that some of the male characters were so physically alike that I easily got them confused. At least in the original there was no mistaking two people. Plus, was the alien ship mentioned or shown in the first one? I haven't seen the film since I was a child, so I don't remember.

As much as I like the actress in the film, I kept wondering why she would at 27 be considered an expert in her field. Seems like it would take more than a few years to be considered an expert in paleontology! If she isn't considered an expert, why would she be the one picked to study something as important as a frozen alien?

I don't recall how this worked in the first film, but I also found it odd how they leaped to the conclusion that the alien could copy people after viewing some blood cells being cloned by alien cells. Seems rather unscientific to me.

[Trekker4747]

TremblingBluStar wrote:

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The only real issues I had otherwise were that some of the male characters were so physically alike that I easily got them confused. At least in the original there was no mistaking two people. Plus, was the alien ship mentioned or shown in the first one? I haven't seen the film since I was a child, so I don't remember.

We see the ship as it "lands" before the opening title -presumably 1000s of years ago- and then afterwards we see the crater that was created with the ship resting inside.

[Worf2DS9]

Finally saw it this week on-demand and I thought it was a pretty decent movie. I liked the bits that tied into Carpenter's (superior) original, specifically towards the end. The scene that plays during the end credits is really cool too as it literally leads into the opening scenes of the '82 film. A lot of it felt deja-vu-ish, though not surprisingly, since this all takes place in the same environment with the same alien bad guy. Still, I liked it enough that I think I'll pick up the DVD.

And you're kind of left wondering at the end what will become of Kate. After her snowcat runs out of gas and she starts hoofing it, will she eventually run into MacReady & Childs?

[Trekker4747]

[pedantic internet poster]THE CARPENTER VERSION WASN'T THE ORIGINAL! THE ORIGINAL MOVIE WAS MADE IN 1951!!!![/pedantic internet poster]

[roliver]

davejames wrote:

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Yeah the CGI was pretty strong for the most part (especially loved the shots of the faces splitting open), but it still didn't feel nearly as real as the '82 effects did.

I just finished watching the 82 version only a few minutes ago, and I really don't see how those effects are anything signficantly realer looking than modern CG. Some of them are decent, and some of them aren't. For the most part they look like what they are---makeup with particularly fake looking blood.

[Tribble puncher]

It was okay, I hold the j carpenter version in high regard though. I had a problem with the main female lead, She looked like she was in her early 20's, and she was the supposed "expert" in her field? casting someone older would have fixed that. Didn't care for how the "Thing" just broke out of the ice. The cgi was hit or miss, but really, the less we saw of the creature, the scarier it was. half of what made the original so amazing was the very real sense of paranoia you got. while it was cool that they showed alot of attention to detail in regard to the 82 movie, (axe in the door, we get to see who it was that slit his throat, how that "split faced" thing was where it was) I noticed in the 82 version, It was clearly shown that the Norwegians blew up the ice to expose the ship. In this version the ship melts the ice trying to take off. I did like how the ending with Lars and the other guy getting into the helicopter to chase down the dog though. All in all, it could have been a better movie.