The Thing from Another Thread

[67423abb9a740Stingm]

Well I have to say I enjoyed all 3 movies myself. The last 2 are the best. James Arness was great as the original thing but you knew what was going to happen. The sequel was great and did leave a good ending. The prequel was great too. What the film makers did was try to explain how everything got the way it was at that base in the beginning  of the 82 flick.  The extras on the dvd explained what they did and how. Like the axe on the wall and the burned double creature out in the snow, and the guy that was frozen after slitting his own throat to name a few. I agree with the less is more but with todays special effects you can show more and it looks good. I still pull them off the shelf once in a while.

[67423abb9aa90Aurora]

I think the Carpenter film's three sources of appeal are the paranoia - I very much concur with icemann there - which I think forms part of the fear of the unknown, and these then contribute to the broader mystery element of the film. I love creepy films like these that leave something for the imagination, something scary bothering your mind, something tickling your curiosity. You don't know everything that's happened nor everything that's going on, and it's up to you to connect the dots and speculate. It makes you think.

The mystery part in The Thing saga is completely ruined by the prequel trying to explain everything. You're not supposed to do that, god damn it - it's totally unnecessary! We never needed to know why the axe was stuck on the wall and how the twin headed monster came about. No more did we need to know any of that, than we ever needed to know how the Force works with midi-chlorians, nor what the exact nature and origin of the Alien space jockey is. That's what happens when you cave into stupid ass fanboys for whom speculation isn't enough, but they insist on knowing all the details and intricacies of every mystery. It's not a plot hole, it's not an invitation to expand the universe, nor is it an intended loose end leaving room for sequels and prequels; it's a mystery, on purpose.

As for special effects, just because you can slap them everywhere and make them increasingly more impressive, doesn't mean you should. I don't think you understand what 'less is more' means at all. It doesn't mean: 'Because we show only a little bit and leave out the rest, the imagination will create a better looking image'. It has nothing to do with the quality of the image. It means 'Because we show only a little bit and leave out the rest, we don't know what the rest looks like and thinking about that scares us and makes us paranoid of anything being possible.' Besides, I argue the effects in the 2011 look worse than the Carpenter film because they don't look like they're there at all. It's immediately apparent that you're looking at a highly detailed apparition, not at real matter that behaves in a believable way, nor do the actors interact believably with said apparitions which they don't even see while acting.

[67423abb9abd3Aurora]

http://www.spectacle.org/999/less.html

[67423abb9afe8Marvin]

Sadly, there were a ton of creature effects prepared for the 2011 prequel but all of them were scrapped in favor of CGI. A lost opportunity:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fBzpT7VmSaU

[67423abb9b618icemann]

and how the twin headed monster came about

That was explained in the prequel? Don't remember that. That said I only remember bits and pieces of the movie :p.

When watching the 82 flick I always just assumed it had multiple heads since it had absorbed several dogs before McReady and the rest turned up with flame throwers. When you factor in the amount of various forms for the alien(s) you see in the movie, it's never really one set form. Well that one was, fair enough, and you do see it a few times, but the amount of other ones. The others are completely different each time. Plus the rest don't have multiple heads. So even with the prequel it doesn't damage the 82 flick at all imo. You just put each to itself. Connected sure, but still separate.

It's like how Terminator Genisys in no way messes with the awesomeness of Terminator's 1 & 2. Though in the case of Genisys that made the stupid mistake of invalidating those first 2, which opens up a whole can of plot holes and time paradox's.

Side note - Is there anyone reading this thread who hasn't seen the 82 flick? I'll do away with spoiler tags if everyone has seen it. It's just such a fantastic movie that I'd never want to spoil that on someone.

[67423abb9b719Aurora]

It's not referring to the dog creature, but the frozen two headed humanoid creature. The prequel explains that away with what Marvin just linked.

[67423abb9b86evoodoo47]

pretty sure there is no need for the spoiler tags around here.

[67423abb9b944icemann]

Okie dokie

[67423abb9bdb6JDoran]

Really? No "The Fly", "The Thing" or "invasion of the Body Snatchers"? That's sad.

Alright, so some of them make for quite good films themselves. But they are extremely rare (and can you think of an excellent reboot of a good film? I can't), and I'd argue they should only exist if they do improve on the original. I've not seen the original The Thing (it's a black and white 1950s/60s movie, isn't it?), but while the remake of the Fly was a good horror film (with great special effects), the original was better (especially the end of the original, with the fly in the web with the human head!), and I can't remember which version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers I think was best (I've seen the 1980s remake, and the black and white original), but I do remember that the last part of the remake was new (where Sutherland shows himself to be a doppelganger) and that was *very* effective.

One reboot to *definitely* avoid, is the reboot of The Stepford Wives Even with Christopher Walken in, it was still utterly awful. The 1980s one is great, but the sequel is so misjudged (it even has 'comical' cartoon effects in it!).

And didn't they make a reboot of The Final Destination, even though (a) the original was awful (it was one of those gore-fests where a bunch of American teens get mangled in various ways, according to a paper thin plot, in a totally forgettable movie that has no understanding of tension, pace, or revelation), and (b) the original can't have been more than twenty years old, if that. Plus the original had several sequels that had the same plot, so unless they had new ideas for the reboot, then it would just basically be like another sequel.

[67423abb9bfa2JDoran]

Has anyone played the PS2/original XBox game of the Thing? I have it for the XBox, but I haven't yet played it, but it is one of those games that people do recommend quite a lot as a 'hidden gem'. It's a third person exploration/shooter/problem solver set (I think) during the 1982 movie, and apparently every time you play, then the initial human who is infected is randomised, you just know it's not you. By all accounts it's that very rare thing, a licensed game that is actually very good (like Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher's Bay, Goldeneye (the N64 game, not the two similarly named cash-ins on other machines), Alien Isolation, and the Batman Arkham games.

[67423abb9c10evoodoo47]

this one? yeah, I've played it, and it was ok, though I hated the scripted mutations (basically, some AIs were script set to turn at certain points, even though they weren't infected).

bit of clunkiness going on with the controls if memory serves, but nothing too terrible.

[67423abb9c244icemann]

JDoran: The one with Sutherlund came out in the late 70s.

[67423abb9c33bAurora]

The Stepford Wives is from 1975.