That was me. :cool
One of a few scenarios of why the ship crashed.
Definitely. It's either the pilot tried to crash it to stop it or the pilot inadvertently crashed it when being taken over.
The biggest question is who was infected first- Palmer or Norris? Apparently the answer around the net is pretty much 50-50. "The Thing" aficionados have tried to analyze the shadow on the wall of the sitting person that the dog-thing encounters and arguments go either way.
In either case, if you watch the film and assume that it could be either Palmer or Norris, their interactions with the other Outpost members take on a whole new meaning---
A lot of fans have asked that question, one of them even going as far as to attempt to recreate the shadow on the profile on the wall to determine which of the two it was in the scene with the Dog-Thing. But the fact is that for that scene, Carpenter got a crew member to sit in and play the shadow on the wall, so to make it ambiguous about who it was. And I think that shows how great Carpenter is as a director, going as far as to keep the audience guessing by substituting someone who could be either Palmer or Norris with the shadow.
When Mac, Copper and Palmer find the flying saucer, it is Palmer who finds the hole in the ice (that the Norwegians cut the Thing out of). If Palmer is The Thing, why does he call the other group members over to have a look? Is he gaining their trust? Acting exactly as a human/Palmer would?
If you were a human being and you found a huge hole in the ice that matched the block that the Norwegians found, wouldn't you share that with the others in your group? I know I would, I'd either show them or tell them about it.
Palmer makes his “Chariots of the Gods” comment- if he is a Thing by this point then he IS the aliens the "Chariots" comment refers to. It becomes another whole level of sarcasm.
Of course there is Palmers’ double bluff of saying he doesn’t want to go with Windows and rather go with Childs (casting suspicion that Windows might be a Thing... when in hindsight he clearly wasn’t and Palmer was).
Well, he did just see a UFO. At this point, we don't even know if Palmer is a Thing or not. If he is, yes, it'd be ironic that the Thing would refer to the "Chariots of the Gods", because its the kind of thing that Palmer would say (and since a Thing takes over a human body on a cellular level, the first thing that goes is the areas where the human personality and individual are located, leaving the area where memories are stored intact until they're absorbed too, according to the Alan Dean Foster novel adaptation).
Consider Norris turning down the gun Garry offers him. Essentially it would put Norris in charge. His answer is so subtle and very human (he just doesn't have what it takes to be a leader) however if he is a Thing at this point, being in charge means everyone will be focused on Norris- something the Thing definitely does not want; more attention.
Actually, the actor who played Norris stated that he was a Thing at that point, and saying that when Garry made the offer to him, he stated that the Norris-Thing had sort of an internal message that said, "don't do it, it'd draw attention to us." He talks about it during the retrospective making-of documentary on the DVD (the same documentary is on the Blu-Ray with the extra view setting turned on). And it makes sense. If the Norris-Thing was in charge, everyone would be looking to him to make decisions and there wouldn't be any chance for him to be alone with anyone else (thus cutting down the chances to potentially infect other members of the group).
Norris is the one drawing blood from Garry, Copper and Clark (which when Copper says he's going to break the needle, Childs responds that Norris is "doing a real fine job"--- Childs is completely convinced Norris is human)...
...Or Childs could be a Thing at this point for all we know! :eek :lol
Again, that's Carpenter being the master craftsman of his art. He never gives you definitive answers of when someone is infected, or how. A great example is what happened to Fuchs. We still don't know if he was murdered by one of the Things (let alone which one, but some think maybe it was the Blair-Thing) or if he committed suicide to avoid being turned into a Thing.
However, at that point, Childs was still human (especially when we find out later with Mac's needle test).
Later in the film (before Norris/Thing reveals itself) when the paranoia levels peak amongst the men, Norris has a line or two about “That’s just what this thing wants- for us to turn on each other.” However by this point he and Palmer are definitely the Thing. So his statement is ironic in that The Thing is solidifying his humanity with the group, while at the same time flat out revealing The Thing’s game plan.
There is also the “bluff” the Thing tried to pull by planting MacReady’s torn clothes, casting suspicion that MacReady has been assimilated. Windows asks when could the Thing have gotten to MacReady and Palmer (a Thing at this point) says it could have been anytime. Palmer mentions “the lights going out and guys were missing” and Norris adds “That would have been the perfect time.”
But MacReady wasn’t a Thing and Norris and Palmer definitely were at that point- so what did Norris mean by “The perfect time”? Is he just playing along heightening the possibility that Mac is a Thing...
Or is he just talking out loud (as The Thing)--- saying that, “It would have been the perfect time for me to assimilate MacReady... but I missed the opportunity to do it.”
Again, you have to look at it like a Thing. If you're trying to play a human and not stand out against the group, you'd say things like that. Why do you think the Palmer-Thing reacted to the Norris-Spider-Thing going by? Because that is what a human being would do, thus a Thing (having to absorbed the personality of the person it took over) would play the role of the person down to the finest detail (much like how an actor plays a character). Setting MacReady up as a likely suspect works better because it causes confusion instead of allowing the group to band together (plus, MacReady was smarter than most of the men, and since it had taken over Blair and killed Fuchs, it had taken out the only people who could have helped in figuring out who is a Thing or not and by taking out MacReady, it would have taken the last person who was capable of thinking outside the box in this situation. I mean, who'd thought that MacReady's test would work when it was based on what he saw happened with the Norris-Thing and not based on any kind of scientific method?)
Needless to say I love this film!
Kevin
I know. I kept telling my film school classmates that they should watch Carpenter's films, especially
The Thing. I honestly feel its one of the best examples of excellent filmmaking and suspenseful storytelling, next to any of the works of Alfred Hitchcock (whom we know inspired him).