The Thing prequel

[terryr]

Finally saw it. Too much Alien/Ripley influence. But the worst part is I wasn't scared or grossed out in any way. Am I jaded or was it just 'put out there' without any build up?

Too dark as well. A common complaint lately. I think the directors who do this are trying to hide the crappy movie they made.

What annoyed me was that the woman took 10 seconds to do anything. 10 seconds to open a door, shoot the flamethrower, run for it, act. I'm yelling at the TV, 'just do it already!'.

If they chased the dog all the way from their camp without hitting it they are really lousy shots. It was mentioned the closest camp was the Russian at 50 miles. So they chased the dog more than that.
I always had the impression that they found its tracks and chased after it, catching up right near the US camp. Since it was missing for most of the movie this seemed the way they were going to do it.

 

[SSGT Kitten]

I enjoyed the movie, but I did feel that the interjection of the female lead was way too Ripley. Plus her vague ending was...well...vague. I would have felt better if she had been clearly killed off. I liked the idea of the Thing not replicating/using metal objects. I was worried they were going to do the whole blood test thing over again.

Obviously, it's not the original but nothing will ever be that. I thought it was nice addition to the legacy. And I really want to build a flame thrower now.

Charlie

 

[Eagle]

...and Mary's in danger of being typecast as a Horror actress. Would be a great shame as she's quite versatile.

 

[crabra comander]

I know a lot of people didn't care for the prequel, but I just picked it up and enjoyed it as much if not more than I did in the theater. Was it a perfect movie? Not by a long shot. However, I thought it was a great addition to the original story.

Yay, I feel my thoughts on the movie have been justified. A great lead up into the "sequel". Strong female leads are a staple of the horror community, it has jack crap to do with Ripley. Wasn't the first, won't be the last.

 

[superDrool]

^ Agreed. Which is why I bought it on DVD and finally got around to watching it. Not nearly enough practical, but everything was explained from the camp which pleased me. Now I have to get my Carpenter version back from my friend to watch that again.

 

[Kit Rae]

I finally got to watch this on BR last night. I liked it a lot. I had no problem with the effects. If you watch the extras, you will find almost every shot had some practical element. Limbs and tentacles were added digitally. The practical CG blends were for the most part done very well, especially the shots with the various Things burning. Some really beautiful work.

As far as comparisons to Ripley? Did you guys see the same movie I did? Nothing remotely similar. Just because she was female? I thought the cast was excellent, a great ensemble, and they did a good job creating tension and distrust between Norwegians against the American's.

As far as the story, I was concerned with how this film would flow into JC's film. While watching, I did not like how a few of the scenes exactly mirrored JC's, like the scene with the cast out in the snow after burning the Thing remains, where we get nearly the same speech Macready made. Not many of those scenes, but they could have done something slightly different. But, after watching this, I could not help but put JC's film in and watch it immediately after.

They actually flow together very well. The whole vibe at the American base is completely different than the Norge base. Different dynamics between characters, and best of all, the pace and mood are different. It does not come across as if you are seeing the same movie again. In fact, I would recommend people who have never seen either see the prequel first. Carpenters holds up very well as a continuation, and is the better film. The dog/thing had just seen his siblings try various attempts to take over at the Norge base, and fail, so it takes a different tack this time in JC's film, slowly infiltrating the base, and only changing when it was alone or had no choice. And we all KNOW it succeeded at the end in staying alive in JC's film. I actually think the prequel Thing enhances the character of the JC Thing. I was perceiving it's motives and thought process more than I did when watching JC's version in the past.

As far as inconsistencies, I thought overall they did an excellent job of matching the set look, cinematography style, ice block room, et cetera. The only issue I had was the alien ship. I does burn through the ice to the surface in the prequel, for those that did not get this. The design is clearly seen in the opening and matte shots of the original, and that prequel ship is clearly different. Not just the ship's look, but the video tapes in the JC's film show them placing flags around the perimeter of the ship, because it was just under the ice. In the film it seemed it was hundreds of feet under the ice in an open chamber.

As far as the helicopter dog chase at the end, the copter matches and the actor and his jacket match. I always though there was a screwup in the original, because the jacket the guy wears in the copter and the one on the ground don't seem to match, but the prequel jacket does match the one the guy wore on the ground. The dog does look a bit different, but hardly noticeable. All in all, a decent film, and I have to thank the film makers for even attempting such an impossible task.

 

[terryr]

First thing I thought of was The Thing.

Antarctic research station fire kills 2
By The Associated Press, Updated: February 25, 2012 8:10 PM

A fire at Brazil's research station in Antarctica on Saturday killed two navy personnel and forced the evacuation by helicopter of 44 people, the Brazilian navy said.

The blaze broke out in the morning in the machine room that houses generators at the Comandante Ferraz station, the navy said in an emailed statement.

Two navy officials at the base died and a third was injured in the fire, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff's office said in a statement. Rousseff's office said the base will be reconstructed.

The navy statement said that 44 people at the station at the time of the fire were transferred to Chile's Eduardo Frei station. In a second statement, the navy said efforts to extinguish the fire were suspended because of bad weather. The firefighting crew was evacuated to the Chilean base and will return once the weather improves.

 

[CB2001]

Actually, I found something quite interesting with the Director's Commentary. He actually explains what he thinks happens to Kate after the last time we see her. And surprising enough, it makes a lot of sense. He says that after the ending, she heads back to the Norwegian Base, getting there shortly after Lars and the pilot go chasing after the Dog-Thing (this makes sense and accounts for the barrels of kerosine next to the burnt split-face creature, as she could have attempted to do another quick burn of it to make sure that it was dead, but didn't do as much of a good job at it) and then she went to try to find another base to go to (and not too long after that, Mac and Copper show up to find out to find the Norwegian base destroyed and find the Split-Face thing still smoking from Kate's second attempt to torch it), ending up at Outpost 31 shortly after the ending we see in Carpenter's film. Kinda of interesting to tie into one another (and I know some may see this as implausible because the events at Outpost 31 takes place within a few days and Kate doesn't arrive within the time. But I think it's possible because of the fact that Kate could have gotten lost and the snowcat could have ran out of gas and she ended up trekking on foot after that). But it's still a very interesting listening to and an interesting setup for a third Thing film (though pulling off MacReady without Russell in the role wouldn't work for me).

 

[terryr]

The full beard would give them some leeway with a new actor. Although if they got a big name, the first thing they'd show was him shaving it off.

It's a neat thought. She knows about the jewelry thing, he doesn't. But if The Thing can mimic a person, then it should be able to figure out that it should put the earring back in. The appearance is biological, but the personality? That's mimicry.

 

[CB2001]

The full beard would give them some leeway with a new actor. Although if they got a big name, the first thing they'd show was him shaving it off.

It's a neat thought. She knows about the jewelry thing, he doesn't. But if The Thing can mimic a person, then it should be able to figure out that it should put the earring back in. The appearance is biological, but the personality? That's mimicry.

Well, if you look at the films with the prequel first and Carpenter's film second, there's a good possibility that it learned from its mistakes from the Norwegian camp (which is why it knew how to go after the blood supply, as the blood serum test was close enough to the test that the Norwegian group was trying to develop) and after taking Child's over, it put the earring back in (and someone at another forum argued that there was a chance that MacReady could have been infected during the final fight, which I personally highly doubt).

Even with a big name actor in the role, Kurt Russell is the only MacReady (unless they somehow can manage to get him back for the role and they can use some sort of makeup to make him look as young as he did, which I know its almost impossible to do because my teachers for Motion Picture Makeup class at Full Sail pretty much stated so. You'd more likely end up doing the de-aging thing with computers like with what was done with Jeff Bridges in TRON: Legacy). He made the role really memorable and made the character his. You could cast someone else, but it wouldn't work as much. Another thing in the audio commentary was that in a previous draft, one of the characters was going to be MacReady's brother (in fact, they stated that the first time you see the brother character, he's carrying a case of J&B whiskey that he was going to drop off to his brother at Outpost 31). But they removed the character because they knew there was no way they could create a mail character that could come remotely close to be a strong male lead and avoid being compared to MacReady (so, that is why they had Kate be the character we're following primarily throughout the film, and why she's more of a "Ripley" type character, in order to avoid the comparison between her and MacReady. But they did keep a bit of a reference in there to MacReady with the character of Carter, but he is a bit of a second-seat to the character of Kate). I'm not saying recasting the role isn't possible, I'm just saying that if there was a third Thing film, it'd very big set of boots and campaign hat that whoever is casted in the role would have fill.

 

[terryr]

And the surprise is gone. We know what the Thing is and what it will do. Even the prequel suffered from this.

 

[ConvergencePro]

Please dear god Universal, Don't ruin The THING any further with a third installment.

This THING wasn't that bad, but it didn't hold a candle to the original. One of the biggest gripes I had was with some of the monsters. While the first thing that broke out of the ice looked cool as well as the split head thing, There were two or three THING's that seemed to be just revamps of the same design and centralized around what I call the vagina with teeth. Even the final THING in the ships face ripped open and became this. Where as in the Original The THING, nearly every THING was something new and supper grotesque. Another was why in the hell did the THING in the helicopter attack? It was in no real danger at the time. There was just as much disbelief in Kate theory among the crew even after the helicopter crash. Finally, I felt that Kate should have burnt her self and the THING in the snow cat, that would have been a better way to handle that IMO.

I have begun to think Prequels and sequels just tend to ruin story's by taking away much of the imagination. This is why I felt the SW Prequels were complete crap,. Because we just HAD to know how it started. In addition to the fact that they just plain sucked.

 

[CB2001]

Please dear god Universal, Don't ruin The THING any further with a third installment.

This THING wasn't that bad, but it didn't hold a candle to the original. One of the biggest gripes I had was with some of the monsters. While the first thing that broke out of the ice looked cool as well as the split head thing, There were two or three THING's that seemed to be just revamps of the same design and centralized around what I call the vagina with teeth. Even the final THING in the ships face ripped open and became this. Where as in the Original The THING, nearly every THING was something new and supper grotesque. Another was why in the hell did the THING in the helicopter attack? It was in no real danger at the time. There was just as much disbelief in Kate theory among the crew even after the helicopter crash. Finally, I felt that Kate should have burnt her self and the THING in the snow cat, that would have been a better way to handle that IMO.

I have begun to think Prequels and sequels just tend to ruin story's by taking away much the imagination. This is why I felt the SW Prequels were complete crap,. Because we just HAD to know how it started. In addition to the fact that they just plain sucked.

When you say original, do you mean the 1950s The Thing from Another World? Because Carpenter's film is a remake, thus not the "original" Thing film.

 

[ConvergencePro]

hmmm... what do you think? Yeah I realize its technically a ******* remake. But Carpenters film is 90x more in line with Who Goes There so I consider it Original within it self.

 

[CB2001]

hmmm... what do you think? Yeah I realize its technically a ******* remake. But Carpenters film is 90x more in line with Who Goes There so I consider it Original within it self.

Well, if that's the case, I recommend referring to Carpenter's film as Carpenter's film or as John Carpenter's The Thing so not to confuse people. Anyone who has seen all three movies hears "the original", they automatically think of The Thing from Another World by Howard Hawk, not John Carpenter's The Thing. I'm not trying to be rude, I'm just suggesting so to clarify which film is being referred to for those who aren't familiar with them (though I know most of us have seen all three films, I know that somewhere, there's at least one user who hasn't seen the Carpenter film and/or the prequel to Carpenter's film.

 

[crabra comander]

Well the original Thing had horrible special effects!
:behave

 

[Jedi2016]

One thing to consider is that Carpenter ignored the 1951 version and went back to the original short story.

Strictly speaking, his was not a remake of the '51 film, it was a second adaptation of the book (and significantly more accurate). So you could argue that Carpenter's is the "original" in this case, since this prequel references only the book and the Carpenter film.

 

[allosaur176]

Wasn't the helicopter going to land at the base again?? maybe it realized what was going on

 

[ConvergencePro]

Wasn't the helicopter going to land at the base again?? maybe it realized what was going on

Maybe. But Even though it knew something was wrong it just seemed completley stupid for it to attack and in result cause the subsequent crash. It could have tryed to slip away or stuck around while everyone fought amung one another. noone really even beleived Kates theory until the THING attacked her. I suppose I just wish they dragged out the film alittle more than they did.

 

[CB2001]

Maybe. But Even though it knew something was wrong it just seemed completley stupid for it to attack and in result cause the subsequent crash. It could have tryed to slip away or stuck around while everyone fought amung one another. noone really even beleived Kates theory until the THING attacked her. I suppose I just wish they dragged out the film alittle more than they did.

Well, I agree that the Thing in the helicopter attacked because it was about to be exposed. Instead of facing potential immediate destruction, it attacked in hopes of trying to forcibly infect others before immanent destruction. It's much like how the Palmer-Thing in Carpenter's film remained in the role of Palmer until the blood test proved it was a Thing, which it then attacked Windows when MacReady was trying to destroy it (it was probably hoping that there was another Thing amongst the others in the rec room and hoped that one would be exposed before it was. And when the truth was revealed, it had nothing left to lose so it had its thing-out and then attacked Windows. One could argue that it couldn't be sure that it was about to be exposed or not, but a Thing will try to survive when it doesn't have anything to lose (examples include the Norris-Thing's head as the body was being destroyed). Since it was in danger of possibly being exposed, the Thing in the helicopter felt it had nothing to lose, so attacked the men in the helicopter (even if it let to the crash, there was still a chance that it could have infected one of them).