Post by malus on Apr 7, 2013 10:36:10 GMT -5
I revisited John Carpenter’s “The Thing” last night.
www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/?ref_=sr_1
I was pretty sure that this movie would be one of those movies that I LOVED as a kid, but would laugh at as an adult.
There are some small parts that I thought were sort of hokey, but overall I still love the movie. Of course these days, now that I have watched a few seasons of the Walking Dead, I could have EASILY told MacReady and the rest how to survive, (lol), but I have to keep in perspective that this movie was written and filmed before the days of “Shane-ing” your friends.
“The Thing” was released on June 25, 1982, the same day as “Blade Runner” and “Megaforce”, and just two weeks after “E.T.”.
The NYT review of the film; “The Thing" (1982)
'THE THING,' HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION
By VINCENT CANBY
Published: June 25, 1982
JOHN CARPENTER'S ''The Thing'' is a foolish, depressing, overproduced movie that mixes horror with science fiction to make something that is fun as neither one thing or the other. Sometimes it looks as if it aspired to be the quintessential moron movie of the 80's - a virtually storyless feature composed of lots of laboratory concocted special effects, with the actors used merely as props to be hacked, slashed, disemboweled and decapitated, finally to be eaten and then regurgitated as - guess what? - more laboratory-concocted special effects. …One of the film's major problems is that the creature has no identifiable shape of its own. It's simply a mass of bloody protoplasm that, as someone solemnly explains, ''imitates other forms of life'' and thus, for much of the movie, walks around looking like ordinary people….''The Thing,'' which opens today at the Rivoli and other theaters, is too phony looking to be disgusting. It qualifies only as instant junk.”
So I guess it just goes to show that sometimes, a depressing, overproduced, piece of “instant junk” will stand the test of time to become a classic movie of sorts.
The real enigmatic question of the movie is…… Why the fuck does Doc Cooper have a nose ring? Have you noticed that? Get your shiny new BlueRay out. I never noticed that before. I want a fucking nose ring now and I have a goofy looking nose and a government job. Apparently, when asked about the nose ring, Carpenter replied, “He is a Russian spy.”
Ok, - So who is infected in the end?
Carpenter takes a straight up monster movie and gets all CRZY at the end by leaving the resolution ambivalent. That’s not really allowed in Hollywood, and I’ve read that there are multiple versions of the ending, one with MacReady being rescued, and one with a strange dog running off into the snow. Then there is the weird extended TV version with the ending narration, likely added without Carpenter’s or the screenwriters consent like the Alan Smithee version of Dune. One” thing” is for certain, this is no, “Tell Merrill to swing away” alien here.
Turns out I’m not the only one who was wondering about the ending over the last 30 years and there are all sorts of fun theories from the Anonymous collective of the interwebs.
Here are some of my fav theories/ideas/clues that are not covered in the linked YouTube videos:
-The movie is book-ended by chess games involving whiskey. MacReady starts the movie playing chess against a “thing” and ends up playing that chess game against “The Thing”, throughout the movie. When he loses his chess match against the computer, he gives the computer a drink by pouring the glass of whiskey into it. In the final scene of the movie, MacReady gives Childs a drink of the whiskey. MacReady and Childs both have been warned not to drink after, or eat after other people to avoid infection. MacReady laughs, knowing then that Childs is infected. There is also another scene involving the whiskey bottle as a test of trust in the center of the film when MacReady is alone with Blair in the shed. He leaves Blair the partial bottle of whiskey and says, “Trust's a tough thing to come by these days.”
- A rumor popped up on Reddit in February of this year that a Production Assistant on “The Thing” was talking to some friends and couldn’t believe that there was any mystery to the ending. He felt it was COMPLETELY obvious that Childs WAS indeed infected because if you look carefully, you will notice that MacReady is breathing huge amounts of steam into the air and Childs is not. I’m not sure if this is a factor of the harsh back-lighting, intentional, or unintentional, but it’s definitely interesting.
- They are both infected in the end. Each alien is an independent creature, just like the blood samples in the Petri dishes were independent of their origin. They are caught in some weird unknown standoff, as MacReady said, neither in a position to destroy the other, both waiting to freeze. Why would one alien want to kill another alien? I don’t know about this one. However, Palmer was infected when he pointed out the head spider that was about to creep away. One of the things I like about this movie is that you NEVER get any understanding of the creature. Carpenter doesn’t pull some, Oh! They fled their home due to ecological disaster or some shit like that….. It’s just a fucking unknowable alien entity- that’s what makes it scary… and that dog... that dog with those people eyes…
Aside- HEY! Wasn’t that dog a great fucking actor?!? Do you remember when the dog opens the door by itself? That’s like one of the scariest scenes in the movie- srsly!
-YOU TUBE: THE THING film analysis (update) "Was Childs infected?" parts 1 & 2
-YOU TUBE: Bad Ass G.I. Joe Stop Motion Animation homage to “The Thing”
Please also note that Dark Horse Comics has published a mini-series called “The Thing from Another World”, which definitively answers who THEY think was infected, and also a recent follow up, “The Thing: The Northman Nightmare”, which is basically the Thing Vs. the Vikings. I haven’t read either, but I can’t see how either could fail.
Personally, I subscribe to the theory that Childs WAS infected at the end and that MacReady was NOT infected. What happened after that will remain a mystery in my mind as unanswered as how far Rhett got down that street before he turned around and gave Scarlett the best sex of her life.
Well anyway, this is what I do with my spare time. I just had to turn cable off years ago. That shit is really scary.
I looked at the headlines today and this is what they are:
More from NBCNews.com 4-7-13
Holocaust was worse than though
Child left in NJ home for days with mom's decaying body
Mom crushed by airport sign 'does not know that her baby is dead'
Cops: Patient claims he was raped by female nurse in Philadelphia hospital
A 'worrisome' risk: Most babies are fed solid food too soon, study finds
FDA says longer use of nicotine gum is OK
Police: Man forced 13-year-old into prostitution, tattooed her eyelids
Kirsten Dunst: Kissing Brad Pitt was 'disgusting'
10 million pounds of frozen pizza, snacks recalled in rare E. coli outbreak
First love child of human, Neanderthal believed found
Georgia toddler mauled to death by family's pack of dogs
Tracking 'John Doe': Investigators hunt child pornography's Public Enemy No. 1
Valley Fever on rise in Southwest, CDC says
Restaurant meals for kids fail nutrition test: U.S. consumer group
Mom pushing baby in stroller viciously stabbed in broad daylight in Boston
Cops: Three-month-old twins recovering after being found at home with dead mother
Mother, aunt of Georgia baby murder suspect arrested, charged with lying
French 'Survivor' contestant dies while on show
Sochi Winter Olympics organizers store snow, just in case
Tori Spelling blasts Kardashian show for killing alligator
Father cleaning shotgun shoots 10-year-old son in the head in N.C.
Adopted teen returns to Russia, claims on state-controlled TV he was badly treated by US couple
Skydive instructor 'died a hero' trying to help student during fatal fall
Gruesome basketball injury a 'freak accident,' doc says
Woman says rabies-infected organ donor was her child's father
Can anyone blame me for loving monster movies?
Off to download the 1951 version of “The Thing from Another World”:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/
www.imdb.com/title/tt0084787/?ref_=sr_1
I was pretty sure that this movie would be one of those movies that I LOVED as a kid, but would laugh at as an adult.
There are some small parts that I thought were sort of hokey, but overall I still love the movie. Of course these days, now that I have watched a few seasons of the Walking Dead, I could have EASILY told MacReady and the rest how to survive, (lol), but I have to keep in perspective that this movie was written and filmed before the days of “Shane-ing” your friends.
“The Thing” was released on June 25, 1982, the same day as “Blade Runner” and “Megaforce”, and just two weeks after “E.T.”.
The NYT review of the film; “The Thing" (1982)
'THE THING,' HORROR AND SCIENCE FICTION
By VINCENT CANBY
Published: June 25, 1982
JOHN CARPENTER'S ''The Thing'' is a foolish, depressing, overproduced movie that mixes horror with science fiction to make something that is fun as neither one thing or the other. Sometimes it looks as if it aspired to be the quintessential moron movie of the 80's - a virtually storyless feature composed of lots of laboratory concocted special effects, with the actors used merely as props to be hacked, slashed, disemboweled and decapitated, finally to be eaten and then regurgitated as - guess what? - more laboratory-concocted special effects. …One of the film's major problems is that the creature has no identifiable shape of its own. It's simply a mass of bloody protoplasm that, as someone solemnly explains, ''imitates other forms of life'' and thus, for much of the movie, walks around looking like ordinary people….''The Thing,'' which opens today at the Rivoli and other theaters, is too phony looking to be disgusting. It qualifies only as instant junk.”
So I guess it just goes to show that sometimes, a depressing, overproduced, piece of “instant junk” will stand the test of time to become a classic movie of sorts.
The real enigmatic question of the movie is…… Why the fuck does Doc Cooper have a nose ring? Have you noticed that? Get your shiny new BlueRay out. I never noticed that before. I want a fucking nose ring now and I have a goofy looking nose and a government job. Apparently, when asked about the nose ring, Carpenter replied, “He is a Russian spy.”
Ok, - So who is infected in the end?
Carpenter takes a straight up monster movie and gets all CRZY at the end by leaving the resolution ambivalent. That’s not really allowed in Hollywood, and I’ve read that there are multiple versions of the ending, one with MacReady being rescued, and one with a strange dog running off into the snow. Then there is the weird extended TV version with the ending narration, likely added without Carpenter’s or the screenwriters consent like the Alan Smithee version of Dune. One” thing” is for certain, this is no, “Tell Merrill to swing away” alien here.
Turns out I’m not the only one who was wondering about the ending over the last 30 years and there are all sorts of fun theories from the Anonymous collective of the interwebs.
Here are some of my fav theories/ideas/clues that are not covered in the linked YouTube videos:
-The movie is book-ended by chess games involving whiskey. MacReady starts the movie playing chess against a “thing” and ends up playing that chess game against “The Thing”, throughout the movie. When he loses his chess match against the computer, he gives the computer a drink by pouring the glass of whiskey into it. In the final scene of the movie, MacReady gives Childs a drink of the whiskey. MacReady and Childs both have been warned not to drink after, or eat after other people to avoid infection. MacReady laughs, knowing then that Childs is infected. There is also another scene involving the whiskey bottle as a test of trust in the center of the film when MacReady is alone with Blair in the shed. He leaves Blair the partial bottle of whiskey and says, “Trust's a tough thing to come by these days.”
- A rumor popped up on Reddit in February of this year that a Production Assistant on “The Thing” was talking to some friends and couldn’t believe that there was any mystery to the ending. He felt it was COMPLETELY obvious that Childs WAS indeed infected because if you look carefully, you will notice that MacReady is breathing huge amounts of steam into the air and Childs is not. I’m not sure if this is a factor of the harsh back-lighting, intentional, or unintentional, but it’s definitely interesting.
- They are both infected in the end. Each alien is an independent creature, just like the blood samples in the Petri dishes were independent of their origin. They are caught in some weird unknown standoff, as MacReady said, neither in a position to destroy the other, both waiting to freeze. Why would one alien want to kill another alien? I don’t know about this one. However, Palmer was infected when he pointed out the head spider that was about to creep away. One of the things I like about this movie is that you NEVER get any understanding of the creature. Carpenter doesn’t pull some, Oh! They fled their home due to ecological disaster or some shit like that….. It’s just a fucking unknowable alien entity- that’s what makes it scary… and that dog... that dog with those people eyes…
Aside- HEY! Wasn’t that dog a great fucking actor?!? Do you remember when the dog opens the door by itself? That’s like one of the scariest scenes in the movie- srsly!
-YOU TUBE: THE THING film analysis (update) "Was Childs infected?" parts 1 & 2
-YOU TUBE: Bad Ass G.I. Joe Stop Motion Animation homage to “The Thing”
Please also note that Dark Horse Comics has published a mini-series called “The Thing from Another World”, which definitively answers who THEY think was infected, and also a recent follow up, “The Thing: The Northman Nightmare”, which is basically the Thing Vs. the Vikings. I haven’t read either, but I can’t see how either could fail.
Personally, I subscribe to the theory that Childs WAS infected at the end and that MacReady was NOT infected. What happened after that will remain a mystery in my mind as unanswered as how far Rhett got down that street before he turned around and gave Scarlett the best sex of her life.
Well anyway, this is what I do with my spare time. I just had to turn cable off years ago. That shit is really scary.
I looked at the headlines today and this is what they are:
More from NBCNews.com 4-7-13
Holocaust was worse than though
Child left in NJ home for days with mom's decaying body
Mom crushed by airport sign 'does not know that her baby is dead'
Cops: Patient claims he was raped by female nurse in Philadelphia hospital
A 'worrisome' risk: Most babies are fed solid food too soon, study finds
FDA says longer use of nicotine gum is OK
Police: Man forced 13-year-old into prostitution, tattooed her eyelids
Kirsten Dunst: Kissing Brad Pitt was 'disgusting'
10 million pounds of frozen pizza, snacks recalled in rare E. coli outbreak
First love child of human, Neanderthal believed found
Georgia toddler mauled to death by family's pack of dogs
Tracking 'John Doe': Investigators hunt child pornography's Public Enemy No. 1
Valley Fever on rise in Southwest, CDC says
Restaurant meals for kids fail nutrition test: U.S. consumer group
Mom pushing baby in stroller viciously stabbed in broad daylight in Boston
Cops: Three-month-old twins recovering after being found at home with dead mother
Mother, aunt of Georgia baby murder suspect arrested, charged with lying
French 'Survivor' contestant dies while on show
Sochi Winter Olympics organizers store snow, just in case
Tori Spelling blasts Kardashian show for killing alligator
Father cleaning shotgun shoots 10-year-old son in the head in N.C.
Adopted teen returns to Russia, claims on state-controlled TV he was badly treated by US couple
Skydive instructor 'died a hero' trying to help student during fatal fall
Gruesome basketball injury a 'freak accident,' doc says
Woman says rabies-infected organ donor was her child's father
Can anyone blame me for loving monster movies?
Off to download the 1951 version of “The Thing from Another World”:
www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/
