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I have honestly never seen the original. I saw this one last night. I liked it alot. "The Thing" in the movie was awesome. I dont know what it looked like in the original but it had people on it, and they were deformed and screaming. It was pretty cool
The spacecraft looked great too. Cold and alien. The Thing is one bad beast!
I think they had a decent plot for a prequel but as usual Hollywood F'ed it up to try to make it more watchable. These were all norwegians so right there they lost me when they added americans into the mix. I am curious to know about the ending, though. One norwegian pilot and another norwegian go after the Dog thing. Were these the two major characters in the movie?
In the Carpenter movie, a Norwegian scientific base got it first. In the original version, the Thing crash landed in a flying saucer. This one must be using the Carpenter version as the pre-quel.
Of the two earlier ones, I saw the first when I was a kid. The first part of the movie, when the scientists discover the dimensions of the flying saucer, sunk in re-frozen ice with only a part of a fin sticking out, was terrific, and from there, it all became an increasingly greater let-down for me. The Thing itself just wasn't all that scary.
The Carpenter version focused on the Thing, and the conception of it as a shape-shifter, which was in the first, really became scary to me as an adult. In a lot of ways, the tension in the second was much more profound, because the Thing was a big time threat. I think Carpenter took a lot from Ridley Scott's 'Alien', which took the theme of being trapped with a very bad thing to an entirely new level.
Scott may have used the first version of The Thing as inspiration- that flick was the first major release to use an alien as an implacable menace.
Scott was very judicious about showing his monster until the very end of the movie. Carpenter caught that, in The Thing, he needed to expose his monster's abilities, so it was more seen, but always moving quickly.
The scene were the Thing tries to duplicate Wilford Grimley's head as it's morphing still creeps me out. CGI would have done it even better if Carpenter had it available then.
In the Carpenter movie, a Norwegian scientific base got it first. In the original version, the Thing crash landed in a flying saucer. This one must be using the Carpenter version as the pre-quel.
Of the two earlier ones, I saw the first when I was a kid. The first part of the movie, when the scientists discover the dimensions of the flying saucer, sunk in re-frozen ice with only a part of a fin sticking out, was terrific, and from there, it all became an increasingly greater let-down for me. The Thing itself just wasn't all that scary.
The Carpenter version focused on the Thing, and the conception of it as a shape-shifter, which was in the first, really became scary to me as an adult. In a lot of ways, the tension in the second was much more profound, because the Thing was a big time threat. I think Carpenter took a lot from Ridley Scott's 'Alien', which took the theme of being trapped with a very bad thing to an entirely new level.
Scott may have used the first version of The Thing as inspiration- that flick was the first major release to use an alien as an implacable menace.
Scott was very judicious about showing his monster until the very end of the movie. Carpenter caught that, in The Thing, he needed to expose his monster's abilities, so it was more seen, but always moving quickly.
The scene were the Thing tries to duplicate Wilford Grimley's head as it's morphing still creeps me out. CGI would have done it even better if Carpenter had it available then.
The effects on humans, And it's malevolence was the real horror.
That scene in the original when they are tied to the couch was scary, And it was followed by dark humor when the captain, Who was the last to be tested-Flips out and yells how he does "not want to spend the rest of this winter tied to this f*****g couch!" It was funny and caused most viewers to laugh in spite of the horrors they had just witnessed.
How many times can Hollywood use the same title for a movie?
'The Thing' was first produced in 1951 b&W Spaceship lands in the Artic. Members of Air Force remove 'the thing' played by James Arness [Marshall Matt Dillon] in a block of ice. Ice melts and 'the thing' gets away. Crazy scientist tries to save it. The thing causes havoc until it is electrocuted and fried.
Title was used again [but not as re-make] in 1982 with Kurt Russell. There's something at a research weather station in the Artic that can change it's image. Most of the movie, it's a dog and then a human. Movie ends with only two people left and we're left hanging. Did they make it out alive or not?
Now the title is being used again? What's the premise of this version?
I watched it last night...
And if you saw 'Aliens vs Preditor'...it's almost a carbon copy of the beggening of that movie...
The female specialist sought out by ambitious rich researcher...
Almost a carbon copy of A vs P...even the helicopter ride to distant cold arctic location...
And yes, character developement was lacking...looking back, it's hard for me to believe character development was much better in the 80's than in todays films...which they seem to just kind of rush along...
Films don't become classics, or stick to your memory, when 'rushed along'...
Writers and directors need to realize people, viewers, notice these things...
Anyhow...it was an ok sci-fi adventure...but stole alot of visual from Preditor vs Aliens...
I dropped by becauase a search for H.P. Lovecraft brought me here. It seems, my fascination with HPL was simply lying dormant till brought back to life. I've been curious about his standing in today's world and was pleasantly surprised.
It was pretty bad. First, they way overdid the plot buildup with the rich guy bringing in the female expert and then tosssing in some very lame americans.
It could have been decent had they really fleshed out the characters and kept the special effects in check like the first one. This wasn't that scary and the paranoia factor was almost nil.
Aliens versus Predator was even worse, thta movie sucked big time on all levels.
The original 1951 The Thing From Another World was the best of all of them.
I totally agree with you. I have DVDs of all three of them. I have no complaints about the last two. They were well done but there is something about the first (1951) that has always appealed to me. I have it in Betamax, VHS and DVD.
I like the monster movies from the 50s, Creature from the Black Lagoon, etc. I have one that is a total hoot "The Wasp Woman." Also Tarantula is a scary one. It Came from Beneath the Sea (giant octopus climbing on the Golden Gate Bridge) and many others. I even like Plan 9 from Outer Space in which Bela Lugosi stars. He died halfway through the filming and some other guy took over the role and spent the rest of the film holding his cape over his nose and mouth. ROFLMAO.
Those are all classic horror films and there are many more. 1951's The Thing from Another Planet is my favorite.
How many times can Hollywood use the same title for a movie?
'The Thing' was first produced in 1951 b&W Spaceship lands in the Artic. Members of Air Force remove 'the thing' played by James Arness [Marshall Matt Dillon] in a block of ice. Ice melts and 'the thing' gets away. Crazy scientist tries to save it. The thing causes havoc until it is electrocuted and fried.
Title was used again [but not as re-make] in 1982 with Kurt Russell. There's something at a research weather station in the Artic that can change it's image. Most of the movie, it's a dog and then a human. Movie ends with only two people left and we're left hanging. Did they make it out alive or not?
Now the title is being used again? What's the premise of this version?
You can't copyright a title. These are more or less re-makes, but even if you made a romantic comedy and called it "The Thing," that's legit.
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