The Thing 2011 Discussion - Page 5

Woooooooow.  I was a member of that forum about a decade ago.  Memmmmmories.

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Originally Posted by Freeman 

Woooooooow.  I was a member of that forum about a decade ago.  Memmmmmories.

Same here...was that in response to the lead-up to the video game?

THAT'S what got ME there.

Same!  We're sympatico.

I generally liked it. The Thing itself was actually quite gruesome and interesting to look at, but I was never invested in the lead actors. I found the Norwegians much more likable and relatable than the cut-and-paste action duo that I foresaw since the films inception. It was different than I thought but being a huge fan of the original haven't seen it until yesterday when I downloaded it. Having not seen the trailer in awhile I actually was surprised at some moments on who the thing was. Though generally it was quite easy to determine who was infected and who was not, at least in comparison to the 1982 version.

As a prequel to the original thing, it isn't that remarkable of a film. However as a stand alone horror/monster/grossout film its the best we've seen in years. I'd probably give it a 4/5, but that's coming from a guy that is obsessed with Alien films :P

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Originally Posted by Shloggs 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

 For example, why would the Thing expose itself in the helicopter? Wouldn't it take that opportunity to get safely away? 

 

I wasn't a big fan of the movie. Thought it was fine but very forgettable once it was over. But I've heard this complaint levied at the film a number of times and maybe I'm not remembering things exactly right but I thought it exposed itself only once Edgerton said he was going back to land the helicopter after Winstead was yelling for them to land. I assumed the thing knew the jig was up and decided to crash the helicopter on purpose instead of getting "questioned" once they landed.

But why not allow itself to be questioned?  It's got a perfect disguise, and it obviously knows how good of a hider it is.  Why panic and freak out and attack at literally the worst time imaginable?  The Thing doesn't even know that it's been caught in the act.  She could want to give Edgarton a goodbye kiss for all it knew.

I think this points more toward the extremely confusing motives of the Thing as portrayed in the 2011 film.  It's obviously capable of higher level reasoning, strategy and communication.  Why would it ever expose itself?  If it wants to get back to it's ship why not just take over one person, act real cool, and slip away when nobody is watching?  If it wants to assimilate and replace the entire biomass of planet Earth, why not just, again, lay low, act real cool, and just assimilate the entire base, then go back to the ship and head for a warm, heavily populated area?

It's like when the heat is on the thing freaks out, gets really nervous and thinks......um I know! Lot's of teeth and tentacles, that'll alleviate all suspicion!

That's the biggest plot hole, I didn't even catch it in the script until other people pointed it out.  Why doesn't Julliete or Griggs Thing instantly steal a snow crawler and head to the ship?

Agree with most others. Like PREDATORS, it relies too much on the beats of the original. For me, it was never suspenseful (one of the biggest stumbling blocks with a horror remake/sequel is you know what to expect). Some of the FX are ok, but never as bugfug crazy as Bottin and Ploog's work. I'd rather have seen more of the practical, as I find that much more tactile and gruesome. Honestly it falls in the quality end of the creature feature spectrum as 90 era THE RELIC, Original Cut MIMIC, PHANTOMS, THE FACULTY. Passable, but not the masterpiece that is JC's classic.

A couple scenes also reminded me of SOCIETY (the shunting) and Stuart Gordon's FROM BEYOND (Dr. Sander's reveal on the spaceship looked a bit like mutated Tillinghast).

I was a little surprised by how much I disliked this movie.

I'm not an anti-remake person by nature. For horror movies I actually think it is part of what makes them legacies. And I was always intrigued, conceptually at least, that this was showing us what happened to the Norwegian camp - which was going to involve the spacecraft a bit more (that seemed novel). From what others had told me, I had already prepared myself to potentially dislike how much it aped/failed-in-aping Carpenter's film's look, and that the FX were very CG. Both of those I was fine with. FX weren't as good as Botin's, but, hey, what is?

What ultimately killed the movie for me was how the creature behaved. It just kept outting itself by attacking people when it didn't need to. And the movie did shockingly little with the core concept of paranoia. Almost every scene in which we're wondering who might be the thing quickly ends when the creature suddenly attacks someone, when it easily could've waited to get someone else alone. For example, why would the alien - whose entire goal is to get away - reveal itself on the helicopter and crash it? For a film that wanted to be exactly like Carpenter's film, THE THING (2011) seemed fairly uninterested with utilizing dread. For the most part I always knew who was safe and who wasn't. There was very, very little of the feeling "It could be anyone!" Which just made the film a straight up giant creature feature -- with the majority of the scenes featuring an already transformed Thing attacking and failing to kill our hero.

The one thing I liked was that they didn't just redo the blood/fire routine. The fillings bit was clever (though, again, there should have been an entire section of the movie where the people with no filling were treated terribly). Though if we were accepting this movie as canon - which I'm pretty sure no one actually is/will - then doesn't that remove the ambiguity to the end of Carpenter's film? Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't Keith David's character have an ear-ring? And pardon if this was already covered in the thread.

I guess it depends on if there's some sort of telepathic link between all the different "things."  The end of the movie has Edgerton's character discovered because of the lack of the earring, which would point to Childs being human, or the alien form had somehow learned from what happened to Edgerton and managed to find an earring or replicate it somehow.

Or there's some shoddy writing and the writers wanted to wink at the ending of The Thing and Childs' earring.

The helicopter guy transforms because they're called back to base and it suspects it's been rumbled. Not a strong bit of motivation/logic, but it's there. I'd heard about that bit and paid attention when it came up.

Edgerton's death was a bit odd. I have a feeling that we were meant to maybe wonder if he was human or not, but then they jammed that alien screech over the top to remove all doubt - test audience didn't like the ambiguity maybe?

I didn't think it was ambiguous though.  Why didn't Edgerton say that he lost it or he took it off so it wouldn't get ripped out on the alien ship or something?  Something to show that it was a mistake and he was still human, lie or not.

Also, no one with an ear ring is going to forget which ear they have it in, unless they JUST got it. Maybe.

I still call shenanigans. That's giving the movie some slack it certainly never earned. Any super intelligent mimic species would be well aware of the fact that most other species aren't expecting a shape-shifter amongst them. You'd think it wouldn't be such an over-reacting spazz.

Frankly, considering it still had a functioning space ship, you'd think it would just lie low, then sneak off in the night to return to its ship instead of constantly attacking people and revealing itself.

Not to give the film ANY excuses.........or the filmmakers any credit............on this one, but I wonder if they were wrongheadedly following Mac's "and it wakes up, probably not in the best of moods..." bit.  Given their constant rants about deconstructing the Carpenter film's references to the Norwegian camp, I would be surprised if they took Mac's spitballing as gospel.

This MIGHT explain its freak-out on the helicopter and the fuck up of Edgerton missing his earring...........................later rectified by the time it reaches the American camp, by which time it has learned a lot of lessons.  With that in mind, Childs could easily still be the Thing at the end of JC's flick.......or he could be human.  Before the filmmakers confirmed that Edgerton WAS indeed an imitation at the end of the prequel, I honestly left the theater wondering if they were both human and she merely torched him out of paranoia.  Or perhaps SHE was an imitation and torched him just to be safe.  Unfortunately for us, they removed that little piece of ambiguity by speaking up on their own intentions.

Naturally, this is all mostly just me projecting upon the film itself and I severely doubt they intended this much thought to be put into it (a shame).

Another late to the party thing, I know, but this is the point that rendered this movie fairly worthless for me.   The characterization was nonexistent, and there was none of that Carpenter dread, but it was functioning as a fun little riff on one of my favorite movies, with creature designs I really dug.  Then this.  That Thing scream.  If it would have been a human scream as Edgerton was on fire, adding some ambiguity, I might have given this film a little more lee way.