The Thing, the prequel.

[biggytitbo]

Apperently there is a prequal in the work to John Carpenters the thing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(2011_film)

Now I regard the 1982 thing as pretty much the greatest horror film ever made, so this has a helluva lot to live up to. No doubt inferiro CGI will replace the visceral terror of those amazing mixture of live and stop motion monster effects in the original, so immediatly its at a disadvantage. But in theory this could be a great film, we'll see!

[papalaz4444244]

Apperently there is a prequal in the work to John Carpenters the thing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(2011_film)

Now I regard the 1982 thing as pretty much the greatest horror film ever made, so this has a helluva lot to live up to. No doubt inferiro CGI will replace the visceral terror of those amazing mixture of live and stop motion monster effects in the original, so immediatly its at a disadvantage. But in theory this could be a great film, we'll see!

Everything you said. Nothing beats The Thing.

The Norwegian crew....spaceship.....really not sure about this.

[Mary is not amused]

The Things is worth read, if you have the time.  Although it's not a sequel, as such.  (Nor is it a film.)

[Doomy Dwyer]

"You've gotta be fucking kidding."

One of the greats. The effects still look the part, much more visceral than CGI. A prequel could be good, experience tells me it wont be though. But then I'm a miserable bastard. Kurt Russell is one hip daddio. Who, in this age of the bland, can compete with Kurt Russell? When it comes to manly, doomed heroism, who would you want at your side, flame thrower primed and ready to roast some shape shifting, assimilating alien shit bag? Kurt or some shrinkwrap Zac Efron prettyboy fuckstick? I fear for humanity.

[biggytitbo]

For me, the only version of the of story that rivals the 1982 version is the Doctor Who story the Seeds of doom, which is essentially the John Carpenter film 7 years early without the gross out effects and with an epilogue back in England with the virus taking over a country mansion. Its easily one of the best Doctor Who serials ever..if you're a fan of the Thing it is an absolute must see.

[non capisco]

For me, the only version of the of story that rivals the 1982 version is the Doctor Who story the Seeds of doom, which is essentially the John Carpenter film 7 years early without the gross out effects and with an epilogue back in England with the virus taking over a country mansion. Its easily one of the best Doctor Who serials ever..if you're a fan of the Thing it is an absolute must see.

Absolutely. Plus Boycie's in it.

I was working through all the old Doctor Who serials a few years ago and when I got to 'The Seeds Of Doom' I was amazed how much the first few episodes were like 'The Thing' almost a decade earlier, on a much tighter budget yet pretty much as good. Then it goes off on a whole other, equally as good tangent. It's one of the best Who serials ever and inexplicably still not out on DVD as far as I know.

[biggytitbo]

I think its due out in 2011, why exactly one of the absolute grade a old Who classics is out so late is a big mystery. It really is amazingly good, I've raved about it to everyone I know since I first saw it in 2004. The 1st 4 episodes are a brilliant version of the Thing, and the last 2 episodes are a heady mix of the Avengers and a B movie horror film. Apart from Boycies chronic inability to kill anyone, its just fucking brilliant. Only the equally amazing Terror of the Zygons (and also curiously overlooked in the dvd stakes) compares.

[Cohaagen]

How on earth are they going to top:

Kurt Russell
Kurt Rusell's sombrero
multiple flamethrower action
pothead scientists
"cheatin' bitch" chess-playin' home computers that drink iced J&B
massive dynamite packs
Keith David
"Swedens" shooting at dogs from helicopters
rollerskating chefs
Wilford "Diahbeetus" Brimley eating dog food, building a yoo-foh, and going tits with an axe and a .38 Special
animatronic dogs sprayed with methylcellulose
an old West Country boy like Donald Moffat throwing a wobbler while tied to that "fucking couch"
at least one satchel charge suicide

?

Along with Alien, it is the greatest isolation film ever made.

[lordsnot]

Absolutely. Plus Boycie's in it.

I was working through all the old Doctor Who serials a few years ago and when I got to 'The Seeds Of Doom' I was amazed how much the first few episodes were like 'The Thing' almost a decade earlier, on a much tighter budget yet pretty much as good. Then it goes off on a whole other, equally as good tangent. It's one of the best Who serials ever and inexplicably still not out on DVD as far as I know.

"The Thing" is a remake of a very popular 1951 film called "The Thing From Another World" which was produced (some say directed) by John Carpenter's favourite filmmaker Howard Hawks. 

Both "Thing"s were based on a 1938 novella called "Who Goes There".

From Wikipedia:

"The Thing from Another World was well received by critics and is considered by many to be one the best films of 1951.The film holds an 88% "Fresh" rating on the review aggregate website Rotten Tomatoes, with the consensus that the film "is better than most flying saucer movies, thanks to well-drawn characters and concise, tense plotting". In 2001, the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and it was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry. Also in 2001, the American Film Institute placed the film on 100 Years... 100 Thrills, a list of America's most heart-pounding movies.It was also on the ballot for several other AFI 100 Series lists, including AFI's 10 Top 10, under the science fiction category, 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes for the line "Watch the skies, everywhere, keep looking! Keep watching the skies!", and 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains, for the Thing in the villains category. Additionally, Time magazine named The Thing from Another World the greatest 1950s sci-fi movie."

Carpenter's film was highly anticipated - it was supposed to be THE summer blockbuster - but even though Starburst magazine and make-up effects nerds raved about it - it flopped at the box office.

The 1951 "Thing" on the other hand was a hugely popular and influential film and The Seeds of Doom makers would have been well aware of it when creating that serial.

[Viero_Berlotti]

I watched The Thing again recently for the first time in about 15 years. As others have noted it's well worth going back to, for me it represents the high-peak of prosthetic special effects in that era.  I was expecting it to look dated but it didn't, it was such a refreshing experience to see the clarity and reality of this kind FX  in contrast to what I have become accustomed to in the CGI digital age.

I'd be very wary about a prequel. The producers probably realised it would be pushing it to do a remake, as the 1982 The Thing was a remake anyway. So they decided on a prequel. Essentially it will just be a remake of the 1982 version but with CGI effects, shit actors and some kind of moody teen-vampire romance tacked on to keep the kids interested.

[alan nagsworth]

If they use CGI, it's fucked.

Also I doubt they'd even be able to top the one simplistic wonder of that film, and that's the original alien in dog form, AKA the dog actor. That dog is the creepiest fucking thing I've seen in a horror film, the way it skulks about almost knowingly, poking its head round doors. They won't top that, let alone the rest of the film which is basically mind-blowingly awesome in every possible way. So...

BOLLOCKS TO YER!

[copylight]

If they use CGI, it's fucked.

See. Sometimes, just sometimes it works. Don't curse a visual process when there's plots and shit to take issue with. I think this kind of storytelling needs CG to be an application actually, a bit subtle and raunchy, like Dreamweaver (forgetting the predictable King spirit soider shite) - in the right hands that is. Fincher should be handed this and bury his sci-fi demons once and for all but following that wiki page gets us this man who is in the running to helm the fucka-


Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. there.

[SavageHedgehog]

Carpenter's film was highly anticipated - it was supposed to be THE summer blockbuster - but even though Starburst magazine and make-up effects nerds raved about it - it flopped at the box office.

The expectations seem excessive in retrospect, given that it was a full on R/18 gore-laden horror film performing in the family-friendly climate of the early 80s.

Anyway The Thing (in either version) is yet another example of a film where everything that needed to be explained was explained, so I expect another journey through unwarranted banality, just like most prequels. Still, we'll see.

[DJ Solid Snail]

Um, isn't it going to have to all be in Norwegian? Sounds like a hit.

Either way, I've absolutely no doubt it'll be entirely worthless, going by every other prequel ever made, and probably even less scary and tense overall than The Thing from Another World's walking broccoli man.

I mean it would be great if it was great, but, well, it just won't be, will it?

[SavageHedgehog]

Quite honestly I think the best it will be is a reasonably effective retread.

[Santa's Boyfriend]

I seriously doubt I'll watch it.  Most of the time these remakes are very forgettable, clearly aiming for the 14 year-old Paul WS Anderson crowd who have never heard of a back catalogue.  It's a viable business model because they're made on the cheap, make a bit of money but enough to make a bit of profit, and they're on to the next one.  It's a shame they're so shit.

[VegaLA]

Hasn't the prequel for The Thing already been done? In the form of a video game about 6 years ago? Will the prequel roughly follow that storyline or just completly ignore it?

Submit your answers on the back of a postcard and send to..........

[gatchamandave]

Well, one could argue that the Carpenter version works as a sequel to the 1951 film. The footage MacReady recovers and views from the Norwegian camp shows them carrying out the same actions of the base staff in the earlier film - spreading out and tracing the shape of a saucer through the ice, attempting to blow the ice away with explosives, recovering a humanoid body. There's even a visual suggestion that the Thing (1982) has been released from the ice by dint of an electric blanket thrown over the body in the ice, IIRC, as in the first film.

[DJ Solid Snail]

Yeah, and then they destroy the brocolli man with electricity and jingoistically celebrate yet another well-earned victory for the Americans against the Communists aliens.

[Dead kate moss]

An interesting thing I was told about the end of The Thing, and rewatched to check it's true. Two survivors, Kurt Russell and the other one (sorry, can't be arsed to look it up). Kurt is shivering in the cold, looking half-dead with the breath from his mouth coming out frozen mist. Meanwhile the other guy.... no shivering, no icy breath, seems much healthier... Hmmm.

[Ginyard]

I mean it would be great if it was great, but, well, it just won't be, will it?

Its unlikely. The Thing is one of the tensest films ever made. I was haunted by it when I watched it at my nans when I was a kid. Just seeing those huskies turn inside out made my guts churn like a crack tombola.

[Ignatius_S]

I first heard about this when it was reported that Ron Moore was involved – I'm pretty sure it was being touted as a remake of the Carpenter film, but details were sketchy.

Hasn't the prequel for The Thing already been done? In the form of a video game about 6 years ago? Will the prequel roughly follow that storyline or just completly ignore it?

Submit your answers on the back of a postcard and send to..........

Haven't played it, but I was reading up about it during a commercial break when the film was on the other week and it follows on after the events in the movie.

Well, one could argue that the Carpenter version works as a sequel to the 1951 film....

I think Carpenter said something very similar along those lines – although I'm pretty sure he didn't use the 's' word. Also, a while ago, I read one or two articles that argued Carpenter's films can be seen a follow-on of sorts to the original and I found it quite interesting.

Because the original source is a short story, I suppose it could also be argued that the Hawkes/Nyby film and  Carpenter are both adaptations, rather than the latter being a remake.

[NoSleep]

Haven't played it, but I was reading up about it during a commercial break when the film was on the other week and it follows on after the events in the movie.
I think Carpenter said something very similar along those lines – although I'm pretty sure he didn't use the 's' word.

The game starts with you discovering the cassette recording that MacReady makes at the end of the The Thing. It seemed an interesting game but I was quite busy at the time and never got far with it. Fear & Trust (blood tests and colleagues losing it) were important elements in the game play as I recall.

[Ignatius_S]

The game starts with you discovering the cassette recording that MacReady makes at the end of the The Thing. It seemed an interesting game but I was quite busy at the time and never got far with it. Fear & Trust (blood tests and colleagues losing it) were important elements in the game play as I recall.

As it's so cheap, I might pick up a copy - the fear and trust thing sounds quite interesting, just about all of the stuff I've read about the gamer has been largely positive and you haven't said it's rubbish, so that's good enough for me!

[NoSleep]

I don't think the game fared well when it was released as it couldn't really be placed in a genre and reviewers didn't get it. But I notice, when searching for it just now (was thinking of getting a new copy myself), that it scores rather high in reviews.

[knight123]

The game was well worth playing and vastly underrated. It's almost as tense as the film in places.

Also, there's an X Files episode in Season One called 'Ice' which is an admitted loving rip-off of The Thing if you're interested.

[El Unicornio, mang]

My new roommate's boyfriend gave me his Xbox with a box full of games that he never plays anymore, and The Thing is one of the games in there, so might give it a go. Will have to get hold of the blu-ray of the movie too...

[AsparagusTrevor]

I enjoyed the game quite a lot, although it was bastard hard as the creatures could be quite resilient and ammo quite rare compared to normal shooters. This made it very tense and often you had to just resort to the sissy-girl running away tactic to survive.

The fear/trust element was quite nice too, often NPCs helping you out might just end up having a complete breakdown when things got crazy, or if they saw you shooting another NPC their trust in you would drop and their trigger finger became twitchy, or even just suddenly stop helping in the middle of an attack wave and transform into a grotesque creature and join the opposing team.

I think it was received above average wasn't it, roughly 7/10 scores?