MZ's review - and twenty-point 'bitch list' - for The Thing (2011)...

[MinionZombie]

The review - which is spoiler-free is here:

http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2012/01/thing-matthijs-van-heijningen-jr-2011.html


When I first heard rumours of a new version of The Thing (why on earth they couldn't call it, for example, 'The Thing: Outpost 30', or whatever number the Norwegian Camp was, is beyond me), I thought what most other fans must have thought - oh no, here comes another remake ... however, that's not the case, for the most part. When is a remake not a remake? When it's a prequel - a prequel that can't decide whether it's a prequel or a remake, that is...

Follow the above link to read the rest.

...

The bitch list - which is chock-full of spoilers is here:

http://deadshed.blogspot.com/2012/01/thing-2011-spoiler-ific-twenty-point.html


1) The inherent problem with prequels - especially when we damn-well-know it all went pear-shaped for the Norwegian Camp - is that there's no mystery for the fans of the franchise. Indeed, knowing the outcome, but not the specific details of how the horror unfolded at the Norwegian Camp is exactly why it's such a haunting part of John Carpenter's 1982 film...

Follow the above link to read the rest.

[shootemindehead]

I agree with a lot of what you say on 'The Thing' (2011), but below are some arguments / yap. Spoilers in there, so if you haven't seen it, don't read.



4) Early complaints about the film featuring a female character (Kate Lloyd) at the research station were idiotic. Not only were there women at these camps for decades prior to the 1980s, but so what if there's a female lead?

Actually, females were few and far between in research/weather stations in the 70's / 80's. Especially 20 something hotties. 'The Thing' not only has 1, but 2 of them! Luckily, MEW does a decent job and the film makes it look like there's a case of necessity breeding result. In other words, Dr Sander is in a rush to get to the Station and has to settle on the Palaeontologist his young partner has suggested, because she's a buddy of his. However, There's no excuse to have TWO 20 something birds floating around though. That was just stupid. It's hard not to be cynical.

On another note, last year I was talking to a young Chinese American girl who actually IS working as a facilitator in a station in the Antarctic. She spends 6 months on and 6 off each year. Very interesting conversation about working and living conditions. John Carpenter's 'The Thing' gets a regular showing down there too. :D


9) The first kill - of Henrik - not only involves far too much squiggly-wiggly CGI, but it's far-too public (a common trend in this flick). There's zero stealth involved and then everyone of the surviving cast sees the monster with its own eyes. Premature, shall we say. In JC's flick the attacks themselves were rarely seen, and we only saw an attack when an infected victim was cornered and had no other choice but to 'go loud'. This increased the mystery and horror of who was infected and who wasn't. No such effort is made for the 2011 film.

You have to remember though, that this is the creature's first contact with humans. It doesn't know how to handle them. Although, I agree, there's too much show and the creature is way too quick to reveal itself. But, we don't know what the creature's motivation is. We have no idea why it wants to assimilate other organisms. Perhaps, it's just completely mindless, like a Lovecraft outer god or great old one.


16) They claim to have paid close attention to what the Norwegians did in the 1982 movie, but where on earth is a sequence showing the team blowing up the ice to reveal the spaceship? Nowhere is where - instead, stupidly, the ship's engines appear to melt the ice and reveal it.

17) Which brings me onto this point - if the ship's engines were working, then why on earth did the alien ever leave the ship in the first place? Or does being frozen for 100,000 years repair broken engines? This is perhaps the largest plot hole of the entire movie and sums up the sloppiness of the entire third act.

We don't see them laying charges and blowing up some of the ice, but doesn't mean they didn't try. They wouldn't have been able to blow up enough ice to completely reveal the ship anyway. Also, the engines used to melt the ice may only have been thrusters. Perhaps the main engines were still buggered. Perhaps the alien was clearing the ice, so it could salvage parts of the older ship to knock up a smaller newer one, like the Blair thing in the 1982 version. There are more questions than answers on that particular gripe though.


19) The confrontation, just before the end credits, between Kate and Carter doesn't make total sense. We see that he has an ear-ring in his left ear before entering the ship, then once they've dispatched Dr. Thing, she spots that he's missing the ear-ring and he checks the wrong ear ... so she burns him. Fair enough, but he seems to beg like a real human, never attacks her, and the look on her face seems to suggest that she's not entirely sure if he actually was infected ... or am I giving the film too much credit by thinking there was subtext somewhere in there? What's more - I wonder what happens to Kate Lloyd? Does she just decide to freeze-to-death and get covered in snow, so that the Outpost 31 crew can't see the two snow vehicles?

This has always been one of the "things" that bothers me about 'The Thing'. It's clearly an intelligent entity, that has absorbed multiple lifeforms and has the ability to communicate completely with human beings in their language, so why does it never try to win the humans over by talking to them? It's a strange one. As for the end sequence, there is perhaps some grey area about Lloyd's decision to burn whatshisname, but I think that more than likely, she was "on the button". His checking of the wrong ear was a dead giveaway.


20) The sequence (during the end credits) that links the 2011 prequel to the 1982 original is the best part of the entire movie. It's a tad awkward that the dog - now an alien - remained totally hidden at the camp whilst the other alien(s) yomped around dumbly in the open, before escaping the camp in-full-view after the helicopter arrives. However, that awkward scripting aside, having Lars become the mad Norwegian with a rifle who gets gunned-down by Garry at the beginning of JC's flick is cool. The same helicopter and emulation of shots from the original gets all the right fan-senses tingling - but it's too little, too late. Weirdly, this sequence is the most prequel-like portion of the entire movie.

Perhaps the Dog Thing has learned that stealth is the better option when dealing with humans? It's realised that the "loud" approach hasn't worked too well and maybe it's understood that a quiet assimilation works better than the other way it was using.

[Publius]

Bitch list point 21: In the real original (John Campbell's "Who Goes There?"), there are no Norwegians. ;)

Along those lines, and with reference to your first quote ("why on earth they couldn't call it, for example, 'The Thing: Outpost 30', or whatever number the Norwegian Camp was, is beyond me"), I agree they shouldn't have given it the same name as the 1982 movie. They could have called it "Who Goes There? The Thing, That's Who!"

[MinionZombie]

Some responses to your responses. :D SPOILERS BELOW, NATCH.

4) - Not saying there were loads of women in these stations, just that it wasn't a case of there having been no women at these stations prior. However, yes, Juliette was a pointless character and smacked more of audience box ticking.

9) - Surely the creature which is capable of that has encountered other species elsewhere in space - and stealth is a universal tactic. What's more, the alien doesn't learn to be more stealthy, and any possible shreds of stealth are so ham-fisted, it's a far cry from JC's flick ... the dog running off is handled strangely. It just disappears until it's convenient for the screenwriter to bring it back, while it's buddy/buddies are flailing around all over the place making a right old racket.

16/17) - No need to clear the ice to get at the ship - there's an entrance that the humans use. I'm sure if the alien needed more space it could dig the tunnel out a bit ... plus there's a huge cave underneath the ice (which doesn't make an awful lot of sense). Seeing as we specifically see them blowing up the ice in JC's flick, I think it's downright silly that we never see that in this film, because it clearly suggested in JC's flick that they Norwegians reveal the ship via their explosives (even if it is a bit far fetched that they could reveal it all - but considering the great big cave underneath the surface, there's far less ice to blow away).

20) - If the dog thing had learned stealth, why did it run off in full-view of the chopper guys? :p

...

Publius - "Who Goes There? The Thing, That's Who!" - :lol::lol::lol: BRILLIANT! :D That's so going in my forum signature. :cool:

[Publius]

9) - Surely the creature which is capable of that has encountered other species elsewhere in space - and stealth is a universal tactic.

True, especially for a creature whose survival strategy appears to be mimicry.

[MinionZombie]

True, especially for a creature whose survival strategy appears to be mimicry.

A very good point, dude.

[shootemindehead]

Is it mimicry, assimilation or absorption though?

Maybe it never needed to be too stealthy before it met humans and only figured it out by the time it met up with the Yanks in Outpost 31. Maybe human beings were the most intelligent/aggressive beings it had met up to that point?

Without the back story for the Thing itself, there's a lot we'll just not know.