The Thing (1982)

There was a remake of the remake a few years ago.

It was remade in 2011. But actually more of a prequel.

You have to admit, it's the best movie Wilford Brimley ever played a major role in.

There's a fascinating episode from the first season of "The X-Files" called "Ice" that is basically a re-make of "The Thing."

A brilliant film. Interesting how 1982 produced two films that bombed at the time, but have stood the test of time and became some of those most influential and beloved films of all time.

Blade Runner The Thing

At the time, they were overshadowed by E.T., but they have come to stand on their own.

God, this movie is excellent - it hits so many horror high points: isolation, poor communication to outside world, bad weather conditions, aliens, gore, body horror, "is-it-still-Joe?", gross monsters, bloody transformations, etc. Kurt Russell was sexy! in this.

R6 It was basically the same situation with the 2011 prequel, The Thing. It was okay but an excuse for kind of an awful gore fest. It held your interest but was not a great movie. Blood, guts, body contortions, and a terrible alien do not equal a great film.

Only last week I first watched the re-remake. I disagree with r7. I enjoyed the Norwegians doom but not nearly at the level of Kurt Russell. . My favorite though remains Howard Hawks' original film. Sharp overlapping dialogue wins.

Just something to consider. The original short story ends with humanity capturing the cobbled together alien starship engine. I'd expect even the wreckage of Brimley's rebuilt ship would also allow reverse engineering. Starfleet in this timeline would be utterly genocidal. Seek our new life and civilizations, and wipe them out in case they too were absorbed.

John Carpenter is a genius.

Kurt Russell was at his most utterly masculine bear hot sexy studliness!

And Dewey Martin was my fave in the original (2nd on the left).

The tension is unbearable when they do the blood tests.

Why the hell would you want to see another remake, OP, you silly thing, you? Two excellent versions are enough. This ain't A STAR IS BORN. Nor FRANKENSTEIN, for that matter.

Are you 12? Or is that just your mental age?

Someone at r13 is telling us she needs her diapers changed....

R14 Actually, he's right. There's way too many remakes and reboots out there. 2 versions of The Thing are enough.

Great film. A classic. Ha, thanks OP, I may watch it this week.

Um, there are three:

Oh dear, r17.

The 2011 film is not a remake of the 1982 film. It is solely a prequel. I’m surprised I even have to point that out. How can a prequel be a remake?

The 1982 version is so different from the 1950s version that the later film is not really a remake of the first.

The ambiguous ending.

I love lots of things about the 82 remake, but a lot like the remake of The Fly there is something sort of sullen and glum about it. With all the action, tension and FX, it - and The Fly - feel like they’re on Xanax. The combination of tension, emotional disconnectedness and the emergence f eye popping realistic effects made them somewhat chilly. Alien feels the same way to me.

It’s interesting that Aliens took a very different approach in the midst of all this surgical sci fi. It combined the tried and true military component, along with the child in danger and the corporate monster being exposed by the empathetic heroine. So much of the Alien sequel were really a calculated response to the off putting style of what was happening in the genre at the time. You’ve got to hand it to James Cameron. I think he sensed the commercial need to inject tried and true humanistic elements in the midst of numbing horror.

A lot fo the special effects in The Thing look really cheesy today, especially when David Clennon's character has his blood tested and is revealed to be The Thing. The creature he becomes just looks like a giant cheesy puppet, and the other crewman he bites with his giant mouth is clearly just a stuffed set of clothes.

The other problem with the movie is that, unlike Alien, you don't get the chance to know who all the characters are before they start getting killed off.