The Thing (2011)

by Justin Mitchell
(fortuna CA USA)

I guess unnecessary comes to mind when I think about this movie. But so are cheeseburgers and candy bars, really.

Pretty direct lift on the plot from the original with the addition of a couple ladies. Which I might add were exceedingly rare on Antartica in 1982, hence Carpenter's decision for an all-male cast. Not in a sexist way, but I felt that was the main strength of the film, a sentiment echoed by Carpenter and Kurt Russel. If you're going to just do a remake and call it a prequel, may as well use the best tool of the original.

I liked it though. I was into the depiction of how The Thing lured its victims away from the group, something that was never shown in the original. I also thought the CGI tentacle attacks looked pretty good. The scientists were pretty tough though, not one of them died from having a harpoon shot through their chest, they all lived long enough to be devoured.

Disappointed they didn't bring Rob Bottin back and chose to go with another FX guy. I didn't see any physical effects done for The Thing either, which I believe was a knee-jerk sort of decision. They may have been better off considering a blend of in-camera physical effects and CGI.

The creature effects of the first movie still give me chills today and having something physical to react to, especially something so grotesque as the Thing, may have improved the performances a great deal.

I might have missed something though, there were a couple scenes that may have been physical effects. At least the body of first incarnation of the Thing was in the shot with the actors, looked pretty good too.

After two movies, I still have no idea exactly how the Thing takes over a person. It obviously makes a whole-scale copy within itself as its primary method, but there was still implications that it could be spread by infection into a host, taking them over from the inside out. It appears to burst out of their body in a great bloody mess (destroyed clothing, bloody showers) but still no confirmation on that. Guess they're saving something for the next one.

Also, this movie seemed to suggest the Thing was part of a race of psychotic killers rather than a singular being. I always thought the craft was transporting the Thing, that's why it couldn't fly it and was stranded on Earth, left to its own (homicidal) devices.

But in this one, well... (SPOILER) he fires the engine up on the crashed craft and appears to be fully capable of piloting it suggesting either he consumed the crew (no evidence there) or the more likely, it was his craft. The power source seemed to be a nod to Wilford Brimley's computer simulation of the Thing's pathogenic infiltration of humanity.

Kind of sucks to be Earth with that being the first alien race to find us.

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