It is also the perfect juxtaposition of horror and SciFi from a Lovecraftian perspective. While the origin of The Thing is drawn from the sci-fi/horror short story "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell Jr., the fingerprints of Lovecraft, and in particular "At The Mountains of Madness", are all over this.
It also makes it a perfect tale for a BlackStar adventure. Maybe I'll tweak my "At the Planet of Madness" adventure a little more.
Tonight I watched John Carpenter's The Thing from 1982 for the first time in, well, I don't know how many years. Since High School to be sure. And then I decided to watch the 2011 remake of it.
It has been so long since I have seen this I had forgotten about the space-ship at the beginning. For the time the special effects were amazing and frankly, I think they hold up well today. Though the blood looks more like raspberry jelly. My son works in a bakery now, I see a lot of raspberry jelly on clothes these days.
I remember watching this one back in 83 or 84 and I remembered I had come up with a very convoluted theory that this creature was a crashed Zygon from Doctor Who. Fits with them crashing and being found under Loch Ness. We would get almost this exact same story for Doctor Who in 2013 with Cold War, only at the North Pole not the south.
The version I watched on Amazon Prime was in HD and it looked fantastic. It looked like it could have been filmed in 2020 to be honest. It is making me look forward to seeing the Remake/Prequel made in 2011.
This one is a prequel/remake of the 1982 movie. Even the starting title sequence is similar. This time we deal with the Norwegians from the first movie. Interesting way to start the movie, to be honest. It has Mary Elizabeth Winstead in it and I am a fan, so I like that. It also has Kristofer Hivju, better known to us today as Tormund Giantsbane from Game of Thrones. He is just as fantastic in this.
I wish I had paid more attention when the 82 version was on to the Norwegian base, named "Thule", to see if they were the same. In truth, it more reminds me of the American one. The spaceship looks the same, but a lot larger. I also am enjoying that some of the reasons for "dumb decisions" in the first movie get some sort of explanation here. We even see where some of the damage comes from and an explanation of some of the remains.
The trouble with this movie is there is no new ground for it to cover; it is almost the exact same movie. Though in this one, bits of the creature can break off and attack others.
Like the 1982 we have two survivors and it is unknown whether or not they survive.
This is the original movie and the one that John Carpenter set to emulate. Even the opening credits are similar. And WOW is it old. Typically I steer clear of the 50s except on very rare occasions.
The opening credits again look like the the 1982 version, or more to the point they all look like this one.
In this one the action is set at the North Pole, but largely the same story. Well...typical for the 1950s there has to be a romance angle. The movie also takes forever to get anywhere.
We get a better description of the creature. It is plant-like, but it still looks like a humanoid of some sort.
There is much less death in this one, no surprise, and the monster is not a shapeshifter at all.
This one has a lot of survivors and then let the whole world know what happened. It's funny. For a time full of Red Scare paranoia there is very little of any sort of paranoia in this movie, at least compared to the 1982 and 2011 versions.
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It is easy to see the elements that all three movies have in common. Given that it gets remade about every 30 years we can expect to see a new Thing in 2041.
I still would love to work this into a BlackStar game somehow. Either the discovery on Earth of this craft and pilot that leads to an investigation to its native world, or a getting to the native world and discovering a ship full of human specimens from over 100,000 years ago. Though 100,000 years ago the Earth would have been populated by hominids like Homo Erectus, Homo Floresiensis (the Hobbits), and Homo Sapien Neanderthalensis.
October 2021
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5 comments:
John Carpenter's The Thing and Big Trouble In Little China are favorites to this day. Neither saw the love at the Box Office they deserved.
The Thing was bashed because the special effects were too real and grossed out Roger Ebert, and Big Trouble was bashed by people who hadn't seen the movie but assumed it would be anti-asian somehow. Very sad.
I totally agree that the 1982 Thing and the 1979 Alien (together) set the bar for ALL sci-fi horror films. It's kind of amazing that in roughly 40 years neither film has really been equalled. At least, I can't think of one that shares the genre that really compares...and I'm someone who actually liked the film Pandorum.
; )
I'll check it out. This is my week to find good horror/sci-fi.
I really liked the scientific aspect of the original, how the thing is a plant humanoid that feeds off blood(at least that's what I remember, it's been a long time since I saw it). I always intended to use it as a dnd monster, never got around to statting it up
I'm a big fan of the original movie from the 1950's, not for the special effects but for the tight dialogue, in particular the way the actors practically talk over each other in their patter. There's also a quick "Sergeant York" spoof moment in it, a wink towards director Howard Hawks.
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