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The Thing (1982)
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orzel-w
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 4:46 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
I must confess, my love for the original tends to make me agree with Mr. Nyby. This movie has a ton of gore and a group of depressed characters who bear no resemblance to the clever, upbeat, brave folks who made the original film a joy to watch. Sad

I found the newer version to be much more suited to the tone of terror and suspicion inherent in such a situation. In the original movie the alien was obviously different from the "earthlings" and it wasn't trying to assume anybody else's identity.

In the remake the characters had to suspect each other and worry about being transformed themselves. Not exactly the ideal setting for camaraderie and a united front.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Nov 10, 2017 9:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

You know, I've never really thought of it that way, and you're absolutely right!

If this remake had attempted something like the cheery relationships of the original, it just wouldn't have worked unless all the relations started to deteriorate fairly soon, and this would continue as the story wore on.

Come to think of it, perhaps it actually would have been interesting for most of the characters to be close friends at the beginning, well acquainted with each other after years-long relationships. Lots of kidding around and good feelings . . . at the beginning.

But then the fear and suspicion would erode the friendships, and the very fact that they're so sure they know each other well would start to work against them. They would be convinced that any small departure from what they considered a person's "normal" behavior would be seen as indications that he was an alien imposter!

Of course, the less-well-known members of the group would be the first to suspected. But they might be the least likely ones for the aliens to take over at first, because the aliens are trying to trick the "buddies" into trusting the imposters.

Meanwhile, the more suspicious and afraid they all became, the more "unusual" everyone would behave, increasing the suspicions.

Of course, that's pretty much what happened in the Carpenter film, but it would have been interesting if the group started out all smiles and back-slapping buddies (like in the original version), and then things progressively deteriorated until they all became the terrified men we see in this remake.

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alltare
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PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2017 9:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
John Carpenter has stated that of all his films, this is his personal favorite.

Note from me: My favorite of his is Big Trouble in Little China. Very Happy

My favorite Carpenter movie is THEY LIVE.
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CinemaBill
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PostPosted: Sat Nov 18, 2017 1:16 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi.

I had the pleasure of having a long talk with Wilford Brimley at Son of MONSTERPALOOZA in Burbank last September. He was also on the THING panel and appeared to truly enjoy it.

I had taken a header down a flight of steps there and Wilford said, "Hey, old farts like us have to be more careful."

Others on the panel included David Clennon, Keith David, Joel Polis and Tom Waites.

Bill S

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Mar 03, 2018 4:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote



Thinking Outside the "Plot"!

Nobody is really sure if Keith David (who played the character "Childs") was an alien copy at the end of the movie. If he's not an alien copy of Childs, a sequel would have to present the idea that the alien survived in some other way — like a dog that was copied, hide from the people, and survived the fire.

Obviously the fans of this movies would want Kurt Russell to survive and be the star, and if he can survive freezing to death, then Keith David can too (if we want him to — and if I wrote the sequel, he would).

So, here’s my idea for a sequel.
___________________________________

We know there’s at lease one easy way to detect an alien imposter — the trusty “blood test” used in the movie. So, if McReady (Kurt Russel) and Childs (Keith David) are rescued and McReady is able to tell his rescuers about the alien threat, they could test both him and Childs to see if either of them was an alien.

That assumes, of course, that they believe his wild story. But if they just think he’s suffering from paranoid delusions because of his bad experience (staying isolated in Antarctica for so long, and being one of only two survivors of the research station’s disaster), he’d find himself in a tough situation — still not sure if Childs is an alien, and terrified that the human race will become victims of the alien organism.

However, when the rescuers finally arrive, they find McReady and Childs barely alive, living in a small makeshift shelter constructed from building materials that survived the fire, with snow piled up around it to retain the heat. (I haven't figured a plausible way from them to heat the small shelter, so that aspect needs work.)

Enough canned goods survived the fire to provide food for the two men during their long wait for help to arrive.

While searching for materials to build the shelter, along with the canned goods to live on, the two men find a half-frozen sled dog in the snow. They decide that the dog must have escaped from the pen and run off in fear when the men discovered the alien trying to absorb all the other dogs.

The dog seems to be normal, but the two men are cautious, so they imprison it in a small box within the shelter they build. Their plan is to feed the dog very little to keep it weak, and if it showed no signs of being an alien, they might have to eat it to stay alive.

During the long wait for rescue, the extreme cold and the limited food supply leaves the two men barely conscious when the rescuers finally arrive. The rescuers know nothing about the alien organism or the circumstances of the research station’s disaster, so they gather up the survivors — two unconscious men and A half-starved dog — and fly them to the nearest hospital in Australia.

McReady and Childs wake up in the intensive care unit and have a few minutes to confer quietly about what to say to the authorities. Convinced now that neither of them (nor the dog) is an alien copy, they agree that the story of their experience will only land them in padded cells. So they hastily agree to keep quiet.

Learning that the patients are awake, the authorities rush in and question them about the destruction of the research station and the deaths of the other members of the team. The two men pretend to remember very little of the tragic fire that destroyed the research station, knowing that nobody will believe their story about an alien which can duplicate any life form.

A few days later (while still in the hospital) McReady and Childs get word of something odd concerning the dog that was brought back from Antarctica with them.

When they ask their attending physician to find out if the animal is recovering, he makes a phone call to the veterinary hospital. He returns and tells the two men that the veterinarian said the animal seems to be recovering very quickly. However, he had to keep it separate from all the other animals the first day it was brought in because they all acted extremely frightened of the dog.

And yet the veterinarian also said that the next morning all the animals no longer seems to fear the dog.

McReady and Childs realize that they have unwittingly brought back an alien copy. Despite still being weak from their ordeal, they escape from the intensive care unit and rush to the veterinary hospital, hoping to somehow stop the spread of the aliens before they advance into the surrounding area and eventually doom mankind.
________________________________

That’s as far as I’ve gotten so far, guys! I hope the idea inspires some discussion that will include a good analysis and some interesting improvements.

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 29, 2018 11:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

I posted a fan-made trailer for The Last Starfighter (1984) on the thread for that movie, and the trailer had this amusing message at the beginning.






I wondered just how true the claim at the bottom was, so I made a list of 1980s science fiction films that I thought were good, just to see if that decade really did produce a significant number of “the best” sci-fi movies.

This movie is on the list I made. I know what I like about the film (and a few things I don’t like), but I’d like to hear the pros and cons from the rest of you folks.

So, what do you think, guys? Cool

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

The link shown by Boaz above to the site that had Who Goes There? doesn't seem to actually show the story anymore, but Archive.org has an audio version at the link below.

Perhaps Maurice can direct us to the print version on archive.org.

https://archive.org/details/WhoGoesThere_201705

YouTube has a radio version that's very well done.


______ "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell


__________


The Youtube video below says it's the audio book version, but it's over four hours long, so it's the Radio version at the beginning and the audio book version afterwards.

The narrator does a fine job of vary his voice to portray the different characters. Very Happy


____ John W. Campbell Who Goes There Audiobook


__________

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
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Krel
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 28, 2019 10:56 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The discussion about the prequel got me to thinking about this version. This will ramble a bit.

A man named Nicholas Johnson worked in Antarctica as a laborer at McMurdo Station, then South Pole Station for several seasons, both summer and winter. He worked in the kitchen, then in waste disposal, which can be a dangerous job in Antarctica. He wrote a book, "Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica". The book was about working in Antarctica, the craziness, the bureaucracy, and the petty managers. The book was optioned by James Gandolfini to be an HBO channel production. Mr. Gandolfini's death ended the project.

He also did a web site, Big Dead Place. Mr. Johnson's suicide in 2012 effectively ended his web site. He was very critical of management, but his web site is now called "In Defense of Management - Big Dead Place". Considering how Mr. Johnson felt about management, the new name is a slap to his face.

The web site still has some of his writings, which are interesting, but the one that is of interest to us is gone, his reviews section of John Carpenter's The Thing. I read them years ago, he called the movie the first important movie about life in Antarctica. He wrote that the people in the movie were the most like the people you would work with, than any other movie. The missing reviews are a real loss, as they came from someone who had actual experience working and living in Antarctica.

I think that I am going to have to buy his book.

David.
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 29, 2019 11:21 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

That's fascinating, David. Amazon has the book, priced at $16.95. The Kindle version is $9.99. The overall customer rating is 4 out of 5 stars.

I read one the reviews under the Top Critical Reviews category, and I was surprised to see that one buyer who rated the book at only 3 stars actually had nothing negative to say about it. In fact, his review was so interesting that I decided to share it with you guys.
________________________________

An interesting sometimes biting, sometimes humorous, sometimes rant-like commentary on the ups and downs and his organizational puzzlements of life as an operations support worker at the US South Pole and McMurdo stations from a fellow who spent several seasons doing just that.

He committed suicide at his home in the US a couple of years after penning this read. Brings out some of the pragmatic considerations and the social conundrums of close quartered living in an extremely hostile environment devoid of natural local habitational needs beyond air. Brings to the fore the scifi fantasy of deep space travel and off Earth habitation.

I would really like to get a job there and have applied for the 2015 winter site manager position at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station. Wish me luck!

________________________________

Thanks for sharing this with us. Very Happy


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ralfy
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 5:54 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

One of several videos that address the ending:

__ Who Is REALLY Human At The End Of The Thing?


____________


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 12:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Wowzer, ralfy, what a great video! I'm convinced now that when Carpenter revealed in an interview that one of the two survivors IS a Thing, it was Childs.

The video's narrator does a great job of discussing all the reasons to suspect each of the two men (Kurt Russell and Keith David) as being alien.

Watch the video, guys. And thanks for sharing it with us, ralfy! Very Happy

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~ The Space Children (1958)
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Krel
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PostPosted: Fri Feb 15, 2019 1:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm surprised. Bud. I read an interview where Carpenter said that both were human. Is he messing with us? He also said the in the scene where the dog enters a room, and you just see shadows on the wall, it is not one of the actors. He didn't want the audience figuring out who it is, so he used one of the crew for the shadow.

The burned out outpost scenes in the end of the movie is actually the Norwegian outpost set, which was built a half a mile from the main set.

On the Replica Props Forum, there was a resent discussion on Windows' sunglasses. The actor, Thomas G. Waites showed up wearing the sunglasses, and said that he wanted to be called Windows. For some reason Carpenter went along with his request.

David.
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Mon Apr 08, 2019 5:30 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I found this unused poster art concept:


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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 6:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

____________
____________

______________________ The Thing (1982) Trailer


__________


I once had a long debate with someone about some films from the fifties-sixties-seventies, and some of his arguments revolved around context — the context of the times in which the films were made/released.

This may never apply better than to a discussion about the two versions of The Thing.

The first one from Howard Hawks in 1951 was during the McCarthy era. Communism was the primary danger, the focus was on teamwork, the power of well-organized democracy to counter the danger, and how we can rely on a stable American military/government to solve the problems.

Potentially radical elements such as appeasers — say, someone who theorizes peaceful gestures — were unreliable. Organization is the key to success here. Ken Tobey, as the main military man, manages a team to effect that success eventually.



I didn't like the old Thing film version when I was younger and grew to appreciate it only as I got to a certain age — perhaps I became conservative enough?

Perhaps my original dislike also had to do with how much this old version veered from the original story concepts (I did read the story very long ago).

The film still isn't in my top 10 of fifties Sci-Fi, but I understand how it laid the groundwork for many of the films to follow.

Now we get to the 2nd version from John Carpenter in '82. Where are we? Post-Vietnam. Post-Watergate. Things (no pun there) appear a little less organized — not quite anarchy, of course, but there are undercurrents of distrust, fatalism, despair even. Maybe even a bit of nihilism. OK, here we go...



When Kurt Russell's character pours his drink into the computer near the beginning, fizzling its circuits, it sent a message to me; here's a guy who is fed up, who may even be near the end of his rope, who is unpredictable, quick to anger, and may even be capable of ruthless acts.

This foreshadows the scene where he's truly tested and shows that he does not bluff. No more computer chess for this guy. The universe sends him a real foe to vanquish.

Russell was just off of Carpenter's Escape From New York and looks even more grizzled here, a wild man stuck in wild country, confronted by a wild alien.



I'm not going to say that his character and the others are likable. A couple of them, including Russell, come close to being guys we can relate to, but mostly they are like the cold weather surrounding them — not very approachable. This is actually a common element in Carpenter's films — his characters are usually not warm, comfy human beings.

But I don't think it works against the film in this case. See, the threat of this Thing is against the rest of the world, not so much this group of guys. The focus becomes how do we keep this Thing from invading the rest of the world. Not how do we survive so the audience can cheer us at the end.

Russell even states out-loud near the end, to make sure we get it, that the remaining survivors are not meant to survive to the very end. He and they are all expendable (fatalism, remember?), to make sure that the rest of the Earth doesn't get victimized.

____
____________

This real possibility of the entire Earth getting hit is also spelled out.

In one scene, Brimley's character does some computer projections and it shows him (and us) that Earth would be fully infected by the Thing in about 26,000 hours (3 years — these scenes always guarantee a chilling effect in me, like in all those Satan Bug-type of virus threats).

It's a cold equation at play here — the lives of a dozen people vs. 5 billion (this was back in '82).

I'm not alone in admiring this film and admiring it a lot — it's currently at #162 of the top films of all time list or TOP 250 at IMDb. My only quibble is what I perceive as a weakness in some of the plotting, as if an extra few days weren't taken to tighten the script (another commonality in Carpenter's films).

There's one scene a bit past the midpoint, for example. There have already been several victims of the Thing. The remaining men know what they face. Rather than band together or take steps to prevent further deaths, we are shown a scene of all the men separated, as if it's just another day in Antarctica, and one guy (Fuchs is the character) goes off alone to no good end. This was easily avoidable.

But then again, this wasn't '51 and teamwork just wasn't a strong point for us anymore.


________________

Thing Trivia: The story is based on John W. Campbell Jr.'s famous novella, Who Goes There? (1938).

~ There were sequels to this film in comic book format. One of the better ones was published by Dark Horse in 1992. It followed the character of MacReady (Russell, who does not really survive the film, as I see it) as he continues to tangle with the Thing monstrosity outside of Antarctica. Of course, this corrupts what I see as the creepiest factor of the Thing film — that if the Thing manages to make it off Antarctica, the rest of the world is toast. It's not really even a question.

~ By the way, the Thing was building himself a little spacecraft in the film. I believe this was to take it to other parts of Earth, not off-planet. Nevertheless, there are many fans who would love to see a sequel to this.

~ I ran across a fan-written synopsis of a sequel on IMDb about a year ago. It took place about 30 years later, still with MacReady, and covered about the first 20 minutes of a proposed film sequel. The funny thing is, Kurt Russell is still around, still active in film and could conceivably do it if they placed it in production within the next couple of years. And the '82 version was 31 years after the first one. However, all they managed was a prequel of sorts for a 2011 version of The Thing, without Russell or any of the characters in the '82 version.

BoG's Score: 8.5 out of 10


__________ The Thing (1982) Ending Explained


__________





BoG
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Apr 23, 2019 7:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

This review by Andrew Bogdan is the most passionately opinionated one I've copied from his old board to All Sci-Fi so far. It's chucked full of social and political connections between what I consider to me two pure science fiction stories that don't deserve to have all the allegorical baggage he saddles them with! Shocked

According to Andrew, The Thing from Another World was heavily influenced by democracy versus communism, capitalism versus socialism, etc. etc. etc.

Folks, that's pure balony.

The original story by John W. Campbell and the 1951 movie that inspired it was about a group of people faced with a terrible, life-threatening situation which caused them to work together. The 1951 movie added the interesting plot element concerning the fact that one group wanted to preserve the knowledge the alien might offer mankind, while the other group just wanted to make sure they all didn't die!

It's always annoyed the hell out me whenever I've read reviews of the 1951 movie which claimed it was "a product of the Cold War". Rolling Eyes

It was not.

It was, instead, a story about human beings who had to deal with a unique and dangerous situation, and it had nothing to do with politics or social ideologies. All that bullsh*t is just the ramblings of pseudo-intellectuals who want to paste complex concepts onto a clean and straightforward story about brave people who faced death and fought to survive.

The Carpenter version is equally free of the unfortunate complications which my late friend Andrew tries to saddle it with. I do, however, admire his analysis of the the main characters — but he didn't really tell me anything about them I hadn't already known.

And the fact that Andrew low-rated the 1951 film was a real surprise. It's another example of just how different he is from me when it comes to his feelings about several of the classics from the 1950s.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Sun Sep 06, 2020 3:22 pm; edited 1 time in total
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