I saw the new "The Thing" and thought it was quite good. I'm wondering what other fans thought of it, and what their comments and critiques about it are.
what did you think of the new "THE THING"?
- Thread starter nobudgetfilmmaker
- Start date
I saw clips and trailers and plan to see it. So far I'm not impressed from the trailers, as it looks too over-stylized for what's suppose to be a serious creepy dark movie. But we'll see.
yea it looks hollywood to be great. In the original thing it was all about the unknown and mystery, but the new one seems to focus on the science of it all more action involved. Still might check it out, if only on bootleg
I haven't seen it, but a friend (and huge Carpenter fan) did. He said he enjoyed it, but disliked that it was more of an action movie than a horror film, which annoyed him. If you go into it expecting that, rather than the paranoia-fueled Lovecraftian horror of the Carpenter film, according to him it's pretty fun.
I'm glad they brought back the female character (from the original) that went missing from Carpenter's version. I do plan on seeing this movie, even though it's yet another remake. Will the madness ever end?
Not as long as people keep buying tickets. And they always have.
Ah, but the other side of that (which you inferred) is that without said madness, we wouldn't have had Carpenter's version! Maybe we just need a rigidly defined statute of limitations for remakes. We'll use Carpenter's Thing as a starting place...so 30 years for a sequel, call it 15 after the most recent sequel for a reboot (with a special 10 year dispensation for films with more than 5 sequels).
By that metric, the new Thing movie is close enough (1982-2011) and we all feel *really* old right now!
The title is confusing, and misleading, because this is actually a prequel, not a remake. I might see it.
It's not out here in the UK 'til December! Why there's such a big gap between the US and UK release, God knows. Anyway...
Even though the reviews seem pretty damning, all stating the use of too much CGI, I'll still see it. I'm a huge fan of the original, so I'm looking forward to it.
I also saw this earlier, some of it's pretty funny...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYjDVCwKr6A
"How much more of this crap is there?"
Even though the reviews seem pretty damning, all stating the use of too much CGI, I'll still see it. I'm a huge fan of the original, so I'm looking forward to it.
I also saw this earlier, some of it's pretty funny...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYjDVCwKr6A
"How much more of this crap is there?"
It lacked the balls, humor, and tension of the original.
Too bad, because they spent a lot of money on it, and the effects are seamless (if a little repetitious).
In this case, making the protagonist female (which I am typically all for) didn't work. The original story was about a group of men not being able to understand a creature that is basically female; it creates copies of itself; is often indirect in its ways; prefers hiding to confrontation; and is very wet, bloody, and visually vaginal with multiple mouths.
I felt that the new film should have been about a woman in a man's world (and they really dropped the ball by avoiding almost any gender conflict), who ironically is the only person who can understand a creature that also deals with conflict like a female. Comparing the two films is a perfect illustration of how and why theme is important!
Carpenter is clearly, without any question, the better director, here. The 1981 version is, after all, his masterpiece. And his version is totally punk rock; what I really missed in this prequel was the anarchic sense that anything could happen at any time, something Carpenter completely delivers. Instead, the pacing of the newer version was often glacial, and its storytelling was limp and ineffectual.
Wait for video, and only see it if you're dying of curiosity.
Too bad, because they spent a lot of money on it, and the effects are seamless (if a little repetitious).
In this case, making the protagonist female (which I am typically all for) didn't work. The original story was about a group of men not being able to understand a creature that is basically female; it creates copies of itself; is often indirect in its ways; prefers hiding to confrontation; and is very wet, bloody, and visually vaginal with multiple mouths.
I felt that the new film should have been about a woman in a man's world (and they really dropped the ball by avoiding almost any gender conflict), who ironically is the only person who can understand a creature that also deals with conflict like a female. Comparing the two films is a perfect illustration of how and why theme is important!
Carpenter is clearly, without any question, the better director, here. The 1981 version is, after all, his masterpiece. And his version is totally punk rock; what I really missed in this prequel was the anarchic sense that anything could happen at any time, something Carpenter completely delivers. Instead, the pacing of the newer version was often glacial, and its storytelling was limp and ineffectual.
Wait for video, and only see it if you're dying of curiosity.
Thank god, I was starting to feel like a textbook Freud case. I'm glad someone else interprets it similarly. I think it's similarly damning of masculinity and machismo, though.
(The feminine 'otherness' is also heavily emphasized by their isolated setting and by the fact that the damn thing is literally an alien.)
I think it's a very close second to They Live, but I might be biased. Absurdist aplomb is my weakness.
Thanks for confirming my suspicions.
I'm upset about it only in the sense that it seems like an unnecessary, uninspired remake. I'm all for stuff like The Departed where there's an excellent reason for it, but otherwise...
Hehe -- there are a bunch of us over-thinking weirdos here. A little deconstruction can occasionally be useful. I almost said "a group of macho men," as it is certainly an examination of how masculine culture deals (or fails to deal) with problems, but there is one gay guy, Nauls, in the mix, just to amp up the contrast. So I didn't have a good generic term that included all of them other than "men.".
I have mixed feelings about how Carpenter depicts masculinity; in "Vampires," I felt that he finally crossed the line into full-on misogyny untempered by ironic distance. Most of the women in that movie are either whores or monsters, and are treated like objects in a way that pissed me off. Maybe because it just wasn't funny when he thought that his brand of brutality was hilarious (and also because I loved the book it was based on, which is a very humanist story).
"They Live" is all about that insanely epic fight scene, speaking of absurdism. Why Roddy Piper wasn't at least as big an action star as that talentless Steven Seagal mystifies me. Only Carpenter knew how to utilize Piper's personality and lack of acting skills.
This might sound crazy, but I think it might be interesting to make a "sequel" that would be called THE THINGS. Hell, they did it with ALIEN and PREDATOR, I think it might be interesting to see a movie with mulitiple THINGS...or whatever they're really called.
If the studio, Strike Entertainment, wanted to stick with their own properties they could do THING vs. ZOMBIES.
Or they could release the rights to their partner Universal who could do a mash up of THING vs. RIDDICK.
Hmm...
Not so bad.
Homosexuality, in a way, is a rejection of the feminine. They're all men in isolation at the bottom of the world. The Thing is ostensibly like them, but is of course completely foreign and alien, and their frustrations in attempting to understand it all while their sense of self-preservation becomes more desperate. "Kill it with fire" is a very manly thing to do (see: Ripley: "I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure," and why she's such a transgressive character).
Of course, on the other hand, the fact that feminine otherness is presented as an all consuming, form stealing, sneaky, unpredictable force of nature warrants a furrowed brow or two. Or three. Maybe it's the wrong interpretation and we're just projecting!
He completely phoned that one in. Worse still is Ghosts of Mars which is just embarrassingly bad on many levels. It's strange because Jamie Lee Curtis was a vulnerable, but strong character in Halloween, and I don't think that's just a coincidence.
I watched that movie when I was 10 or 11 on VHS and it completely blew my mind. I was just beginning to realize that pretty much everything I had been told as a child was BS and this movie represented it all it a completely ridiculous, almost literal way. The fight scene is icing on the cake for the humorous subliminal messages, stilted dialogue, and fondness of Rowdy Roddy Piper.
John Carpenter's THE THING is a movie that you have to see twice - once to get over the shocking effects, and second to actually soak in a pretty good tale of paranoia. I consider THE THING to be ultimate showcase of makeup effects, courtesy of Rob Bottin.
Knowing that there is no way in hell for the new THING to match Carpenter's version, my family and I saw it, last night. I really liked it! A lot of what I liked was that it did a decent job of feeling like you were in the same territory. It starts the same way as the 82' film:
"Antarctica Winter 1982"
The opening scene with with the snowcat is quite harrowing and impressive! From there, it has a nice slow build and answers all the imagery brought up in the Carpenter version (when MacReady and the doctor inspect the burning base) - the bloody axe in the wall, the "two faces morphing into each other" creature (which was really awesome and creepy!!!!), even the guys chasing the dog. Instead of having a conclusion that seems closed by what we know from the other movie, this one leaves another avenue open.
I thought the girl protagonist (an American paleontologist flown to the Norwegian base) did quite well. There was a dual tension going on when "this foreigner" takes charge of a situation populated with mostly guys. There are also a couple of American pilots, so english is spoken most of the time.
Even with the studio tampering (see below), I really appreciated the effort put into this!
This is quite a bit better than I was expecting. While some have mentioned CGI, there is an awful lot of great makeup on display, as well. I think it makes a nice companion to the Carpenter movie. I just wish that the title of this prequel was a little different to avoid any confusion.
Some of the origin stuff is rather disturbing!
I read an interview with the screenwriter, who said that he was trying to make the movie more of a slow burn and that the studio cut out a lot of character bits with the Norwegians. Supposedly, there was also an attempt to do as many practical effects as possible, but the studio went with a faster cut and more CGI.
Knowing that there is no way in hell for the new THING to match Carpenter's version, my family and I saw it, last night. I really liked it! A lot of what I liked was that it did a decent job of feeling like you were in the same territory. It starts the same way as the 82' film:
"Antarctica Winter 1982"
The opening scene with with the snowcat is quite harrowing and impressive! From there, it has a nice slow build and answers all the imagery brought up in the Carpenter version (when MacReady and the doctor inspect the burning base) - the bloody axe in the wall, the "two faces morphing into each other" creature (which was really awesome and creepy!!!!), even the guys chasing the dog. Instead of having a conclusion that seems closed by what we know from the other movie, this one leaves another avenue open.
I thought the girl protagonist (an American paleontologist flown to the Norwegian base) did quite well. There was a dual tension going on when "this foreigner" takes charge of a situation populated with mostly guys. There are also a couple of American pilots, so english is spoken most of the time.
Even with the studio tampering (see below), I really appreciated the effort put into this!
This is quite a bit better than I was expecting. While some have mentioned CGI, there is an awful lot of great makeup on display, as well. I think it makes a nice companion to the Carpenter movie. I just wish that the title of this prequel was a little different to avoid any confusion.Some of the origin stuff is rather disturbing!
I read an interview with the screenwriter, who said that he was trying to make the movie more of a slow burn and that the studio cut out a lot of character bits with the Norwegians. Supposedly, there was also an attempt to do as many practical effects as possible, but the studio went with a faster cut and more CGI.
The 1982 THING was also a remake of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsADtGpAsXY&feature=share
All are based on the classic 50's scifi short story called "Who Goes There", an allegory about McCarthyism.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsADtGpAsXY&feature=share
All are based on the classic 50's scifi short story called "Who Goes There", an allegory about McCarthyism.
One thing that looks bad in the trailers is how the woman looks too good all the time. Looks like she has make up and well groomed hair, that's not messed up enough. I hate horror movies where they try to make the women look good, even though they are in environments and situations, where it wouldn't be as convincing. Perhaps it's just a gimmick in the trailers though, and a lot of the movie is not like that.