Movie Debate #92: The Thing (1982)

[Tabonga | 2,314]

There is a switch game called Distrust coming out next month that is largely based on the movie.

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Tabonga

[G-type | 2,479]

The special effects by Rob Bottin are visionary and definitely elevate this movie. The dog kennel scene, the blood test scene and defibrillatiion scene are the clear standouts. The rest of the movie is still pretty good, but the ending is no where near as memorable. I can't even remember what the climactic encounter looked like.

[darkchylde28 | 1,546]

First saw it when it would have been relatively brand new (perhaps when it first came on HBO?), when I was far, far, far too young to be watching such things.  Watched it whenever it came up on TV from that point on, rented it on VHS near/on Halloween in my teen years, then finally owned a copy when I got a promo DVD with the preorder of the PS2 game.  I want to say I have some sort of higher end DVD of BluRay copy that I've gotten since, but as I'm basically the only person in the house enjoy such fare, I'd have to do a fair bit of digging to confirm what my memory is telling me.

Regardless, one of my absolute favorite movies period, bar none.  Incredible story and effects (especially for its time), and it only gets better the more interviews and behind-the-scenes stuff that I see over time.  10/10.

On 10/18/2021 at 10:24 AM, DoctorEncore said:

Has anyone watched the prequel? Is it any good?

Absolutely not.  It's basically a shot for shot imitation (see what I did there?) of the original movie, with a tiny handful of "new" things added in (mostly just slightly longer/better looks at things you already saw in the original movie).  Absolutely unnecessary, and really felt more like somebody's film school project with a really high budget than a serious movie that any film crew would intentionally conspire to make.

21 hours ago, DoctorEncore said:

Another relevant question for this message board: Has anyone played the game?

Yes, preordered it, played it when it came out, tossed it aside partway through and never went back.  Why?  While the atmosphere and overall presentation are excellent (at least by PS2 standards), there's one huge issue the developers f'd up big time on which will likely ruin it for anybody playing it as a fan of the John Carpenter movie versus solely as a gamer.  The game has you finding the documentation from the team that was created in the movie to explain a lot of what's happened.  As a result, your crew come up with these alien test "kits" that you use on someone when you need/want to determine who's who.  The idea is the same as the scene toward the end of the movie when they're trying to sort everyone out.  If the blood is normal, you've got a regular guy, if it flips out, the dude will suddenly turn and wreak havok.

Well, I played a good long while, was going down this hallway, went around a corner, then came back to get the guy I had standing guard and about got eaten, so I reset and loaded my save.  I'd only been around the corner a minute or two exploring, so I figured there wasn't any way he could have been assimilated so quickly.  I test the guy before we go through the first set of doors, totally human.  We go 30-40', I have him stand guard, go around the corner, straight to the stuff I now know is there, and come back in 30 seconds.  Boom, alien.  Reload.  Test the guy in the previous room, human.  Change rooms, test him at the point I make him stop.  Human.  Go around the corner, then turn right back around.  "RAAAAAARGHGHRHRHHR!!!"  Reload.  Repeat.  Guy still passes every test.  I turn to leave, don't even walk to the corner to go out of sight and just turn back around to find an alien trying to eat my face off.  I pitched my controller, flipped the power switch on the back of the system and went to bed, never picking it up again.

Might be a decent game based on the review bits I saw later on (as there weren't any full reviews available until after launch), but the game breaking the bit of being able to actually tell who was who and, IIRC, punishing you severely if you just off someone who was reporting as human (as the follower was up until I turned my back on him in that hallway) just ruins it as a huge fan of the movie it's based on.

13 hours ago, G-type said:

The special effects by Rob Bottin are visionary and definitely elevate this movie. The dog kennel scene, the blood test scene and defibrillatiion scene are the clear standouts. The rest of the movie is still pretty good, but the ending is no where near as memorable. I can't even remember what the climactic encounter looked like.

There's a hilarious anecdote in one of the interviews/commentaries I watched and listened to about how he had to bring his own stuff onto the set and all the weird looks he got from people working on other movies nearby at the guy bringing drum after 50 gallon drum of K-Y lube onto a closed set.