The Thing (2011): Who can it be now?

Happy Birthday to me indeed!!!

XD In true Tenchi fashion something WEIRD had to happen to me even before I rolled out of bed. Thank you boss. Thank you very much for that unnecessary news on this the day of my own birthday. Crazy lives in my life. Also my husband was unable to see me except for the 30 seconds when I woke him up after the movie. :( We were hoping he could make the movie but apparently he had to work a 15 hour day today. Boo.

But putting that aside…YAY for birthdays. Now onto the amazing synopsis of The Thing (2011).

Spoilers for both The Thing (1982) and The Thing (2011)!

This was not the best movie ever. I knew that even when I was all WEEEE about the movie beforehand. I think I was more excited that the movie existed at all. That someone thought about making a prequel to the amazing 1982 version. That and I knew my friend and I were going to have a blast either way, whether it was good or bad. Plus it is fun being excited about events. Yay for countdowns!

So folks…this is not the most amazing movie ever. But I think it was a pretty good movie and worth seeing.

XO Why weren't there any posters inside the theater?! I wanted more pictures.

First off it was pretty faithful to the original. I say pretty faithful because I have watched the first movie 892038498372 times and remember way too much. But in the first movie Windows made it sounds like he was unable to contact anyone for weeks. The Norwegian camp was able to contact people early on in the film which is only set a few days before the original. I also don’t remember the Norwegian camp being that close to a mountain. I thought it was in the middle of nowhere although it makes more sense to be near a mountain.

Lies lies lies.

The biggest RARW though was the lack of thermal charges. In the original everyone went out to see the UFO get uncovered and it was a big to do. There was video of them going out and doing so. But in this movie the spaceship is unearthed when it tries to leave and only a few people go out to investigate the craft. That is why the thing has to assimilate so many people since so few know where the spaceship is. If that is why The Thing had to wait til the end of the movie to try and escape to the spaceship it makes more sense to go the route it did but that means this film is not faithful to the first one.

The Norwegian camp was more like a hodgepodge of different countries around the world. In the original it was more played out that most of the people at the Norwegian camp were Norwegian as much of the paperwork and signage around camp is in Norwegian. I think the film could have been a little bit smoother in explaining that Lars could not speak English. People who had watched the first movie knew there had to be two people that couldn’t speak English or the movie would not make sense at all. I just thought it was a bit too much with the whole HE CAN’T SPEAK ENGLISH when it could have been a little more subtle.

But on the other hand I think having a clear division of people instead of them all being American or Norwegian helped give the movie some of its suspense. People started to suspect the other side and with some members unable to understand the language being spoken at the time it really helped bring about distrust. Distrust is a key factor in the the thing assimilating more people.

Some people seemed put off at the idea of women being in the film. One chick didn’t survive long enough to matter so I don’t know if that counts. Although given the time period I am not sure how a 10 to 1 ratio would fly. But I thought the lead being a woman worked well in this situation. I think part of the reason why Kate was not believed about the assimilation was due to the fact she was a woman. The main man in charge was already upset at Kate undermining his authority in front of the other men. Of course they should have believed Kate anyway after all the crazy that they saw but I think Kate being a woman help explains why everyone wasn’t on board with the further crazy talk.

I think a lot of the death scenes and small details were really well done in terms of making sure they matched up with the original movie. The small things like the axe in the wall to the major things like the two headed monster burnt outside. These details were not forced upon the viewers (unlike the HE DOESN’T SPEAK ENGLISH!!! comment) so they felt natural to people who have not seen the original and they were fun to see for the people who have seen The Thing (1982) 4435439 times. I think the suicide might have been possible due to the fact that the Sander Thing just became a Sander Thing and booked it the second it could. The two faced thing was busy chasing Kate and Carter around which gave Colin the time to kill himself and get all frozenified.

Not a great idea but it was going to get out anyway so I can't say MOG you caused this all.

The iconic block of ice was also done pretty well. It clearly busted out of the ice in this movie while it was left unknown in the original. But given the fact a few days had passed just enough snow had covered the ice block to cover up what actually happened.

The characters in this movie were not as fleshed out as they were in the original. I think this is because there are way too many of them. All the Norwegians started to look alike after a while except for the guy with the huge beard. At times I got the two NonAmerican/NonNorwegian dudes apart. In the original movie we had more time to see the characters react to the crazy around them because of the dog situation. In this movie the first X___X moment was when someone got nommed by a Thing and ten seconds later more people were “killed” in the helicopter crash. I think if the cast had been slimmed down we would have gotten to know people better. But apparently someone wanted a high body count and boy did they get it.

Where was this scene in the movie? The blood footsteps and someone saying someone was attacked?

Some people are complaining that the thing was not very good at sneaking up on people and was as good as hiding as my cat. Part of me wishes there was more suspense. And maybe less spoilers in the trailer that I watched 49343 times. However I think this can be explained by the thing just waking up and trying to assimilate humans for the first time. It was learning how to do and was probably a little upset about being woken up. As it learns it becomes sneakier with its approach to the point we didn’t even know that Norris and Palmer are things.

The people in this movie love flamethrowers and not fire extinguishers. At one point Kate and Carter are having a conversation after killing Derek and setting half the building on fire. There are FLAMES behind you people. In the original they were more concerned about containing the fire until they realized it was doom time.

People are complaining about the special affects…well I don’t know what they wanted. Technology improves and affects all aspects of life. I can see how things can be on overload and make things unbelievable. But we are talking about a gross alien that changes into other beings. I don’t know why it needs to be believable. I thought it was fine though.

I am glad that more time was not dedicated to the “test” that the scientists were coming up with. I like that they went with a different angle with the fillings. Not as accurate obviously but still a start. And it would have been too familiar to the first if they had gone the blood route. They did not witness the separate body parts acting as a whole yet so they could not come up with that theory anyway.

But in regards to the “test” and the actions after people found out there was truth the assimilation…..there was a whole lot of dumb. People were running around and going off alone. MacReady was like no me and my flame thrower are going to tie you all up and we are not leaving this room until I know who is what. I am actually surprised there were not more things given how much alone time people were having.

Thanks for believing me losers.

I know I already touched on this but the scientist not believing Kate bothers me. They are all intelligent people right? In the original the X___X was happening slowly without all the details. A random dog came to their camp with two human chasing it and turned into a thing. In this movie we have scientists unearthing a spaceship and an alien. They watch the alien come alive after 100,000 years of having a nap and nom someone. I don’t know why it is such crazy talk that maybe it can assimilate people as well. I know Edvard was a thing at the time but Sanders and the others were not and were just as NO you stupid as Edvard. Probably more so as the thing allows others to talk and speaks just enough to stir up trouble.

What else what else. Oh yes THE MUSIC. You know the music I am talking about. It was only played on screen once the ending ending happened. The part where the dog takes off and it is helicopter chase time. :( We never got the scary music at any other point in the movie and I missed that.

I think there were some unbelievable parts of the movie that were made necessary to bring about suspense. Like okay so your helicopter explodes and the two pilots were able to make it back to camp alive with no major injuries? Hmm folks. Unless that was done to give suspicion to the fact that maybe a Griggs thing survived. I also find it a bit suspect no one really talked about the dead dog or the fact that the dog was around camp the entire time and only when the helicopter arrived it took off.

Overall I think this movie was pretty good. I might go back and watch it with the husband to pick on things that I missed. I don’t think anything could top the original and that is okay. It didn’t have to. But it is not an unnecessary pile o garbage either. I think it really adds to the franchise. I have more to say but this birthday girl needs to roll into bed now.

I do wish I knew what happened to Kate though. I fear they left it open ended so they could make further sequels in the future. We don’t need The Thing Part 8: It was really Jigsaw okay.