The Thing (2011) trailer

Post Reply New Topic

It just goes to show how interested people are in the new film.

I would love an opera about Cthulhu!

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

No youtube video yet, but you just know in your heart of hearts that someone will do it ! !

Reviews have started to come in. It's got a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes so far. Not surprising. I'm glad to see a positive review from James Berardinelli (link), who's one of the best. He lacks the bias against horror movies that so many other critics have, and he was one of the few to give a positive review to The Ruins, which was excellent. The negative reviews I've read are mostly what you would expect, "gore over suspense," etc.

Roger Ebert gave it a 2.5/4 (link), the same rating he gave Carpenter's film. Harry at Ain't it Cool News gave it a predictable "worst movie ever!" review (link), making it sound like the movie raped his grandmother in front of him or something.

I'm surprised by Harry Knowles review. He often likes movies that other reviewers don't appreciate. The points he brings out about not knowing what the various characters are all about is a bit disturbing. The original managed to include all these little scenes about each of the men.

"Many scenes involving characters speaking Norwegian will be subtitled, and the language barrier between them and the English speaking characters is exploited to add to the films feeling of paranoia."

--Jeg tror at språkbarrieren problemet er et ganske ensidig problem som stort sett alle college utdannede nordmenn er flytende i engelsk.

I've been reading through a lot of the reviews, both positive and negative, and what strikes me about the negative ones is that they make pretty much the exact same complaints that critics made about Carpenter's film in 1982. It focuses more on gore than suspense! There's no characterization! It doesn't capture what was so good about the last Thing movie! Why, oh why, can't these filmmakers leave my favorite movies alone?! It's quite funny, and basically confirms my suspicion that a lot of people are strongly biased against this movie. I've been talking with some of my fellow Carpenter fans online who saw it last night, and they're enjoying it. The consensus among them seems to be that it's not as good as the 1982 film but it's still very good and better than any horror movie of recent memory. I'll be seeing it soon, probably next weekend, to see for myself. I won't be walking into it with any expectations, no bias one way or another, for or against.

His taste is so bizarre that I can't possibly trust it. He liked Terminator 3 but talked about Terminator Salvation as if it was the worst movie ever made. He loved Godzilla, all of the Star Wars prequels, and A Nightmare on Elm Street, but he didn't like Inception. We all have minority opinions, and anyone could argue that my own taste can't be trusted because I didn't like the 1951 version of The Thing and yet I liked some trashy horror movie like Dracula 2000, but Harry is just so off on such a regular basis, and he very often seems to let his fanboy emotions get the best of him.

I have to agree regarding Harry Knowles. He has very odd tastes, and I frequently cannot read his reviews because they sound like a 12 year old fanboy drooling.

Having said that, I do think Carpenter's versions does manage to give the various men little backstories. The film also manages to give The Thing cunning. It manages to just about finish building a small spaceship to escape Earth. Which always struck me as a good idea. The men should have let it fly back into space. One of the criticisms of the new one is that The Thing is back to being just an unthinking monster bent on destruction.

We'll see. I still haven't seen it, but I will before the week is out. When I do see it, I'll post about it in the "movie a day" topic.

I'll hopefully be able to make up my mind about the movie if I can see it this Halloween.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Looking forward to what you post ! !!

Now that the movie is out, aside from anyone posting their thoughts after seeing it (I saw it and posted my thoughts on it here), what's left to do in this topic? That's right: immature YouTube re-edits of the 1982 film.

The Farthing: Part I (1:03)

The Farthing: Part II (1:15)

The Farthing: Part III (1:53)

The Farthing: Part IV (1:20)

The Farthing: Part V (1:32)

The Farthing: Part VI (1:35)

MacReady kills Justin Bieber (2:53)

The Thing cast watches the prequel (4:19)

The Thing: The Sitcom (1:02)

R. J. MacReady: Captain Oblivious (1:50)

MacReady hates Clark's dogs (2:07)

The MacReady (13:30)