24.6.12

Castle Vardulon presents: The notes I made while watching The Thing (2011)

- Why did they fly to America? Couldn't they have just sent for her?
- Also, since they found a tunnel leading down to a wholly intact alien spaceship, shouldn't their first priority be to secure it and bring down a sufficiently large team of experts to investigate it?
- I've got to say, for a ship that crashed in Antarctica, it's in remarkably good condition.


- Why are you acting like the EBE is the important find that you have to investigate and document immediately? It's a frigging ice cube. For all you know there could be ten dozen living Things in that perfectly preserved spaceship, waiting to be woken up from their sleep pods.
- Wow, did it make far more sense in the story/original when they accidentally destroyed the spaceship while trying to melt their way down to it. With no spaceship to examine, of course the Thing is the most important find in human history. If there's a just-off-the-lot stadium-sized spaceship lying around, however, who cares about a single alien?
- The thing escapes? What? Did they thaw it out?
- So it can instantly generate grappling hook spears? Is this a Mortal Kombat character suddenly?
- I'm confused - between escaping and getting burned, when did the Thing have any time to replicate anyone? This isn't like The Thing where the dog has all day to replicate Norris/Palmer, depending on what your theory is.
- Are you seriously talking like you want to keep this a secret? You should be shouting this from the rooftops: it's an amazing discovery!
- Wait, why did you attack inside the helicopter? How does causing it to crash improve your odds of survival?
- I can't stress enough how the Thing doesn't have enough alone time with people in this movie to replicate them. It's not like Fuchs' theory was right - it can't poison you with a cell and gradually take you over - so when is all this changing happening?
- I'm confused about the Thing's endgame in this scene: does it not realize that people are going to hear when it starts making screeching sounds two rooms away from everyone else? Also, when it's torn its own and Mary's clothes apart in the envelopment, how is it going to find new ones?
- Hey, wait - why didn't she just bust out some of those grappling hooks when everyone was unarmed and unprepared in that group setting, if that's something she can do?
- This is something The Thing understood, that The Thing simply doesn't - by giving The Thing clear limitations on its abilities, and a comprehensible physiology, it was far scarier than just having the Thing be able to do whatever the scene requires.
- Okay, so they survived the crash, but no one's going to talk about what happened with the Thing that was on the chopper? Seems like a loose end.
- Um, Mary - you saw that in order for the Thing to envelop someone, it needs to basically tear everything to shreds and spray blood everywhere. Do you think that they had a spare set of clothes in the helicopter? Half-wit.
- Why are you sitting at a table, 'working out a test'? You just said that you were going to drop people's blood in with uncontaminated blood and look for a reaction. You already figured out what the test was. Shouldn't you all be in a room DOING the test?
- Okay, you've done the ridiculous 'iron fillings' test - why are you now splitting up again: and doing so without restraining the suspected guys in any meaningful way?
- Man, I bet the Thing is really pissed he didn't attack back when everyone was unarmed, huh?
- Yeah, tearing off arm? Nowhere near as impressive as Norris' chest.
- Oh, good, another super-strong grappling hook arm - why does he wait before pulling that thing out?
-  Hey, remember when the Thing had to put in some effort to transform, and wasn't super-competent in its new form instantaneously? That made a lot of sense, didn't it?
- It fully copied the guy in just minutes without damaging his clothes? Seriously?
- Wow, does that not look like split-face guy.
- Wait... the spaceship WORKS? Why didn't any of the things go there at literally any point in the story up until now?
- You're telling me the thing managed to simultaneously copy the American guy and also be a flesh pillar in the control room? Explain, please.
- Hey, um, American guy? Why aren't you killing her? You have a flamethrower, she has nothing, and you've got no reason not to kill her, what with you knowing you're a thing, while she doesn't.
- If the thing knows about the 'fillings' situation, and there's no reason it shouldn't, why didn't it put the earring back in? And don't tell me it doesn't - the thing that took the American guy over knew about it, and this guy clearly knows he's the Thing.
- You let her live so she'd have a chance to gloat about how clever she is for figuring it out? What?!
- So she's fine? That's the ending? She was okay, then drove to a Russian base? Why not drive back to her own base?
- Wow, that was a disappointment.
- Hold on, why did that guy kill himself when the threat was gone? There really wasn't enough character work in this movie.
- Oh, The Thing (2011), you can't offer a single reason that anyone should ever watch you, rather than 'The Thing', can you?

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