@@Shadowman4710 well, it was also bad timing, it was up against; Poltergeist (1982) ... Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) ... Blade Runner (1982) ... Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) ... E.T. (1982) ... Conan the Barbarian (1982) ... Creepshow (1982)
Every reaction everyone calls the guy shooting from the sky, in a moving helicopter vs a medium sized moving animal. They say he is a bad shot. You absolutely never shot a weapon.
Through a scope in sub-zero temps, snowblind through goggles. He’d be exactly just as likely to hit the dog by shooting in its general direction without aiming at it at all. As a former marksmanship instructor, I always marvel at these reactions.
Also the dog was almost surely hit, you can see Clark is treating the dog in the background when Copper is treating Bennings wound. Just that being a thing the dog wouldn't feel the bullets.
yeah something tells me they don't care either way... kids these days are like NPCs, I mean I don't think I could watch ANY movie without moving my face or without any reaction whatsoever...
Just so everyone knows about my miraculous understanding of the norwegian; i work for Disney in epcot. I picked up some norwegian because of how closely i work with norwegians.
4:02...A few things guys. 1)- Bearing in mind what we find out later about the 'dog' the Norwegian shooter probably is hitting it but the bullets are having no effect. 2)- Regarding the grenade fail. Remember 1982 is basically pre CGI so all fx had to be practical and I'm pretty certain there were/are laws in place saying your can't set off explosives within a set distance of a living animal. 3)- Dropping the grenade really isnt that dumb since the temperature was f*cking cold, the Norwegian was wearing very thick gloves and after what we now know happened at the Norwegian base he was probably close to having a nervous breakdown. Give the Norwegians a break, afterall they're doing the best they can.
Great review. The "Thing" is the STANDARD of what modern Horror & Sci Fi movies are judged by. It has aged well. It has the perfect combination of plot, suspense, action, and terror. I saw this in 1982 when I was 12 years old. The Special Effects were and still are absolutely believable.
When the movie came out I watched it on video, it didn't last long in theatres. I immediately thought it brilliant and the best film I'd ever seen, bar none, but I always felt alone in that view. Now it's great to see the movie so appreciated by millions, now I know I wasn't going mad after all..!
If you speak Norwegian, you already know what’s up. The dude with the gun spills the beans before dying. It isn’t easy hitting a small moving object from a moving helicopter with an unstabilized gun. Just sayin. It’s winter. Usually, winter crews in Antarctic stations are caretakers. Most of the scientists are there in the summer. Y’all should do the original 50’s version as a retro reaction. It’s pretty good as well.
@@robertcartier5088 One similarity is that there is an alien who needs to kill everyone at the base and, although he's quite intelligent, no communication is possible because he is what he is. By the way, the short story, "Who Goes There" was from 1938, not 1948. The guy who wrote it, John W. Campbell Jr., is worthy of an entire discussion all by himself. Some people feel that he played a pivotal role in ushering in the golden age of science fiction.
It was shot on location in Canada, (not even Antarctica but still cold-according to everyone on the shoot,) northern British Columbia I believe I recall. I always recommend to everyone who reacts to The Thing, (ya know, on your own time probably,) a documentary called Antarctica: A Year On The Ice (2013,) where one of the people who has worked down there stayed on for both shifts, (non-winter & winter,) and documents their stay and experiences. The Winter, which is when The Thing was set, is a skeleton crew of workers, mostly not scientists-Very similar to Alien where the crew of the Nostromo are working class, basically space truckers. A perfect example of what y’all are saying about practical effects and CGI is The Thing’s prequel from 2011, in which, the effects were all done practically, but at the last minute, in post-production, the studio (Universal,) got cold feet and had them cover the practical effects in CGI-As a result, the film flops, because the studio did not trust the production & the effects team. The Thing (1982) is a great example of what happens when you give John Carpenter a decent size budget, (the man never hot a “big budget”,) and because the film did not meet the studio’s expectations, he never got a decent sized budget ever again. Frankly, you can tell how apathetic he became while watching the last few films in his filmography, (Ghosts of Mars and The Ward are flat out BAD movies.)
The practical effects they built for the 2011 prequel looked amazing! It was an absolute shame and absurd decision to cover them with CGI. I thought the movie was ok, nowhere near this one but still decent, those man made effects could've elevated it.
6:25 As a southerner who got trapped in Illinois for ONE WINTER... I can absolutely agree with you. The night it hit 42 below... 78 below with the wind chill... I vowed to NEVER spend another Northern winter... AT ANY COSTS.
78 would definitely be a shock. I used to love running in Illinois winters that would get down to 30-40 below. Sometimes the snow was so frozen I could run on top of it without even making a footprint.
According to a 2021 study published in The Lancet Planetary Health, cold is far more deadly. For every death linked to heat, nine are connected to cold. Excessive cold can exacerbate pre-existing medical conditions such as cardiovascular and respiratory diseases.@@vincegamer
There's a version of this with John Carpenter and Kurt Russell commentary that's well worth watching. You learn a lot about how they made everything and the set conditions. The dog was apparently very vicious and could only be controlled by it's handler. It gives a great performance but the crew was afraid of it.
So, Julien dies at the start of the movie... playing with frozen infected blood. Gerard either dies near the start messing with infected bodies to bury them or jokes around about an eye twitch and gets shot. Ray, no offense my guy, but I think the dog wanders into your room and that's as far as you go.
It never ceases to amaze me, but it still trips me out how this just seemed like "our" little horror movie, me and all the other guys who were 12-15 when this came out. It was like a club, being into horror in the early 80s, and if you met someone else in that club, you'd probably end up talking about how awesome The Thing was. I still have a copy of Fangoria with the two-faced thing on the cover. The whole (relatively small) horror fanbase appreciated this. I guess we wouldn't have been surprised if you'd told us, way back then, that The Thing was going to end up being considered a masterpiece of cinematic horror and Exhibit A - Q in the argument for practical effects. Brilliant on every level, pacing, lighting, cinematography, score, atmosphere, acting.......
This is what's wrong with the new generations... most of them are not passionate about anything, except maybe MARVEL shit. That's what growing up in the internet does to people I guess.
About the norwegian tgat shot the dog: you can see Clack bandaging the dog in the background, when Copper is stiching up Bennings' leg. So, the norwegian cleary hit the dog, but the dog being the thing, healed fast. Edit: IMDB trivia: "The movie begins with the Thing pretending to be a dog and getting shot. Later, Clark can be seen bandaging the dog in the background This was supposed to launch discussions about its high rate of healing when it shrugs off the bandage, but all further scenes surrounding it were cut; Blair (the team doctor) actually brings it up later when he assumes the Thing is pretending to be Clark, asking just how much time he actually spent with the dog before placing it into the kennel."
You don't want to get too close to that fire because you don't want to sweat in weather that cold. Because of the sub zero temperatures and hanging out of a helicopter - that the Norwegian missed the dig and dropped the grenade is no big surprise. -20 below and lower is no joke.
@@RKnights -20f is also very different from -20c. At -20c, it's only -4f.... -20c is a brisk temp when I am shoveling my driveway up here in Canada. The brutal days are the ones where it gets down to -36c or -40c with wind chill... where flesh freezes in under 2 minutes, and your car seats are like bricks until you warm your vehicle up a good while.
@@KeithDCanadaUsed to work a gas station here in Northern Ontario in the winter it was often -40 without wind-chill and you had to be careful not to touch the metal of the pumps with bare skin.
We don't even know whether the first ship belonged to the creature, or some other alien race it infected. Maybe they crashed here instead of bringing it home.
You know, in defense of the first guys that were missing... they were as stressed out as these guys by the end of the movie. Stess can do a lot to mess you up. Living in Cold: I grew up in the whole "walking uphill in the snow to get to school" climate. I used to get to work early and have to sit in a snow pile waiting to get in. I live in the south now... I still much rather the snow. I don't think it's about where you come from, everyone is just different.
Rob Bottin did the special effects for most of the movie, he would go on to do Robocop movies, Total Recall (1990), Se7en, Fight Club and Game of Thrones.
Hey guys, The Thing (1982) didn't win any academy awards - it actually bombed at theatres, critics hated it, nobody watched it at the cinema, people preferred to watch ET, which came out at the same time, and the movie was shunned and vilified by the industry. It went straight to video where it became a cult movie and now is considered a masterpiece. John Carpenter was punished by Universal studios for the failure of the movie to make any money at the box office by being taken off other movie projects that he was lined up for. So no academy awards guys..!
Great reaction! It is very interesting to see your joint detailed reaction to the films Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope and others. These are cool classic movies 👍🔥
It is very cool! I haven't watched these movies for a long time. I want to review them together with you! I hope your reactions will be detailed and lengthy😃👍
I think Scream is from Wes Craven. There's a prequel back in 2011 (also called The Thing); the development team went through every relevant scene and worked with every detail to make it. Also, this movie was the first of Carpenter's Apocalypse trilogy (others are Prince of Darkness and In the Mouth of Madness).
My theory at the end.....Mac gave Childs a drink of whiskey as a test. Alcohol kills cells...if Childs had a reaction or even refused the drink....but he did neither so he was still human.
You actually do know if it survives in the end... musically. It's as simple as "Peter and The Wolf". Every character has a theme that is used in the characters presence, and the theme we hear in the end, is the theme used for "The Thing". I couldn't tell you which was infected or if the bottle they share is infected, but "The Thing" is there and alive.
Childs, he's the one who's off screen, we follow Mac. I have been on Childs as the thing for decades. I ignore any expanded lore, this is a stand alone movie to me, in my top 5 all time movies and top Horror.
You actually don’t know if it survives at the end because that’s the intention. Carpenter has said he intentionally wanted it to be ambiguous at the end. He does give hints at certain points of the movie if a character is The Thing. For example, when they are doing the testing scene the lighting on the character who is the thing is intentionally different from the rest. Carpenter has said though that he didn’t want to give any hint like that at the end to leave the ending with the sense of paranoia which was strong throughout the movie.
If He wanted it to be ambiguous, then he failed. If "The Things" theme is played then The Thing is there. That's basic storytelling 101 in use of music themes. Just watch Jaws - when the kids prank the beach... no shark theme is heard. That's the "tell" that it is not the shark. Now telling people that he wanted it to be ambiguous is the right move, he leaves it as a Rorschach for the audience. But in story structure, it is not ambiguous. So the choices are - The audience just is not savvy enough to get it or Carpenter just plays fast n loose with his story elements. Yes I know what Carp said, but his product, intentional or unintentionally, says The Thing lives.
I feel that the Thing theme plays not because one of the men is the Thing, but because the Thing wins in the end no matter what. The men freeze and at some point, the base will be investigated and I am sure there are remnants of the things body frozen in the snow somewhere and it will (possibly) infect the investigation/rescue team.
Overwintering in Antarctica leaves you cut off. There are communications now, but the weather prevents travel except at rare moments, which supply and emergency flights are on standby, waiting for. There are stories of a facility doctor directing their own appendectomy, and other surgeries performed remotely over satellite. The maintenance staff is just a skeleton crew to keep things going, but they hire specifically for each season and it's really good money if you can get it, just to sweep floors, cook, or any of the utility trades. It runs as much as $10K/wk, last I heard, overwinter. I dunno what the regular staff and scientists make, but the winter hazard/hardship pay is significant. I believe only the security/military staff have a constant presence.
The dog, according to the extras on the cd, is half wolf. He did all the little pauses etc in the hallway on his own. All they hadta do is keep the camera rolling. I believe they got that hallway sequence in 1 take.
@@RKnights Yes...definitely dramatic license in the film, but based on the story of SEAL Marcus Luttrell in operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2005.
i love the real explosions and fires! 99% of the time the digital ones look unrealistic. and if you want to know what happened to the swedes, i mean the norwegians, watch the prequel from 2011, with mary elizabeth winstead. it's worth it.
4:52 - no, actually cold tends to numb the sensations and you are less likely to feel pain if you get shot in freezing weather. It's kinda like getting wounded in water. Feels significantly less painful.
As a kid when I saw this in the theater, I got really suspicious of my dog when he acted weird. I basically did the blood test on my dog only using some of his hair. Good news: He was not The thing.
Childs in the last scene were not expelling frozen breath, but MaCready was. Macready offered a booze drink to Childs, but Childs should have refused because they had agreed not to share food. MacCready laughed because it was "checkmate"
You can actually see Childs breath, the lighting is just different between him and MacReady so it's harder to notice. But what you said about sharing the bottle may actually be very true and plausible.
Talking about not wear PPI when doing the autopsy, remember this is a research station in the Antarctic. Why would you think they would have that equipment. They are researching geology, Weather patterns, Atmosphere etc, not performing autopsies on Penguins 😉
Come to that, Dynamite yeah that is possible, but Flame Throwers? Serious plothole, which would have worked if they had kept the location in the Arctic like in the original 1938 book or the 1951 movie
@@RKnights It will have similar themes, but with its own story and its own unique elements and twists. It stays loyal to the Kurt Russell version, not breaking that established canon.
"Get the hell away from that thing. That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a Dog, it isn't real! GET AWAY YOU IDIOTS!!" - The Norwegian
You can see how the film still taps into that Reds under the bed mentality, where you don't know who to trust and who was turned. The original 1951 was more relevant for its time in this respect.
Keep in mind that the Norwegian shooter may have been a scientist who had never fired a gun before. You can guess the age by hiw deep in the oce the spaceship was. 1982. The end either has everyone die or if either man was the thing, frozen until "rescued." There was an orihinal from the 1950s. They are watching it in Carpenter's older film Halloween. NJ/NY have winter and tgey have very humid summers. I left NJ for Los Angeles. I enjiy not own a winter coat or gloves and in the summrr taking a shower and drying off once.
@@platinumspider7859no, that’s not true. In interviews, Carpenter has said he wanted no hint at the end who was The Thing to leave the audience with the sense of paranoia and probably also to create these endless debates on whether anyone of the guys is The Thing. You do see the breath of Child’s. And the Thing does breath anyway. And the music is not connected.
@@makasete30 You do see Childs' breath it's just harder, and the music *is* connected. It is the main theme for the Thing. It is the hint from Cameron you are referring to.
He posted this a while after your post "@julienn8844 2 hours ago (edited) Just so everyone knows about my miraculous understanding of the norwegian; i work for Disney in epcot. I picked up some norwegian because of how closely i work with norwegians."
About the guy who is trying to kill the dog at the beginning, it's understandable that the guy miss all the shots on the dog it's very hard to shoot something the helicopter goes very fast just saying...
