The Thing (2011) Why It Didn't Work 

Shani Van Neck It would make sense if you look at it in the sense that The Thing, when openly attacking the humans at the Norwegian camp, figures out that it wasn't wise to do...so by the time it reaches the American camp it begins trying to hide itself and only attacks when discovered (the other dogs in the kennel, Bennings before he could fully assimilate, MacReady's blood test, when Blair's ship is found.) I hate the CGI, but overall Thing 2011 didn't totally suck...but of course any prequel or sequel to Carpenter's Thing 1982 is going to fall short. That movie is an undeniable classic.

The Thing in this movie is incredibly photogenic. It reminds me of the arcade style shooter games like House of the Haunted Dead, where the monsters are so eager to show you how scary you are. BOOGY WOOGY WOO LOOK HOW SCARY I AM RAWR I SMASH AND KEEL PPL SEE? It's so low brow.

I don't care what you believe, Skycrusher, or don't believe. I was simply trying to make some kind of sense out of why the alien openly attacks humans in the 2011 version and hides itself in the 1982 version. It has nothing to do with it being fucking retarded. Maybe it survived for thousands of years by imitating other life forms that didn't have the ingenuity of humans. Let's assume the Norwegian camp encounter is it's first contact with humans. Maybe it just exposed itself to the other beings and bulldozed them, but it finds out that Earthlings fight back with fire and explosives and shit when it shows itself... so by the time it hits the U.S. camp as the dog it's gonna lay low. Yeah, it learned something. Not too far fetched. Not saying it's right or wrong, just trying to fix the prequels' fuck up in story continuity. btw, not a Halo Gen kid... my first video game was Pong. You thought the movie sucked. That's fine. I happen to like it, that's fine too. It's not a great movie, but a nice take on the 82 version and the events that happened just prior to it. The CGI did suck, I will agree with that.

I'm glad the movie was made, for what it's worth. Even if it didn't live up to my expectations.

Except...the alien is a shapeshifter and stealth normally comes as part of the package. The producers of the film just wanted to appeal to the lowest denominator - loads of gore, fire, bullets - less emphasis on script, characters, eeriness etc

Same

It always made me feel like the Goblin song from Dawn of the Dead 78

Yup, that and The Shining score.

@@yasmin8851 I swear to god there was a scene in The Thing that had music ripped straight from the Shining.

ricomajestic absolutely. That’s the only person that should of done it

Yeah and maybe there probably wouldn't be as much CGI in the movie and maybe even more better story line and why these things(no pun intended) would make more sense and why the speed on the things would be a bit more slower

@@megancook8095 There would be the same amount of CGI. Fuckin production layered cgi over the practical effects and the team were only notified of it until AFTER the premier.

BcallingDB Hahaha! I love it dude! Funny!

BcallingDB LMFAO. So right.

Oh god.

Look at the shot of the monster under the building in the dark its real FX and it looks awesome. The rest is shitty CG

Can't you also say that The Thing from 1982 doesn't work by that logic? I don't believe that at all, but I'm just going by your logic.

@@TheOneTheyCallFrost if only you knew that there was already another Thing movie in the 1950s

If only they would have kept CGI as support for practical effects, instead of replacing ALL of the practical effects with CGI 100%. Big Mistake.

Lars is a God, i liked his character a lot. And now i'm sad knowing he died at the american base

And Kate

I said the same thing.

@@jackmedlock5888 Kate was terrible. Over the top, flawless, perfection. Boring.

@@guanoguy4800 Mary Sue

To be fair, Carpenter's recent movie(The Ward) was trash and could arguable be worse than the Thing 2011.

They should have Consulted Rob and John for the project but like the uploader said, the people working on the effects for the film had a lot of there work replaced with CGI to start with so unlikely that would have changed much. What I think they should have done and would have been cool, is hire both Rob Bottin AND Rick Baker to work effects on the film, the rules. they can't use effects that were around after 1986. NO CGI PERMITTED, and they'd just would not show what they feel looked silly, because a lot of what makes 80's films so good, they never show too much, a lot of things are hidden in darkness. If they would have did that and made the film look like from the era too. It could have been sold as a great horror film. That said I'm still glad the did it, I ALWAYS wondered what happened to the Norwegians in the first movie, how everything went down. Granted a movie with that Special Effects team would have been pricey and cool to see.

The CGI was bad, but the movie lacks on everything, including logic. I'm suppose to believe the thing could have restart his ship all this time but instead it purposely send a signal and bury itself into the snow so 800 thousand years later another intelligent specie would find it? That is fucking dumb

Jonathan According to the comics(which both films are based on),The Thing actually had hands,eyes,and mouth so...it is definitely possible that they have controlled the spaceships. Besides,the Thing itself wasn't inside the crashed spaceship but aliens who had the virus(aka The Thing)... It's also possible that the alien who had the virus used the spaceship to,send a signal.I mean,what else could the alien have used?The Thing was actually kinda intelligent if you read the comics,I can tell you haven't.

@@whyismylifeweird4251 I have read the comics. They are pretty. But they too ignore the logic of assimilation as defined by the movie.

Sorta the same thing that happened to Rick Baker on The Wolfman...it was supposed to be his chance to one up his own work on American Werewolf, but the studio stepped all over him with the shitty CGI. I'm usually a big fan of director Joe Johnston, but if he's the one who voted for digital over practical then he was just plain wrong...

No it doesn't

Don't really care much for CGI, especially for this movie. But one of the "drawbacks" of practical effects is that they are time consuming in construction and to use in shooting a scene on location, Time was something that was a luxury for Carpenter and Rob Bottin. They had one year to plan, shoot, and edit the movie for theatrical release. Whereas director Van Heijningen was given barely half of that time to complete The Thing'11.

Exactly. It just proves their lazy.

@@frizen9328 - Well yeah...but that was after the fact. They intended on using practical effects...tried it...didnt work..so they had to go to CGI...at least so they thought!

@@arthurhall8238 Seems they were forced to go for CGI effects: "There's no getting around it: the CGI effects found in The Thing 2011 look really, really bad. This is made all the more frustrating by the fact that the actual creature designs are inspired, and would look right at home around the tentacled monstrosities found in John Carpenter's The Thing. The designs were created by Amalgamated Dynamics (or Studio ADI), a prominent effects house founded by Tom Woodruff Jr and Alec Gillis, proteges of effects icon Stan Winston. Originally though, they weren't just designing the creatures. Studio ADI actually created a ton of amazing looking animatronic monsters for the prequel, and the film was shot with those practical effects intact. In interviews given prior to The Thing 2011's release, director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and writer Eric Heisserer boasted about how proud they were of the prequel going practical, with only slight CGI enhancements made to Studio ADI's creations. That was until Universal demanded the film undergo heavy reshoots, including a new ending, and that new CGI effects be overlaid on top of the existing practical effects, effectively erasing them."

Thanks Stevan.

The bad side of being born in 1978...

+I. C. Monteiro lol, what's that suppose to mean?

That I was a child when the movie was in theaters.

I saw the 82' film too in the theater and had two teen lesbians making out two seats in front of me and had trouble watching the film and them LOL. I must say the 82' version was very different than most horror films I seen since the genre was Friday the 13th and seen Escape from NY a year or so before so was a Carpenter fan . The 2011 was an okay film , it had flaws like the ship was supposed to had been blown up by thermite bombs but in the2011 film it was in good shape . I didn't see it in the theater either but bought the DVD/ Bluray on sale and found the end satisfying .

No, we just don't really care. Explain how the woman being in the movie ruins the fear

@@nate6360 the Carpenter movie made the hostile environment a character itself. The 2011 prequel, by easily flying in and out with women (at a time when there were only men at the American outpost), it lessens the dangerous, oppressive setting.

Is it just me or, can anyone else not take critics seriously??? Remember the old saying those who can't, teach!!!

Some of the greatest minds have been teachers! Albert Einstein and Isaac Newton were both university professors!

the critics are unfair and I cannot understand why. Much worse films are passed as masterpieces and this has mostly negative reviews. As far as box-office failure is concerned well sometimes you are at wrong end of the stick. but in think with time The (new) Thing will get its due from the fans if not the critics.

We didnt need to see inside that ship. 🤦‍♂️

also, what were those floating cubes? they looked awful

@@davidkonevky7372 I'm not sure, but it sure was disappointing. Looked like a 90s cg render. All pixelated. Lmao. Then the main thing, with dudes face on it was terrible too. Wish the studio didnt overlap the practical effects. But oh well. 🤷‍♂️

Also the Thing creatures are completely incompetent at killing the lead character because she has plot armor. The "boss" one inside the ship should've just jumped on her after knocking her to the ground and assimilated her right there. Or just grabbed her and killed her like we see Blair Thing do to Garry in the 1982 film.

I sign!

Me too

I give the 2011 movie a 4.9/10 and 0.1+. Cuz sanders talks danish so 5/10

Rodzilla nah I haven’t seen it in a while

Ya that's why it's called...science fiction

@@odsonic what kind of reasoning is that??

@@darkphoenix00001 it means you don't have dissect every bit from a movie that's based on science fiction...otherwise you may as well spend the rest of your days going back to every sci film movie you've ever watched and write down the flaws

@@odsonic science fiction doesn't mean you completely throw logic and previously established knowledge out the window whenever it's convenient for the plot. in comparison, the 1982 film was much better in this regard.

@@darkphoenix00001 that's the problem ..people today compare too harshly with what they see nowadays...its all science..fiction ...means they can make up whatever they want..besides nobody does practical effects anymore or at least the way they did it back in the day ..in my opinion this movie and Dredd are 2 of the best re visits from my childhood

There is a really good analysis on why the cgi did not work in the 2011 film. There is a channel called rob ager/coallative learning(he has two channels). He discusses the make up, blood coloring, lighting, cgi lighting, the thing not being scary, the transformations not being intimidating enough.(one example is how the 1982 thing has jaws to show a strong bite force while in the prequel there are teeth in the design but these teeth are not attached to strong jaws.)

I agree. The story and writing of this film was fucking terrible. The Thing's portrayal was awful but even if it was good, it wouldn't have saved a terrible movie.

Nah i DEMAND good special effects in EVERY movie that has 'em. Power Rangers or bust...ZHOOSSSHHHH!!!!!! KAPOWWWWW!!!!! FIZZZLLEEEEE!!!! BOOOOOOOM!!!!!

kkknotcool very true.

It takes a while to produce cgi so yea to shit on it is just as lazy. American werewolf in lo don was praised for its special effects, but today we can produce practical effects so much better its laughable now.

He didnt blame cgi for being the only reason the movie was bad, he simple portrayed it as something that added to the overall poor quality of the movie.

...at the end. Yes. The last 8 seconds of the film. That's what I found the most RIDICULOUS about this waste of film.

Also The Thing and Ghostbusters were products of their time; a time when filmmakers didn't always have to pander to audiences and didn't have to deal with the terrible PG-13 rating. Critics during the 80's constantly complained about the quality of cinema during the decade and how much they wanted cinema to go back to the artistry of the 70's. But the irony is that most of those critics look at the 80's as a golden age now because of all of the terrible remakes and reboots today.

I don't get where he took new clothes 😅

Same here I loved it as well. Great tribute to one of the best films made.

yes. it was a great hommage. you can even see when the axe is slamed in the wall. the one that curt russel briefly looks on in the original. such things are great. there is absolutly no need to be salty about this flick.

Stefan Griebling No, just, no.

+CageCat Whats wrong, does someone have a differing opinion? Cry somewhere else

The God of Destruction Beerus No, just, no.

If you watch them back to back it does seem redundant; but there was a way that the prequel could have worked. If it showed the Thing alien actually making mistakes in the prequel like showing it self too much or trying to imitate people who weren't that important (non scientists and non pilots) then it could have been interesting. It would have shown that the alien is intelligent and is much smarter and deadlier when it gets to the American camp. And the prequel should have ended like Night of the Living dead where the hero is abruptly killed after surviving the monsters. The lead character should have been Lars and the last shot of the film should have been his body.

Sure, yeah - except, I wouldn't have gotten so (?) invested with this film as it's apparent from the opening scene (look and feel) what it'll be like (sub-par :))

Sean McDougall But the thing does make mistakes, just like you did making this video without actually watching the movie a bunch of times. The monster clearly makes a lot of mistakes and shows itself unneccisarily. Not even my grandma would miss that detail, so why would you?

you have right,my friend

Your opinion doesn't count. Thanks for playing the Internet... you LOSE!

metimoteo Well, opinions without a single hint of truth are lies.

david snyder I don't believe someone is braindead because they disagree with you. Regardless of who directed it, whether it be Carpenter or not, the film had a 50/50 chance. There have been many respected director who've pulled a Lucas, and went full digital effects. Other times people simply weren't into a "better" film from the original director because what goes for scary now has changed based on the generation themselves. Yes, Carpenter's work is amazing, but he made The Thing during a time when thrillers and space monster films weren't considered cheesy. If he were to have directed it himself there still would've been a 50/50 chance of it being well received by movie goers and horror fans, based on the difference in what frightens horror fans today.

yes350yes When you say you liked that film, it doesn't say 'I have my own opinion', it says 'I have terrible taste in films'.

Sounds like Monday morning quarterbacking to me.

Sean McDougall That is what his excuse was for changing continuity. He also forgot about the Kerosene cans next to Splitface body, as they are there in the 82 film but not there in the prequel.

Well, I could forgive the gas cans but the thermite was inexcusable.

Blimey. They even blew the spaceship out of the ice with thermite in the 50's 'Thing From Another World' film, IIRC. _They_ thought it was possible. Did they do it in the original 'Who Goes There?' story?

Never heard of Deer Hunter. Is it good?

Don't forget The Exorcist.

Thanks for watching, sorry for the late reply. Also thank you for your service.

EXACTLY

I mean... rogue one came out after 2015 soooooo... Although yes, I do concur

Agree one of the best of the trilogies

Yeah, Rogue One was done exceptionally well, but it's one of the rare prequels that got it right. He is right about the prequel thing. It's hard to get people excited about what's going to happen when you already know what's going to happen. God bless everyone.

MrSlyxx The Sanders-Thing? When I first saw it, I ended up laughing so much that I begged to please get rid of the face. Seriously, it felt like trying to pay homage to the Blair-Thing but ended up a laughing stock on how stupid it looked😂