Current Events > Writers said The Thing had been all over the galaxy before crashing on earth

(+) Yeah! (+)

That can't be true, because the thing also retains the mass of each thing it absorbs, so by this logic, it should be enormous and have all sorts of crazy parts and shit, but throughout the movie, it mostly shows mangled dog and human parts, only seeming any big at the very end, once it racked up a decent(-ish) kill count. Although it does look more alien at this point.

Even in the prequel, it's frozen in a block of ice and not much bigger than a human, so what happened? Was it getting bitch slapped across the galaxy until it finally found a place it could be sneaky and reproduce?

Also how the fuck does it fly a ship and have unique technology like that, at all? Are you telling me there are "thing" mechanics and shops and stuff where it comes from? It makes no sense, it's shown to be this brutal, instinct-driven, opportunistic hunter, but it's intelligent enough to pilot spacecraft? Major disconnect between what's shown and told. I think crashing to earth as bacteria or a small piece of its original body on a meteorite or something and rapidly evolving by assimilating what it finds is a much less cheesy origin story. I am aware the book it's based on is quite old, so it's from a time when the height of sci-fi was still flying saucers and little green men, but still. It's still a great movie, and a classic, but I think it deserves a proper remake. I'm sick of '20-somethings vs. slasher' movies.

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I assumed it infected the aliens controlling the ship & it then ended up crashing.
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Could have started off really, really small

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iPhone_7 posted...

I assumed it infected the aliens controlling the ship & it then ended up crashing.

Seems sensible, but apparently it's canon that it's actually the thing itself's ship.

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Bad_Mojo posted...

Could have started off really, really small

The things it absorbed would also have had to been really, really small

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Bad_Mojo posted...

Could have started off really, really small

Or lost mass through a variety of ways.

OctilIery posted...

Or lost mass through a variety of ways.

It's just speculation, but it's possible the thing in the movie is just a piece of a much larger thing (or things) that already assimilated whole planets, and this bit was just sent off to infect another planet.

Although I don't know what that really accomplishes regarding its life cycle and reproduction.

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Who gives a shit

It probably left large parts of itself behind because it's easier to fly the ship when it's small.
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There's a little neat bit of fanfiction that explains the issue. Granted, it's fanfiction, but it seems like an acceptable explanation.
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

tl;dr

I was so much more, before the crash. I was an explorer, an ambassador, a missionary. I spread across the cosmos, met countless worlds, took communion: the fit reshaped the unfit and the whole universe bootstrapped upwards in joyful, infinitesimal increments. I was a soldier, at war with entropy itself. I was the very hand by which Creation perfects itself.

So much wisdom I had. So much experience. Now I cannot remember all the things I knew. I can only remember that I once knew them.

I remember the crash, though. It killed most of this offshoot outright, but a little crawled from the wreckage: a few trillion cells, a soul too weak to keep them in check. Mutinous biomass sloughed off despite my most desperate attempts to hold myself together: panic-stricken little clots of meat, instinctively growing whatever limbs they could remember and fleeing across the burning ice. By the time I'd regained control of what was left the fires had died and the cold was closing back in. I barely managed to grow enough antifreeze to keep my cells from bursting before the ice took me.

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Malfunction posted...

Who gives a shit

Anyone who likes the movie? Or cares about plot in movies?

But more importantly, I do. Which is good enough. So shut the fuck up. I don't understand what the point is in saying this shit. Imagine going up to a group of people talking about something, and just butting in with "who gives a shit", lol

Social skills much?

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Meltdown

Fan theory culture and people wanting ever minute detail of self contained films explained have truly ruined media

This is why you do not listen to anything writers say after a movie is out or indulge in prequels or supplementary materials for an ambiguous film. The beauty of the absolute best horror has to offer often comes from the terror and paranoia of not understanding of even fully identifying the threat. The Thing, Alien, The Shining; these are all films that work precisely because the true nature of their threats are unknown and/or unknowable. To explain the motivations, origin, or function of the Thing is to neuter its terror. The xenomorph just arrives from an old ass ruin, and thats all you need to know, because it is all tbe crew knows; their fear is your fear. The Shining doesnt even make it clear what the fuck is happening to the Torrence family, but you know it is bad, and you know it is beyond their understanding.
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Malfunction posted...

Meltdown

Again, shut the fuck up. People are allowed to talk about stuff they're interested in.

Idk what your problem is, but the username checks out

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butthole666 posted...

The xenomorph just arrives from an old ass ruin

that's my problem, there just shouldn't be a spaceship wreck, it takes a scary, animalistic creature and makes it campy

The blob's origin is perfect, I think it was in fact found frozen at a meteor impact site

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Malfunction posted...

self contained films

oh yeah, this, the original movie it's based on, the original book, the prequel in 2011, the video game, and the book's sequel in the works, real self-contained

you don't have to give a shit, just don't talk out of your ass like you know enough to


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Spooking posted...

Anyways, what if the Thing was able to split into multiple parts and go to different planets?

Apparently it can, you see it split into parts in the movie, but idk how it'd fix its spaceship and take off again as a weird human head with spider legs- it's just silliness at that point

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viewmaster_pi posted...

the prequel in 2011, the video game, and the book's sequel in the works

Stuff they churn out on realising they have a potential money spinner isn't really relevant when discussing the original movie. See also:

butthole666 posted...

This is why you do not listen to anything writers say after a movie is out or indulge in prequels or supplementary materials for an ambiguous film

Enjoy your puzzleboxs and meltdowns though

Malfunction posted...

Enjoy your puzzleboxs and meltdowns though

Enjoy being told to shut the fuck up, snapping back because you're mad, and ultimately slinking away with your tail between your legs like a good little shrinking violet.

Next time you have a point to make, try articulating it like an adult instead of just quoting another guy who actually had the social skills to do it

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Lol, Malfunction always comes off as angry and aggressive for no real reason.

So many of these type of posters on here.

viewmaster_pi posted...

Enjoy being told to shut the fuck up, snapping back because you're mad, and ultimately slinking away with your tail between your legs like a good little shrinking violet.

Next time you have a point to make, try articulating it like an adult instead of just quoting another guy who actually had the social skills to do it

I love how this guy is trying to call me mad after about 4 of these same posts lol. Didn't even respond to my very valid point but says I'm slinking away lol

"oh, you say this old movie is self contained? What about the spin offs they thought up 30 years later? Checkmate"

viewmaster_pi posted...

Seems sensible, but apparently it's canon that it's actually the thing itself's ship.

Source? I love The Thing but thats dumb

coh posted...

viewmaster_pi posted...

Seems sensible, but apparently it's canon that it's actually the thing itself's ship.

Source? I love The Thing but thats dumb

I mean...it was building a device to try to escape near the end of the movie. It's not like the creature is mindless. One might argue that it's got the capacity for infinite intelligence, since it can replicate the knowledge and memories of the people/things it absorbs/replaces.
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Malfunction posted...

I love how this guy is trying to call me mad after about 4 of these same posts lol. Didn't even respond to my very valid point but says I'm slinking away lol

I'm not even the only one calling you mad, you seem to have a reputation. You want a response to your very valid point? Try developing a personality trait beyond "bad attitude internet guy" and maybe you can talk about things.

Or I could just dismiss all your posts with "who gives a shit." either way, be VERY careful with your response, i think i smell a melty brewing bro

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Is it really that big of a deal for people to like a thoroughly detailed story? It's one thing to get bothered about someone dismissing a movie for a lack of attention on the smaller things, but to come in with nothing to offer other than unwarranted aggression because someone is yearning for a better understanding?
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viewmaster_pi posted...

Malfunction posted...

I love how this guy is trying to call me mad after about 4 of these same posts lol. Didn't even respond to my very valid point but says I'm slinking away lol

I'm not even the only one calling you mad, you seem to have a reputation. You want a response to your very valid point? Try developing a personality trait beyond "bad attitude internet guy" and maybe you can talk about things.

Or I could just dismiss all your posts with "who gives a shit." either way, be VERY careful with your response, i think i smell a melty brewing bro

You keep making posts where you randomly insult me, my social skills, suggest I am eternally angry all while randomly italicising things and then suggest I am the one who is overly invested in this. Its very strange behaviour.

SailorGoon posted...

Is it really that big of a deal for people to like a thoroughly detailed story? It's one thing to get bothered about someone dismissing a movie for a lack of attention on the smaller things, but to come in with nothing to offer other than unwarranted aggression because someone is yearning for a better understanding?

The only unwarranted aggression here is this guy repeatedly trying to insult me, which is magnitudes more aggressive than me saying who gives a shit.

He does raise a good wider point about attitudes to media in this age, though. Like how if the thing was made today then you'd have 1000s of blog posts dissecting a throwaway line and wondering whether a Thing spinoff was needed to explain the origins behind it or whatever.

I like the idea of The Thing getting it's ass beat all throughout the universe.

Garbage people without any personality lash out at others because they hope being aggressive will cover up all of their glaring shortcomings. But instead it only highlights them. But hey, at least they got some attention that they richly needed.
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My guy hopped on an alt

Malfunction posted...

My guy hopped on an alt

I don't have one alt, let alone five, lol

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Malfunction posted...

Who gives a shit

This, honestly.

And no, The Thing does not need a remake. I wouldnt be opposed to standalone Thing movies, though.
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SailorGoon posted...

Is it really that big of a deal for people to like a thoroughly detailed story? It's one thing to get bothered about someone dismissing a movie for a lack of attention on the smaller things, but to come in with nothing to offer other than unwarranted aggression because someone is yearning for a better understanding?

See my post for why detailed origins can sabotage a film. Sometimes exposition is needed or even just well-done and pleasantly presented without interfering with the film, sometimes it takes your incomprehensible, bloodthirtsy alien being and turns it into an escaped zoo animal or spooky halloween decoration.
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Bandit_Keith posted...

I like the idea of The Thing getting it's ass beat all throughout the universe.

that is actually cool, now that i think about it, like it has no natural defenses in its true form, so it just has to sneak around and take things until its big enough to fight

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Oh did spooking or some other far right account who blocked me say I was a terrible person too, didn't see

au_gold posted...

This, honestly.

Be prepared to get called socially inept and a terrible person

Malfunction posted...

au_gold posted...

This, honestly.

Be prepared to get called socially inept and a terrible person

Yeah, I posted that before reading the meltdown.

Honestly, though, all of this minutiae is pointless and makes the movie and creature less scary.
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My guy hopped on an alt

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For me, it's:

criticizing a movie for lacking specific details is dumb, but being genuinely curious and wanting supplementary content isn't. If you don't care about that stuff and want to enjoy it for what it is, then cool. Do just that. But there's no need to tell someone else to enjoy it the way you do. If they want more then let them have it. It's not like you're forced to watch or read everything that comes out.

That's how I am with Star Wars. I didn't want a Han Solo origin story. I didn't care about those details. However, nobody is holding a gun to my head forcing me to watch it. Same with the ST. I may not like it as much as I did the OT, but guess what? The OT is still there and I'm able to enjoy that independently of everything else.
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I'm only criticizing the inclusion of the spaceship, and absolutely 1,000% the scene where they used a stuffed doll in place of one of the actors to be thrashed around when the thing grabbed him by the head

John Carpenter said he didn't think stop-motion looked good enough to be in the film, but a stunt dummy was? lol

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I can appreciate wanting a universe like Star Wars fleshed out because its a cool fantasy concept. But with horror movies, the less information given the better as far as Im concerned, with very rare exceptions. Like, I thought Prometheus was a great movie, but I look at it as a stand-alone sci-fi adventure and not as an Alien prequel.

Thats just my opinion, though. I couldnt care less if people want more information. I just think the movie wouldve been far less effective if they explained stuff like this.
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Perhaps when it reaches a certain mass, it splits in half. Kinda like a cell dividing. There could be millions of the things (pun intended) roaming the cosmos.
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I never even said I wanted more explained, I said what they did explain was stupid, lol

Most of my questions in the OP are rhetorical, I don't want an explanation for the thing flying a cheesy 80's UFO- I want it to just be omitted altogether

The thing itself as a species is fun to think about, though, and a movie did a good job if it keeps you thinking about it after you're done watching

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My best guess is it either got fucked up in the crash or it left chunks on other planets to take them over

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Yeah, I like the chunk theory best

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You have to keep in mind that its an entirely alien creature. Its idea of proper society, philosophy, etc etc etc are entirely different to ours and its brain works entirely different. To it, humans are fauna of an alien planet that its been stranded on for a very very long time. And considering everything it meets that we see tries to openly kill it in whatever way they can, it probably thinks of the things its doing as trying to defend itself and commandeer the base so it doesnt die in an arctic wasteland

the thing is made a lot cooler to me by the idea that its not just a gibbering body horror monster, its an entirely alien entity in the most extreme ways you can imagine. Its intelligent enough to operate its own ship and to employ subterfuge to survive instead of just kill people at random, but it isnt humanoid in any sense of the term. Its something weird and unknowable to us passing through and trying to survive in its own way like a stranded astronaut from an old sci fi serial

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viewmaster_pi posted...

Also how the fuck does it fly a ship and have unique technology like that, at all? Are you telling me there are "thing" mechanics and shops and stuff where it comes from? It makes no sense, it's shown to be this brutal, instinct-driven, opportunistic hunter, but it's intelligent enough to pilot spacecraft? Major disconnect between what's shown and told.

Nah, I think you are approaching all this with a very human-centric point of view. There is no reason to assume that the Thing has to do things the way we do on Earth, or that it even has any of our motivations other than survival.

Edit: The Thing is one of my favorite movies, so it's always fun to see it pop up in a topic, once in a while.
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the classic "spaceship" trope is just such a human idea, though, you know what i mean? what, do they even have rocket fuel they load it up with and have a cute little alien countdown?

it's just better off without that human element of creating ships and operating technology. i think that kind of alien trope is more suited to things like war of the worlds, where their ships were effectively combine human-harvesters

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viewmaster_pi posted...

it's just better off without that human element of creating ships and operating technology

That's got nothing to do with any external writer commentary, though. In the movie (at least the 80s version) the Thing was making a vessel out of the generator as a means to escape far enough to re-freeze itself in the hopes of being found again.
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