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THE THING prequel trailer hits!
Hey folks, Harry here... I'm wildly curious about this film. Quint came back from set really enthused by the practical effects wonders he saw in operation on this set - and I do like the cast they have, though I feel strongly that no film could top Carpenter's original, which in my opinion is still one of the most uniquely awesome horror science fiction films ever made. But the word I'm hearing is very good. This could be fantastic. It could also be not that great, but I choose to be excited. I love the shot of the saucer under the ice with the lights going. SO COOL, same saucer. Like that. Obviously they can't show us what we really are waiting to see in a Green Band trailer - but we're going to go there. I can't wait!
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Mary Elizabeth Winstead is the warmest place to hide! THE THING prequel trailer hits!
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NOTHING on that?? A bunch of pics released, trailer next week. :(
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Not as bad as i was expecting. But looks like they are doing the exact same story that is in carpenters.
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Love that it looks like it is related to Carpenters film despite the age gap since that one was made.
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Right. This sounded redundant from the beginning and the trailer makes it looks even more redundant. A crappy rehash of the original classic. Between this and total recall I feel like projectile vomiting.
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I wish this felt more like a period piece, and perhaps it will. If they succeed with creating a great atmosphere and mood, then they're halfway there.
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Granted I haven't seen Carpenter's film in years, but this looks like the SAME EXACT plot. How is this a prequel to the original? This looks like a standard remake.
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FACT.
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It just seems all so familiar...the shot of the dog tearing at the fence to escape...haven't we seen this before? Flame throwers?
I do like some of the call backs to the ORIGINAL...and by original I mean the 1951 version, like the block of ice...
Do I hear some classic Carpenter music in this? I like that.
Eh...that's basically all I feel. -
..GREAT!
Really has a feel for Carpenters film. Which, lets face it, is the best horror movie of the last 30 years!
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Jul 14, 2011 1:50:23 PM CDT
Woman added in the name of political correctness...
by turd_has_risen_from_the_gravy
one of the 'things' that made The Thing work was that it was an aggressive, paranoid all-male cast constantly at each other's throats. Oh, and they were all older ADULTS, not twenty something pretty boys/ girls, too.
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Jul 14, 2011 1:51:09 PM CDT
This looks like virtually the same movie but with a chick.
by skycrapper_deuce
Give me some Kurt Russel, I don't care about the Norway team.
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Should be something that indicates it is what it is,a prequel, not a remake of Carpenter's work or a new version of the original story.
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Jul 14, 2011 1:52:35 PM CDT
If you didn't know this was a prequel, you'd never be able to tell
by dr.weird
I wish they'd make it a little more clear that this isn't a direct remake, I think most people will instantly write it off if they think it's one of those Platinum Dunes-esque modernizations of a classic. Although, to be fair, it could end up being exactly one of those.
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I cannot WAIT to see this...
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I completely agree:
Dogs chewing the fence to escape, 'Burn it!', the scene around the creature on the table 'What was it doing to him?'.
I wonder if, like Carpenter's version, it'll be crapped on by everyone upon release and praised a decade later. -
I'm worried about those EW pics though. Gwen knows he's Spider-Man! What - the - fuck?
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THIS ISN'T EVEN A PREQUEL, IT'S THE SAME MOVIE BEAT FOR BEAT. fuck that. fuck this whole cynical cash grab mentality. you guys want to pay for this utter tripe, go ahead and waste your money. i will NEVER support this.
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...the "original" is the short story called "Who goes there?" by John Campbell.
In the other TB, people suggested that as a title and I tend to agree..."Who goes there?"...such a great title given the context...(though if this movie dives, it would be unworthy of the title, etc)... -
No Kurt Russel, corny replacement of a female for the lead (surrounded by grimy men that look like a cross between extras from Deliverance and Planet of the Apes).
Wake me when it's over.
Also, that girl bores the shit out of me. -
but if it is, I don't get it. You know they all die, and you know what the "thing" is, so what is the point. Where is the drama?
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That's a remake. There was nothing prequel about that.
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I liked the first part of the trailer - it looks like the movie sets the scene pretty well.
However the dialogue-free half of the trailer (and perhaps this will mirror the second half of the movie) was pretty dodgy.
Will the female lead be strong enough for us to care about her?
Will the Norwegian guys be a distinct enough ensemble that hold our interest so we care when they get picked off?
Will the action and fx be up to par, because the action stuff in the trailer looked weak? -
It looks like, beat-for-beat, a repeat of Carpenter's film with a woman in Kurt Russell's place. I don't see why this is needed. Hell, it even seems to have the dog scene. Why couldn't they bring something new to the table?
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was as important to that film as the effects and the pacing. It helped build the tension and heighten the creepiness factor. I'm glad to hear a hint of it towards the end there, but it should definitely be prominent thru out this film.
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Jul 14, 2011 1:57:37 PM CDT
d. vader, i think the blond bearded guy is the guy from NCIS Los Angeles ...
by ragingfluff
.. and yes, I am embarrassed by the fact that I recognise him
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Looks like the exact same story with Winstead in the Kurt Russell role. It even has the same title. Did they just not want to openly call it a remake because they thought it would upset fans of the original?
It’s really dumb that Americans seem to be running the Norwegian camp and they are all speaking English.
I think I would have preferred them to have just done a straight-up remake. It would have been more intellectually honest. -
John Carpenter's masterpiece.
This new film is another decaffeinated remake without soul..... -
Though, what are the chances that the events in the swedish (or whatever skandinavien country they came from) camp wasn't at least similar since they surely have dogs, magnesium torches and what not?! I just hope they don't reiterate the bloodtest with the hot wire. An I HATE americans being shoehorned in every movie because US citizens cant't relate to foreign main cast. shhh
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Jul 14, 2011 2:02:53 PM CDT
Calling it 'The Thing' is the easiest and best thing to do...
by huskerdu2
...as it works for both audiences - the people who know the Carpenter 'original' and for the new audience that come with no baggage.
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Jul 14, 2011 2:03:38 PM CDT
Mountains of Madness can't get off the ground but this can
by skycrapper_deuce
That's why TV is kicking your asses Hollywood!
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I don't want anything touching Carpenter's. This tells the story of the Norwegians... if Winstead doesn't speak Norwegian, or survives somehow... well, that'd put it on the suck pile for me. But to see the burned-out shell MacReady and Doc entered in one piece has me psyched to see what they've done. They seem to have the paranoia, but this is made for a different audience. A lot of the awful happens off-camera in the first one; you're infer what happened or you see something horrible, like a person being cocooned in tendrils from the Thing. I'm cautiously optimistic.
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But I've seen this movie done better before. Shit.
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It's called 'The Thing' for fuck sake. Y'know, like the original. They're killing two birds with one stone: Brand recognition and geek fan hyperbole.
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This is pathetic. They made the same movie for modern audiences. If they don't ALL DIE at the very end, this will have fucked with the impact of the original Thing. Those who say to forgive because Carpenter improved on Hawks with his, I say THEN WHY TRY AGAIN?? Is this REALLY going to be anything compared to JC's The Thing??? Yeah? Well fuck you too!
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From the trailer it did look like we were getting rather a lot of Winstead.
I'm not sure she's a compelling enough presence to carry a movie on her slender shoulders... somehow i don't feel that she's the next Sigourney Weaver. -
I love the original, of course. This trailer works.
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Same scene with the dog chewing through the fence. Same scene with the two groups holding guns in the hallway on the opposite side of the door. Same animated cell sequence (updated graphics). This isn't a prequel. And that actress is terrible... jesus.
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...it looks like it includes a lot of scenes aping
the Carpenter version...which will just make
me think of the better original experience.
Carpenter remade a film an surpassed it...
doubt that will happen here.
Plus, too many generic looking white guys to
not care about.
In the original you had so many great character
actors that made the paranoia come alive
(Russell, David, Brimley, Dysart, Masur,
etc.)...even TK Carter put forth his 2nd
finest work as an actor, next to his 'The Corner'
performance, as scared shitless, rollerboogie
guy.
Also, Winstead seems too young for the
scientist/researcher part she's playing.
...when I do watch this on streaming...I'll
be keeping a deathwatch countdown clock
going for Adebisi, cause we all know...
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Yeah, we all think of Carpenter's film highly, and we all tend to forget the original 50's carrot monster version, but who cares if it's a remake as long as it's good?
I do have issues with naming it the same. Are we sure it's not meant to be a remake? It doesn't seem like a prequel at all. And won't people who aren't in the know just assume it's a remake? And what happens when this has been out for ten years and is sitting on the shelf at a video store (assuming there are still video stores in ten years) next to the 80's and 50's version? They should at least give it a title like The Thing: first contact, or something.
And yeah, let me join in to the "WTF is up with not having Spider-man pics yet" club. Peter has the suit on and is being cleaned up by Gwen. WTF? Gwen knows his secret? -
Remakes are the greatest invention since the creation of fire.
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and the chick WILL survive,this is HW we are talking here,they are not trying to revive this franchise if they didnt have sequels in their mind.
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Movies are much better when watched with glasses that dull the picture but make the image pop out at you.
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was holding out hope that they might do something at least a bit "clever" with this - but this just looks like "The Thing"...but just a bit out of whack...and well...the same...and so...why bother?
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Jul 14, 2011 2:12:33 PM CDT
Looks "good," but that's because it is a photocopy of Carpenter's!!!
by george newman
Seems to be prequel in name only. Okay, so the alien is in an ice cube that melts, like in the original. Fine, but all the rest uses story beats from the remake: Dogs, flamethrower, charred alien body half-transformed...
If this thing was going to be a true prequel, then they should all be speaking Norwegian or whatever. -
..is Kurt Russell.
What? He's not dead? oops, my bad.
And RAGINGFLUFF, with all of the crap that's on primetime these days, NCIS:LA is not something to be embarrassed about. While it ain't no original NCIS, it still ain't something to hide from. -
how can anyone get excited over this fucking trailer. prequel my ass. petty fucking people trying to ruin a godly original...(goes to get flamethrower)
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Jul 14, 2011 2:17:30 PM CDT
LOL at this being called a prequel. its identical to JC's
by melgibsoncalledmethenword
fucking hilarious. this is a remake. stop calling it a prequel.
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Jul 14, 2011 2:18:31 PM CDT
If it was a "prequel" it wouldnt fucking take place in the year 2011.
by melgibsoncalledmethenword
look at their clothes, hairstyles...this did not preceed the original or JC's version.
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chasing a dog, or it's not a true prequel. And another thing, if they are going to bring American scientists into a Norwegian camp, why not call on Kurt Russel's team to go over and help them since it's "theoretically" in the same timeline as JC's Thing?
This has nothing but stink written all over it. -
That was cool about the original. The ugly motherfuckers looked like they could survive at the most inhospitable place on earth. The cold was just as much of a problem as the monsters. Now this chick is running outside in a top. The primitve geek parts of my brain find it kinda cool (I liked The Thing, so more The Thing must be a good Thing.) But I don't think the creators get why The Thing is such an awesome movie in the first place.
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She gives birth to Kurt Russell in the last scene. We're all good.
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This looks like it will be a fun ride, though, the trailer lacks the overall atmosphere that has made the Carpenter film a classic. I agree with others and it looks like a beat for beat re-telling of Carpenters, not so sure about that. Making a female the main character doesn't make it a different movie.
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Between this and the Evil Dead remake publicity release and that crappy John Carter teaser, I feel like my head is going to explode. Worst movie news week ever.
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you're a stupid cunt and a SHILL, there's nothing you won't support.
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I was imagining a film set in the late 40's or 50's...When Kurt Russell's character Mac would have been a boy in Iowa somewhere...that the whole Norweigen compound had laid dormant for 30 years BEFORE the era that Carpenter's classic takes place.
There's nothing in that trailer that suggests this is in any way a "prequel". It looks to be set in 2010....Years AFTER MacReady and his team encounter the menace.
But now we know. Typical Hollywood double speak. You say "Prequel"....everyone says..."Huh...what?"...You say REMAKE....and we got a panic on our hands on the 4th of July!
The title "The Thing" is the biggest clue. It should be "The Thing: Origins"....or "The Thing Begins". They didn't even TRY to set this film apart from Carpenter's version.
Big mistake. The backlash will be huge. If their plan was to keep people from saying "Remake? Why bother?"...It has just failed. Because all I'm thinking right now is....
REMAKE? WHY BOTHER?!! -
...John Carpenters version was shit hot, and the trailer gave nothing away. You didn't know who was infected, you had to go along for the ride.
In that respect, this trailer gives far too much away; we don't need to be told who will die or get infected, we want to discover it for ourselves.
I shant compare this to Carpenter- his is one of my top 10 movies ever. But I shall go and see it. -
But really, why do we need this movie? If it really added something interesting to the Carpenter story, then fine.
The saucer lights? Not enough.
This should have been like an Ingmar Bergman-directed horror movie. Almost no dialogue. Bleak. And no fucking Americans! -
Jul 14, 2011 2:29:39 PM CDT
I'm gonna guess there's a good reason they don't call the American camp...
by d.vader
They want to keep the discovery to themselves and would rather pay to fly in "experts" from America rather than involve the Americans right down the road.
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but why do they always have to show a chick being dragged off-screen screaming at the end of
modern day trailers? -
Aaaaaand every fan of the Carpenter film slams their head into the monitor. What a totally underwhelming trailer for a film whose story is made redundant by the film it swears it's not remaking.
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It might just be good marketing... but I'm actually intrigued now.
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Jul 14, 2011 2:36:08 PM CDT
As much as I have a general disinterest in prequels, this does indeed look like Carpenter's "The Thing".
by the reluctant austinite
I enjoyed the subtle use of Morricone's original score. I agree with most of the TalkBackers above that even though this is about the first Norwegian camp, this looks more like a prequel by way of remake. Hell, Dean Cundey could have shot this thing! But that's not a bad thing; it makes the sweet bells of nostalgia ring. I hate the prequel idea only because I know everyone must die unless they create some sort of scenario for the American girl to escape, but seeing as much of Carpenter's original copied in this trailer as I do, I expect a similar downbeat resolution.
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Jul 14, 2011 2:37:57 PM CDT
Smart money says only one guy is going to be NoRWEGIAN
by theycallmemrtibbs
and the Dog
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What a waste of time and resources. This never should have been green-lighted.
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It doesn't look like they did anything original other than changing the main character to a female. Pointless. I'd rather watch the original and save the money.
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Considering it is a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing...this trailer gives as much hope as can be to the notion that this move might just be good.
Yes, it definitely draws similarities to Carpenter's film in certainly scenes, but even in those scenes, it at least looks like they've gotten the atmosphere right.
Carpenter's Thing is one of my favorite films, probably the seminal horror movie of my time. IT not only made me a lasting fan of the genre, but made me aware of Carpenter, and his works from even before my time.
Maybe it will be more original than the trailer suggests, maybe it won't. But even if they are just copying Carpenter, they are copying Carpenter when he was at his absolute best.
With the laundry list of bad prequels and remakes steadily rolling out these days, copying Carpenter could probably still produce a better movie than most of what is out there.
If you judge this film on only the teaser, and not the finished product, you probably shouldn't be spending so much time on AICN, because you aren't that true a cinema fan.
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well we know no one survives anyways..
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...makers of movie trailers? If you DIDN'T do the after-title quick scream that's in EVERY FUCKING HORROR TRAILER NOW. I swear the people that do posters and movie trailers are often the bottom of the creative barrel.
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...borrowed some visuals from ALIEN... but could be fun.
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Too many people are writing off this film, if this movie didn't pay its respects to the original like it is, then you'd all be bitching about that too.
Someone could have easily survived, it takes place two days before the 1982 film.. -
I'm still not happy that this was made. Since a huge part of the coolness of the Carpenter version comes from the scenes of the ruined Norwegian camp where you just see the aftermath and have to wonder what the hell could have done all this. Why were they trying to kill that dog?! What the hell is going on? Now the audience will know everything that happened before the movie starts. No suspense. No confusion. You aren't taking the same ride as the characters. <<p This is the worst kind of prequel/sequel.. the kind that ruins the original, just like Highlander 2.
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....and I have to admit, I'm kind of excited. I hope this is good.
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Jul 14, 2011 2:52:42 PM CDT
The creators of this dreck obviously dont get what made JC's The Thing so great!
by the_hawaiian_stallion
I mean for fuck's sake they show at least 3 people who are taken over by The Thing through out the movie... Good god that destroys much of what made the original so suspenseful and disturbing.
You had no clue who the Thing really was and everyone became so incredibly paranoid because of that fact.
When the trailer shows you several of the characters already under its influence... well what's the point?
I'm also willing to bet the chick is not going to be possessed but its so obvious it once again hinders any effect this movie may have had.
That and as many others have said, it looks like a rehash not a prequel. I wont call it a remake because remakes at least try to you know, remake a movie, not just do it all over again with younger better looking actors. Give me a break... AICN you're actually excited for this crap? -
I agree with you 100%.
After all, Carpenter's film begins with some obviously still breathing Norweigan's trying to stop the The Thing from reaching Kurt Russel and Co.
Who's to say someone else didn't/doesn't survive. Just because it's not explained doesn't mean it isn't possible.
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I must have missed that on the National Geographic specials.
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AVP + Whiteout = this thing
BOO. -
Her being casted is pretty great IMO..she's a lot more respectable than most female actors in horror.
There's a photo of the Norwegian team from the 82 film...with TWO females in it, so naysayers know your info before you talk shit. -
Right?
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Please, please...shut the fuck up.
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They're Norwegian, Mac.
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Jul 14, 2011 3:05:46 PM CDT
Anyone griping about this one is doing it for the sake of being a twat..
by hint_of_smegma
No. No fucking way. Save the negativity for the shitty Fright Night remake, or any one of a number of shitty movies.....but we've been waiting for the trailer, we finally get it, and it delivers. Big time. So far the gripes have been pathetic. Good looking actors? Winstead, yes even when they try to dress her down, she's gorgeous. But the guys all looked like they fit the movie, it was a million miles away from the trend of casting models. The fact Winstead's in it at all, well numb nuts there were women at research stations even in 81. The most hilarious gripe so far has been - "it's looking too much like the original". Ummm wtf??? After all these years where we've wanted another installment, we get one and it looks like a genuine prequel based on what happened at the Norwegian camp, quite obviously similar territory, and that's the gripe?? Are you fucking kidding me? It looks like Carpenter shot it, it looks like it fits, it's got good tension, good actors, a minimum of crappy cgi....and we're complaining because it's like the original??
Any talkbacker coming up with any of those gripes is a twat. A cunt. A fucking moron who is only talking shit because they can. When we finally get a good scifi, and a good follow up to one of the best ever made, we should be egging it on. Not acting like emo fucks who hate the world "just because". -
Jul 14, 2011 3:07:18 PM CDT
What really sucks is that Carpenter's Thing is no longer avail on DVD...
by executor
...or Blu Ray or TV or to download. And all existing copies of it will stop working immediately when this movie is released.
Oh. No? Sorry? WHAT?!?!?! You can actually still watch the Kurt Russell "Thing" in addition to/instead of this one? Unbelievable!!!!! I never would have thought that based on all these crybaby nerd comments.
Stupid whiners. Get a grip. You're raping my talkback.
Thank you. -
This looks great.Count me in.Even got the
eurovision song contest contender for norway
1981.Im impressed. -
Jul 14, 2011 3:15:28 PM CDT
What a surprise. Girls role is to dissapprove of everththing
by knobules
Typical.
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So much for all this "prequel" talk; there might be some connection at the end but the trailer is full of shots stolen right out of the Carpenter movie.
I'm let down big time -- this looks like a CGI-infested remake for people who never saw Carpenter's film. -
...clearly perturbed.
I have nothing to add, as everybody seems to have addressed the same issues I had watching the preview.
BTW, did anybody else think the guy at 1:32 looked like Simon Pegg's evil twin?
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Sounds like it's going to be totally by the numbers adding women to the movie just because modern horror audiences are used women screaming their heads off in horror films. The Thing deserves better than that. Looks like a case of pouring the same thing in a different glass too.
It'll blow by as fast as Whiteout did at the BO. -
But this looks really decent considering that I am a really BIG fan of Carpenter's 1982 film. I got to see it with my middle sister one month before it opened to the general public in NYC and I loved it since then. I was of course filled with dread when I heard about this so-called "prequel" but I am curiously delighted on how it will play out as a whole. I remain optimistic till I see the entire film.
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Thanks very much.
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Jul 14, 2011 3:23:18 PM CDT
This is one of the summer movies that I was most excited about...
by wacko3205
Then it got bumped to October & my hopes kinda fell due to the fact that I read that they were ramping up the practical magic effects with some CG BS...& my interest got a swift hard kick in the arse...then I read some really intense interviews here there & yonder that reinvigorated my excitement...& finally the trailer...that puts my expectations back to the top of the pile.
I'm praying that this movie meets MY hype because I can't wait to visit the Thing's forays in our universe. -
...may be because it looks like an exact copy/paste of the Carpenter original (discovery, ice,dog,first morph, exact same sets, etc..)
Nevertheless, better that than some bullshit prequel, at least this looks decent. -
Jul 14, 2011 3:26:10 PM CDT
Creature pops out of hiding to drag a screaming person off to his/her death. VERY ORIGINAL!
by jawsfan
Directing horror well is a SKILL, not a science. Copying what came before you and sticking to overused tropes and cliches is NOT the way to make a good horror film.
But it doesn't have to be good. It just has to have a good opening weekend. -
Jul 14, 2011 3:27:14 PM CDT
LISTEN UP, everyon. "Your" does NOT mean "you are". "You're" means "you are". FUCKING LEARN IT!
by jawsfan
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Don't have all day to wait.
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Always a great way to start off your post. [golf clap]
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I think I may have been misunderstood here. I am looking foward to this movie!
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Jul 14, 2011 3:28:33 PM CDT
looks like an inferior rehash of the first movie with more jump scares...PASS
by billy_d_williams
fuck this remake, get the rose colored glasses off your eyes people.
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Jul 14, 2011 3:29:01 PM CDT
does look like a straight remake, however gotta admit, that very quick shot of the alien saucer was cool
by swivile bobble fizz fizz
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Those beats over the title card seem like they're ripped right out of Morricone's score... I love that.
They seem to really have nailed the tone with this one, and the cast is great. But had I not known that this was a prequel, I'd be 99.9% sure that this was a remake based on this trailer. The dog gnawing at the fence, the flamethrowers, etc... they're all beat-for-beat from Carpenter's film.
I hope this film presents enough original ideas to really distinguish itself as a prequel and not remake... because everything else about it looks pretty good to me. -
Nurgh, its too similar...
Nurgh, they added a woman and its different...
Nurgh, its not got the same music..
Nurgh the CGI head looks bad...
You guys should listen to yourselves some times.
Why have an American and they speak English? - because it will highten the tension when the Norwegian only speakers are paranoid and you cannot understand what they are saying, and they are argueing, and they may turn on each other.
We know what happens to them... any one that thought Carpenters was going to have a happy ending would have been disapointed. We all knew they would die, it was just a grim ride till we saw it. Anyway some may survive - the storm is not as close as the Carpenter version. Also it will be heart breaking to see who has to cut their wrists at tyhe radio, and who is the burned body that MacCreadys men find... if you cannot see the dramatic purpose in that you are stupid.
I like that the trailer gave almost no indication of the monsters we will see. They are certainly going to try and trump the head spider, and that seems like reason enough to see it. -
genius...
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Why the misogyny, that to cover your lack of confidence?
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I'm getting a Wolfman vibe. All the same bullshit.
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Jul 14, 2011 3:34:14 PM CDT
now I've watched the trailer and I don't want to spend the rest of this summer TIED TO THIS FUCKING COUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!
by swivile bobble fizz fizz
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not very ain't it cool news...
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this does end with the dog/helicopter. There is no blood test but another way of telling who is a copy.
There is a macho guy in the script.
They had a "leaked" trailer from one of the conventions months back (8 months according to youtube) that had the action portions obscured from view. This movie has been in the can for a while, just not released...a bad sign? -
not very ain't it cool news...
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Jul 14, 2011 3:36:06 PM CDT
It is what it is, a pointless dot to dot copy of a great movie - at least Carpenters version had the balls to be different from the original 50's movie.
by arkhaminmate001
But I guess AICN will praise it for some free merchandise. Sad.
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Hey that's alright. Trust me I always wanted to see a story of how the Norwregian group found the saucer and the alien and how that progressed. It took 29 years but it seems I got my movie for better or worse. LOL'S!!
Peace! -
Authenticity. Believability. The fact that I know the creature starts off in the Norwegian camp and if these people are supposed to be Norwegian, well by golly they better fucking speak the language. If it's 100% English language then shit on it
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fuck everything!
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I gotta admit, looks as creepy as the last remake.
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Jul 14, 2011 3:42:33 PM CDT
The Norwegians all speak english and the outside world knows about the discovery...
by spidermonkee
I saw John Carpenter's The Thing. I wonder if the creators of this "prequel" did.
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The Norwegians in the beginning of the movie ar speaking Norwegian. Now in this trailer we have a man standing in a room filled with people speaking clear English. Are they going to have a translator with them or do all of these Norwegians understand the English language? If they do understand the English language, the guys in the beginning of the JC version could have saved themselves a lot of hassle by speaking English. I don't normally nit pick movies like this but come on.
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But for a film that has to have the same location, that is basically drab corridors and white exteriors one way of differenciating it is with characters. A woman is a different angle, the language barrier is a new angle.
Some people here are saying its too similar, but they have obviously tried to create some dynamism to go against the limited premise they have.
If it was all men then it would just be a retread. We cannot have every female character being either Ripley/Sarah Conner. We should have been able to move on from that in 25 years. -
Said a lot of the movie is in Norwegian which is fucking cool. If the studio gave these guys a bunch of money ($60 million???) to go make a movie set in the snow with a bunch of guys I have never heard of and a monster that I love than I'm in.
Look at the cast on IMDB. Lot of guys from Norway! -
Seems like everyone's complaining that this looks too much like the original.
But...most 'people' here seem to like the original.
If something is good, and you're offered more of it...hmmm...it must be bad?
Also...pre-judging that a movie is shit based almost entirely on a trailer?
Geewizz...that's never happened on these boards before...oh, wait...nevermind. -
It's the exact same movie, they've just added some women.
This must be the laziest remake, sorry prequel ever since they use the exact same scenes from Carpenter's version. -
Jul 14, 2011 3:50:56 PM CDT
re: "If something is good, and you're offered more of it...hmmm...it must be bad?"
by scratchmonkey
cf. 'Escape from LA'.
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looks better than expected, but it's pretty much of remake of Carpenter's remake. I'll check it out. But why does EVERY goddamn trailer have to have the movie's name, then a quiet three second moment to build tension, then something jumps out and there's a loud sound, either a monster roaring or a woman screaming, and then it cuts away. I'm sick of that shit. It's only scary when you're not expecting it.
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Part of the reason why The Thing (Carpenter version) worked was because you never fucking saw what happened to the individuals. And when they were attacked, they were attacked around people. You were always ALWAYS in the dark about who was the alien and who wasn't. This trailer shows individuals being attacked. Doesn't that take away the entire paranoia of the Carpenter version? Or in my view, the entire point?
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Do you really think that's a good idea?
How can you all be celebrating when we have this odd creature frozen in a room just over there?
Clearly someone in this room is an impostor.
If only they would listen to her! -
Absolutely. The cold, ice and snow are your enemy in the Arctic...What's snow's enemy? FIRE.
It would not be out of place to have them around for emergencies....unsealing frozen shut doors...quickly terraforming a path to emergency vehicles...
And cooking aliens from another planet. -
I saw tension. There will be whinier men than her, I bet the small balding Norwegian guy, that will be silent when he becomes the Thing.
The film will be centred around a female lead and she will journey from nervous to strong, to maybe defeated or resolute in the face of death. As a woman she will be a calming and diplomatic voice, one that talks more than others but shouts less. If you see that as whiny; fine. Ill look at it a different way.
In the last third she will have to sacrifice herself, similar to the female lead in Deap Blue Sea. Maybe it will have a twist so that her death is a shock just like the main character being shot in To Live and Die in LA. If you think she will be tripping up over her high heals I think you will be surprised. She will have the most character development through out the film. -
My expectations wern't high.
Still had shitty obvious CGI even in the trailer when guys face "flutters" and
I can not stand ads where it's silent... (pause) Then BLAHH!!! then cut to TITLE (whatever
grabbed Mary looked pretty CGI as well) but it will be worth a viewing.
Also, it is fucking pointless to have a near-teenage hot American girl in a THING prequel
dealing with fucking Norwegians! SERIOUSLY GUYS?!?! WTF?!?!
If you watch Carpenter's THE THING there is no way you get the impression any Americans
were at that camp, let alone hot teenage females. This is fucking bullshit.
Also, Carpenter's THE THING for the last time IS NOT A REMAKE!
It's the story "Who Goes There?" - "The Thing from Another World" IS NOT THIS STORY! -
At the end of the movie the Thing takes over a dogs body and is chased by the remaining survivors of the outpost in a helicopter..
Sorry. -
Odd. It looked like she was supposed to be some sort of scientist, not a helicopter pilot.
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Jul 14, 2011 4:13:37 PM CDT
"Premake" and it looks poorly acted and written from this trailer.
by pixelsmack
Netflix.
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It seems like a straight-up remake.
I do dig that they threw in Carpenter's pulsing soundtrack toward the end there.
I hope it's good. -
Thought this was going to be a real prequel with Norwegians and an original story. Nope - attractive westerners taking the lead roles and cheap scares that we've seen a hundred times. Looks shitty.
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Jul 14, 2011 4:17:30 PM CDT
So did the TOTAL RECALL thread get the BAN-HAMMER or what Harry?
by darth_kong
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Norwegian cast and language, lower budget, get creative. Have they kept it period or is it present day?
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and the formulaic trailer script just buried my expectations.
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Norwegians are "Westerners" It always bugs me when people complain about race, ethnicity or gender and put their foot in it in the same sentence.
I was called a racist here; by a man complaining that all "whities" were the same. Another person was annoyed about Hollywood white washes in the same week that Will Smith was anounced as the lead in Omega Man. Another complained about sexism then joined a discussion about which race made the best porn stars here... both sexist AND racist.
At least understand what you are trying to write. -
AND some one here just said that there were a lot of subtitles in the film because they speak Norwegian quite alot.
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I am going to guess that there is more original material than meets the eye, This trailer seems marketed towards the main target audience of horror movies released in October, teenagers and early 20 somethings, and the similarities we see to the Carpenter movie were probably chosen specifically to give older people who know the JC film a familiar feeling. Some may call that unoriginal, other homage, you can't please everyone.
The JC film scared the crap out of me as a teenager in the 80s, but I think people are a little too kind to the movie these days. Nonetheless I have a soft spot for it, and I hope that this new movie adds to the mythos. It doesn't need to be a copy, and doesn't need to provide scares in the same way as the original (the sense of paranoia). Hopefully it really does have something to add that we aren't seeing in this trailer. -
The reason this film exists is to make Universal Studios money, not because the story had to be told. Fact.
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Jul 14, 2011 4:33:24 PM CDT
So who plays the Norwegian helicopter pilot from the beginning of JC's THING?
by benbraddock
And who plays the Norwegian that cuts his own throat as he sits at his typewriter?
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At least I hope so
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Cash grab? I dont think giving the unknown Matthijs van Heijningen Jr money to make a film with a group of unknown (in the US) Norwegians that is the pre/sequel to a film that was not a roaring sucsess in its day is the best way to make money.
You may think that studios only make films for the bed wetting sour milk smelling denizens of this site but they are not a marketable group these days.
I also know that Universal is a company. They usually like to try and make money.
Some of the knee jerk lazy theorising here is unbeleivable. People spout contrived hakeneyed or glib arguements here. -
If its as good as the original even in some small way, I want to see the teeny horror audiences scared into brown cords!!
Lets face it, after all the shite horror comedies and torture porn, we really need something to scare us. This could be it!! -
The girl will RUIN this ... you know it!
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Jul 14, 2011 4:43:51 PM CDT
After all that, the same movie...ZERO BUZZ FOR ZERO EFFORT!!
by marineboy
I hate all the same dramatic "D-DUM" sounds used in every allegedly scary movie.
Prometheus is our only hope for ORIGINAL SCI-FI HORROR...
Don't let us down Ridley :) -
Jul 14, 2011 4:44:43 PM CDT
1982s Thing was officially called ‘John Carpenters The Thing’
by cartmanez.
if you look at the posters etc and indeed the opening credits it always states 'John Carpenters The Thing'
Anyway I guess calling it ‘The Thing’ again could be interpreted as a kind of clever play on the central concept of replication...
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they call it a prequel to get everyone off their backs - setting it before the JC remake tying it in with the Nords at the beginning of his film...but then they basically remake JC's version and set it in the Norwegian camp...FAIL...fuck this obvious cash grab.
did anyone think this was going to be any good? Film is a prodcuer's medium now...that's why MOST everything is crap, looks the same, sounds the same, feels the same, its the same movies over and over again, merely with different actors and locations...you could time these things with a swiss watch...
you can blame two men for the sorry state of cinema today...Michael Eisner and Barry Diller...when they started running Paramount in the early 80s, they came from TV...Jaws/Star Wars had been huge hits with deceptively simple plots...so Eisner and Diller took their TV training and transferred it to features, as in, the producer/studio exec is the real person in charge, the director is merely a hired hand to change the scenery and mood from film to film, and you hire multiple writers; all this is TV forumal...the result was movies like Beverly Hills Cop and Flashdance, major hits...soon every studio in town realized you can make assloads of money, with mininal risk and the comfort of controlling the production without the director giving you headaches. So yes, those two men are mostly to blame. -
Not terrible, not good, just rather dull and plodding. And worst of all there's not a single second of tension in that trailer. And The (original) Thing is all about tension and atmosphere.
It also doesn't exactly help matters that the dog in Carpenter's The Thing gave a better performnce than anyone in that trailer seemed to.
Hopefully the actual film is better, but my expectations are pretty damn low after seeing that. -
The Carpenter film cast middle to latter aged MEN who at least projected a gritty reality that, to volunteer to be dropped thousands of miles away from civilization into a sub-zero climate, it would probably take men with these types of rugged, experienced exteriors. I know I know, this isn't the early 80's anymore and we are simply dealing with the times we currently inhabit and films nowadays all aim seemingly for a younger and younger audience, but would it kill just ONE of these film makers to break the current mold just once. Also, the forced estrogen injection into this prequel looks to be the only noticeable difference in this trailer. Heck, the look of the cramped living spaces, color, costuming, establishing shots, even the music, seems duplicated without many discernible differences, right from Carpenter's. I understand why they would want to imitate Carpenter's but really, whats the point? Kinda reminds me of Van Sant's Psycho remake - Why bother?
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Yet another trailer ripping off its musical cues.
This film ain't needed. -
Proper facial hair always makes for a more suspenseful atmosphere (The Thing, Das Boot, Alien, The Road, No Country For Old Men). All great tensely beardy movies. The plethora of chinly follicles on display in this trailer leads me to believe The Thing is going to one motherfucker of a sphincter-tightener!
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...it's the same movie then?
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Its just a cash in, meant to be entertaining, draw from nostalgua on the original, and nothing more.
Having Winstead in this film is akin to calling this flick Final Destination 4: Death By Alien.
What a lousy casting choice, man.
Fuck me. No women! Just MEN! And dont make any of them recognizeable from other flicks! -
Sure smells of Cash Grab to me.
Look, Carpenters film flopped in '82 but it has grown & grown in stature and is now an acknowledged horror classic, thus with a huge fan-base... hence this "prequel", which as we can see from the trailer is in fact a remake.
Studios like remakes cos remakes are potentially safer bets - thus better money-makers.
Add an unknown director (way cheaper than a big name), throw in a sexy-ish young chick as your new lead (to cater for the horny teen male demographic) and with the right marketing campaign and a bit of luck, Universal might clean up at the box-office come October.
I hope I'm wrong but the trailer looks *way* too like Carpenters version for me to consider the film as anything but an attempt to squeeze a bunch more dollars from the THING brand, and not an attempt at something new. -
I don't consider the Carpenter film a remake of the '51 movie, but just another take on the original source material (Campbell's Who Goes There?) which Carpenter interpreted much better (and as far as I know he didn't use any scenes from the '51 that weren't part of the novel).
At any rate, I agree: the way some of the scenes are staged, the dialog, the title, etc., I'm getting way more of a remake vibe.
It's like is a remake, then in the last 2 minutes, the dog escapes and they encounter the American team and *ta da*, it's a sequel!
Kind of like making a movie about a marine biologist, a sheriff and an old salty ex-navyman, now a shark hunter who go out and try to catch a giant great white that's been terrifying the beach, then at the end, it escapes, and starts eating people at Amity Island - see it's a _prequel_. :D
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I love Carpenter's version as much as the next guy. Hell, THE THING was the very first VHS tape I rented back in 1984 in Dublin when we got our very first VCR but for fuck's sake people, this new THING hasn't even been out yet so let's give it a chance. Nearly everyone is already bashing it and sure, it could be a huge pile of steaming shit but on the other hand, it could be a great segway into Carpenter's version. And if it does well, maybe Universal will do a sequel. I think Kurt Russell and Keith David could get away with playing the same characters.
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Jul 14, 2011 5:08:54 PM CDT
hope the 1982 CG Kurt Russel they use at the end looks better than the Jeff Bridges one
by cartmanez.
same goes for the rumoured Josey Wales Clint cameo in Cowboys and Aliens
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Just like the poster.
Steal the original font, add a cartoonish image...
Blam. Just like the original... But without the soul.
It seems they're trying with the music but seriously, the last thing I want
(especially being the keyboardist I am) is some young kid doing a
Carpenter imitation. Again.. Just like the original.. Minus the soul.
And what was the casting agent thinking?
What is with these prissy looking Americans?
And why does Mary go "you think that's a good idea?" - As if winking at
the audience and saying "Wink wink.. We all know what's gonna happen
if you disturb that block of ice!" - As if they all know the plot of THE THING!
Well you're a fucking scientist who flew there for the discovery!
What scientist wouldn't think it was a good idea to take a look at what
they were flown to Antarctica to discover?
Scientists are the justification in Sci-Fi Horror to do things out of curiosity
for totally valid reasons because... Well.. Because they're SCIENTISTS!
And what kind of director let's us see who's infected by THE THING in the trailer?!?!
Are you fucking kidding me? What suspense will be in the theater when we all know
the guy with the terrible fluttering CGI face is going to be infected? Or that another
guy is going to be *FLASH! QUICK CUT! LOUD SOUND!* grabbed and dragged
away by THE THING? Horrid, typical Hollywood "beat you over the head with no
subtlety" editing - hopefully this is just the TRAILER which is edited like this and not
the movie - How can ANYONE be scared by anything when they let you know
exactly when it's going to pop out? Silence... Pause.... BLAM! Fast edits and bad
flashes of CGI! What happened? And as someone else mentioned, any film who
cuts a trailer where there's silence... (pause) then BLAM loud not-scary-at-all
because-it's-totally-predictable quick edits and a loud scream then TITLE...
Anything cut like that should be ignored anymore. We are sick of it. -
NO Brimley no bucks from me.
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Hollywood has been sucking the brains from people for decades now, and you wanna give these cocksuckers a chance??? this is not a filmmaker driven project, it's a studio driven crash-in, as Carpenter or any of the original makers are NOT involved. Do you really believe a great filmmaker got an idea to do a Thing prequel and took it a studio? No, the studio, once again looking for quick, easy money (from dumbasses like yourself), pulled out The Thing from their shelf and ordered a remake...I mean prequel, hiring some malleable, yes-man filmmaker who's easger for a fat paycheck and some Hollywood box office cred to keep him in the game so he can fuck supermodels and pay off his mansion.
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Yeah, so it looks as if it follows the 1951 and 1982 films plotwise, but there was nothing in John Carpenter's remake of Howard Hawkes film that indicates something completley different happened to the Norwegian base; The point was that the same thing was happening to the American base that happened to the Norwegian base but with minor differences (for example: The creature didn't go out of it's way to isolate the scientists to the base by destroying the devices that could help them escape, hense, the Norwegians chasing the "Thing-dog" in their helicopter. What were you guys expecting, exactly?
John Carpenter's remake came out exactly a year before I was born, therefore, I never got the pleasure to experience that film on the big screen. I'm very pleased to be able to see this story play out on the big screen.
And for those bitching about females characters: there were females in the 1951 film 'The Thing from Another World', besides, if you guys are so insistant on wanting something different, then why would you want them to do the same thing with the all male cast shit? Seriously. Go watch gay porn if you want to watch another sausage fest. -
People get a life if you like it you like it if you don't you don't! Sometimes I read the most stupid comments on this site compared to everywhere else!!!
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Jul 14, 2011 5:22:01 PM CDT
'chariots of the Gods man, they practically own south america.' Hollywood why do you fuck with perfect movies - JUST WRITE SOMETHING NEW FOR A CHANGE!!!!!
by arkhaminmate001
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The Thing does not have a brand. It is not Star Wars. The people that will be a locked in audience may make a decent profit for a remastered DVD but not a full feature film. You over emphasise how many geeks there are willing to shell out for this kind of thing. Films may have some marketing to a nerd crowd, but they are not green lit for them any more. They are made for a large as possible demographic. Thats why Tron was made for families and female friendly as it had a large budget. It was not made for fans of the original however much you want to beleive it.
Last time I looked Mary Elizabeth Winstead was not a bankable star, few women will be wanting to see this so she will not bring in more women. If they wanted more 13 year olds they could have got a down on their luck Paris Hilton or Megan Fox-a-like to boost the crowd of furtive tweenagers.
If they wanted it to be a cash grab they could have make a remake, set it in Alaskato get a few lost teenage female hikers that have skimpy underwear. They would have had one Norwegian not a group. They would not have subtitles to alienate the illitirate.
Tax Loss, may have been a better fit for this as I think they have taken a few (Gasp!) risks with the foreign cast, with no inherent bankability. In fact for a film that will have a core young male audience it seems like a risk to have old foreign men and a woman.
Making a film with a foreign cast and subtitles is a risky thing to do. I cannot think of any other horror from a US studio that has done it. Did The Grudge, whilch was set in Japan have many sub-titles? Did the US Ring shoe horn io some Japanese characters? Was the US Rec remade with Mexicans speaking Spanish?
Here in Britain I have seen Mesrine and Point Blank both advertised with out a hint that they have foreign language as that would alienate the audience they were after. Probably the same in the US too. -
There was ONE norwegian speaking english in the trailer. I suppose to some of you elitist geeks , that's far fetched right... I mean, only americans can be fluent in other languages, right?
http://collider.com/director-matthijs-van-heijningen-on-set-interview-the-thing/52428
Assuming some of you people can actually use your brains, here's an interview with the prequels director, who confirms:
1) Norwegians have been cast as Norwegians.
2) The film will have subtitles for when some of the Norwegians speak (a language barrier for the american characters)
3)He cast the same fucking guy who shot at the dog in Carpenter's film for the SAME role.
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Logically, the trailer makes complete sense as related to John Carpenter's version.
1) Block of ice sitting in a small room. Check
2) Sled dog(s). Check.
3) Dated looking camp in the Antarctic. Check.
4) Norwegians. Check.
5) Shape shifting alien running around killing said
Norwegians. Check.
Of course it looks like a remake because the environment is practically identical.
Maybe they should have said screw Carpenter's version and made the sled dogs, poodles and have it set in a forced labor camp of the the Soviet Gulag.
You people will complain about anything... -
Jul 14, 2011 5:26:58 PM CDT
'You've gotta be fucking kidding me....' SPIDER HEAD! pure genius!! Carpenters movie is my fav' companion movie to Scotts Alien on a cold winter's night.
by arkhaminmate001
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I'm just sayin'...
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Jul 14, 2011 5:29:18 PM CDT
But this blatent re hash rip off, or as they say in Hollywood 'Homage' deserves to go straight to DVD hell!
by arkhaminmate001
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It isn't that we don't want a woman in the film, it's that we want
realism and a hot teen American chick in Antarctica in the 80's
is simply NOT REALISTIC. Nor are any of the other young 'uns they cast.
Nor does it fit with what anyone who's a fan of Carpenter's version
imagines the Norweigans to be like... They are supposed to be Norwegian.
(Not Swedish Mac.) The dialog is supposed to be Norwegian.
When the helicoptor pilot in Carpenter's THING lands, does he look, act
or fucking talk American? Fuck no. And what is this gay porn comment?
How are real movies and porn related?
Just because a film is all male doesn't make it a sausage fest, what an
ignorant insult to Carpenter's masterpiece. We do not need "hot chicks"
to sell our fucking supposedly serious movies! If YOU want hot chicks
and tweens/twenty somethings in your films then maybe you should
stick to porn and leave real movies to those of us who've passed adolescence. -
Yes, John Carpenter's film WAS a remake of 'The Thing from Another World'... but it was done right, by going closer to the source material and changing the tone. The reason why this is close in tone to John Carpenter's film is because it's MEANT to be a prequel to John Carpenter's film, and not a remake.
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Don't get me wrong, I love his version. But the special effects actually worsen as the film develops.
& of course they're not going to have Norwegian in the trailer, for an American audience.
Also, as far as having a women in the movie, and some of you not enjoying that, that's your problem, not the movie's, fucktards. -
I don't dislike Mary. I feel sorry for her for being so miscast.
She's fine for teenage romps like that video game movie but
come on, THE THING is serious sci-fi and calls for serious veteran actors.
None of these actors look worth a shit. The banter between MAry and
the scientist "Do you really want to do that?" - "Yes. I do." (As if he's
being a smart ass or has a chip on his shoulders) is clunky and flat.
What are their motives? Is it supposed to be some war between the
"scientists" where she's the good girl who tells everyone not to do it
but they push ahead and do it anyway? Good God help us if I'm right. -
hahaha. You go tiger. Using verafiable facts and knowing some thing apart from one viewing of the trailer is to be comended, Glad I agree with too!
You will be shouted down though. The talkback has developed its views now:
Its a cash grab
Its too similar to the first
The effects are CG
There is a woman
Its not a prequel, its a remake
When ity comes out they will be annoyed it is not set in 1982 - "why did they not have digital watches; it totally took me out of the film" or that it was stupid to kill the lead female character - "urgh why did they kill every one; they did that in the original" -
She's 27. Comparatively, Kurt Russell was around 29 or 30 when they shot the original.
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Just because Winstead isn't a "teen" doesn't mean she doesn't look and act like one and
not have the presence of a veteran actor.
I don't care about her real age, I care about the
image she presents and to me...
That image is a tween. (Tween = Twenty something/teen)
She does NOT seem believable at all as a scientist.
Come on just look at this crap... IT speaks for it's self.
The poor girl, I really do feel sorry for her cuz I think the backlash is gonna be harsh. -
How come you complain about a younger actress and then use the Norwegian from the first film as an example even after this was typed
3)He cast the same fucking guy who shot at the dog in Carpenter's film for the SAME role.
That seems like an impressive thing to do for a Cash Grab; and totally at odds with your arguement that a young American woman is in the film ruining things.
Woiuld you porefer a young single just out of training female lead or a middle aged mother gtalking about her children. face it if a woman was going to an Arctic research facility she would probably be young and single as she would be there for a while and not need any ties to stop her. -
I agree with your logic. However, the 'offense' here is the feeling of it being a double dip, once again making another remake that doesn't offer anything new, just a repeat of the original experience. And in this case, while the story is set earlier than the events of the '80s Carpenter's film, we have to roll our eyes and endure a totally anachronistic female lead. That makes this more a remake of Whiteout than The Thing.
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is pre-teenager that has the desire to be a teenager. You are getting the term wrong. It is intended as a marketing term to show the aspiration and spending power that younger and younger people have. They have a lot of disposable income and can be marketed to. It has nothing to do with 20 somethings.
Tweens like Justin Beaber, they are 12 (not yet teens) but see Beiber as a sophisticated pop star - they aspire to have musical knowledge and sophistcated taste through their devotion to him.
Personally I think you should rethink what women and young women are capable of. Sigourney Weaver was 27 or 28 in Alien. Some women actually go to university and take science degrees, some even wear trousers or play computer games... its a topsy turvey world! -
I will reserve judgement and hope for the best, maybe in
the proper context the performances will hold up and the
motives will be realistic and justifiable...
However...
No one can defend the fucking CGI and cliche' predictable editing.
The film makers KNEW people didn't want CGI.
They said they want to do it practical.
They KNEW fans would be disappointed if they went the sci-fi channel route!
They even had extra time to go back and do reshoots to get it right!
Then what the fuck is this CGI bullshit?
Seriously... Asylum pictures/sci-fi channel bad.
If you can't do it practical, don't even fucking do it - just imply it.
But don't ruin suspension of disbelief with CGI. When will they learn?
GO RIDLEY WITH PROMETHEUS!!! Ridley will show you kids how to
make shit that looks real, regardless of if it's CGI or practical. -
She looks like a fucking kid and doesn't have a believable presence as a scientist.
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Hows that for terminology?
The difference between Sigorney Weaver at 27 in Alien and kids
today that age is DRASTIC!
Are you fucking kidding me?
Can you seriously not tell the difference?
You need SCREEN PRESENCE and BELIEVABILITY.
I just can't buy this Mary chick as a scientist.
Especially in the 80's. There's a certain hard coreness to people,
the older you go back. Look how 20 year olds were in WW II.
Humans get prissier as time goes on because of all the pampering
that modern times brings them. This is SELF EVIDENT. Just LOOK!
You can't compare a 27 year old of today to one from yesteryear.
Why do I even have to explain this?
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CGI. There are reports that the Alien will be a motion capture suit. Will that be bad?
Have you seen the original Thing (I know you have dont get uppity) there is stop motion in it that that is not the best. It is jarring against the suits that are used. Yes it has charm but just because it was a physical object does not mean it was totally convincing.
With a budget of $60 000 000, it may have been hard for them to do physical effects, they are not the main stay of effects now, there is less talent to do it. District 9 had a mix of practical with CG animation and that looked amazing. CG does not mean it will automatically look bad.
They did not show many effects that could mean 2 things, they want a genuine shock or wonder when they are seen, or that they are poor quality. To say that it is bad is to jump yo negative conclusions that every f cking person here does. Its a self defence mechanism to show their "love" and "knowledge" of the original. You dont know which it is, neither do I but I have an open mind and I am not jumping to conclusions. -
Them Sweds dont speak english when they exit the chopper at the camp. They speak norwegian. Both of them!
The guy who doesnt blow himself up. He tries to tell McReady and Company about the dog in Norwegian!!! Not english...
Whats the solve for this? Everyone at Camp Swed is speaking english in the trailer for the prequel.
Watch the damn opening. Look at them Norwegains. They are 40 something bearded and They dont speak the engly.
In fact this is what the Norg says too the camp
"Get the hell out of here. That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! Get away, you idiots!"
Only it's in norwegian. -
Jul 14, 2011 6:04:14 PM CDT
I mean shit.... All that Swed had to do in the 1982 opening was speak english
by thejudger
one simple sentance.
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Ridley will show you kids how to make shit that looks real, regardless of if it's CGI or practical.
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you say potato and I say potato. Young people now are paying to keep their parents in pensions. They have less chance of employment, less chance of permanent employment. Houses cost more to buy and they have seemingly fewer rights their parents had. People may not be getting pampered now but hardened.
Peoples views of marriage, gender roles religion and class have greatly changed, has it become more realistic, based on reason or fallen back into superstition and fairy tale?
How do you know this is set in 1982? Night/Dawn and Day of the dead were set in their contempory epoch even though they were sequels. I saw no indication that is was necessarily set in 1982, it may have been contemporised, but tried to keep the same easthetic. I could be wrong though. -
Jul 14, 2011 6:11:06 PM CDT
if only MOUNTAINS OF MADNESS was being made...we have had an ancient alien film 3 years running
by cartmanez.
2011 - Thing
2012 - Promethues
2013 - MOM
i guess if Thing and Promethues do well at the box office Universal will greenlight MOM for 2014 or thereabouts
bah...fancy stopping MOM! -
carpenter's the thing is the perfect prequel for carpenter's the thing.
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They do speak Norwegian in this... its called marketing. They dont want to alienate an audience by making them believe that its all in Foreigns. there are reports of subtitles, a lot of subtitles. There were obviously characters that did not speak English in the trailer, it will be a plot device.
As for English, every Scandinavian I have met has spoken good English, many better than me so thats not a stretch either. -
What is the point of doing the exact same story at the Norwegian base when it ruins the suspense and the reveal of Carpenter's film?
Although this context has been lost over time, audiences then didn't contemplate the mimicry angle because it wasn't really possible to do well in practical effects. It's still not really done often in many films. Carpenter's movie was one of the first to really mess up the human body in a transformation that looked real (for the time, though it still looks good).
I'm not saying this will be a bad film. It could very well be good in terms of entertainment. For me, it feels like a reason to simply try and improve on Rob Bottin's work in the '80s version. Not necessarily a bad goal, just pointless in this context.
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...to judge this movie wether it is prequel/remake or reboot. Personally from what I have gathered it is a TRUE prequel in every sense of the word. However, they are marketing the film rather as a reboot. Here is what I know: #1 the filmmakers have used Carpenter's film as a blueprint in reverse and have made a film which honors the tone and pacing of the original, while working back through what happened in the Norge camp. #2. the movie is shot in English and Norweigian, so be prepared for plenty of sub-titles. #3. Most of the effects work is practical, meaning over 75% of THING creature effects will be latex and make-up. Around 24% is augmented CGI. #4. The cast is not really a remake but does pay homage to certain characters we will see in the Carpenter '82 version -- MacReady's helicopter pilot has a character in this one that also flies the chopper. Here is what I am anticpating: Strike entertainment, the writer, the producer and the director will have captured the spirit of Carpenter's original and hopefully not try to cater to modern audiences sensibilities. Think about this: we have never seen what happens when a THING imitates a female, unless one of the dogs was female in the '82 version, even so what happens when a human female gets imitated? Also, the filmmakers have promised the movies DOES take place in the winter of 1982 and it will end with the two Norweigians chasing the dog-thing imitation in the chopper! So let's hope Strike does well and gives us another worthy version like they did with DAWN OF THE DEAD '04. We will always have Carpenter's version and IF this one is successfull we may even get a sequel to the '82 version! Now that would be cool!
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That trailer is missing those words, oh yeah, and engrossing dialogue, quality CGI, and interesting actors, but I'm picking nits aren't I?
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You made me laff!
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Ridley Scott will probably use his own company to do many effects. The Mill are not as dominant as they used to be and they are certainly not the leaders they once were in CGI. They put out a few clunking effects, dont pin your hopes on all of it being so fantastically done. He will have a very good production design and also framing.
There were people here endlessly argueing about the non existant CGI Alien in Alien 3 here. Poeple could not tell if it was CG, stop kmotion or a puppet.
All effects can have problems. Promethius may well have them. Look at Alien Aliens and Alien 3 with out rose tinted specs and they all have some ropey effects:
Alien - poor model work for the Nostromo refinery, poor ransports in the back grounds
Aliens - poor back projection shots
Alien3 - poor rod puppet work -
Jul 14, 2011 6:25:15 PM CDT
Every Norwegian doesn't speak enlgish in the trailer
by fuckoffchristophernolannuthuggers
1 or 2 maybe... don't say all. There's a difference between watching the trailer and watching the movie. .. and there's no indication that the Norwegians that speak english are the one's in the helicopter in the beginning on John Carpenter's film
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I agree it's early to judge and I have heard the same things you have: A lot of respect has been paid to the earlier film.
But, as films that literally tell a continuous story, the older film suffers if you watch them in order. The mimicry angle has been revealed in the newer film. A viewer watching Carpenter's movie has a frustrating experience because they know something nobody in the film does. Everyone will know a test will reveal some character as the Thing and it becomes an exercise in empty suspense as a bunch of red herrings are thrown at the audience.
I showed the older film to my son who's seen quite a few movies including horror. He had no idea what was going to happen. That surprise is what unsettles the audience. After this prequel, it's gone. -
Yeah, I know. I've been visiting this site for years, and for some foolish reason, I always read the talk backs. If you do an early, positive review, you're a plant for the studio. If you disagree with the elitists, you're an idiot. Blah, blah blah.
97% of the talk backers here give "film geek" a bad name. -
Jul 14, 2011 6:32:14 PM CDT
Looks NOTHING like a SyFy Channel movie...
by fuckoffchristophernolannuthuggers
Now you guys are stretching it... so far, there has yet to be a logical arguement against the movie.
Keep trying though, your failure to insult and hate on this movie is cute. -
...please stop calling Carpenter's- excellent- film The Original; have none of you wankers ever seen the Hawks/Nyby version from about 60 years ago, 30 years before Carpenter's film.
I'm not arguing which version is better here, just trying to be chronological. -
You see a little bit of CG and assume that's all there is...
You people bitch and moan and complain about anything and everything in a trailer (*Forgetting that context if often missing from trailers, due to LENGTH of trailers*)... you guys just look for reasons to hate a movie, instead of looking for reasons to enjoy them. -
Thats a nice theory but that means you can only watch a film once as the surprise has gone. Will any one here be forced to watch them in order and "destroy" the older film. Its an artificial situation. If this film makes a few younger people aware of the oder film and makes them watch it I think that is great. People going back to film will be watching it as a curio, or a history lesson.
They have other films to be bench marks for them. this is not part of their formative film experiences. they may even be horrified at the primitive effects and think it more of a comedy God fobid. Are we fainting in the aisles if we watch a Wolfman film from the 50s?
The protean alien has been done to death. An audience of today will be far more wise to this than an audience of 1982.We live in a post Aids post cancer post ebola era. We know that a virus can over take a persons body and kill them. -
I'm gonna see this...but I'm wondering how they've made this film unique from the original? It looks like the same situations and outcomes.
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This trailer is a hell of a lot better than the one for 'The Dark Knight Rises'
Talk about a movie not looking very original!
Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha! -
You may be right. I'm not saying an audience is forced to watch them in order nor that it destroys the earlier film.
I'm thinking later when both films can be watched in order on Netflix or whatever else there will be. I used to do this while renting videos with friends. Let's watch all 4 sequels in a row.
Film series that move forward are forced to at least build something new into the storyline. Although I don't think it's impossible, the prequels we've gotten so far don't really treat the earlier film as the development for what is happening in the prequel in ways that won't ruin the story points of the earlier movie. -
I know. Some times I am unsure if I just like to argue, so am a troll; or if I actually have a different view to many. I dont post in talk backs I do not have an interest in so I must do it because I have an opinion I want to express.
The thing i find horrible but strangely compulsive here is the fomatted arguements, and how they develop in the same way; and how they are used as weapons. Every thing here is binary. Right or Wrong.
CGI = Bad
CGI faces = Very bad
New composer = Criminal
Prequel/sequel/remake = Bad
Prequel/sequel/remake you suggest = Good
Director you dont like = hack
Arguement you disagree with = made by an idiot
Trailers - gives you all your information about a film
Opinions - must be formed imediatly
Always remember your essential terms to use even if you dont know what they mean or they are meaningless: hack, character arc, action beat, acting chops, shaky cam, Cameron would, The wochowskis should, Ridley did.
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This is the exact same movie but with a chick and without Capenter's genius!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d2R-K0vl94s
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I can see what you mean. And doing say an Alien marathon as I did with the trilogy when I was 20 or so did not suffer as they were tue sequels, building after rtaher than before.
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You're forgetting once crucial thing:
The story.
That's what makes this a prequel.
My question to you guys would be:
What makes you think that the creature would act differently at each base?
Of course the creature is going to do the same thing, of course the humans are going to figure this out, grow paranoid, turn and is-trust eachother.
Given the backstory and what we know about the Norwegian base in Carpenter's film, how could the story of what went down at the norwegian base be any different? -
Great example I've done that one too. My classic example is the Planet of the Apes movies. Each one shows some new facet of how we get to the world of the Heston movie. And what I love about that series is Battle for... although the one most cheaply made (and looks it), is also the one that breaks the cycle and leaves a open-ended hopeful future.
I keep wishing they continue that story arc rather than continually trying to reboot the Apes franchise. I already know how the apes came to rule the planet. Get on with it! -
Wont last long. Wont work all the time.
Billy D is right. I dont care how much they loved the original or are try to homage and respect it.
It didnt begin with them. They got hired and paid. Just like Billy D said..
When a prequel is made to Jaws. Will the love mean anything?
I sure bet Quint would fucking love that shit. -
I'm not expecting a lot from this prequel/sequel..whatever. The trailer looks like regular Hollywood factory output. I mean compare this remake trailer with the 1982 JC version. Much more tension in the older one....way scarier too....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbtUjskfyA0 -
Point taken on Westerners, my bad. But the real point is this movie is going to suck. Guaranteed.
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Yeah, that's right.... because my opinons differ from your own, I must have been sent in by the studio...
That's your best arguement? really?
Sounds like dillusional fan boy talk to me... -
TheJudger just proved your point.
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Jul 14, 2011 7:20:32 PM CDT
NONONONONONONONONONONONONO AND NO, X1,000,000,000 AND THEN SOME X INFINITY!!!!
by sobchaksecurity
I know typing in all caps gives the impression of angry "special kid" on the computer, but what I am going to be has to be said:
First off, obviousness aside which I will get too in a moment, this trailer has only confirmed what I already knew once this completely unfuckingneccesary remake disguised as a prequel was announced, is that this was going to be nothing really more than an almost 100% shot by shot remake of the original. From the trailer alone, I haven't read any script either, I know what's going to happen. I mean fucking seriously?!?! I rarely if ever get upset by a project like this, which brings me to my next point.....
Now, if there was ever a horror series I hold sacred, I know it's just one movie, but the whole impact and respect bestowed to it, and the kick ass toys and fan following and cultural impact etc, it's the thing, along with evil dead, which I will also adress.
The Thing is one of those childhood favorites that still holds up, and to this day, similarities with Alien aside for a moment, there's nothing like it. I mean, everything just blends together so well giving us the classic we all know and love. I mean, if things had been handled differently, maybe I'd feel different. Maybe if they had gone with the proposed sequel instead, that would have been better.
Also, explaining the back story ruins the mystery. I mean, that scene in the thing where they go to the base, find the dead Norwegians, the one guy with his wrists slit and the blood frozen in mid-air, man, STILL freaks me the fuck out and sends chills up my spine. With just that scene alone, your imagination gets fired up and you have to figure out what happened. We know what did, but your imagination kicks in. A story element that when done right, it's done best, and I love that.
I mean, fuck! If there was at least some sense of originality to this, and no, and not to sound sexist at all and nothing against females or Miss Winestead, believe me, I'd like to bone her badly, having a female as a lead doesn't count as originality. That's not originality. That's a gimmick.
Oh and way to not make it obvious. I mean, you could have at least used a new soundtrack, and a different advertising style. I mean, way to rip off the original style.
Oh yeah, you guys bitch and moan about another half assed probably more funnier than you realize Adam Sandler movie, or cliche shitty rom coms, this is worse to me than either of those. I mean, this is taking a well loved horror classic and shitting on it/fucking it in the ass. So fuck them for doing it.
So yeah, my two cents. Oh yeah, Evil Dead....
Well, pretty much my feelings on the thing remake disguised as a prequel. I mean, wtf. Another one I hold sacred that's being shit on, but it's own creator nonetheless. I mean, it'd be one thing if Carpenter was somehow involved, but not. I mean, I never thought I'd say this, but fuck you Sam Raimi. I was hoping this was said and done with after it was announced a few years back, and there was this rumour floating around that Sean William Scott was going to play the Ash/Ash like character, hah!, and that was that.
I mean, that he should do Evil Dead 4 being obvious, like why do this? What happened to The Given Day? Hmmmm??
I mean, how in the fucking hell are you going to even THINK of recasting Ash?!?!? They better not have some hack play Ash!!!! Ash is Campbells role bitches.
Oh and Diablo Cody is writing this? Wow. Ok so great. Instead of them being these regular characters who are on a trip, we will be getting a bunch of skinny jeans wearing prescription rimmed glasses characters? who sit around in the latest from urban outfitters and american apparael?, listening to boring ass indie rock and reading David Eggers,Chuck Klosterman, Russian and or other classic literature.Shop only at vintage/thrift stores? Only listen to vinly? The cabin will be filled with all things apple? Yeah. You see where I'm going with this. Just say it!
Are they going to have a hamburger phone? Are you going to have one character who is SSOOOO into these "obscure" horror movies, that like, no one else is into or has seen?!?!, and can't seemingly shut the fuck up about how "quirky and unique" they are? Will one of the girls get knocked up after going out with the runner?
As you can see, I did not like Juno.
So yeah, fuck you guys.
Oh, and if you even think of going to see this, fuck you. If you do go to see it, fuck you for the rest of your life for supporting this shit. I'd say more, but I don't want to get banned from here. -
We dont have to agree, but we need to smoke this weed.
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Jul 14, 2011 7:25:29 PM CDT
Ironically this movie is just like the aliens it is about
by vin_diggler
it's not really JC's The Thing. It looks like it and sounds like it but it is only an immitation of the of the film it is trying to be. We must burn it now before others are created and we won't know which film is the true The Thing anymore.
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I just looked over the talkbacks for this and also for Tin Tin, John Carter, Hugo, even TDKR. I am starting to wonder how some of you can even call yourselves movie fans. According to genderbLender every single movie coming out in the next 12 months is going to be an epic fail and only gross 10 million or less opening weekend.
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Sounds good!
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Watching the trailer, anyone else get the feeling that the performances feel phoned in because the actors involved realize that this is pretty much just a shot by shot redo of the original 82 one and they're just doing it for the paycheck cause they know this fucking movie was completely unnecessary in the first place?
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How do the Norwegians have the same exact research base as the US team in JC's version? Did they hire the same architect? Maybe they did one of those home-building reality-tv shows and each team built the other's lab based on the same blue-prints.
Anyway--- this trailer makes it look exactly like a remake, but with more 'action'. Yay!! Explosions!!! Snowmobiles falling into endless pits!!! Exciting!!!
I can't lie... taken in a vacuum where JC's The Thing doesn't exist, this movie might be fairly cool... but it feels very much like JC's version, just with a Norwegian team.
I'm hoping they at least start off speaking Norwegian, and then fade into English, like how McTiernan handled it in Red October. -
I'm actually very much looking forward too John Carter, Hugo, fuck you guys if you aren't looking forward to that, I'll post my two cents about that in the Hugo talkback, Tin Tin most of all. Hell, Tin Tin is my 2nd most anticipated next to Captain America. Oh and of course TDKR!!!!
I just feel this the thing remake disguised is completely stupid and unnecessary. -
Same base... complete with douchebag playing acoustic guitar for everyone.
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I finally got the A.O.K. from my Sister to drop the Star Wars Saga on my Nephew. So I show up with the entire film series on DVD, eager to hand it his way.
And then it hits me....
Which ones will he watch first?
My Sister says what does it matter?
I say. Well fuck.. I mean I grew up watching these in the proper order. By that I mean I saw ANH, ESB, and ROTJ back.
She's like what difference does it make.
Well.
If he watches the Prequels first. All that Leia is your Sister Darth is your Father, Who is Yoda, That no moon, and thats what the emperor really looks like and can do. None of it will resonate with him, it wont have any emotional or shocking impact on him.
See I am against this shit. If the film needed a prequel. It should have begun with it in the first place.
Doesn't matter how smart or creative it is.
How did the Joker get his scars? Best not to know. Why was Michael Myer's like he was? Best to not know. Where did Gizmo come from. What the fuck does it matter. -
i just watched this the other day again... and this looks exactly like the original
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Dumbasses like myself? I love that. Because my opinion differs from yours I'm a dumbass. I'm an independent filmmaker, have been making movies since I was 12 years old, moved to the States in 1994 to further my career and since doing so, have won many awards and had my films shown at film festivals around the world. I know what it's like to make a film, show a trailer and hope that people might get excited. I too hate Hollywood and the current crop of 'remakes'. They should be promoting up-and-coming filmmakers and producing new works instead of remaking everything else. You sound like so many of the talkback bitches in here, probably have never amounted to much in your life and think you know what it takes to make a film because.....lo and behold.....OH MY GOD!!! You're a whiney ass talkback bitch on AICN. Let's see you put that on your CV. Sorry, resume.
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In a fair world, 90% of my ticket price would go straight to John Carpenter and the crew who made the original.
(Fuck 'Thing from Another World' -- not the same movie). -
and yet I have just cited proof that they do.
Oh and my newphew watched the Prequels first. Atarting with The Phantom Menace. He was bored halfway into clone and he gave up on it. Kid isnt into Star Wars anymore.
That boy's gonna nail a lot of pussy when he gets older. -
Jul 14, 2011 7:44:45 PM CDT
Thank you, fuckoffchristophernolannuthuggers..................
by axcel1
Thank you for being the voice of reason.
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Jul 14, 2011 7:48:50 PM CDT
@lucky13, hey, thing from another world is a genuine great classic, and still holds up, fact!
by sobchaksecurity
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Show the original trilogy and throw the other three away. As for your other questions:
The joker got his scars from a being shot through the mouth before falling in a vat of chemicals. According to Dr. Lumis, Michael Myers is simply pure evil and Gizmo came from a chinese curiosity shop. See questions answered, no need for prequels to any of these. -
No worries buddy. Gotta say I LOLed on hatedperson's reaction to la_sith "Hey you, fuck off, you know this movie is going to be shit." For some reason I pictured Scut Farkus
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Jul 14, 2011 8:01:45 PM CDT
If this prequel includes the origins of that SILLY GIANT HAT that Kurt Russel wears in the helicoptor at the beginning of the 1980's THE THING-
by idrankyourmilkshake2
Then I will watch this film.
FUCK IT. It looks pretty cool. I really love the J.C. the THING-great fucking flick.Hope it ends with a CG'ed Kurt Russel, or some actor appearance (prefarably wearing that fucked up giant sombrero) -
in '08 I was Macready for Halloween. but my friends and I had absolutely 0 luck in finding a hat that lived up to the profile of Macready's 28-gallon hat in the movie. but I still had the bomber jacket, the beard and the hair, so it worked.
sadly, I still had to tell every single person who I was supposed to be. so sad. I wanna be Charles Bronson this Halloween but I seriously might kill someone Mechanic style if they question who I'm supposed to be. -
It's good to see an actress who looks like a reasonably good looking person plucked from the real world who you might pass by on the street, rather than a plastic, artificial-looking Barbie who moonlights in pornos in LA on weekends.
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Jul 14, 2011 8:19:18 PM CDT
It's a quasi remake/prequel called "The Thing"
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
Technically it's a prequel I guess because it does take place on the other station. I had read that the story was almost exactly like the original. And that now appears to be very much the case.
As others have of course noted, the original had a strong sense of atmosphere and realism. This one doesn't look too bad but still has the stench of a modern Hollywood remake cash-grab. Many scenes look like Hollywood sets, not a real base out in the middle of fucking no where.
Personally I don't like the actor playing the doctor/scientist character who takes the sample.
It's a decent trailer. It's a bit scary. I sympathize with the fans who this trailer pisses off. -
And Uncle Owen in the snow?!? C'MONNNN...
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Is this like what GUs Van Zant did with Psycho.. Only changes Kurt Russels character to Elizabeth Winstead? -- NO Wait it's supposed to be a prequel--- I forgot about the complete lack of originality in Hollywood. What a shame because this film could have been really great. Another one biutes the dust.
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look like the ones in Carpenter's The Thing...but I thought this was supposed to be the Norwegian camp?
A remake disguised as a prequel.
Whatever. Maybe it'll be surprisingly good.
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With a hot chick? Well, the plot's the same, and if it ain't broke, add a hot chick. I like it!
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Thank Jesus. I'd go to the Thursday midnight show for this.
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First off, thank you for your post about prequels. I have respect for nay sayers who can actually reason why they nay say. Most can't seem to do that.
I think you're spot on about prequels, and that seems to be the trouble with prequels in general. Anything that's a "Prequel" to something (As in takes places before, but shot afterwards) is nothing but build up towards something we already know. Star Wars is a prime example of how the prequels can ruin the mysteries and revelations of past events, and ruin the impact of said revelations. If you watch Star Wars in order, you already know what happens, however, if you start with 4-6, you;re taken on a journey and the impact of the revelations in 'The Empire Strikes Back' will hit you in the chest. The idea of prequels is to show, and ultimatley, remove plot points used as effect.
For me, at least with 'The Thing', I may watch them in order once or twice, but I've seen Carpenter's 'The Thing' 50 million times. There's no surprise left for me. I just put it in again tonight, and the effect caused by MacReady and Blair finding the Norwegian base doesn't have the same effect on me as it did during my first several viewings. I know Carpenter's film enough that, even if I did watch them out of order, I'm not as involved. I've seen the film more then enough times to know what to conclude as to what happened with the people at the Norwegian base.
I can see nay sayers arguements if this would mark the first viewings of Carpenter's remake, but really, this film doesn't spoil a damn thing for me. I know where it' heading, I know where the characters end up, and that doesn't have an effect when I watch Carpenter's film what so ever. Sure, we all know how this new film is going to end, but couldn't the same thing be said for most films? Hell, we all know how most superhero films are going to end.... We all knew how Titanic ended, but that didn't stop 600 million dollars worth of movie goers going to see it.
Like I said earlier, 'John Carpenter's The Thing'came out a year before I was born, and I never got to experience that masterpeice on the big screen. I love the story, and I'm looking forward to seeing it play out on the big screen. As a fan of this story, regardless of how close it is to Carpenter's film, I am looking forward to this.
What I am digging about this prequel, is that it's attempting to remain consitant with Carpenter's film, and for that, I have mad respect. -
Jul 14, 2011 9:13:41 PM CDT
Dopes! Are you watching the preview or just reading talkbacks?
by snakeplissken711
First off I am not a plant. How can Mary Elizabeth Winstead be based on Kurt Russell's character when the actor Joel Edgerton plays a character "inspired" to "mimic" or "imitate" the MacReady chopper pilot from the '82 version? You have to look at this from Universal's perspective...while Carpenter's THE THING is considered now a monumental classic in the sci-fi horror universe, the mount a sequel to that movie is just TOO DAMN LATE! So the best way to get that same THING universe back online was to either remake it or reboot it! That said this PREQUEL is most definately a REBOOT of sorts, not a remake! Remember that the story of the Norweigian camp is that what happened there eventually happens at the US outpost! The ax in the door! The dogs! Scientists not trusting one another!Everything happens almost the same. If the filmmakers are truly fair they will kill off everyone except the two Norges who fly after the THING dog at the film's end. I know for a fact that the script ends with them chasing the dog...however what makes the final cut will have to be seen. Now if this movie makes money then we can get something new...a real sequel with the THING getting to American soil perhaps and a world domination type of scenario...to many people in today's cinema world just don't follow the original, and so they are re-booting this from a PREQUEL perspective does make sense. The fact that we are getting any THING movie at all after almost 30 years is reason to celebrate! At least the cinematography is similar to Dean Cundey's and the production design matches also. Stop whining so much people! You will ALWAYS have the Carpenter version!
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There may not be any surprise left for you after watching 50+ times but there still are questions. Things you can discuss with your friends for hours like: Is Macready a thing?, who cut open the bags of blood?, Who tried to frame Macready? and of course are either of the two sujrvivors a thing? That's what makes this movie so great, you can debate it forever. What I don't want is some Hollywood writer giving me his answers to these questions and making them fact. This is what ruined Star Wars for me. I can't watch Darth Vader in the original trioligy anymore without picturing Wanikan Skywalker under the mask, and that sucks! If you want to make a new The Thing picture that does not tie into JC's Thing, that is fine. Just don't go fucking with the film I love.
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Jul 14, 2011 9:19:41 PM CDT
Oh, I get it. By calling it a prequel they can get away with ripping off
by thatchicken
the aesthetic and basic narrative outline of the Carpenter film.
This way, the writers and filmmakers didn't have to put all that much thought into it. -
Jul 14, 2011 9:29:18 PM CDT
Yes, they are speaking English. Because the filmmakers aren't idiots like you.
by executor
"Why aren't they speaking Norweigian????" you whine.
Because it's an American made movie aiming for broad appeal and believe it or not, the average movie-goer isn't going to go see a subtitled movie because the average movie-goers aren't complete fucking morons like the lot of you who cry about language in a movie.
IT'S A MOVIE!!!! It will be in the language for the intended audience. ENGLISH.
These stupid nitpicks all of you morons have...that's why you are behind your computer waiting for your shift at Best Buy to start, not behind the desk at a movie studio. Because you don't know shit.
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If the filmmakers weren't idiots, they wouldn't have created such a blatant continuity error. They WANT it to seen as a prequel. They WANT the audience to believe that these events happened before the events of Carpenter's film.
Someone's going to come along and watch this movie first, then watch the Carpenter movie, and they're going to ask, "Uh, what the fuck? Why didn't the Norwegian guys just speak English to the Americans?"
There was an easy solution to all this, though. They could have made a sequel and had an international crew trying to find out what happened to the Norwegians and the Americans, or they could have done yet another, straight remake that had nothing to do with Hawks' or Carpenter's films.
So simple, even an idiot could see it.
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If they have a few who speak English and they rest speaking Norge that could be great for the audience without subtitles, because it adds to our paranoia that we do not know what they heck they are saying. I immediately thought when I saw the dogs chewing the fence - that looks familiar. I sure hope there is more original content in there.
Has anyone read the script? -
Jul 14, 2011 9:41:53 PM CDT
Well, I'm just glad to see more people/almost everyone else on here feels the same as me. My ego is feeling awfully nicely stroked.
by sobchaksecurity
Ignore the ego part. I'm kidding. I try to be the most egoless person ever. But I am glad to see that there are those who are as passionate fans of the thing as I am, and can see how much so and why this remake disguised as a prequel as such a bad and unnecessary idea in the first place. Seriously. I think someone should do some research and start a blog or website, researching every little bit you can and find who produced it and greenlighed it and send them letters of protest expressing why you think it's a horrible idea etc.
Note: If you do so choose to do that, please, PLEASE make it me be an intelligible, well thought out non-insulting or swearing every other word and non threatening letter to whom ever you may right too.
I say we seriously organize a mass protest of this, city to city, state by state. Demonstrate outside theatres, tell people why it's so bad etc. Maybe even give free outdoor showings of The Thing 82!! See, there's another bad part about this, we will now have to refer the thing 82, as the thing 82, to avoid confusion. Bastards!
Also, and while he, or she, comes off as a weirdo, genderblender's post titled "Not a Prequel, a Remake Indeed", pretty much sums up my points and feelings exactly.
Oh and out of curiosity, any truth to the rumour that Macready's brother will be in this?, and if so, what is his role exactly? -
Watch, they'll all actually speak English in the film, as in, all characters will know English as a language...
Except the ONE GUY who survives till the beginning of JC's The Thing.
That would rule. /sarcasm
Hopefully they do it Red October style. It's the only way that makes sense. -
One of the first rules of a debate is to not make it personal. If what your saying is fact, then your arguement should stand on it's own. Once you make it personal and start throwing unnecessary insults at everyone who dosen't see things your way then you have already lost the arguement. This is like debate team 101, you would know that if you were educated. See how I threw that in at the end just to insult you? It dosn't help my arguement at all does it?
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http://collider.com/director-matthijs-van-heijningen-on-set-interview-the-thing/52428
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Actually, I think your sarcastic explanation is probably the way it will happen.
There will be a joke in the beginning when Winstead tries to talk to the guy. Someone will tell her, "Oh, that's Lars. He never bothered to learn English." Then he'll scowl and it'll be meant to be funny. -
Jul 14, 2011 9:55:59 PM CDT
looks to be decent movie - and for all the fanboys complaining
by labattsbleu
YOU DON'T HAVE TO GO!
I am a big fan of the original, but that film is 25 years old...a prequel isn't a bad thing - sure some of the decisions might not be that great (like having some americans)...and it looks 'sped up' like films nowadays so the pacing will probably be frenetic...
will wait and see, but it look decent - hope they don't screw up the alien like it looked like in one of the bootlegs. -
Jul 14, 2011 9:56:53 PM CDT
John Carpenter's is one of my favorite movies of all time and I don't understand the dislike being displayed here.
by stu_pickles
I just hope they don't do the same blood test sequence. They gotta come up with something new for that.
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...and that turned out to be the greatest horror movie in the last 30 years. I read the questionable prequel's leaked script and the trailer looks to support it with some key shots and reveals.
It wasn't bad, so don't be an ass and say you hate it. Go see it since you fucks watched Transformers and all of sudden you have some taste.
Sure you do. -
Jul 14, 2011 10:19:23 PM CDT
This film lost it's balls when it added a female in the mix.
by david_boreanez_cunt_hairz
No offense to you ladies, but the original was a group of guys and it felt right. I can't take another heroine movie with helpless guys in the background. Barf.
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Jul 14, 2011 10:20:52 PM CDT
This is a forum to give your thoughts on the trailer. You wanna be an O and tell us what we can't say, go fuck yourselves!!
by david_boreanez_cunt_hairz
nanny nanny boo boo
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...looks like fun. I'm there.
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Jul 14, 2011 10:23:47 PM CDT
Hope there's a vibe like Alien 3 with a bunch of dudes living long periods of time togther then suddenly throwing a hot babe into the mix
by stu_pickles
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Jul 14, 2011 10:24:29 PM CDT
one of the most uniquely awesome horror science fiction films ever made.
by doctorwho?
Damn straight.
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Jul 14, 2011 10:39:11 PM CDT
And it may be a beat for beat remake under the guise of a prequel...
by doctorwho?
...but can you blame them? This premise works like a charm, letting the viewers own suspicions and fears work against them.
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.........."It could also be not that great"
Spoken like a closet politician. -
Jul 14, 2011 10:48:28 PM CDT
The Universal Marketing Plants are all over this talkback
by iamanreborn
lot's of screen names I've never seen before.
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Jul 14, 2011 10:52:42 PM CDT
@billy_dee_williams ONLY possible "Thing" story I wanted to see...
by kenchun24
Totally agree.Hollywood is a producers medium now.Most films nowadays are paint by numbers reboots rehashes or requels...
The Thing only had one possible sequel IMHO.
Kurt Russell and Keith David (Mac and Childs) drink whiskey and shoot the shit about life and the crazy situation they have just survived.Then once thew whiskey goes dry,and the fire from the basecamp dies.Mac and Childs make some torches and gather whatever supplies they can and hunt down Blair and the Quaker Oats monster he has hidden inside of him.
The end. -
Some posters commented on it above and it's quite remarkable.
Perhaps it's my age and demographic... but amidst the avalanche of pure shit that comes out of Hollywood (Friends With Benefits anyone?) not to mention the lack of original ideas and mad rush to lay claim to every 'once popular' brand name character/comic strip/tv show etc...we live in a time where we are getting to see characters come to life off the page and on to the screen I never thought I'd see.
Now, whether they are quality is arguable but damn...if you would have told me in 1982 that I was going to see all of these iconic heroes hit the screen like this I would have freaked. I vote the glass is half full. -
Jul 14, 2011 10:59:55 PM CDT
genderblender, I had the exact same thoughts re: remake/ripoff
by kevred
It's just telling the same story again. The sets, the lighting, the framing, even the bloody music style are just picked right out of Carpenter's pocket.
Looking at the events in the trailer, it makes the Carpenter film kind of ridiculous. The Thing goes to another camp, and then all the exact same things happen. Prequels should enhance the main story, not make it look redundant and pointless.
This is not a prequel. It's just an excuse to make a lazy copy with a few tweaks.
Unambitious junk, with a pretty 20-something woman in every other frame all but begging, "please, some women come see this film!" It's not that women have no place in such a story - it's that this is a contrived, transparent move to both add sex appeal and bring in young women (heaven forbid we have a more plausibly mature woman in the film).
Feh! Rubbish. -
For some strange reason I was taken to a movie theater to see John Carpenter's The Thing when I was four years old. That goddamn movie mentally scarred me for like 15 years with nightmares and phobias not to mention a John Carpenter addiction.
And I'm sorry to all the naysayers here, but this looks fucking awesome. I'm so there in a theater to see this.
I can't believe I created an account just to leave this comment. -
is not going to be nearly as good as John Carpenter's film. I know it is supposed to be a prequel, but in terms of even the original it doesn't make any sense. Nothing about this movie makes any sense, the monster, the people at the base, none of it. I may watch this movie when it comes to DVD but I sure as hell won't see it at the theaters. It looks very similar to other horror movies of the current day and doesn't look like it'll be breaking any new ground, so here's hoping it doesn't do well because we don't need hollywood fucking up anymore of our classics.
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...lame acting, clunky dialogue, an empty vessel two-bob bint in the lead role and nothing remotely cool or frightening on display. This flick is going to be all sorts of terrible.
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Buried alien station? Or just the inside of the ship?
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GIRL POWER.
Granted, it's the oh so predictable and obligatory hot female paleontologist/astro-physicist/rocket scientist (get bold hollywood and cast Ugly Betty next time)...but here she is, the smart, enlightened female entering this tiny heretofore closed, all-male community of big, dumb oafs. The genius amongst the slack-jawed males. She's the only one with half a clue as to what's going on. She will face their scorn, their ridicule, their sexual come-ons and of course... will be the last one standing.
Perhaps she can get some high heels onto the alien creature to slow his escape over the rough, icy terrain. -
That is such BS man. These are works of fiction, not realistic accounts of an alien organism invading arctic research stations. Yeah, perhaps similar things would happen at each base, but that's just so lazy. There are many ways to make this premise significantly different then Carpenters version. They should just call this a remake because that's what it is. With an endless amount of possibilities to tell a story like this, the constant aping of the original screams lazy, uninspired, and a lack of creativity. I mean fuck, even if something like this DID happen in reality, the odds of it being seemingly identical are quite low. Trying to defend this movies blatant ripoffs is inexcusable, unless of course they concede that it's a remake. But even then it would still be unnecessary.
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Damn crazy Swedes...
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TC: If we're right, we'll have to send each other a bottle of J&B Scotch to commemorate, because it would be near Sandler's "Jack and Jill" levels of negative hyperbole becoming real.
FuckoffChris: Thanks for the link... But I had to stop reading a few Q 's in because they started spoiling the opening scene, and I want to avoid that type of stuff as much as possible. Was there something in particular that was germane to the conversation? -
I was excited, too.
A prequel of the original would have been great.
The one with the "gunsmoke"-guy as monster.
It just ran on TV resently and it was very atmospheric and intense – even without nostalgia-effects from childhood memories.
A prequel to that one, best in black and white or at least kind of blury like the "Sky Captain", would be a great thing. Personally I was never a big fan of John Carpenters version/remake.
Best wishes to everyone who reads this,
rainer -
Thanks for providing the truth to my comments, pillock.
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Jul 15, 2011 12:16:16 AM CDT
The presence of the Americans, and even a black dude, just strikes me as unnecessary.
by ironhelix
I can hear the suits now: "We need some americans in there so the audience can relate to them. Hell, make it a chick, and throw a black guy in there so all the homeboys will go see it"
I mean what the FUCK was wrong with just having Norweigans? Jesus tap-dancing Christ this PC bullshit just ruins these movies. -
I don't know what advance word you're hearing that's good about this film, because any movie that has it's release cancelled and does serious re-shoots is probably not going to be a good movie...
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THE THING! That's right. The trailer is good, however, but there's no point of make this movie. Period.
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Jul 15, 2011 12:50:07 AM CDT
I Like IT! It definitely says "Norge" or something on the side!!
by anklavepak
I like that they stuck close to the color temperature of the original remake, and so what if it is a remake of a remake.
IMHO it's one of the most promising looking remake prequels of late... and blissfully free of namless facelees 20 somethings acting as if they were teenagers.
Instead we have a heaps of scandinavian character actors and a good choice in MEW. Kudos!
I have high hopes! -
Jul 15, 2011 12:53:56 AM CDT
HOLY SHIT, HERE'S SOME UNSEEN THING REMAKE FOOTAGE I FOUND.......
by catchtheman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrY6qZadNVk
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...but that was when I was 14 not 4. But I did love The Thing and still love the heck out of it.
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Jul 15, 2011 12:56:52 AM CDT
Talk about scarring: what films has managed to scar you guys as grownups? Do tell!
by anklavepak
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...only watched it last summer, and I've seen a lot of crazy shit in my almost 40 years of life... what a freakshow!
Cigarette Burns by Carpenter and the late Moriarty, was good, but shit, Jenifer is pure evil in a bottle.
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SCREW YOU GENDERBENDER/GENDERBLENDER!!
Thanks to people like you, we'll never know movies like Carpenter's remake or 12 Angry Men.
You're a liberal, aren't you? -
Carpenter film as it is important for the two films to tie-in neatly. However, what bothers me is that this trailer comes very close to the film's release date and we have yet to hear any promotion or press about the project except a smattering on geek websites. My guess is that the studio has very little faith in the final cut and is looking to bury it.
A shame because I had high hopes for the RDM script. I hope I am completely wrong and that this film is the sleeper hit of the summer/fall. -
shame on them
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in the form of a film called THE MIST. Well, not officially, but overall it has a lot of the same elements and themes.
People trapped inside due to adverse weather/environmental conditions.
Check.
The trapped people dealing with Lovecraftian monsters that are slowly and tastefully revealed in more detail throughout both films by John Carpenter and Frank Darabont.
Check.
The idea of "who can you trust?" and "the monster is inside of us" concept done in different ways in each film, but the theme is basically very similar between both films too.
Check.
A very eerie and bleak atmosphere coupled with a feeling of "we are fucked".
Check.
While they are not related by being in the same franchise/series, both THE THING and THE MIST are perfect companions. The cool thing is that they are both different enough so as not to step on each others toes, but also explore similar themes with cool monsters.
Seriously Hollywood, doing something different or original is kind of liberating. You cats should try it more often. -
..and that was the tits!
not saying this will be compared to Evil Dead 2 in quality, but i don't get the retarded pedantism over the remake/sequel issue.
fuck off with all of you. if you need me i'll be in a theatre somewhere watching this movie. -
First off, Carpenter's version was a remake. Hey, I worship the man and the movie, too, but if it wasn't a remake, why did it kick off with THE SAME EXACT FUCKING TITLE CARD from the 50's version?!? Same burning-through-the-screen-effect and everything. Sure, you can point to the original short story it claims it was based on, but trust me, Carpenter loves him some Hawks and went so far as to have the original playing on TV during the second half of HALLOWEEN.
Secondly, whee the fuck are you people from ... Spaceland?!? "They're calling it a 'prequel', but it's really a remake!" "It looks like it's set in 2011!" "Why are they calling it 'THE THING' instead of 'THING: ORIGINS?!?" Here's the thing, gang, it IS 2011. Know how long ago 1982 is? 29 fucking years. Know how old the average moviegoer who might see this is? 16. They didn't finance this movie with hopes, dreams and that smegma you dropped last year on a vintage ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK poster and had to quickly mop up before having to explain to your friends what that curious stain was. Like every other studio in town, they're out to make bank. No, there's no way in hell there should be another THING, prequel, sequel OR remake, but they went and fucking did it (possibly forgetting how bad it initially bombed at the box office in '82). That they cared enough to posit it as a "prequel" or whatever is likely as good as it's gonna get for the fans.
Oh, and there WAS a female lead in the Hawks version. In fact, if I were a betting man, I'd say this was likely more of a smashup of Carpenter's version and Hawks's version and they wrote some "prequel" nonsense in there to keep the fanboys quiet. The fanboys are never quiet. Here endeth the lesson. -
First off, don't like the title. Needs to distinguish itself that it is a prequel. Did you notice that the Norwegians bar/recreation room looks quite similar to the Americans? Also, the dog chewing on the mesh like door, trying to get away from the Thing, looks identical to original. From hallway shots, to helicopters, to spaceship, to "Who can you trust", to a doctor, to one lead actor that audience knows is not a thing, etc., looks way too similar. I loved the original and will definitely see this, but right now I will withhold judgement!
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O.K. so they held it for an October release. Lots of horror films are released in October, of course. Maybe that's all there is to it. They waited this long to start hyping it with a trailer... maybe not a bad sign, either. The marketing budget won't be huge but they'll start pushing it hard as we near October.
I hope this is at least some-what decent. -
The irony is that while John Carpenter's THE THING was a remake of Howard Hawk's THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD, Carpenter actually went back to the original story that Hawk's film was based on. He was more faithful to "Who Goes There?" and his film was actually an evolution from what Hawks made back in 1951. This prequel/remake/etc. is merely a rehash, or as you say. a smashup of Carpenter's and Hawk's versions (but obviously it is primarily a rehash of Carpenter's version).
That is really the sad and depressing writing on the wall that sums up the current state of the film industry. No matter if you are a die-hard fan of John Carpenter's THE THING, or a 16 year old who never heard of it but wants to see this new version of THE THING.
The best analogy I can think of in relation to the various versions of THE THING is that between 1951 and 1982, John Carpenter actually left the nest and went out to find food. Between 1982 and now, this new version is just the regurgitated worm-sludge that the mother bird pukes into the mouths of the baby birds who can't fly yet. Hopefully the remake and prequel obsessed film industry will develop beyond this current phase and actually learn to fly. -
Jul 15, 2011 2:31:09 AM CDT
I HOPE THIS FUCKING BOMBS AND I'LL HELP BY DOWNLOADING IT!!! THIS WON'T GET ONE FUCKING PENNY FROM ME YOU COCKSUCKERS!!!
by catchtheman
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As ho-hum a trailer as you can get - just a copy of the original film but they added chicks, which ruins it - a great ensemble cast was assembled in the first and part of its dynamic was men isolated in the wilderness. It is going to be as bad as that first X-Files movie ... not an original idea in the whole thing ... when I first heard of this I thought, cool, use real Norwegian actors - lots of dialogue in Norse until they switched it over for the audience, and an even more bleak, more desperate set-up than the American base had ... but Noooo, stupid Hollywood SUITS wrote too many notes and have made this a waste
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Trailer looks pretty good though.
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Jul 15, 2011 3:03:51 AM CDT
This is a prequel you morons. It follows the Norwegians we see a glimpse of in the 1982 movie. Research much?
by jasonicus
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Sure THE THING is a brand - there are toys, comic-books, even a PS2 game... smells brand to me. Part of the reason the studio greenlit this remake - there's money to be made!!
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But i'll go see it anyway. Geeky.
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Jul 15, 2011 4:12:13 AM CDT
You all know that even Carpenter's the thing was a remake itself, right?
by theviking
"The thing from another world", 1951.
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I can live with that, so long as it's watchable.
It's probably not going to compare well with the original for those who grew up in it's thrall, but if you consider the fact that Evil Dead successfully fielded a remake as a SEQUEL, then a precedent has been set, and the sky still remains intact. -
The trailer isn't bad, and it might end up being good.
But even though its a prequel, it clearly seems like an unnecessary rehash of the carpenter masterpiece. -
I kinda agree with you, yet also realise that the two previous film incarnations of this story were released 30 years apart, and that this is merely continues that precedent.
It's a classic story, which demands a re-telling each generation.
The Thing from Another World 1951
The Thing 1982
The Thing 2012 -
In the end, this could run parallel with the events in the Carpenter's remake, considering they spanned a short period so, theoretically, the scientist babe could survive. Let's put it this way - as the protagonist she will be one of the last survivors and I can't imagine her being THINGED. So, maybe she sees a Norwegian taking off with the helicopter (to kill the dog), but from her perspective she interprets that as an escaping THING, and the plot carries on in her own trajectory for escape. Whatever the case, I'm sure this prequel will keep it open for more sequels.
At least they used the minimalist Morricone, or Morricone-like, score for the trailer - which is a good sign. -
Is it a prequel or a remake? Why call it the Thing? What the hell can you do that the original didn't already do?
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@anklavepak: The Mist scared (scarred?) the shit out of me, and the ending still has such an impact...I've watched the flick about 4-5 times and at least three of those times have had actual fucking night terrors that night.
And,
@lv_426: if The Mist also had ACTUAL bodysnatcher-style shenanigans in it, ala The Thing, I think the subsequent night terrors might've actually killed me with a heart attack
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Jul 15, 2011 5:59:14 AM CDT
Yes I do say scar not scare, like in really leaving a scar in your soul, like your first really bad horror xp did
by anklavepak
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Have Winstead's character survive, then make her way to the other camp a few days later to find a CGI Kurt Russell and that other guy playing chess. Lucas would be proud.
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...a prequel/remake hybrid. Can see this catching on. A happy medium that pleases both the fanbase of the original property and the mass audience of idiots who are repulsed by the idea of watching anything original. That's a pretty big audience. The only folk left are the small minority who have the insight to see that this is nothing to do with the original and is simply a quick cash grab...
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Whilst John Carpenters version is my all time fave I think this looks fun - what real harm can it do?
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HE wrote the script for Carpenter's THING. I hope his beneficiaries are getting paid for this new Thing ripping it off so much...
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Best Brimley line in Carpenter's version.
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If it was a reboot, why did they not just reboot it with an American cast? Surely more bankable. No studio has any regard for past films so why be so prissy with The Thing.
You guys sound like a conspiracy nut job wearing a tin foil hat. "Blah blah Its a reboot in the guise of a prequel"... even though it has the nationalities that are depicted as the untold story.
Similarities in the Arctic... you don't get Le Courbusier to make your snow huts, they are utilitarian. The are going to have snow, its the Arctic, thermals and helicopters, its the arctic - this has been depicted in the first film as being evident in the Norwegian camp. they have to have this.
So was Halloween 2 a reboot of Halloween 1? or Halloween 4 a reboot of Halloween 2? Er no it was a sequel, with a new story and characters. This is the same its just that it is chronologically before.
You guys are using this as a "I can see its a reboot, Im smarter than you" its the Emperors New Clothes. Its a prequel. Get over it...
Youre using the reboot theory to massage your egos, as if it is a reboot it may prove a point.
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and for the record yes Deep Blue Sea is crumby, I never said I liked it, I used it as an example.
I think you need to breath, women might start to like you if you do, you might even learn to like them too... -
Imho, the DP work is merely "acceptable"... honestly, mediocre. The original "The Thing" had a very cold...bleak.. isolated feel. This just looks like "30 Days of Night" with an alien instead of vampires... with some very subpar line delivery/acting by Mary Elizabeth Winstead instead of a stoic / enigmatic Kurt Russell. Very few DPs can deliver the "bleak" feel. Mark Irwin did it in "The Dead Zone"... and Dean Cundey in the original "The Thing." John Alcott is another for "The Shining."
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Imho, the DP work is merely "acceptable"... honestly, mediocre. The original "The Thing" had a very cold...bleak.. isolated feel. This just looks like "30 Days of Night" with an alien instead of vampires... with some very subpar line delivery/acting by Mary Elizabeth Winstead instead of a stoic / enigmatic Kurt Russell. Very few DPs can deliver the "bleak" feel. Mark Irwin did it in "The Dead Zone"... and Dean Cundey in the original "The Thing." John Alcott is another for "The Shining."
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A total copy, rip-off, pissing on, crapping on and middle-fingering waving, mooning atrocity.
They USED THE SAME LOCATIONS AND SCENE SETUPS AS CARPENTER.
Oh....and a chick replaced McGready? Really? -
I hope some day you become self-aware. I think that would be fun.
I love Carpenter's THE THING as much as anyone can, and there are shots here that don't just echo or recall or participate in the language of his film -- they are virtually exact. The flamethrower bit threw me for a loop -- I can buy that everyone in the arctic has a few flamethrowers, but it just felt so precisely the same that it calls into question what the intention is here. Of course, it's just a trailer, so what might just be respectful homage can read as Van Sant-ing a classic.
That's troubling, for me, because I want to be freaked out by this like I was the original, and if they're going beat for beat, but 'earlier, with Norwegians', that's a missed opportunity.
What if the Thing wasn't so clever in its first encounter with humans? What if it learned from the events at the Norwegian camp to not, say, explode into a gaping maw while in the company of two people, because one escapes and lets the rest know Fred is now 70% mouth and also tentacles and just ate Frank. Just spitballing. I want to be surprised by it -- and the trailer makes me suspicious that there are no surprises in store. Part of what makes Carpenter's THING so special is the many, many jump moments come from nowhere and are complimented with a creative practical grossness that has never be equaled.
Like I said before, I hope this is good. But don't pretend you're some arbiter of sanity and even-handed consideration when you're really just the other side of the reactionary stupid coin. You should maybe take some of those breaths you recommend. -
Maybe not a remake, same look at and feel as the original the rec room, a flamethrower, a black guy wearing a beanie cap……I’m curious to see what they’ll try and do to replicate the blood test sequence, because you know that’s coming. Looks like they try to stick with the bleak tone which is good, and nice to see the same block of ice as in Carpenter’s version, but the female lead in the trailer comes off as very flat.
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Somebody said they were hoping for a bomb, not me. I would like to see a nice box office return to at least pay respect to Carpenter’s great original. Carpenter’s film was a box office dud, which is insane when you think about how amazing it is.
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I needed to add a comma/dash to my previous post ("same look and feel as the original - the rec room"). Otherwise, it looks like my post was initially focused on comparing the rec rooms of the two films. And although a huge fan of the first film, I am not actually that passionate about the rec room specifically.....I now return you to your previous talkback already in session.
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Looks more like a cover to me...The annoying kind of cover, you know what I mean, the ones that sound almost exactly like the original song recording...
And Carpenter's not the original adaptation of that story. -
theyre all gonna die!!
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Jul 15, 2011 9:04:35 AM CDT
@quintana007 Wanna bet? There'll be a sequel; "THE THING IN THE CITY""
by marineboy
She will survive - promise you...and her skinny jean lover (beaten up Hicks style).
Will be some sub plot so they can make an official sequel, because I have no doubt this will make it's budget back plus some...
Lemme guess...The Thing In The City :s -
Of course it had similarities and some scenes will echo the first film. A promotional advert made 30 years after will show this, this bring nostalgia and show it is a continuation. It is to show a faithfulness to source, or a deference to the themes and visuals it created. If there was none of this people would be up in arms over the complete and total lack of similarity to the earlier film. People would be saying, "why no flame thrower action in this? That was the coolest thing in the film; they totally dropped the ball on that douche bags!!!!"
I notice that you don't address the Norwegian element in the film an obvious plot device that will heighten tension in a way that 10 Americans with a shared language. I notice that you do not talk of the female lead a massive gender bending difference in the film so it cannot be the same. There is a shot of a snow cat so some may be escaping the base, or at least make a run and be chased - a difference from the claustrophobic original.
I liked the performances in the trailer, I liked the set up and the attention to detail. I did not like the cheap rather than claustrophobic camera work, and the lighting. I dont think this will be a classic, I do think it will be an entertaining and well made diversion.
people here are complaining it looks too similar, and then complaining about the major differences (a woman) or ignoring that the Nowegians talk Norwegian. Its a circle jerk of comments to boost peoples egos here.
I am sorry if any actual substance to a post is used by me, maybe I should just join the heard with a one sentence vitriolic comment. Women - always ruining films! -
Jul 15, 2011 9:18:28 AM CDT
Prequel? It is a remake. And it seems to not tread any new ground.
by riskebiz
So it's Mary instead of Kurt, but basically it looks IDENTICAL to the last film...which still holds up extremely well...so why remake this if you're basically going to do the EXACT same thing as the last remake? It begs the question: Why does this movie exist AT ALL? Why remake this movie? The reasons seem exist in the narcissistic head of a young a-hole movie suit who championed this remake.
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The paperwork at the Norwegian camp is written in Norwegian. Windows tries multiple times to reach the outside world and has zero luck. So I'm supposed to believe these English speaking Norwegians had the ability to bring in other people from the outside who just happen to be American and now magically they all speak English? Fuck off. And why would you show who's been taken over in the trailer?
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There is no indication in that trailer that the Norwegians don't understand/speak English. I definitely agree that IF that's something used in the film, that's great, and that's something which may be hard to convey in a trailer that's meant to be paranoid and monstery. But I doubt it.
I think you vastly overstate the importance of the lead being a woman as something that 'necessarily changes' the story. Will this film in any way address her woman-ness? Use it as another layer of paranoia about difference? No, because to do so is to be 'sexist', and girls can fight monsters just as well as boys, and blah blah blah the same crap that keeps us fearing and ignoring difference instead of celebrating or problematizing it. I like Winstead a lot -- I think she sells it here, but she's not selling anything we haven't bought a dozen times from every crotch variation out there.
Between us, I think we can outline a really kick-ass THING movie that plays different from the original while keeping it in heart and mind. But this trailer doesn't read like that. Norwegians speak English and there's another woman in the background to make sure Winstead's character doesn't have to deal with the society of men in any way that could be an interesting meta 'body' horror in a film about a monster that can look like anyone.
Again, I stress, I have hope for the film, but the trailer makes me think it is not what I wished for, and as always with any time my expectations are dashed immediately, I really love being wrong.
Also, I have no idea what you are saying in your last sentence. -
off to a bad start
seriously, is it THAT expensive to hire a helicopter for a day? No. -
... such a great script. All that quotable dialogue, feelings of tension/paranoia, that all comes directly from his script. The blood-test scene in particular is brilliant.
Based on this trailer, it looks like the leaked Moore script is the real deal. I'll have to get around to reading it soon.
One more thing, the novelization of The Thing is great. Buy it if you see it. It might make a good palate-cleanser if this prequel/remake turns out to be, uh, not all that great (there's a distinct possibility).
ps. Is it true that John Carpenter's not getting ANY money from this? Come on Universal, if you've got any respect at all, at least cut him SOME kind of a check! Guys like Carpenter, Cundey, Lancaster, Bottin... they did all the heavy lifting! -
Jul 15, 2011 10:25:55 AM CDT
Mr.Eko is filling the soul brother quotient this time
by banditdarville
Keith David and T.K. Carter will have to counsel him. I wonder if they'll have his head pop off and sprout legs or something like that. Come to think of it, a Mr. Eko head with spider legs would be a cool pet to have! I want one!!!
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I hope they don't make all the characters english speakers. obvious reasons. Also the technology they were using seemed to indicate that the film may take place in present time instead of early 1980's. Otherwise looks amazing.
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Really? Using the same damn title and showing us a trailer where you are copying scenes? Wow, they must think fans are REAAAAAAAAAALLLY dumb.
Or are we that dumb to still be excited and go and pay to watch this tripe? -
I was thinking the EXACT same thing. When the Americans looked around the Norwegians' camp, it looked very similar to theirs. They would have dogs, helicopters, and even flamethrowers (I guess). Heck - the American camp had one, why can they? All you morons blasting this trailer because it looks like the original need to clam up. Of COURSE it's going to look similar - how could it not?? If it looked any different you'd be complaining about that. I'm guessing some people would be complaining no matter what. The fact that you picked the similarity between the tone of the two movies is a good strong thumbs up to this trailer. Wait until the movie comes out and you see it before you judge it. You whiners are pathetic. Grow up. Those of you who are willing to give this a shot before totally writing it off after a two minute trailer, I'm with you.
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http://www-images.theonering.org/torwp/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Balin-and-Dwalin.jpg
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The Norwegian team in the original were obviously gruff, tough all male characters like the American team. This looks absolutely absurd beyond belief. Nice that they all chatter away happy in English and have a 21 year old American girl visiting (who is probably some specialist in Aztec cultures or some contrived bullshit) for ABSOLUTELY NO FUCKING REASON WHEN THERE IS AN AMERICAN TEAM DOING RESEARCH ABOUT 10 FUCKING MILES DOWN THE ROAD.
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Remember when films were well written, had actors who weren't wooden and could actually make you forget you were sitting in a theater? Prequels, sequels and three-quels... If Hollywood is gonna serve us the same shit repackaged until the end of time, at least TRY to make something watchable. LOSE!!!!
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Jul 15, 2011 12:05:41 PM CDT
They should've called this "Where in the world is Snake?"
by mattforce7
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Stop posing as genuine users. You are fooling nobody. Stop trying to create a buzz for this piece of shit by ringing in the "geek crowd". Nobody in their right mind who has seen the original would think this "has a few issues but looks awesome". It does NOT look awesome, it looks awful. It does NOT have a few issues - it is an entire issue in itself. It looks like complete and utter bullshit.
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Jul 15, 2011 12:08:11 PM CDT
If the title of this movie wasn't "The Thing", folk would dismiss it as...
by royston lodge
...generic, derivative, pap.
Seriously, give this movie a different title and it's simply another iteration of Whiteout. -
b/c nothing is more truthful than making claims on the internet to complete strangers...lol...
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That fuckin' movie is perfect in every way. It is ageless.
The only nitpicks I could even try to come up with is the climax, where the 'big thing' attacks Mac just as he's trying to rig the charges.
It comes at him like 30mph underground... then when it pops up, it just stands there and growls... waits for MacReady to throw the TNT at it. But I'm sure that's a product of the times/budget.. no crummy CGI to fall back on back then.
Then Mac does a perfect dive/roll, snatches up the TNT in effortless fluidity, and hits us with a "Yeah? Fuck you too!" before he tosses the explosives at it. That all played out a little too slick for my liking, going against the grain of the rest of the movie.
That is the only moment of the movie that could be improved in any possible way for me.
They just don't make 'em like that anymore... real actors, real characters, real atmosphere. Quite possibly my favorite movie of all time. -
Jul 15, 2011 12:27:29 PM CDT
The Universal Marketing Plants are all over this talkback...hahahahaha
by billy_d_williams
so predicatable
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... "date it" as coming from the era of copycat trendy...but the movie could be good.
What is the name of this prequel?
It just said "The Thing" in the trailer.
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...translation: even if it sucks, Quint is going to loooove it and find it "soooooo good, a greaaaaaat hommage to Carpenter with a fantaaaastic 21st Century upgrade."
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MacReady and the US Crew is one helico ride away, but it is the Norwegians that manage to bring an American girl on site, all that fucking time, of course, she does not try to get in touch with her fellow Americans, even facing danger, and instead decides to give the Norwegian government the exclusive on the first alien organism to ever be found since the begining of time. Fucking screenwriters.
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the linchpin in the original's script. It just sounds like this woman is the Ellen Page of the story, somehow all-seeing and all-knowing/everything-I-say-is-foreboding cast member while all the males are fodder for the creature--never mind developing them into paranoid victims of this alien's twisted, manipulative mindgame.
In the original (John Carpenter version in this context), Mac was awesome because he didn't know what was happening. He made his judgments not out of thin air but from the information he gathered firsthand and the information he learned from the others. His leaps in logic weren't presented as leaps, like hers are in the trailer.
That said, the trailer is much better than I expected. However, it'll never touch the 80s version. I'll see it but I can already tell it won't be recapture the John Carpenter magic. -
Jul 15, 2011 1:30:04 PM CDT
From Outpost 31 (http://www.outpost31.com/movie/faq.html)
by flynn-lives
How did the Norwegians find the wreck?
A: Well, it is very unlikely the members of the Norwegian camp came across the ship by accident. There are two important considerations here: (1) the Norwegian base was only “about 5 or 6 miles” away from the crash site, and (2) the Norwegians had set up camp “for only eight weeks.” That means they must’ve found the wreck very early into their expedition. Either the Norwegians got extremely lucky or they already knew something anomalous was in the area. The latter is probably the case. While they likely didn’t realize they had an alien shipwreck on their hands, the Norwegians did know from previous surveys that something unusual was in the general vicinity. And so they sent an expedition to check it out. This explains why their camp was such a small distance away from the ship and how they happened to find it so quickly.
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oh, i agree NCIS LA is not TERRIBLE (by network standards); neither is NCIS. But I probably only watch it because I don't have HBO or AMC ... I also watch it to try to figure out what exactly is up with that chick's eye
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Bill Lancaster is one of John Carpenter's pseudonyms.
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Jul 15, 2011 1:49:58 PM CDT
The Universal Marketing Plants are all over this talkback...hahahahaha
by la_sith
I guess I must be one of the "plants"? I'm a massive fan of the original and I'm still curious to see this.
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that goth chick.she is unbelievably HAWT.
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I mean, did you talk to John Carpenter himself and he told you it's a remake? Cause while the title card of his movie is a definitely tribute to the '51 film, it's actually not at all like that movie outside of setting and the most basic preliminary story context.
I've read the short story "Who goes there?" and there simply is no vegetable alien to be found anywhere on any single page. Not a doctor that sympathizes with the "Thing" only to get himself killed by it. No electrical trap that catches the thing and shrinks him down, etc.
This obviously takes nothing away from either film but unless someone here specifically heard that John Carpenter himself said that his movie was a remake of the 1951 version, I call bollocks on that notion.
I say he made '82s "The Thing" as both a tribute to the original and a real translation of the novella. With modern (for 1982) effects that could actually capture the biology of the "Thing" creature on screen whereas f/x in the 50's likely couldn't have done much more than put men in ugly suits running around; but what Carpenter truly captured from the novella was the paranoia and distrust of the main characters not knowing who was who or who was the Thing.
The scene where fragments of the camp are standing outside after burning Norris's,etc. remains - where Mac says (paraphrased) "I know I'm human. I know some of you must be too or you'd just kill me right now. This thing wants to hide in us, where it feels safe....it's time to find out who's who" is basically taken right practically note-for-note from a scene in the original story.
That scene and the driving "who can you trust" context behind it not being at all incorporated into the 1951 version is the main reason why I do not consider it a remake.
Now, do I know this for a fact? Of course not. Do I know John Carpenter personally or have spoken to him about this? Of course not. Would I stand corrected if one of you claiming 82's 'The Thing' is a remake of 51's "The Thing from Another World" and prove it by pointing to where Carpenter said exactly that? Happily!
To me it's like the animated version of Lord of the Rings compared to Jackson's version. One is obviously not a remake of the other but yet I bet you can find key pieces of Jackson's work that were taken from the animated version.
Still doesn't make it a remake! -
Not even a hint of Belushi's house-crasher. WTF?
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Just wanted to echo that I'm sick to death of these types of trailers. I don't even have as many problems with the movie itself as I do with the way these trailers are cut. They make movies that might actually BE more original than they appear seem stale and trite and just like the same old CGI infected garbage. Trailers that are cut like this are A FUCKING TURN-OFF. Please stop with the Inception-like music bellows(although that turn of events is relatively new, it's been beaten to the ground very quickly), the quiet scene followed by the sting and someone screaming (what is this, fucking youtube?), the characters SAYING WHAT'S ACTUALLY GOING ON instead of letting us figure out it out through the images, and then, of course, the FUCKING BUTTON... the title, followed by quiet scene of someone peaking around or shivering saying, "It's gonna be ok... it's gonna be ok..."then BLAM, some shit comes flying towards the camera lens... yeah, not fucking suspenseful anymore since not only do we know it's coming already, we've been trained to know the exact frame count of when it's going to hit... Jesus Christ, FUCK this shit. Creatively bankrupt cocksuckers.
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While I agree with your basic premise that all trailers are cut the same now, you can't fault the 'Inception-like' music... seeing as it's actually 'JC's The Thing-like music'.
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The Last Frontier for Fans with a brain cell...or two
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The Last Frontier for fans with a brain cell...or two
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Don't know why my text got deleted twice.
Why do SOME of you guys want to watch a film made by a lesser director who is trying to copy scenes directed by a greater director? After seeing that trailer, why the heck will you want to watch this movie?
This IS a remake because it's stealing scenes from the great work by Carpenter's and using the music at the end to get us excited. Cheap.
Please, defenders of this film, WHY are you defending it? -
Sadly, I think you are right about that one. Even Prometheus is sort of something along those lines (more of a prequel/sequel hybrid), in that it will serve as a prequel to ALIEN while also supposedly kick starting the Alien franchise off in another direction.
I agree that the idea of "premakes" will catch on in Hollywood in the next year or two. Get ready to see:
Predator - which will be about the first team of mercs sent into the jungle by Dillion, and who encountered the Predator and ended up as skinned corpses found on the second mission lead by Dutch (Arnold). Actually, Predators was pretty much a rehash of the plot of Predator as it is, so a premake of the original Predator is almost guaranteed.
Aliens - wanna know all of the grisly details leading to and occurring during the fall of the colony of Hadley's Hope once the aliens started chestbursting but before the Colonial Marines and Ripley arrived? No... well fuck you, we're gonna make a movie about it anyways. Rupert Murdoch gotta eat.
The Terminator: T-101 - before he was sent back to kill Sarah Connor in 1984, this particular terminator model nearly killed John Connor, but was captured and reprogrammed as his protector in the future. You thought that these terminators were just one offs from an assembly line, but now you must see how the one in the films was recaptured by Skynet and reprogrammed to be sent back to kill Sarah Connor. Then the sequel to this premake will be a shot for shot remake of James Cameron's original The Terminator.
Indiana Jones and the Curse of the Golden Idol - A premake that serves as both a reboot of Indiana Jones and as a prequel to that classic first scene in South America in Raiders of the Lost Ark. This time with a younger and hipper actor in place of Harrison Ford. -
6iX - before SE7EN, there was 6iX.
Big Trouble in Little Italy - before there was Big Trouble in Little China, Egg Shen is called to help ward off demons in Chicago's Little Italy neighborhood.
Beverly Hills Cop: Detroit City Undercover - before getting into hilarious antics in Beverly Hills, ace cop Axel Foley takes down scumbags in Detroit in the mid 1980's.
Zero Recall - before he was Quaid he was Hauser, friend and top corporate espionage agent for the ruler of Mars known as Cohagen.
Blade Runners - before he quit the force, Rick Deckard was the best of the best when it came to hunting replicants. Before he can leave the force, Deckard must help bring a green but eager Blade Runner known as Holden up to speed during a dangerous offworld replicant hunt. Meanwhile, replicant super-warrior Roy Batty battles rebel forces, marvels at c-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhauser gate, takes place in a massive space battle off the shoulder of Orion, escapes and sets off towards Earth to meet his god. -
You know THAT is being worked on as we speak. Hollywood ain't too low for nuthin
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Pray it ain't so, but expect it to be Phantom Menace for horror...so bad it actually obliterates the mythos of the original.
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Kojima used that retcon for his MGS series,i wouldnt be suprised if HW retconed the Thing in a similar way in some future remake.
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Jul 15, 2011 4:08:25 PM CDT
$10 bucks says this is a hybrid of the 50s and 80s version and the cell structure of this "THING" is plant-like, hence aversion to fire.
by boober
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Jul 15, 2011 4:26:40 PM CDT
who is actually Uruguayan, or Bolivian, or some sort of Spanish
by ragingfluff
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Will be interesting to see if the phonetically
impaired german that played norwegian no1
in 82 really will reprise his role in this like
the director claimed thou -
Jul 15, 2011 5:03:45 PM CDT
la_sith: "Bill Lancaster is one of John Carpenter's pseudonyms"
by big dumb ape
LA, someone wrote: "All respect in the world goes to Bill Lancaster for writing" -- to which YOU replied: ""Bill Lancaster is one of John Carpenter's pseudonyms."
Well...it's not a pseudonym here. Sorry, but if you're trying to claim that the writer of THE THING was actually Carpenter himself, you're way off base and totally mistaken.
Bill Lancaster actually exists. He's a REAL person. In fact, he has a famous Dad -- his father is legendary actor Burt Lancaster.
As a writer, for Paramount, Lancaster was responsible for writing the hit movie THE BAD NEWS BEARS, as well as writing the sequel THE BAD NEWS BEARS GO TO JAPAN.
He then he moved over to Universal where he wrote THE THING screenplay -- the original version of which you can get a taste of, if you get a hold of Alan Dean Foster's novelization that was issued at the time of the film's release.
And it's GREAT read since it has quite a few scenes and concepts that -- sadly -- were NOT used in the Carpenter film.
In fact, the ending of the novelization...which is the showdown between McReady and the Thing....is INCREDIBLY better and much larger scale -- and it's much, much COOLER in the novelization and in Lancaster's original script than what Carpenter eventually put to film.
Anyway, just wanted you to know that when it comes to THE THING movie, Bill Lancaster was NOT John Carpenter using a pseudonym... -
they try this "prequel" nonsense, because the amount of kicking they took when it appeared they were remaking JCs The Thing, a film thats virtually impossible to top how ever much cgi you chuck at the screen
so its a remake and a bad one at that as the trailer makes pretty obvious, the point of an alien that can shapeshift (and I bet we gots of cgi morphing and not Rob Bottin style effects) into anything is you dont know who to trust and no-one trusts anyone anymore as no-one knows who the thing is. its not a haunted house creep around a bunch of dark rooms getting jumpy and spooked type of horror ghost story, its about paranoia.
nothing Ive seen so far about this movie makes me a)excited about seeing it or b)think it was a good idea to do in the first place.
Im not expecting either of those two things to change
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About as convincing as Natalie Portman playing a physicist in "Thor."
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you nailed it, hollywood has zero balls now and screenwriters are fucking cliche spewing hacks, the all male cast and the chopper pilot drunk being the hero were inspired choices.
this has a typical role reversal of a hot girl as the lead, its ridiculous that SHE knows everything and theyre all playing catch up while she explains everything--it was so awesome that macready didnt know what the fuck was going on and had to hear it from the scientists, but when the shit hit the fan he took control and came up with the hot wire blood test.
fucking screenwriters/studios are so predictable and goddamn lazy, the only way this would be done like the original if is a director who could do whatever they want did it, like tarantino or cameron--if they wanted an all mid 30-60's male cast with a drunk anti hero, they could -
Jul 15, 2011 6:16:42 PM CDT
I want to see this the same reason I watched every Nightmare on Elm Street movie
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
Movies aren't about bottling up the classics and putting them in a museum so you can gawk at them while shunning the outside world.
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Yes, there was some points to that interview with the prequels director. Here are a few bits:
"van Heijningen understood what made the original work and he’s trying to exist in the same universe. What that means is he’s not trying to craft a fast cutting modern horror movie with tons of flash and zero substance. Instead, he wants to tell a character based movie which eventually becomes a horror film. He told us the best kinds of horror films are the ones where you start to care about the characters and then when things start to happen, you’re more invested in the people and the film.
He also told us that instead of having an all American cast, his movie has a lot of Norwegian actors and they’re not going to speak English. Yes, we’re getting some subtitles! "
"Q: How far do you go into it, because we obviously know where the other movie starts, are we going to get to the point where we actually see the dog and the helicopter…
MVH: Yeah, I mean, this film ends with the crazy Norwegian stepping in a helicopter and leaving.
Q: But you don’t actually show, you leave it there.
MVH: I cast the exact same guy, got the exact same helicopter (laughs), we learn who this guy is. "
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Just an FYI for those bitching about this being a "a prequel that really smells and feels like a remake"...
That IS what it is.
Because THAT was the plan all along.
History lesson: Universal originally hired Ron Moore with the intent that he'd both write AND direct a new movie that would allow for a total expansion of the material. In short, he'd craft things so a "franchise" could be restarted from scratch.
So, the idea was this: the whole shebang would be relaunched and START with a brand new prequel -- basically, what you're getting here. Furthermore, by starting with a prequel, it would technically count as a new movie, and Universal could market it as such.
Then...assuming the prequel was a hit...the plan was to shift into an actual REMAKE of THE THING -- thus allowing Universal to get another film out of the series. And since it would be a modern update, technically it would also be a "new" movie in the eyes of the public. Hell, at this point, given the age to the Carpenter film, a remake would definitely be a "new" movie to today's generation of teenage ticket buyers.
And then finally...since studios love to milk things (no pun intended!)...if the second film (the remake) was a hit as well, the plan was to then make a THIRD film, to round out the franchise with a true trilogy feel.
This third film would obviously now be an all-new creation, and the proposed plot (supposedly) centered on the Thing reaching civilization. But best of all -- in the eyes of Universal -- that would also give the films a fresh new setting. Translation: it would allow for the possibility of a THING 4 or 5 (for theatrical release or direct to video) if the studio wanted to milk things even more.
So why am I bringing all of this up? Because it explains the ending to this film and WHY it's (supposedly) been shaped the way that it is. I read several interviews a while back with cast and crew and apparently...
---- SPOILERS!!! YOU WERE WARNED!!!-------
...This film ends with a direct connection to the Carpenter film. So you'll see a helicopter chasing the infected dog as it runs towards the "Kurt Russell" American camp.
However, supposedly Universal had the ending RESHOT a bit. So while it will still have the helicopter going after the dog, it will ALSO show the girl and someone else surviving too. They will escape the camp and head off in the opposite direction, fleeing for safety.
The point being -- just like the Carpenter film -- the end will strongly imply (or perhaps it will outright show) that one of them is infected. And thus the danger of the Thing still being alive and possibly getting back to civilization is completely reestablished.
Which is HOW this "prequel" can eventually leap over the Carpenter film and still generate yet another sequel for Universal. Because now the studio will have the option of making a follow-up that picks up on THEM (and not Kurt Russell or Keith David) and whatever happens next.
BUT...I could be wrong. Maybe they changed things completely. But being a big THING fan -- and based on all of the interviews and information that I've tracked down over the years and during the production of this film -- all of this is seems to be Universal's master plan. -
It's becoming really, really sad when so called film geeks can't logically argue back, so they have to throw out the "studio plants" comments to discredit those who have a different opinion. I see it here all the time, and is the reason that I've avoided posting here for so long. The whole theory of studio's sending in some of their own people to argue against of closed minded idiots is ridiculous fan boy paranoia at its worst. You guys seem to have such a hard time accepting that not everyone, and not every fan, is going to agree with your own opinons, that you have to resort to cheap, un-original, and dillusional theories so you can keep telling yourselves that you're always right.
Do I work for Universal? I... Fucking... Wish. I'm a huge fan of John Carpenter, and I'm remaining open minded about this prequel. I haven't seen it, but unlike some of you people, I've managed to read up on it before jumping to conclusions about what it will have and won't have in it. I posted a link to an interview with the prequels director in which several of concerns are addressed, and most of you ignored it... continuing with your ignorant hatred. Your minds are already made up, and that is sad. What's worse is when you can't refute those opinions that don't agree with yours, so you try to rationalize with bullshit conspiracy theories. -
Jul 15, 2011 6:50:14 PM CDT
Think about it...The same special effects team that worked on Surrogates...
by mattforce7
worked on this....aaaand??
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Actually, there isn't a thing in that trailer that looks identical to Carpenter's film other then the set of the Norwegian base.
Why am I defending this? Simple,because I haven't seen this film yet, and refuse to judge it soley based on a trailer. From the things I've read about it, it seems to remain faithful and consistant with the information provided in Carpenter's film. There's going to be little CG, some practical effects, real Norwegians who actually speak their own language (god forbid if one or two norwegians actually know english!) and a story that fits tightly with Carpenter's film.
I don't know why it's so difficult to accept that there are people who keep an open mind, and don't constantly jump to conclusions about something before watching it.
As for Ennio Morricone's theme appearing in the trailer... if they didn't add that, then you guys would be bitching that they ditched the theme. I've been following films for years, and I know enough to know that when Marco Beltrami scores something for an established series, he uses very little of the previous composers score. Besides, having that Morricone beat at the end of the trailer was a nice touch, IMO. -
they ALL fucking die...;even the obviously "too young to be doing top level government research" cunt they threw into this film for god knows what reason.
If they all ain't fucking dead at the end of this rip off...then the director and writers should be castrated. -
...and where's Wilmford Brimley?
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"fuckoffchristophernolannuthuggers " you stupid STUPID bastard, the people who post on this site KNOW who posts on this site and you and your team aren't them. So stop posting shit like you know what you're talking about. You are plants, plain and simple. You really think people can't tell? what do you take us for? Your stupid piece of shit film looks fucking terrible. How does that sound? I will make sure that nobody on this sit endorses it. Personally, I will now make this a goal and believe me I will make sure it happens. Fucking idiots.
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the dog chewing on the fence is almost identical to the original. I'd prefer they'd leave that out.
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Not just the Dog/Thing and the 2 Swed's. We knew this ages ago. It ends with 2 other survivors. All open ended like, so they can make another sequel. Even if they never made this premake. The original still ended in a way that left the sequel door open. Unless help showed up Child's and MacReady will freeze to death.
Seeing as both KD and KR are 29 years older now. well..
I say you open it up with rescue team finding their bodies a few weeks later frozen solid, absolutely dead, their bodies are taken to the ship and it head back for America or whatever.
Obviously one of them is the thing. You don't even have to show who. You show the ice melting away from the bodies on a table, that turns to blood as it runs down the tables leg, table starts shaking, that creepy noise comes in and we follow it up with a fucked up tentacle shadow show on the wall- you don't show us who the thing resided in- not important. There you go. An entire movie with the thing on a boat. I would have rather they went that way. All new sorta like the original like some of the defender of this remake remark. You don't get more trapped than on a boat man. Everyone's trapped on a fucking boat with the thing among them. They figure it out, realize what will happen if it they don't kill it before getting to shore.
And of course the film could end with two survivors on a raft or something that floats after sinking the ship.
Both of them unsure if the other is the thing. If the world was saved. Yada yada ya.
Would have been more original than this shit, and it still travels towards more films to begin a franchise. -
Actually, there isn't a thing in that trailer that looks identical to Carpenter's film other then the set of the Norwegian base.
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Must be super-hard to keep this ultra-high-tech website going smoothly.
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Clay presses made from lifecasts of both KD and KR. They might have lifecasts from that period, if not the artist could have de-aged them in the sculpting stage. Make silicone pulls hair and paint them, give em a frost job and, there you go. The boat means you could have filmed this on a tiny as fuck set. I mean it could open up in the real arctic, but once everyone is on the boat, fuck that's a tiny as fuck budget right there, the film really will depend on suspense, and terror and performances. Fuck you could got a real boat from a scrapyard for cheap. Kept the budget real tight like, hired a bunch of no names, not face personalities in their fucking 30's and up. Yeah fuck it you have to have a chick go ahead, This is what i would have done. I doubt it would have been met with such aggression, because guess what everyone secretly wants the thing to escape everyone wants to know what a world wide thing epidemic on a massive budget would look like. The boat film could have tested the water ran on a small budget, and moved shit forward, with out fucking up all the mystery shit in the original. When they go to camp swed no surprises for new viewers who saw the prequel. Thanks!
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I'll stick with Kurt Russell, thank you very much. And that CGI looks like shit, sorry. Darth Macchio above is right. Carpenter's version is more of an adaptation of "Who Goes There?" than the original Hollywood The Thing From Another World.
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I've seen Carpenter's version on Blu-ray, so it's still out there, and used as well. It's amazing on Blu-ray, even without grain of the original VHS, television versions.
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The JC Thing was so good. Great cast, no BS actorating, no "boo" shots, just great sci-fi. Russell with his sombrero was a total badass. This could have been good I guess but I can see they have ruined it with teenagers as stars and girls at that to be PC. Ill go see it but Im hoping maybe Im wrong (but I doubt it).
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Jul 16, 2011 12:44:51 AM CDT
You know waht Hollywood needs to try and remake which it hasn't in a long time...
by kenchun24
A live action, original screenplay,with a visionary director and good ACTORS (not dime a dozen disposable celebs posing as actors) MOVIE that will stand on it's own without an attachment to a comic book,toyline,anime or reboot of good originals.
And then I woke up...
I forgot the Zionist studio head douche bags that run this town (yes I live and work in Hollywood) need to buy another summer home with a four car garage to fit six european super cars into.Four to drive and two to snort coke off of with some doe-eyed fresh off the boat midwestern hopeful (girl or guy...not kidding) who wants to be in the movie business and is willing to do whatever it takes.
Ugh...I'm gonna pop in my copy of John Carpenter's The Thing and enjoy. -
Jul 16, 2011 1:34:37 AM CDT
So, Big Dumb Ape, they are trying for the Resident Evil franchise model? I guess a female lead makes sense then...
by boober
Unfortunately, this girl isn't MJ, and the Thing as an organism is 100x more monstrous and deadly than anything the T-Virus can cook up. They would have to introduce a weakness. It figures the suits think that they could try to fit this concept into that business model...
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Uuuh, great idea: rip off a masterpiece and call it a PREQUEL and every dumbass is going to be ok with it?
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Because this sounds like a pure remake with the English speech.
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You guys/gals are complaining about a trailer - which showed scenes, moments out of order. Right now, we don't know if this is pure crap. It could be a decent, maybe even good.
As for the name; look we fans of the original are OLD. It sucks, I know. I've developed white hairs on my chin. And have to pluck hairs from my ears. It didn't used to be like this. Wanna hear something messed up? I somehow threw out my back bending over. What the hell? I'm not that old.
As much as we love the original - we are not the main target audience. Sorry. It hurts to know so many younger viewers will consider this Brand New. There's not much we can do about that. This fact is our responsibility.
As for calling this a premake. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And that's not a bad thing. The studio is covering both targets. And lets be honest, Fanboys don't pay their (studios) bills. "Serenity" was very entertaining, but our collective geek power failed. Films have to generate ticket sales from the greater audience... and that's not us. Get over it.
This problem is prevalent here. We may have been at the original moment and embraced the feature as our own. If this were, say the 1980s. You would be in the right to bitch and moan. 'This doesn't speak to me' when so many films of that era was geared towards YOU. That was then, movies now are looking for a younger wallet. Not some guy/gal in their 30s or 40s for some others with far too many responsibilities and debt. This too is a fact.
This was not an awful trailer, it's a contemporary one; each gen says their was the best generation. I am excited about this. And I have zero problem with MEW. It's all about conviction. Need I remind you folks, Faye Grant? She looked like in her late teens as Juliet Parish. But as the mini-series continued her character took on the weight of the world and it showed. It was convincing. Let's wait until this comes out before we label it fodder. Nobody is taking the original away - unless he Lucas, but that's another rant.
As for my first viewing... I was in going blind. My mom took me to the drive-in (remember those?). It an okay movie - then the shit hit the fan. I was in the back seat terrified. I literally in stereotypical little kid fashion covered my eyes and layed down - Did Not Want To See. But heard the screams. The screams. Nightmares? Nope. The double feature bill was Eastwood's "Firefox". By the time it was over I was cool. Now, what would've happened if it were the other way around?
Oh shit. *covers eyes* -
(1) A couple of the bits with blood everywhere - in the original movie, the Thing was often quite clean, and cleared its own mess up (Bennings absorption) - are we seeing a creature that is trying to bring itself around from a long sleep, and desparately trying to adapt and outfox the human population of the camp?
(2) For all the comments, its not the action moments that stir in the trailer - its a lot of the shots of people, as it appears, in pain. I feel that there's a lot we're not seeing. Could we see the first full human absorption/takeover in the film? We didn't see it John Carpenter's movie.
(3) In the original its stated that there are 10 at the camp (Fuchs states it) - its obvious that the Americans turn-up as a visiting party, but the visit to the Norwegian camp in the first one was almost subliminal, so much that we didn't see. And thus, the film might not quite end with the dig running off to the American camp - that will be there I'm sure!! - but something else may happen as well - maybe even a pointer to another film to come?
Anyway, my thoughts, from a huge fan of John Carpenter's movie, and I cannot wait!!
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we saw part of it twice: at the beginning with the dogs and at the end with that actor who frequently plays the USA president.
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but it was the fanboys who saved the movie from obscurity and turned it into an all-time classic.
If HW think that this kind of genre movies only please a very restricted audience,then by all means leave the original films alone and dont try to bastardize them by making remakes/sequels/prequels of them,but instead focus on making movies which have proved to have a larger mainstream appeal:
teen romantic films,scatological comedies,cgi infested action gargabes ala Bay,the usual crap.
HW,until you grow some pair of balls and start making original movies,leave the fanboys and their beloved original masterpieces alone. -
Nobody knows anything.
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WHY HOLLYWOOD DOESN'T DO ORIGINAL ANYMORE
The reason we are seeing every damn old film (good or bad), anime, comic book, etc. being adapted, remade, or prequelized in movie form is because Hollywood has some illogical obsession with the notion that if any given film is based on some previously known intellectual property, no matter how mainstream or obscure, that it means they are only interested in making non-original films.
Because these "safe" films are all that Hollywood makes anymore, they see some of these films making big money at the box office (Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean, Harry Potter) and they assume that these types of films are the only viable ones to turn a profit anymore due to their known IP status. That is not too hard to jump to that conclusion if all that is made anymore is adaptations and remakes. If all a person is served from birth is beef brisket and chocolate cake, then they would probably assume that beef brisket and chocolate cake are all that constitutes the entire spectrum of food in the entire world.
They have no incentive to make original material anymore. Hell, even adapting novels is going out of style. It is too hard. No one in the Illiterate States of America reads anymore these days anyways, so they don't know what X or Y book is anyways, unless it is the rare mega-best seller phenomenon like Harry Potter or Twilight.
They feel it is too much of a risk, even on the odd occasion that a big mainstream filmmaker like Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, or James Cameron come along with something new, the bean counters still act like these guys are mad dreamers fresh out of film school. And before anyone mentions something like Avatar, know that it is a minor miracle that it actually got made. Yes, even though it was brought to the studios by none other than James Cameron. The current Hollywood money men fear people like Cameron. They don't want those types of filmmakers ruining their remake jam session. They want safe. They want remakes and reboots and premakes, etc... which in their eyes equals guaranteed profits.
In reference to the notion that their is some formula for how to make a successful and profitable film, legendary screenwriter William Goldman wisely said of the notion of certainty in the movie business:
=Nobody knows anything.=
I wouldn't be surprised if some of the decision makers working in the Hollywood of today said the exact opposite. -
I don't think anyone in their right mind would propose that Hollywood should focus all of their energy on the so called fan boy crowd.
But at the same time, taking something like THE THING, which was a financial failure at the time, and building this remake/prequel version's hype by catering to the die hard audiences of both the original THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD and John Carpenter's THE THING, by saying it is a prequel and then finally revealing that it is more of a remake once the trailer hits, I'm sorry, but that is not the way to keep the die hard fans happy.
Also, if they think this is any different than say SERENITY, they are mad. The average moviegoer might see this, they might not. It all depends what mood they are in and what else is playing at the time. Which oddly enough, these same rules apply to original films too. But the studio is banking on it being a remake to what is considered a cult classic (mainly JC's version from 1982) that brings in both the die hard fans and the new audience. They are counting on the fan boy portion of the audience in some capacity.
The real questions are:
Will loosing a good chunk of the support from Thing fans be that detrimental to box office receipts in the end?
and...
If the fan boy audience is not important in the end, then why the obsession with remakes and prequels? Wouldn't an original film have to climb a similarly steep mountain of audience awareness and interest? -
They don't dub movies in Norway unless they are children's films. They do subtitles. Sorry!
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Your Thing-on-a-ship sequel idea would work. It would have genuine tension and paranoia, because we wouldn't know that the guy in the helicopter and the dog end up surviving at the end of the film and lead into Carpenter's version. It would also be more organic, in that it wouldn't have the contrived shit of hot young scientist is flown to the frozen ends of the Earth plot point that this premake seems to have.
They could have it set on a big boat too (barge or oil tanker), meaning that it could be claustrophobic but not too small either, because the Thing has to have some shadows to hide in so it can transform in secret. A ship also is a perfect setting for another cast of grizzled tough guys like in Carpenter's film.
The two survivors on a raft at the end, floating towards civilization would be a nice little nod to MacReady and Childs sitting in the snow and fire at the end of The Thing. Ominous, maybe more because these new survivors probably have a better chance of surviving than the two in the first one. -
Much more potential for claustrophobia, new playground that's just as isolated, etc. Would have been way more excited for that idea.
I'm still holding out a sliver of hope for the prequel... AnyTHING is better then nothing, as long as they don't try to confiscate and burn our copies of JC's version.
My money is on the two Norg dudes meeting up with the US base via chopper, as expected to nearly end the prequel... then we find that a supposedly dead MEW somehow managed to survive unbeknownst to the rest of the crew... and she stumbles upon Mac and Childs, nearly or completely frozen at the demolished US base.
Is SHE the Thing? Or is it one/both of Mac and Childs?
That's my best guess for the ending. -
Shut the fuck up, you don't know WHAT the fuck you're talking about you film school going, snot-nose, industry wannabe little shit.
Sorry dude, just wanted to see what it would be like to act like a condescending know-it-all troll for a second...
But really, you're 100% right. In some ways things make perfect sense and in others they do not. Ok... so you're a studio exec and you think that a remake is a 'safe' bet. But why remake something that wasn't that successful financially to begin with? And if you're betting on recognition, then why do it in such a way that it'll piss off the people who recognize it? I'm sure there's some unaccounted for piece of information somewhere in the pipeline of this getting made that we're not privy to.
However, just keeping it at the level of remakes and known IP's, the obsession itself makes perfect sense. Because studio execs want one thing: to KEEP their JOBS. So do you take a chance on an unproven director with an unknown concept or do you make 'The Smurfs'? It's very simple... one could be a total fucking failure at the box office that causes you to get fired, the other has built-in recognition and if it sucks, you can say that it wasn't cause you greenlit it, it tracked well, people knew about it and they love the smurfs, but the filmmakers didn't do their job in getting across what people love about the Smurfs. It allows you to blame the filmmakers, I think, if the film doesn't make money, in addition to the fact that, in all likelihood, it WILL make back its money on recognition alone. Plus, no messy originality to deal with, the blueprint for success has already been laid out. Just copy it to a 'T'... or not and act like you did... whatever, it's just about keeping the job.
But what you said about people like Cameron and Nolan and Spielberg is a little scary. I'm not sure how true that is, but I think the stories of Spielberg having trouble getting a green light on recent projects makes it seem like it's possible. It's just perpetual fear... so say you say no to Spielberg, he makes it for someone else, and the movie makes a billion dollars... guess what: you're fired. I think that's part of the reason these people scare them, but it also remains almost the ONLY way that a studio will take big risks. Inception was a risk that Batman paved the way for. But you can bet your ass if he stumbles a few times in a row at the box office, he'll go the way of William Friedkin... and the fucking suits will be happy to see him fall. I personally think the guy is too smart for that and THOROUGHLY understands the way the system works and how to work it, but I think what happened with Spielberg is he coasted on his name for too long making stuff that did good business, but not Avatar/Jurassic Park/E.T. sized business. He's a 800 pound gorilla in the room and has been nearly his entire life. He doesn't even HAVE to work the business. He just has to show up and be Spielberg. He didn't have to even have the one-for-them, one-for-me mentality, but it happened that way because he likes making both types of films... then when he no longer does that and only wants to make stuff that's more mature, or he's off the mark with the audience pleasing stuff, the blood suckers can shove him off into retirement, something that I don't think anyone thought could happen so soon. That is literally like seeing a brachiosaur taken down by a swarm of gnats.
I remember hearing something from... I think it was Terry Semel or Bob Daly from Warner Brothers, and they said that, in a way, it's sort of a blessing that Kubrick passed when he did because the new corporate structure there didn't have a clue why Eyes Wide Shut was green lit and it probably wouldn't be an automatic green light for Kubrick after that. The change in the system probably would have killed him after so many years of respect and the ability to get anything he wanted made for the right price. Now, I gather, it's mostly snot-nose brats who don't even want to have to concede power and authority to people like Cameron, and I think you're right that they're in the process of figuring out how to get rid of that paradigm of the all-powerful director, fresh off a hit, pretty much owning Hollywood. But I actually don't think that'll go away anytime soon, as much as they'd like it to. You still need to trust the Batman or Harry Potter to the right person and shit rolls down hill... bad director=bad movie.
The biggest problem is just the insane costs of making a movie. I think there are ways to scale big films down to the $50-$60 million range but who involved wants to do that if they don't have to? If you're one of the ten producers on a big movie, it's easy to take a million here or there off of a $250 million budget and stick it in your bank account as a fee or some kind of reimbursement for development costs. Not so easy with a film that costs $50 or even $75 million. Who the hell knows... the only time it's scary is when things make no sense and this Thing premake(like that term) doesn't really make any sense, but then again, I think it only cost $35 million to make, which is as much as your average rom-com. So maybe it's win-win with the right strategy and also they could be expecting big numbers overseas. Like Goldman said, "Nobody knows anything." -
When is a remake not a remake? When some publicist decides the only market for the damn movie would prefer the term "prequel."
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Cant tell if its a POS or not. If the reviews are generally above average i may give it a shot. If it doesn't screen for critics, be very afraid.
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Jul 16, 2011 5:05:04 PM CDT
Fuck this movie. It's only going to ruin my love for the 1982 version.
by shaft478
1. They call in Americans to help study this. 2. You have a man speaking in plain English to a room full of people who are supposed to be mostly Norwegian. 3. The paperwork they find in the 1982 version is in Norwegian. 4. Windows spends a considerable amount of time trying to contact people from the outside and has zero luck, yet these English speaking Norwegians manage to call in Americans, of all nationalities, and bring them into the fold. 5. It's an awful idea for a movie considering we know what happens already. The suspicion and drama from the 1982 version is removed and you're left with what I can only imagine is a jump-out-at-you-I-bet-you-didn't-expect-that-at-this-moment type of horror movie. Fuck this
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1. The trailer was a bit hackneyed. That post-title quiet-then-shock thing is so fucking old now. Zzzz.
2. I liked the use of the original Morricone score at the end.
3. I don't quite understand the people saying that this looks like a straight remake rather than a prequel. That doesn't really make sense to me. All the component pieces for a prequel are in place: we know that the Norwegians found the saucer, placed the charges, retrieved the creature, were exposed to it, and mainly died in horrible ways. Indeed, it's one of the things I love about the original movie that you know you're seeing the SECOND horrendous encounter with the alien. The first has already taken place, and you're witnessing a sort of echo of it.
4. I have no particular opinion as to whether Winstead's character will add a new dimension or fuck up the dynamic. I can understand why Universal might have felt a movie about a bunch of Norwegian guys might not have been commercially viable. (And remember, the original movie, despite being brilliant, was a box office flop.)
I guess this simply comes down to implementation. My fear is that the potential will be wasted. Both the Hawks take on the material and Carpenter's are in part bona fide science fiction, about smart people trying to solve unexpected problems in a dangerous situation using their wits, hypotheses and testing. It would have been cool if the sequel went further down that route rather than merely being a shock-fest. Will it be? I dunno. Probably not, but I'm hoping. -
I also think that "Prometheus" would best use its potential by going down the route of proper SF as opposed to being another horror or war movie: be slower-moving, and about solving problems in an unexpected situation.
Why is that now so fucking rare in cinema? I can barely remember the last time I saw it. "Contact", maybe. And "Apollo 13" before that (which, as a story about smart people thinking on their feet, is genuinely thrilling at times). -
All the efforts to stop the creature are in vain, as it has reached the human population (off screen) by the middle of the movie. MEW and hero guy escape, fly to Chile, and find the thing has taken over everything and become an inch deep carpet of photosynthetic 'gray goo'.
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Jul 16, 2011 5:58:10 PM CDT
That's an interesting angle, but probably too smart for a studio to think of
by lucky13
Norg base gets attacked by Thing... MEW and a few others actually escape mid movie to 'society', where they inadvertently bring the Thing with them... all while JC's version is taking place in the Antartic, Mac and crew having no idea that The Thing has already been let loose.
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and it isn't the story. or the lazy remake/prequel aproach, etc. None of that bothers me. I've always wanted a sequel to the Thing, it's one of my favorite movies, ever. Now that we're getting this lame premake, hey, it's better than nothing, right? But you know what bothers me about that trailer, the practical effects. They have the EXACT same set-up as the original, the creature in the beginning ends up getting torched and they put it on a table to be studied. Well the heap of burnt, disgusting flesh in the original was scary and weird and alien looking. The way they filmed it was well shot, there was steam coming off of it, etc. Here we have what looks like a burnt giant beetle with powdered sugar on it that some amateur effects guys created for a straight to DVD movie. WTF?
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Well I may as well say hello again. Ag - am I a plant? Just becuase I am possitive (or in fact neutral - I do not think the film will be as good as Carpenters, While Carpenters is good, it is not a bonafide mile stone in film making. It is a very scary film but nothing more) does that make me a plant? ER... NO. I write a few comments here now and again. Look up my comments on google - mostly it is Promethius, Tron and now this. Not one studio linking them. Just so you knwo I work in English TV post prod, a world away from film marketing.
Hated Person You seem unable to distinguish youre hatred for women form a love of male centered films. Take a look at yourself. If you have to point out you are not sexist by stating one of your post does not use "bitch" you have real issues.
As I said earlier - not every film can have a Ripley/Sarah Conner role. If the female lead is whiny, scarred, strong or a mixture I will watch it for the drama the character brings and the acting the actress gives. I will not have her for having ovaries in a male dominated film. We are 25 years from that archetype being created, if that is all you can see womens roles in action sci fi or horror films being then you need to look harder. Women can have the same number of dramatic possibilities as men, maybe even more if they are placed in a male dominated scenario. It is not as if there too few male centered action sc fi or horror films. May be you just lkike homo-erotic fantasy; if that is the case be honest with yourself.
As for "pop-culture what ever" you rambled on about... I do not watch many films now, I am not paying for any zietgiest in film making. I do not push an agenda through my viewing. I am selective. I have mostly shunned films recently due to their content, even after I studied film at university. In fact I think I am unmarketable to. I do not ascribe to being any of the core audiences films are targettted at.
Personal attacks will not detract from the points that I or fuckoffchrisnolan made, or some of the negatively inclined but nuanced posters have for that matter. All you are looking for from here is validation, safety in a group, that you are smarter than others as you can shit on some thing quicker than other peolple. It takes more effort to criticise than praise. Faults are always more apparent than qualities.
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Jul 16, 2011 6:18:53 PM CDT
Resident Evil Franchise 2.0 if it financially succeeds...look to the signs.
by boober
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I remember being very scared when I was a kid, but I saw it again pretty recently and the effects just don't hold up. A remake (hard to see this as a prequel) could be very good and I thought the trailer was pretty impressive. But yeah, I expect everyone to die at the end...
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Most of those effects in The Thing are STILL better then 99% of the CGI bullshit we see now.
Ok... maybe that's a bit of hyperbole... better then 94.66% of the CGI we see today. -
You stupid, niave dumb cunt! I'm glad that you know every single person who posts here on a regular basis, but your defense it flawed. Are you trying to tell me that *GASP* someone actually created a new user account for these AICN talkbacks? and *GASP* it's someone who doesn't think your opinion is the ONLY opinon? Fuck off. I've been to this site everyday for the last several years, and I've read most of the dumb shit talkbacks here. It's kind of cute how some of you people are so fucking stupid that you ACTUALLY believe that you're sooo fucking powerful, that studios need to send in their people as "Plants" --- Okay, so you're going to make sure that no one here endorses 'The Thing'... that doesn't matter, because most of you here don't endorse 'Transformers' either, and yet they still continue to dominate box office with each film. You're really not as powerful as you actually believe, and you're by no means a threat to any studio. Which leads me to a serious question here regarding this "Plant" bullshit that continues to spew from dipshits like A G; How exactly would sending a "Plant" into a fucking talkback, or message board, hurt or help a film? Talkbacks and message boards are places to express opinons on films, old and new, and having someone randomly say "I think it looks good" in a place of expressed opinion isn't going to help a studio gain numbers, just as one of you dumb shits saying "This movie is going to suck" isn't going to hurt a film or a studio either. Truth is, the general movie going public doesn't rely on your opinions of what they should or should not see; people can make up their own fucking minds. The problem with A G and most of his cronies here is that you guys seem to THINK you know everything.You see a two minute fucking trailer, and you have everything figured out. Someone comes here with an opposing opinion, and you KNOW that said person is a plant. It just goes to show how fucking stupid some people can be.
I know there are some intellegent people who post on here (I'd say about 5% of Talkbackers actually have a brain) and weather or not you agree with me on The Thing, or any other movie, I have mad respect for some of you who try to discuss something rationally, and yet get placed on the backburner from paranoid, ego-driven fan boys... -
Its funny when people refer to John Carpenters Remake/Followup/Reimagining as "The Original". Far from it, the original movie version was the 1951 version. A pretty decent B movie for its time that was notable for having one of the first and most legendary fire burns in movie history. View for yourself. Just absolutely off the hook, its surprising nobody got killed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WsADtGpAsXY
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...totally tired of this. Do we need three version of the same movie, that most likely will have sequels to IT as well. First, "The Thing." Then the sequel, probably titled "The IT," then a trilogy cap, called "The Item." Five years after the last one, they'll realize whatever lead actor gets huge from it will want to do another so they can cash in on it. They'll call it, "The Stuff."
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For someone trying to pretend that everyone is entiltled to its opinion, I find your rant quite agressive and one sided, as well as abnormally pretentious when you state that:
1- There are no plants: Do you really think so? When these days plants are a marketing tool, not just for this site but for every viral or marketing action, website promotion, product placement, etc..it's a known fact, how could you be that blind to think that AICN would be the only site without plants?
2- Studios don't care about what fanboys think/write: Do you really belive that to be the case when AICN staff gets invited like many other journalists on sets worldwide, and Comic-con is the most important promotional time of the year for movies, yet Comic-con is mostly targeting fan-boys and alike? Have you ever considered the power of the word of mouth and how it can affect a movie, are you really that naive, or you haven't looked at those movies that have been flops (The thing, Blade Runner etc..) but today ONLY exist because of the fan-boys you seem to look down upon?
3- Your comment seems at first to advocate open mindness and everyone's entitlement to his opinion, but you're actually full of your own bullshit when you state that "only 5% of AICN readers are intelligent" (translation: "worthy of your intelligence level"). Fan-boys, movie lovers, all react, think, feel how they please, and despite what you think, are heard, read, and taken into consideration, for there is no "intelligence" of liking, disliking, thinking and having an opinion about a movie. But there are certainly voices out there that are heard, debates that are followed, it's healthy, and if it can affect movies in a good way because fan-boys are passionate enough to defend their opinion one way or another, so be it. And that's intelligence.
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Jul 17, 2011 3:09:11 AM CDT
@ sk229 Totally agree with you as well on how H-Wood is run now!
by kenchun24
I live and work in Hollyweird.Have good friends in writing/acting/producing etc...
A good friend of mine I've known for ten years (Ian Shorr) co-wrote a lil' monster movie called Splinter.It was made eventually and he has some of the most original scripts that I would like to see get made but alas they collect dust...however all of his scripts on re-makes,pre-makes (your term) and re-quels (my term) get him in the door of many a producers door.His agent keeps pushing these types of scripts for him to write.(He actually wrote a re-make of the Count Of Monte Christo that was bought recently so I'm sure that made Mr. Agent happy...)
So what you said really is how it works now.Whether you are Cameron/Speilberg/Nolan or a fledgling writer like my friend Ian.Movies are a multi-producer/studio exec douche bag run business now (or maybe they always were,I'm just older now sans the doe-eyed wonder of movies I had in my youth)all to keep the profits rolling for who knows what.Summer homes,6 cars and all the coke whores a 100 million opening weekend can buy. -
you mean a movie adaptation.Count of MC is a book,not an original movie.
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Remake - a film remade of a stand alone film. The film being remade can still be based on another medium but a remake will take cues from the first film, in terms of set, costume or actors in the roles.
New Adaption - a new film of another medium such as a book or play. The only link to the previous film adaption are the themes character and settings created tin the source material. - I am Legend.
Reboot (of continuity) - a remake of a first film in a series - a franchise. This restarts the franchise so the same stories can be told and previously reused and probably well loved characters can be reintroduced, even if they have died. - Spiderman.
Reboot (financially) - a continuing franchise has major actors, or creative persons replaced so that it can change or revert to core themes to reclaim its flagging appeal. - Halloween H2O
Re-imagining - mostly a marketing term - a remake either pushed by a director that has an auterish visual style of themes they used frequently; or a shift of focus of setting, epoch, character focus or theme. - Planet of the Apes
Prequel - a sequel set before the original chronologically. Characters either shown or alluded to will have thier story told. This can flesh out the original film or be stand alone in tterms of influence.
Preboot - cute term but essentially b llshit. Few films will fall into its nebulous terms and a knowledge of a films production will probably give more insight into its creation.
Flynn - I think people here are getting mad (including me) as every one is entitled to their view, some views are ill conceived and with out basis. They are gut reactions that ignore evidence that is shown. (all the talk of them speaking English, even though some one has posted evidence of Nowegian being spoken and another backed it up with anecdotal evidence of their friend making the subtitles)
The general sense of doom is all prevailing here. It is often encouraged and used as a critical tool. If you can find fault with a film no matter how small you can hammer it home and it becomes a badge of honour. To have no view is to have no place so one must be thought quick, and it is easier to shout things down than praise. Some here have said the film is ruined as a woman is in it, even though they have not even seen it. Fine have a view but how can some one hold that view with any reason? It is moronic. -
And will someone give AG a Xanax or something a bit stronger?
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Jul 17, 2011 6:05:14 AM CDT
RE: "All the efforts to stop the creature are in vain, as it has reached the human population (off screen) by the middle of the movie. MEW and hero guy escape, fly to Chile, and find the thing has taken over everything and become an inch deep carpet of ph
by stalkeye
That's why Fulci's classic worked so damn well as no one saw that shit coming until the end of the film.(Zombie)
What a mindfuck that was. -
...would be much more interesting.
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I'm getting the impression that this film is being used as a kind of trial for the premake model. If it pays off, it may indeed become the standard approach to digging up the old classics.
By the way i am so praying your vision of Bladerunners never happens...
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Well said.
However...
There is a huge difference between AICN staff and Talkbackers. The people who write for this site are, technically speaking, journalist, so it makes sense that studios invite them to the sets in hopes of using these journalist to spread the good word about what they see. I do not disagree with you on the viral marketing/promotion that the studios attempt to gain by doing this. I'm just not convinced that studios require sending in their own people, disguised as everyday geeks, as plants into these talkbacks.There's simply nothing to gain in doing this. I'm not saying that fans aren't important; I'm saying that fans are not as powerful as they seem to claim. If they were, then the 'Transformers' films would have flopped worse then 'Priest' --- On the flipside, going with the "Plant" theory, what I find frustrating is that people here are so quick to judge those who don't agree with the majority, that said people "Must be plants". I'm new to posting here, but not new to the site, or to these talkbacks. I've seen this shit multiple, multiple times; if someone like Harry posts a positive review, then he must have been paid off. If someone post a review that matches the assumptions of a film being shit, then they are honest (See this sites reviews for Transformers: Dark of the Moon) I apologize for my aggresive response, but it's rather bullshit that people are assuming that I'm a plant just because I don't think negatively about this movie, and because the things I've read about this film completley erase the assumptions people are claiming about this film (Norwegians speaking english for one example. Another would be the assumption that because there is a female lead, that there is a love story, even though mnay people who worked on this film, including Mary Elizabeth Winstead have denied the love story aspect) This isn't the only thread here on the site where people have claimed others are plants, just because they share their own opinons. I'm sorry, but I do advocate open mindedness, and nothing I have said suggests otherwise. There are many people here who have made legit post regarding why they think this movie looks bad, but like most other threads here, there are more who can't get past their own hatred and assumptions about a film and those are the people who try to discredit people like me who may not always agree with what the majority think. Some people are just so quick to assume that there are plants here, rather then looking and concidering what the opposing voices are saying. I for one have some concerns about this movie, but none are the ones that have been posted here, because upon reading up on this movie, I know there are somethings not to be concerned about (again, female lead, norwegians speaking english) and I absolutley refuse to believe that a 2 minute trailer gives all the information about a film. (and for Lucky13, of course a two minute trailer isn't going to convey everything that the director talks about in his interview --- trailers just give you the basics, and lack the details of what happens in a film, and removes context from the equation as well)
My problem isn't people diagreeing with me. I'm all about individual opinions. My problem is with those who disagree with me, who have nothing logical to argue with, so they make these "plant" accusations as their only defense. -
'The Thing' and 'Blade Runner' do not only exist because of the fan boys. They exist because they were made! I didn't come across those movies because of the fanboys, I came across those movies because they've been played on T.V. multiple times. My love for 'The Thing' isn't because of what fan boys think, it's because I'm a huge John Carpenter fanatic and bought all of his films when I was a teenager. I loved it on it's own merits, and despite the fact that it flopped when it first came to theatres 29 years ago, it has found it's audience and fanbase because it's a great film and holds its own. It's great based on its own merits, and that's why the film still exists today.
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How about the idea that things either suck or they work and most shit today sucks?
It has nothing to do with if staffers here give good reviews to films...
It has to do with them giving good reviews to obviously terrible films.
Times have changed. Franchises are not cool anymore. Video games, comic books...
All that crap is destroying film and I think people are finally realizing it.
You can still like comics and video games but just keep them as comics and games.
Don't insult our intelligence anymore with dumbed down movies based on dead ideas.
We want originality. We don't want remakes. We don't want shit based on comics and video games.
We want real movies with real plots and real characters with real motivations.
We want the director to properly choreograph the scenes so we know what's happening.
We don't want disbelief suspended with poor f/x, regardless of if they're CGI or practical.
We want movies that aren't made by lazy people who skip the necessary old-school steps
which have been required to make a film work since the beginning of film.
I'm reminded of Ebert's review of Battle L.A. - He said something like either the film maker
is ignorant of or indifferent to techniques which have been around for ages because they work.
Stuff like you have to actually storyboard action scenes and choreograph them so that
the audience actually knows what's happening. You can't just send a staff member into
a big crowd of extras with a shaky cam. That's lazy and pathetic and doesn't work except
to induce vomit from the audience and piss them off. We're sick of shit being implied.
Now of course, we want shit implied if it's an effect or something that doesn't work -
Like if someone is getting stabbed and you show a hand with a knife swing down and
then you play a squishing sound and show the actor's face grimace...
That kind of implying is great! But don't imply an entire battle sequence or action scene
by just shaking the camera around because you're so fucking talentless and lazy you
either don't know how or refuse to learn how to make shut coherent.
When staffers give good reviews to garbage like Battle L.A. I have an issue with that
because it's obvious they are either retarded, lying or both. However, not all of the
staff here fits this bill. I don't have a problem with someone liking a film I don't or
vice versa but when a film is so obviously a piece of shit and you say it's good, that
I have a problem with. That means you're sucking up to the studios who let you in.
There's a difference between a film that has artistic merit but you just don't like vs.
a film with 0 merit whatsoever which is only contributing to the downfall of cinema.
If you're a real film fan, you hate films that contribute to the downfall of cinema. -
Healthier debate now it is (Yoda voice).
You're obviously not a plant, and your opinion does matter, even if you choose to look at the glass half-full when others see it half-empty;
Nevertheless I feel that fan-boys or movie lovers alike (and to me they are quite the same, just with different degrees of passion and depth for one specific movie or genre) have a certain feeling of entitlement towards some particular movies, some an extensive knowledge of it.
If some may express doubts, or even hate, without logic or basis towards a 2mn trailer, it maybe because some execs have made the choice to sell them a reheated dish when the original dish tasted quite good already. So they know how it should taste, and that's the risk a studio takes.
Contrary to brand new, original material, (and I agree with you should not be judged based on its cover), here the cover and the book are well known, so is the expectation of how it should taste like. So if already something feels wrong with the cover, chances are the rest will suck too, and even though fan-boys have doubts, they are smart enough and will go see the movie before trashing it, and if it is good, they will praise it, whether they speak Norwegian or not, or if the chick is young enough to be be MacCready's daughter.( Hmm, how's that for a twist reuniting her with her Dad in the sequel/remake/reboot starting with the family reunion infecting the entire US of A..)
And today, so many studios throw out reheated, re-reheated recipes that fanboys and movie lovers feel they are taken for a ride, which may explain the excessive reaction to a 2mn trailer, but again it is to be expected when the only original idea execs can come up with is to pull a damn good movie off the shelves and try to serve it again and again.
We've entered the 21st Century, and a photocopy stii is not as good as an original, no matter the print job.
What is worrysome is the amount of remakes, reboots and sequels that are thrown at people, when there are great talents out there just waiting to happen, but prevented from doing so because execs want to keep their precious seat and not make mistakes.
If one exec hadn't taken a chance with a "Western in Space", years ago, Star Wars would have never been made...
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No, I am not talking to any specific staff member nor about any specific film,
even though I used Battle L.A. as an example. So don't make this about The Thing prequel.
This is a blanket idea that covers everything - shit either sucks or rocks and most shit today sucks.
Most shit today sucks because of the reasons I've mentioned above.
The bar has been lowered so that many people have never even seen a kick ass film unless
they've chanced upon something classic and masterful.
They've been born into this post 2000 time of shaking cameras, A.D.D. editing, nonexistent
character development, nonexistent plots and implied non-storyboarded action sequences
with no wide angle shots that clarify who's shooting at what or where things are located
in relation to one another.
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All your points are all well and good but people here need to see the situation that films are in.
Films used to be made for young male audiences, now they are playing video games. The glory days of 1980s Aliens, Terminator, Predetor, Robocop (if it existed) are gone. We still have a thriving idependent cinema from around the world. That is why there are game movies and comic movies. To get fewer people to the cinema they need to get what is recognisable. Marvel and DC are now vertically integrated into media companys to be exploited.
Look at any talkback and it seems that the only way many can relate to a new film is through comapison to the old. Casting choices by people here - choose a famouse factor that filled the same role in a film 1 or 2 years old.
Sequel or remake - it has to be related to the original and copy it in every way.
These things are why there was a back lash at the female character in The Thing - the knuckle draggers do not know how to relate to it as they have not seen it. The young male audience has a seige mentality, that they are under attack, under represented and under listened to. Why has Bromance films occured? It is because couples older men or women will go see them. Young male audiences that previously watched Terminator now play it on an X Box. The other bitch about it here. Unable to change a film industry but able to bitch about it and reinforce each others self importance and seige mentality.
Its a shame you choose Battle LA - a film that is based on new characters although not premise. I think it is comic book characters and computer game adaptions that are killing cinema. Add to that producer partnerships like Bruckheimer and Bay and you have an imovable object. They have a formula, and as people like to relate to what they have seen before they get what they have seen before. Why are box sets so popular now... becuase it is a big soothing box of similarity. It calms those that want the same thing again and again. I remeber when DVD came out and people said it would mean that every film was released no matter the audience size - it never happened; there are still films that are on video that are not on DVD.
The Thing is hardly a solution to this, maybe even a symptom; but it is £60m. Hardly a black hole sucking up money from other original projects, in fact I think this is a good curio, it has new characters premise and also a reflexivity that may be interesting for once. -
Thing on a boat (terrible movie)
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Such a bad film compaired to the comic. Very odd casting too.
Deep Rising - greatest lift music joke in film. Shame about everything else. -
I've been so ingrained with multiple adaptations of previous properties over the years (classic novels,comics,video games etc...)that I associated The Count Of Monte Christo with however many incarnations of the movie based on the book rather than the book itself.
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And it begins with McReady, Blair, Copper,Garry and Norris already gathered around a table discussing the Thing in the ice that THEY found.
No Norwegians or other group. McReady recounts the story of how they found and brought it back to camp and how they accidently destroyed the ship.
So, in that one regard this version sticks close to the original story. -
My library has the ebook edition so I just DL'd and read it the other night.
Fun story, seems like it should have been a full novel, though --- the stuff that happens in-between chapters that are only alluded to seems to be where the action really was... there was a time or two when I was wondering if the ebook edition was accidentally cut-off at points.
Am I the only one who thinks Norris = JC's Childs?
Bill Lancaster did a great job adapting the story to film in JC's version... Changing how the Thing was found was brilliant, and added a new layer to the story. All the psychic powers stuff was too convenient, so it's good that they axed that too.
Some of the action was a little sloppy in the story (or just too old-timey for me to follow comfortably), specifically the blood-test scene... Another win for Lancaster.
Solid story that JC's version actually improved on, dramatically. Haven't seen the Howard Hawk's version since I was a kid, but I'll be digging a copy up soon enough. -
But the beauty is, things are changing.
I see it everywhere, even here in talkbacks.
I used to piss people off, now more and more are saying exactly what
I used to piss people off saying. We're all fed up. You can only pull the
wool over people's eyes so many times before they catch on.
It took the public long enough but I actually see them finally catching on.
A ton is riding on Prometheus in my opinion because it has the chance of
putting the nail in the coffin towards lazy film making. People will be able to
tell the difference between actual huge sets and as much real as possible
and also by CGI scrutinized by a scrutinizing eye like Ridley. That's the thing,
most directors don't direct their CGI guys, most directors can NOT draw, let
alone storyboard anything, and they don't expect perfect from their staff.
It's all about deadlines and "okay this is done, great move on!" - Not about
real film making passion. To them, it's more money making passion!
I think how Ridley handles CGI is great, very subtle - build huge sets like in
Gladiator and/or Kingdom of Heaven and then extend subtly with CGI and
make sure your outlining and colors and light all match up - plus storyboard
and DIRECT the audience's eyes AWAY from the effect, not towards it as
the Peter Jacksons who dangle the "neat cgi" in front of our face do. -
By the way, great short story! I have a book of classic sci-fi short stories
and have been re-reading "With Folded Hands" and after that I may
re-read Who Goes there, even though I've read it a million times!
And again, as far as THE THING prequel I have nothing against a woman
at the post - I always have something against things that aren't believable.
The fact any Americans are there at all irks me. It's fucking stupid.
I just don't buy any Americans there, especially young non-mature ones.
You need real, ugly, gritty veteran actors. Like the original. Don't talk about
age, I don't care if those guys were 10 and the new guys are 100, there's
just something more real about people who actually look like scientists, not kids.
But my main concern is the poor CGI which does the double whammy not only
giving away a character we know will be taken over but it also lets us know they
were proud of that effect enough to put it in the trailer so God knows how bad
the other stuff they're "proud" of may be! -
Promethius will not change anything. Ridley Scott signed a billion dollar production deal with his brother in the 80s or 90s. He has a sweet deal and will be the last to have one. Cameron may get the same but no other directors can manage it. Transformers is still going strong and seems to be a transforming teflon frying pan as no criticism can sink it.
Spiderman is being rebooted. Batman has plans to be. Superman has been rebooted once and is busy changing his pants again. Thor, Cap America, Ghost Rider, Jonah Hex and Punisher are second tier super heros and have had millions invested in them. There will probably be a Power Pack, Cap Britain or a Fing Fang Foom film soon.
The star system has now happily imploded. Who has clout now? Producers and accountants. The only real hope is for new studios, independants or smaller scales like District 9 and Moon; and to be honest they have been around for a while. Screamers, Donnie Darko, Serenity, 28 Days later were not big budget or block buster receipts. -
I'm a fan of Nolan, but that handle is pure awesome.
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I like how you mentioned D9 and Moon, two recent examples of how sci-fi can be done well on a budget. I wish Moon made more money, but I don't think the investors will be unhappy in the long run, especially if Jones continues making great movies, it'll only keep sales of Moon going well into the future.
But another thing to remember is that there's nothing really stopping these hedge media funds from playing the game the old way, which can still work. And they're usually less likely to get directly involved and fuck things up because these people are already IMMENSELY rich. They're not douche bag junior execs running around giving notes simply because they can. And what works in the favor of people like Blomkamp or any other name director is that for these people who want to get involved in making $30-$50 million dollar films, they HAVE to concede creative control and, honestly, don't really give a shit if they have to. They let the filmmakers worry about the filmmaking. It's why Blomkamp went outside the studio system for his D9 follow-up.
So I think there's a good model there... and I think there's gonna be others that crop up where there's a lot of money and people who want to get involved. As new ways of making big movies cheaper crop up, I think you'll see a democratization as long as the stuff is marketable and there's interest... cause studios will just take their distribution fee and release the thing (or maybe you won't even need them pretty soon with all the digital projects, no need for film prints, etc. exhibitors will be able to easily program anything that comes there way). -
My Dad used to tell me if you read it, you can see the movie. And fuck me running it was an instant addiction. The old collected pulps, Astounding, The Hugo winners, serials. Wow, I read his whole library and I was better for it. I read "Who goes there" and saw the Hawks version first, then JC's version. Both fuckin' rocked..but I think because I knew the source material so well. I think that this is something missing in today's world, simple old fashioned book reading.
I hope this movie is good, but holding a dusty tome in hand is always better than the movie. When you read, it is your mind filling in the spaces and this is the best medium that there can be. Sometimes the movie is better (read the original Star Wars) but that to me is the exception. Granted some books are almost impossible (LOTR was close but not perfect).
So just fucking read man, show respect for your source material and maybe fuckin' hollywood will get the message (I doubt it) but it can't forget shit like "Pyscho, Clockwork Orange etc" good books make good movies.
Just my fanboy opinion, like an asshole everyone's got one right? -
Who played Uncle Owen in Revenge of the Sith?
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Jul 17, 2011 6:47:54 PM CDT
My impression of the plant that does a review of this movie:
by spire_walk
Hi! My name is MovieFu and I got to see an advanced screening of The Thing, and man can I say that this is going to be an awesome movie!
I've never seen the original that this is based on, but it's scarier and more intense than anything else I have seen this decade!
The lead female protagonist is tough-as-nails and doesn't take any nonsense from her male counterparts, and doesn't run away screaming when The Thing starts killing!
I have to tell you, it's a pretty gory movie, and earns every bit of its PG-13 rating. You won't be disappointed, because The Thing is the thing you can can't miss this October! MovieFu out! -
Jul 17, 2011 7:20:16 PM CDT
It's not the movie executives fault movies suck now
by winona_ryders_pussy_juice
It's George Lucas' fault. Think about it. Ever since you first laid your eyes on Jar Jar, most big budget films have sucked hairy dead transvestite balls.
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You will not hear an arguement from me that the studios need to take more chances; they've seemed to misplaced their balls at some point in the 90's and I will agree with most here that right now, they're playing it safe by diving headfirst in established material. Today, remakes are the fad like sequels were in the 80's (and even before the 80's actually...now that I'm thinking about it.)
But, not every film that comes out every year is stuff based on established material; there are plenty of original films that come out each year, and they seem to go ignored in favor the bigger pre-established stuff.
In their entire theatrical run:
The Prestige made $53,089,891
The Fountain made $10,144,010 (Not sure if this one was released wide or limited. Can't remember)
District 9 made $115,646,235
Those aren't much compared to movies like 'Transformers', 'Pirates of the Carribean', 'Harry Potter' and all the comic book movies that come out.
Remakes aren't doing much better, though:
Rob Zombies' Halloween' made $58,272,029
Platinum Dunes 'Friday the 13th' made $65,002,019
Platinum Dunes 'A Nightmare on Elm Street' made $63,075,011
Which are decent enough numbers, afterall, they gained back their budgets and then some, but they're not the big money makers. Sure, soon we'll be getting re-do's of greats like 'Robocop', 'Lethal Weapon' and 'Total Recall' (Although if some of the people here are correct in stating a film going back to the source material like Carpenter did with the original 'The Thing', then the new 'Total Recall' isn't a remake :P)
Remakes aren't the problem in Hollywood though. The problem right now is Superhero movies, big screen adaptions of childrens cartoons and adaptions of enormously popular book franchises.
If there's so many people yearning for original material, then how come the original stuff is coming in distant last to the established stuff? Is there enough support of these original films for studios to invest?
If 'Avatar' and 'Transformers' are any indication,the general movie going public wants big, loud, cliche ridden films --- and they rarely have the taste for character driven, story driven original material. Not to side with the studios here per se, but from a business standpoint, doesn't it make sense why they would go with something they know they can make money off? Like I said earlier, I agree with you that I think studio execs need to grow some balls and take some more chances, but I can see why they don't when we've become a self aware culture obsessed with box office records and visual eye fucking.
Personally for me, it's about what appeals to me; I enjoy character driven, slower paced stuff and I enjoy films like 'Transformers' --- it's only escapism afterall, and sometimes big, loud films are what the doctor orders. -
Ahaha, thanks!
I like Nolan films too. 'Memento' is one of my all time favorite films, and in my opinion, the only flawless film he's made.
I have yet to see 'Insomnia' or the film he made before 'Memento', but I enjoyed 'The Prestige' and 'Inception'...
I just don't think he, or his Bat films, are the greatest thing since sliced bread like most seem to claim. Good, but not great. I'd say more along the lines of "Overrated" -
Only if you count all the schlock on TV (SyFy channel, anyone?). Otherwise, you're just showing your bias against CGI and that's fine. I am very fond of practical effects, but the various incarnations of the thing looked like puppets, dude.
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... Just re-release the damn original in theatres around the country on Halloween.Now that would be a real treat instead of this trick.
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You won't be disappointed!
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...is that this film will only be a modest financial success, at best. No-name cast, remake of a film most people haven't heard of - this will be a #2 or #3 film its first week, then pfft.
'Footloose' is opening the same week, and so is a Jack Black comedy. Week before is 'Real Steel', week after is '3 Musketeers' and 'Paranormal Activity 3'. Admittedly, none of these are giant films, but they'll blunt the heck out of this film's success.
They're going to base a franchise on that? -
Thing is - I watched the original on BluRay yesterday and was sucked in totally!!
This one in October? That WILL suck! BIG TIME!
But I'm in, anyway... can't help it! -
They were not bad at all. The idea behind it was terrific, the execution and the art not that good.
The idea back then would have made some cool sequel, but... I was one of too few to watch JC's The Thing in the theatre... and then time went by... overboard... -
Re-releases would be great from time to time in place of remakes, reboots, unnecessary prequels/sequels, etc.
Take something like Blade Runner. They did a limited re-release in 2007 after Ridley Scott completed his Final Cut version. Then over the last few years we've heard a few rumblings of a sequel of some sort being in development. I'd say, and many would probably agree with me, that Blade Runner is one of those films that just doesn't need any type of sequel or prequel. Why not actually advertise the re-release a bit more, and release it wider than just in a few theaters here and there, and make some nice profits?
I'd love to see some of my favorite films in the theater, either to see them on the big screen again or especially the ones that I was either too young to go see when they were originally released in the theater.
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I'm not completely against these films existing. Not at all. We all know that sometimes a remake comes along that is a nice and refreshing take on the original film, or it can sometimes be an improvement of the original film due to the time the original was made in had various technical deficiencies in the film industry, etc.
No, I'm not against remakes. I just think it is ridiculous that Hollywood seems to think that, at least for genre films, that remakes, prequels, and sequels are the only way to go.
I just wish there was some balance between new and original stuff and the safe money making projects that usually end up as a remake or sequel, and often times a prequel. It seems to me, and maybe I am over thinking things, that the film industry would need to keep the stream fresh in some capacity. Remake after remake eventually dilutes the stream of films and eventually, what if they forget how to make something new?
For example, remember in Waterworld, at the beginning Kevin Costner's wandering seafarer character pisses in that funky contraption and it turns his piss into drinkable water? Well, let's say for the sake of example that he can only use this cycle of piss-to-water-to-piss-back-to-water like 3-4 times before the piss just comes out as undrinkable piss-water again. That is kinda what this endless remake fever seems like. -
I hate the idea of studios taking a "chance" - This should not exist!
The only reason studios think they are taking a "chance" is because they believe
there's actually a formula to making money and if you deviate from it, you're taking a risk.
WE ARE THE FUCKERS MAKING THIS TRUE!!!
If the studios were sent the message that all we WANT is movies they consider "risky" then
maybe things would revert but until, as someone else pointed out, movies like Transformers
stop being #1 then we can only blame ourselves. To the studios, risky = original.
HOWEVER - I can also say that at least personally, the theater experience is dead here.
We just got an IMAX. I can't stand Michael Bay but let's say I decide to go see a movie...
What other choice do I have? I refuse to watch shit at non-IMAX because every fucking
local theater around here blows and I've simply been burned too many times.
The frame rates are fucked up, horrid motion blur, and the sound is never beyond TV level.
(And you'd be lucky to even get TV level sound where I'm at, old people live here and have
complained so much that I shit you not, many theaters do not even kick the surround on.
If you go see a film, all you'll hear is the monitor speaker above the screen. No surround!)
So now we're getting to facts - Technical quality has lowered in all theaters except IMAX
anymore it seems (and I have yet to verify that our IMAX is even any good).
That means anyone wanting a real theater experience needs to go to IMAX.
That brings us to the dilemma - most IMAX shit sucks.
Transformers 3D, Cars 2, Harry Potter - Shit fests like this fill up the queue of our local IMAX.
It's the same reason I think crap fests such as AVATAR succeed... They're big and loud
with lots of bells and whistles and even if they suck, at least they will be good quality.
It's kinda the same problem we have with music today. None of it's any good but all of
it's totally produced to the hilt. What we call "audiophiles" today are not music lovers at all!
They simply want tech demos that push their digital systems. This is what I believe people
are finally catching on to and why I say I think things are changing because no matter how
technically sugar coated people today want their shit, if you sit them in front of a loud stereo
amp with stereo speakers and a good stereo mix and blare a properly remastered blu-ray of
a classic film, chances are they're going to be blown the fuck away by it.
It's a smoke screen. The emperor has no clothes. People are catching on. Who cares if it kicks
on your DTS surround light or if it's filmed in 3D IMAX if it fucking SUCKS?
This is why I'm saying Ridley is going to raise the bar. After a movie that actually ROCKS plus
is SUPERBE QUALITY comes out, people aren't going to be happy with shit fests anymore.
We just need someone to step up to the plate and raise the bar.
Trust me. Just wait. 8) -
"New Adaption"
I reject this specific category on the grounds that there is no such word as "adaption". -
"I'd say, and many would probably agree with me, that Blade Runner is one of those films that just doesn't need any type of sequel or prequel."
One thing I think should be tried more frequently is having another story set in the same narrative universe without being a direct sequel, prequel etc.
In fact, didn't this happen (albeit poorly) in the case of Blade Runner/Soldier?
Lucas should also do this with the Star Wars universe. Stop building every fucking narrative around the Skywalkers, making it feel like there are only ten people in the galaxy, for fuck's sake. -
One thing I think should be tried more frequently is having another story set in the same narrative universe without being a direct sequel, prequel etc.
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I agree. Stories set in a shared universe instead of direct sequels and prequels is something that I wished were done more often.
The same thing you said about Star Wars always having to be centered around the Skywalker family, is exactly what has happened, is happening with the Battlestar Galactica spin-offs Caprica, which was canceled, and soon enough Blood & Chrome. Both times they are continuing their obsession with the Adama family, when instead they could produce new characters as the focus and generate genuine tension because we wouldn't know what is going to happen in the end to the starring characters (Adama or his relatives). -
Damn it I am sick of my shit getting cut off!
Just typed a ton of stuff - all got cut but first sentence.
I'm not the only one having this issue, I've seen other complaints.
WHAT THE FUCK GUYS?
The issue - At random your posts sometimes get cut, only 1st sentence remains.
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As far as I know, it is whenever quotation marks are used, either in the subject line or in the comment itself.
Best thing to do is to compose your talkback post, right click to copy it, then post it. If you compose a longer post that is too much of a pain in the ass to re-type, then open it in Word and paste it so you can look to see if you put some quotation marks in it and so that you can copy it to re-post it again. -
Jul 18, 2011 4:25:22 PM CDT
The sad thing is this conversation gets relegated to the bowels of AICN's archives
by lucky13
... To make room for MONDO POSTERS!! (That all look exactly the same!!!) or BRUCE CAMPBELL BOOK SIGNING IN ASS-FUCK TEXSAS!!!
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Jul 18, 2011 4:27:05 PM CDT
And why did my computer submit my post after hitting the fucking SPACEBAR button?!?!?!?!?
by lucky13
I would have fixed 'Texas' if I had the opportunity to proof-read. Maybe this explains Harry's many grammatical errors?
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Insults to Attack the Block and AICN Comics... but epic-failed.
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I will not visit you in prison no matter how you try to make friends with me. To be honest I doubt I will support you during the court case.
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Somebody needs their diaper changed!!!!
Seriosuly though, you are so far off base it's uncanny! You should try reading some things before you jump to conclusions.
You say:
"Listen All I was saying BITCH and all I am going to say BITCH is that you don't go from Kurt Russell and Keith David to a fucking whiney sniveling voice of reason dumb fucking BITCH. It ruins the fucking film and bloodline of the JC version. Your a piece of shit this movies a piece of shit, and you want it FINE BITCH. Movies were better in the 70's and 80's when JCs THING came out because there wasn't as much pressure today to put in sex and whining women in these films."
And yet Mary Elizabeth Winstead says:
"Can you talk a little bit about the character dynamic between you and Joel’s character because obviously you’re the leads. So is there a romance or any sexual tension? Or is it just strictly “There’s the thing. No time for that…”
Winstead: No. I really can’t imagine fitting in any sort of romantic element into this kind of environment. It would just seem really forced and odd. Their connection is that they find some sort of level of trust within each other and that’s just one of those things where you meet someone and you feel like you recognize something in them that you find you can trust. That’s really all it is. They form this bond and are able to stick together through the whole thing where everything else is starting to fall apart. But, yeah, no sexual tension. If anyone finds any sexual tension, it’s completely imagined by them. [laughs]
Do you admire that? That they don’t try to pigeonhole that into this movie?
Winstead: Yes. Absolutely. That’s one thing I loved about it when I read it. This girl, similar to the Ripley part, could be played by a guy. You could change the name and it doesn’t have to be a girl. There’s no feminine characteristic about her other than that she is a woman. That I really like. I like that I’m not “the girlfriend” or I’m not “the mistress” or I’m not these kind of roles that you can get pigeonholed in as an actress so it’s great. "
Another interesting part mentioned in this interview is this:
"Having seen the original movie and being one of the few women in this one, what do you think this brings to the dynamic and makes this movie different?
Winstead: To me, I think it’s a good thing because it sort of puts it out there that we’re not doing a remake of the John Carpenter movie. It sort of says out in the open that these are different characters and different people in a similar scenario, but it’s not the same film. So I think having a woman brings that different dynamic from the get go. It’s kind of an interesting thing I think to have, in 1982, a young girl coming into this scientific environment in Antarctica and the way that they would all react to her. Everyone would have an opinion about her being there because it would be a rare and different thing for them all to have a woman coming on to the base. "
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