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Submit Your Final Thoughts On The Thing For The Deepest Dive! (Patreon)

Published:
2020-11-02 16:16:40
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

To close out The Deepest Dive on The Thing, this week we're talking about every Thing else. We're covering the comics, video game, tabletop games, 2011 prequel The Thing, other media inspired by the thing, and we need your comments to fuel our discussion! Because we're continuing to grow, please keep your one comment to around the length of a tweet. We want to get to as many comments as possible. We hope you understand.

Please submit a comment below with your specific thoughts on the film, comics, video game, etc. Please don't just leave a long review, get specific. Let's talk about your favorite moment, theory, dog, or thing, please get specific. The more specific you are, the higher the odds of us reading your comment during the discussion. We'll finish collecting comments on Tuesday morning.

You can watch us record The Deepest Dive live on Tuesday at 5pm Central if you're at the $10 Backstage Pass tier on Patreon. The link will be in the Backstage Pass tier on the Discord. Thanks for your support!

Part 1 - https://youtu.be/pAREvjmiCqg

Part 2 - https://youtu.be/09Y5nHtIKcc 

Files

Comments

John Ford

Omg the controls on the Xbox/PS2 game are atrocious. More comments to come later, but that is the first and most important impression. Not having twin stick controls on a shooter is now unforgivable.

Grizzled Gaming

Hey gang! I wasn’t expecting much with The Thing prequel, especially since one is a cult classic, and this one I have literally never heard anyone talk about. In my mind though, if they could just stick the landing and have it end just like the 1982 film began all else would be forgotten. Well, they botched that…...or so I thought. As I was doing research for writing this comment, I just discovered they did tie it together IN THE END CREDITS! I was so annoyed that “it ended” with Kate in the snowcat that I turned it off as soon as “directed by” flashed on the screen. I’m not sure what’s worse, not tying the films together or doing so in the freaking ending credits. I completely missed the main thing I was hoping to see! Thank goodness for Youtube.

The_Smak

Hello fellow amorphous blobs, After playing the PS2 game I wrote down a ton of fun little tidbits about the game: - You visit Outpost North 31 right after the movie and find Childs's frozen body (but no MacReady) - You can find MacReady's tower and the recording that he made from the 82 movie. - You can find the ship that Blair was making under the shack. - You visit the Norwegian Outpost and see the room with the block of ice that had The Thing and the frozen guy that slit his throat. - The alarm in the game is the same alarm from the 82 movie. - The characters make the same Swede/Norwegian joke from the 82 movie. - The main character repeats MacReady's line "Now I'm going to show you what I already know" before he does a blood test on himself. - You can see The Thing's big UFO from the 82 movie. - There's a note that says that The Thing can replicate people's clothes. - The videogames loading screen includes Blair's computer program when a thing assimilates someone. Major Tidbits: - John Carpenter voices and lends his likeness to a character in the game. - MacReady shows up in a helicopter for the big finale (followed by a really bad turret sequence) The game itself is not great (sometimes terrible) but you can tell that the developers were fans of the 82 movie.

Hurl3y13Tank

The meaning of the phrase "cheek to cheek" has forever changed in my mind

Toby Martin

Hey ThinngMax I thought you’d be interested seeing the original effects for the 2011 movie https://youtu.be/3R8ASn25GLg they were going to use CGI to enhance the effects but the studio didn’t like the look of them so they completely redid it with CGI which upset the original effects team. It’s too bad they weren’t able to use any of it, they looked cool.

Tim Lorow

My favorite moment of the 2011 film was when they are checking mouths for fillings. It was an intense moment where I expected someone’s face to split open and spew acid at any moment. It ramps up the tension even more when the thing doesn’t even show up in that scene.

PandaHandz

Hola Imitations! Do you think "the thing" was actually what the crab insect creature was in the ice? Or was that also a copy/host that "the thing" took over on some distant planet? Does "the thing" have a natural form? I like the idea "the thing" is some kind of hive mind that seeks out propagation across the universe!

wittynicknamehere .

I can kinda understand the desire to stretch their legs creatively on the 2011 prequel, given the boxed-in nature of the story. "No matter what, we have to end with everyone dead, the facility destroyed, and two crazed men in a helicopter shooting at a dog. How we get there is totally up to us!" But I don't think the answer was to go screw around in The Thing's spacecraft and desperately show that "hey, look, we've got a strong female heroine in the Sigourney Weaver vein, too!" This movie was pleasantly surprising me until the third act dove flamboyantly off the rails.

Aaron Waltz

I happen to love the 2011 thing prequel, I understand the hate for the horrible CGI. HOWEVER that is not the fault of the movie, there was a large amount of practical effects done for this film, you can look them up on YouTube. In reality nearly all of the film had practical effects, but what happened was a couple of months before the release of the film, one of the producers said that it looked "like some 80s film" and REQUIRED CGI TO GO OVER THE PRACTICAL EFFECTS. And the best part... the practical effect company didn't find out till the premiere of the film.

Dunder

Toward the end of the 2011 prequel film, there is a scene where Carter runs from the Thing and hides in the kitchen. The Thing searches for him in there as he quietly hides and it is SO reminiscent of the raptor kitchen scene from Jurassic Park. While not nearly as tense as the original, the reference alone made it my favorite scene in the movie.

Aaron Waltz

The best deleted scene of the movie is the space ship. In the original script of the film there was supposed to be a part where the main character finds the flight deck and the original alien that crash landed there.(there are scenes on YouTube of the practical alien they made for the scene) it would turn out that the THING broke out of captivity on the ship and the aliens on board had no choice but to crash. The implication meaning that even a super advanced alien race couldn't stop this creature. It's an idea i really love and im so sad it was cut.

Aaron Waltz

One last thing. There is a board game called WHO GOES THERE, which is a much better version of the thing board game. 4-6 players have to survive until a helicopter arrives, trading, eating canned food, and bunking together. However anytime something goes wrong, a player picks one of 16 infection cards, with one of them being a thing card. Every player knows when a card is drawn, so as the game goes, more paranoia increases. The infected can infect people through the game or keep it to themselves, at the end of the game the helicopter arrives and the captain can choose who boards, there's a among us debate and then you fly off. At the end you show whos infected. Its a great deal of fun and you can play it on board game simulator!

Matthew Wogksch

Is it just me or does the 2011 prequel have a Force Awakens vibe to it? I enjoyed it, but it really copies The Thing from 1982 beat for beat. Like Force Awakens did to A New Hope.

Chree McGee

This isn't technically on your list of "approved texts" but I'm known in the Discord as the rebellious cohort (no I'm not). "The Things" by Peter Watts (which can be read online for free here: http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/) is an awesome, if non-canon, look into the perspective of the Thing. One cool thing it explains is the idea that the Thing put the statistics into the computer about "Entire world population infected within 27,000 hours". I never thought about it, by why the hell would a Commodore 64 be able to compute the infection rate of the whole earth, anyway?

Allan

When I think of The Thing inspired media, my mind immediately goes to the first season X-Files episode "Ice," which many fans consider to be one of the first great episodes of the show. The story follows Mulder and Scully to an outpost in Alaska where they're sent to investigate the apparent mass murder-suicide of an entire research team. They're joined by a crew of potentially suspicious characters which includes Bania from Seinfeld and a vaguely MacReady-esque reluctant pilot named Bear. Of course being a fledgling network sci-fi show from the early 90s it didn't have the budget to pull off the kind of creature effects and transformations seen in the Carpenter movie, so things are kept much more low key. The threat is an infection.. possibly from another world.. that turns its hosts homicidally violent, along with the atmosphere of paranoia concerning who may or may not have been exposed. The first carrier they run into when they arrive is even a dog. On top of all the Thing inspired story beats, the episode's production designer Graeme Murray was credited as set decorator on the John Carpenter movie. For all its limitations this manages to be a very tense hour of TV thanks in no small part to the foundation established by John W. Campbell's novella. Now that I think about it, this might have been my very first experience with anything "Who Goes There?" related, even if it's more inspired by than based on.

Starkiller

Hey holy snowcats, Does anyone else find it strange that the only moments we don't see in The Thing 2011 prequel are the flags in a circle and the detonating the thermite? We know for sure these happened since they were on the tapes the crew watched in The Thing 1982. At first I thought it could be implied that those moments happened off-screen in 2011 since they were on-screen in 1982, but since they tunneled to the ship under the ice, those actions aren't even necessary. Anyways, it stuck out to me since they kept such attention to detail for things like the fire axe in the door, but skipped the two big moments we know for a fact the Norse crew did.

Deep Space Trace

I really related to the scene where Kate was torching the Thing for so long that Carter finally puts his hand on her arm and says, “Kate” to make her stop. That’s exactly how long I would have burned the Thing and actually the same thing I do whenever I’m spraying a wasp or hornet with a can of Raid. I make sure it’s DEAD.

Jeorin

I didn't get a chance to check out the board games, but will comment on the 2011 film and the video game. The 2011 film was decent, but it was kind of weird how aggressive the Thing was in this film compared to the 1982 one. When Thing George was caught partially complete in the 1982 film, he just lets out a desperate howl before being torched. In the 2011 film, the Thing attacks rooms full of people even before it gets outed on more than one occasion. After Juliette gets torched and the crew are standing around the bonfire. Jonas asks 'Is it still among us?'. Do you think this where the hit multiplayer game got its title inspiration? I found it interesting how the crew in each film came up with different unique solutions for determining who was an imposter. The ending credits scene that links the 2011 film with the 1982 one uses the same music from the original. This was a nice reference. As for the game, it looked like it had some neat ideas that weren't well executed. I found the trust mechanic to be a compelling concept, but it seemed like it was only ever used to make things more challenging for the player. I really didn't care for the idea that the Thing was like a virus and could infect people and convert them just by close contact. This not only goes against the original story, but against any tactics the Thing used in either movie. The Thing has to consume things to replicate them, not just give them a little poke. You can find the tape recording MacReady made in the 1982 film in the game. However, it isn't the original recording from the film. They had some voice actor read the lines from the film, instead. They really didn't have the licensing rights for that little bit of audio? Childs is found dead in the game, at the spot where he and MacReady were last seen in the film, but MacReady shows up flying a helicopter at the end of the game. Does this mean MacReady just ditched Childs and went off to safety on his own? Seems messed up.

Hunter Sax

The '82 Thing is a standard for practical effects still today. However the prequel from 2011 even though may not have been executed great, played with great conceptual horror. The very idea of your face being sucked into another screaming face...eff that. Even if it looks silly.

Dan Willey

I can't get over how the one person in a position to chase the Thing down to the U.S. outpost, Lars, is one of the only characters on Thule Station that doesn't speak English! Had literally any other character made it, they could have explained the situation, Garry never would have shot them, and the Thing could have been dealt with once and for all. Awful luck for the human race, great luck for the Thing!

PhillyYeetSteak

(Its been over a decade since ive played it, so forgive me and move on if i am misremembering) The Thing on PS2 was the first place i ever saw a character get upset when you point a gun at them. This really stuck with me, and it still bothers me that so many games have you pointing a weapon at people when you talk to them.

Shawn Mills

I enjoyed the 2011 movie more than I expected to and I think it's a fine action movie on its own but it falls apart whenever you compare it to the original. The idea that the Thing can't absorb inorganic material is a clever idea but it makes no sense that they wouldn't find tonsils in the original movie. It's also very silly that the thing smashes itself against another person to make the two-headed character they find in the original. However, the video game was so much worse than I imagined it could be. I played on PC so I didn’t have to deal with the terrible controls but it was still awful trying to do anything in the game. The second boss in particular was soul-crushing since you have to chuck grenades at it but half the time they bounce back at you and kill you instantly. The trust and fear systems are interesting but they don’t work since your teammates either die or turn into things at a moment’s notice. I wanted to stop playing several times but I kept getting drawn back to see just how this mess ends and I was not disappointed. The ending is the stupidest, cheesiest thing they could possibly do and I absolutely loved it.

Muffyn Crumbs

Hey Ben! Did you see the comics they made that follow directly after the 1982 Thing? There's only a couple Issues but I thought they did a good job at continuing that feeling of being unsure who is a thing. Also I just want to say that Corridor Crew just recently did an episode where they talk about the effects of The Thing (1982 and 2011): https://youtu.be/j_n4pOGw2DM

Taylor Reinsch

I knew the The Thing (2011) was going to be a different kind of movie as soon as The Thing popped out of the ice and out of the ceiling. I was anticipating and hoping for a story more similar the novel (given that they are the ones that found the thing still in the ice). The fun of the novel and the 1982 film was trying to piece together who is the thing and when they were taken. Instead I got a movie that is all jump scares and cgi body horror with no substance. In the original 1982 film, they build tension slowly, giving hints and clues to who was taken and when, before getting to the action. In this one seemingly anyone could have been the thing with no explanation given for when or how. I will give the movie props for setting up the camp as found by Macready, but even that they botched with the helicopter out of nowhere and the guy who has no idea what is happening and has no real stakes in it for acting as crazy as he did when he got to the camp because he wasn't there to witness things go down.

Fred Dinovo

The 2011 Movie: Overall I enjoyed it, although it felt much more like a stalking monster movie in the vein of Jason or Michael Meyers than the 82 version unknowable evil.  I thought it was funny when the two crews are being introduced to each other and they introduce the one guy who doesn't speak any English. Some fun foreshadowing to the beginning of the 82 movie.  It seems as if the movie was taking a lot of inspiration from the novella and first movie regarding the creature itself with it appearing plant like before it began to assimilate with the crew as well how the first guy who was taken over in the helicopter before it crashed didn't seem to know he was the thing until he attacked the sick passenger.  I think it's a specific nod to the original novella and '51 movie when Dr Halvorson (?) makes a huge deal about them needing to "study the creature, because they are Scientists". The way he delivers "Scientists" makes it seem like the pinnacle of humankind 

Fred Dinovo

Other media: I posted in the discord but there was a series of sequel comics that came out following Macready and Childs as they continue to battle The Thing when it makes it to the main land.  Not great, but has some interesting/wild depictions of the the Thing transforming into various abominations that feel in line with the 82 visuals.

Joseph V

Hey Gang! Did anyone else find Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character useless and tacked on? So they find a spaceship buried and only tell some other Norweigian guy just so he can recruit a paleontologist? There is even a scene in the move that she states that they don't need her! Do you think this was a studio thing where they wanted a female lead? I feel you could have told the same story with just the guys at the outpost. P.S. so far this is my favorite deepest dive! Keep up the great work! Joe V.

The_Smak

Hello fellow frozen beings from another planet, In the 82 movie there's a giant crater where the UFO is discovered. However, in the 2011 movie the ship is buried under ice. Towards the end of the movie there's a scene when the Thing powers up the UFO's engines cracking the ice around it which is how it came to be uncovered. A nice little detail.

James Martin

While I didn't really like the movie, it wasn't terrible. One thing I appreciated more than the original was the clearer, more definitive 'we must kill this thing so it doesn't get out into the world' - they didn't execute that well on it but in this one they clearly 'pursue' it to prevent escape. However, one thing I did not like was that it made no sense that Carter-Thing went with Kate to the ship - why didn't he just take her out first?

Muffyn Crumbs

Hey was anyone else bummed that Dr Halverson didn't try to stop them from killing the monster as an homage to the original Thing from Another World? He seemed like he was kind of going in that direction when he said he wanted to inspect the dead bodies against everyone's wishes but then once shit went down he kind of just became a scaredy cat. I thought he'd be fascinated by how the Thing can mimick people and would try to reason with it or something. What are your thoughts?

Joe Dean

Hello fellow earth inhabitors, I checked out 1970s Horror Express starring Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing which is also inspired by "Who Goes There?" The film is set in 1906 or so and follows Lee after he finds the missing-link frozen in ice, and takes a train through Russia to transport his latest discovery. It isn't an incredibly faithful adaption, but it's not bad for a 70s movie. Did any of you guys check it out? I watched a commentary free playthrough of the PS2 video game and woof, but also Whitely, the bad guy, looks like low-poly Norm Macdonald. One thing that stands out about the 2011 movie is that they seem to believe a regular day night cycle exists in the South Pole.  Did that bug any of you guys? Also cool that the alien is a big fan of tetris given its big cylindrical Tetris display. One last The Thing memory, I used to play a custom game on Starcraft online that was inspired by the thing. Everyone except one person was human, the one person who wasn't could change to a hydralisk. It was my favorite custom game on Starcraft. Did you guys ever play any custom modes inspired by The Thing in other multi-player video games? Susscerely yours, Joe Dean

Kris Calkins

I really appreciated the scene where Kate finds the site of an assimilation. Putting that certainty in her mind that someone is not themselves made for a fun start to the paranoia. Then even after they could assume that whoever was the thing in the helicopter had died in the crash she discovers that someone cleaned up the blood without reporting it so she knew that an imitation was still among them.

YARF

For the game: Me and my cousin loved this game as kids, it scratched that “squad mate” itch in a way only the Thing and Freedom Fighters ever did. The best moment in the game was when we didn’t realize the blood test kit was just a tool, REALLY, for boosting courage so squad mates wouldn’t get uncontrollable fear and blow their brains out. As kids we spent most of the game back pedaling in paranoia, so we could keep an eye on our “squad mates”. When we got the blood test kits we were relieved, and used them to make sure they weren’t Things. When we saw they weren’t infected we could FINALLY look where we were going and take our eyes off them... ONLY TO FIND OUT THEY TRANSFORMED MINUTES LATER AT A PRE-DETERMINED POINT IN THE STORY! Even though they were JUST tested! Rather than realize the game was just inconsistent in its rules, we reasoned, with our little tiny simple child minds that didn’t understand A.I. or game development, that when we took our eyes off of our squad, that was when they must have been infected. After which, most of that game was spent in UTTER BARE FEAR, distrust, and paranoia of our “squad mates” and a WHOLE lot of back pedaling and double takes lol.

Patrick Polk

I think the main problem with the 2011 movie is that it seems like it exists solely to faithfully recreating the horrific set pieces that were discovered in the 1982 movie, and it didn't really try to make the plot make much sense in the process. Perhaps because it had the short story as source material, the 1982 movie had a somewhat clear set of rules and consistent logic. The prequel threw those rules out the window and focused on fan service to the visuals of the 1982 movie, which sets up the 2011 movie for unflattering comparisons. It would've been a perfectly okay monster movie if it wasn't a prequel to one of the best horror films ever! I always thought it felt weird and wasteful that in the 82 The Thing, they almost exclusively used flares for portable lighting, so I assumed that maybe flashlights don't work well in the bitter Antarctic cold, but then in the 2011 movie the Norwegians were using flashlights all over the place, so I guess Scandinavians just have better flashlight technology? This quote felt . . . timely: "It's like a virus. What do we do with any virus?" "Quarantine. We isolate it, and then we kill it."

Joemomma

One thing the 2011 movie did well was the tension of distrust. I wish the movie's tone stayed consistent in that regard. The scene where they separate those with fillings and those without and the resulting tensions were good. When the movie devolves into "big scary monster looking for you" it fell flat. Also, the monster design felt uninspired. All the transformations just felt spider/bug like. Even the alien in the ice seemed like a mix between a xenomorph and a spider. The mid credit scene also felt very tacked on and I was hoping for a rouge one style ending where you know they are doomed but you still root for them. Instead, main character survives, happy ending (except for lars)

Rickfromatlanta

Not sure if this is asked already but do you think the alien in the ship was the alien or it was an alien that was assimilated by the thing. It's form in the ice is like a beetle looking thing but in both movies the thing has a bunch of tentacles when it's attacked and is morphing. Any thoughts?

Rickfromatlanta

Also on a rewatch of the original intro the ship looks like it's veering while flying kind of like the helicopter does in the 2011 movie.

EJ Crough

I've looked into, turns out the 1982 version of the thing is not based on a true story, but I couldn't find anything that said the 2011 prequel isn't. Kinda spooky huh?