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modfather 12-22-05 10:30 AM

The Thing - Help me understand a few things...SPOILERS
 
First of all, SPOILER ALERT. It'd be silly to put this all in spoiler tags, so don't go any further if you don't want to read some possilbe spoilers. Man, I forgot how gory this movie is. :)

For those who've seen it and understand, I have a few questions that maybe someone can help me with. I just watched it last night - although I've seen it before - a few times, there were things I questioned this time that I never did before:

1. When Mac and the Doc go to the Norweigan camp, they find a guy who's apparently committed suicide. He has a razor in his hand and his wrists are cut, but his head is damn nearly cut off. I'm just wondering what people's opinions are on this? Did the guy cut his wrists and then hack 1/3 of his own head off before dying? And why commit suicide? I'm assuming because he didn't want to be "absorbed".

2. Also at the Norweigan camp, they found a ?Thing? who was burned up (ya know, the one with two faces). My main question about this movie is: When the Thing defrosted, it absorbed a victim - does that mean there are now two Things? The same question applies to the dogs - the Thing absorbs a dog or two - does that mean that it multiplies? Because as I think about it, it would seem like it would absorb a person, and then take on that person's looks/behaviors, but that's it - it's still only one Thing. But I get the impression that it does and will multiply, as Wilford Brimley found out with the aid of his super-intelligent computer (TRS-80). ;)

3. The Thing obviously wanted to frame MacReady as a "Thing". I'm assuming because it felt he was the biggest threat?

4. Do you think Wilford Brimley went crazy just because he knew things were going to get bad/ugly? Why in the hell would he cut off all communication possibilities and thrash the place? Unless he knew they were all dead and wanted to make sure the Thing(s) couldn't/wouldn't get back to civilization.

Well, that about does it. Maybe I'm trying to figure too much out, but I just wondered what other people thought about this. I love the movie (John Carpenter's best, IMHO).

slavetotherave 12-22-05 10:51 AM

1. It's been a while, I barely remember this part.

2. I believe every person it consumes becomes a new thing. Remember, every single part of the creature is a separate being. Like when the head falls off the guy and crawls away. Or the blood. It just multiplies its cells by consuming others' cells.

3. The Thing is very cunning. I don't think it singled out MacReady specifically because it thought he was the biggest threat. But as circumstances occurred, that just happened to be a convenient move for the creature to make. I'm sure if it had the opportunity to consume him, it would have.

4. I read the short story "Who Goes There?" which this movie is based on.. and I believe that is precisely what his intentions were. He knew they were all doomed and snapped under the pressure. He sabotaged all the vehicles and tried to make sure that even though they were dead, it'd never get to the mainland and take over the planet.

Trout 12-22-05 10:59 AM


Originally Posted by slavetotherave

4. I read the short story "Who Goes There?" which this movie is based on.. and I believe that is precisely what his intentions were. He knew they were all doomed and snapped under the pressure. He sabotaged all the vehicles and tried to make sure that even though they were dead, it'd never get to the mainland and take over the planet.

The scene where he is using the computer to figure out how long the world would take to be infected explains why he goes crazy.

matome 12-22-05 11:31 AM

1. As far as the suicide guy goes, it looked to me as if he had just slashed his throat and the blood icicles we see on his hands had run down his arms from the neck wound. I'll have to take a closer look for wrist slashes. It also seems pretty likely that the razor would've been dropped in either scenario, but it still was a pretty effective scene.


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