Hot Restricted Trailer: ‘The Thing’

COMMENTS (20)

• I have a great idea!

  Let’s remake (AKA take a shit on) a classic horror film by just making an embarrassing retread of the previous version and Aliens.

  Also, let’s sell it as a prequel to the previous film even though it was made 30 years ago and flopped at the time. But hey, the DVD made a lot of money so by that logic this one is gonna soar!

  Here’s some other good ideas for prequels nobody asked for based on similar logic:

  Xanadu
  The Last Starfighter
  They Live
  Prince of Darkness
  Village of the Damned
  People Under the Stairs
  Shocker
  Army of Darkness

  C’mon, you know half of these are going to get remakes, prequels, sequels or direct-to-video spinoffs in the next 4 years…

  Comment by Nobody — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:24pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Don’t forget Carpenter’s “classic” was itself a remake of the 1951 original by Howard Hawks, and a lot of people thought Carpenter was “taking a shit on” THAT version.

    And in 2032 someone will “reimagine” the 2011 version and also be attacked for screwing with a classic.

    And so on.

    Comment by TomF — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:54pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Xanadu was a remake of Down to Earth.

    The Last Starfighter was a rip-off of Tron.

    They Live was adapted from a short story, and is being adapted into a new film by the same people doing The Thing.

    Village of the Damned was a remake of a 1960 movie called Village of the Damned.

    Wes Craven has publicly stated he wants to remake both People Under the Stairs and Shocker.

    Army of Darkness was a sequel (Evil Dead Part III).

    Maybe the films from your 80′s childhood weren’t as brilliant and original as you thought.

    The 1980 The Thing (which was a remake of a 1951 film – which in turn was adapted from a novella) has held up over time and is now considered Carpenters’ magnum opus as well as one of the greatest scary movies of all time. Comparing it with a bunch of reviled garbage like Xanadu and Shocker is ridiculous. There’s plenty of backstory to explore in a prequel and I think it’s not a bad idea at all.

    Comment by seanocali — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:16pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • Because John Carpenter’s The Thing is 100% original and not a remake of a successful classic.

    Comment by Franco — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:18pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • @Franco

      John Carpenter’s version is not “100% original.” Like “The Thing from Another World,” it is based on the short story “Who Goes There?” Carpenter’s version is closer to the source material with many of the character names remaining the same.

      Comment by CJS — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:44pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Looks pretty awesome. Glad this is a prequel to the Carpenter version. This will never top that version of “The Thing” but it looks to be a pretty solid homage. Hope it does well at the box office

  Comment by Farzan — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:29pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Ramooooooonah……RA MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAN AH……….

  Comment by Ursa the Urologist — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:47pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Lame. Bunch of CGI…no thanks. I’ll stick with Kurt Russell and Keith David. This looks derivative, and a bad attempt at trying to capture what made the Carpenter version so great.

  Comment by JohnDoe — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 4:53pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Jezz what a flop!
  Universal is a parody of a studio.

  Comment by Sandra — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:14pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • wait, this is a trailer for a real movie? One Universal is releasing? I thought this was a joke or some bad student film project where they were re-making THE THING. Wow. What a turkey.

    Comment by avid movie watcher — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 10:52pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Really looking forward to this one. Usually shy away from prequels, remakes and the like, but this looks amazing. Huge fan of the Carpenter version, and I hope this one comes close in quality.

  Comment by Chad — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:34pm PDT  Reply to this post

• John Karavitis I just saw the trailer on Deadline.com, it looks like they are indeed making the prequel to “The Thing”. It looks like it will be a good movie overall, but, seriously, outside of actually showing us the alien spacecraft (and we get to see the alien burst out of the ice slab, per the trailer), how much different can it be from “The Thing”? Also, we know how it ends, with John Carpenter’s movie, there was always the open-ended question of whether either Kurt Russell or Chiles were copies, and/or whether they would survive. A better movie to either re-make or prequel/sequel would be John Carpenter’s “Prince of Darkness”. Remember the message??? QUOTE:

  “This is not a dream… not a dream. We are using your brain’s electrical system as a receiver. We are unable to transmit through conscious neural interference. You are receiving this broadcast as a dream. We are transmitting from the year one, nine, nine, nine. You are receiving this broadcast in order to alter the events you are seeing. Our technology has not developed a transmitter strong enough to reach your conscious state of awareness, but this is not a dream. You are seeing what is actually occurring for the purpose of causality violation.”

  Comment by John V. Karavitis — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 5:44pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • @John V. Karavitis

    “whether either Kurt Russell or Chiles were copies”

    Kurt Russell was the actor, not the character. His name in the film was R.J. MacReady. And Keith David’s character’s name was Childs, not Chiles.

    Comment by CJS — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 6:42pm PDT  Reply to this post

• Oh. Wow! That’s some of the worst CGI i’ve seen in a long time.

  Comment by dee123 — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 6:06pm PDT  Reply to this post

  • These posts proclaiming the “worst CGI I’ve seen in a long time……” could use some clarification. Why is it so bad? The anatomy and blending with real world elements looked pretty spot on to me. Are you bitching about the execution or the conceptual design — because I’d like to know what you would do to make it look better.

    Comment by mist704 — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 9:53pm PDT  Reply to this post

    • The creature effects are fantastic, but the first two instances of prominent CGI in the trailer – 0’31″ the ice block exploding and 0’35″ the spear – are painfully bad, look completely inauthentic at first viewing and ruin the cool factor of everything else because they come first…

      Joel Edgerton is very wooden but still really looking forward to this ‘prequel.’ THE X-FILES re-imagined THE THING to modern audiences in 1993 with one of its most popular early episodes, “Ice,” truly one of the freakiest, scariest hours of network TV ever – supported not by effects but terrific performances from the cast which ratcheted up the paranoia and tension to unbearable levels. Hope this prequel can deliver with its glossier, youth-oriented cast.

      Comment by Fox Mulder — Tuesday September 20, 2011 @ 10:03am PDT  Reply to this post

• This is is like 28 Days later wherein we saw the innovation of zombies running – the new Thing has the now-classic Kurt Russell creature in bright light, walking around, doing more stuff. And to that I say – YES
  Although these modern movies always look too CLEAN -why is that?

  Comment by lok — Monday September 19, 2011 @ 9:30pm PDT  Reply to this post

• The only thing missing is “John Carpenter’s…”

  Comment by nunyo — Tuesday September 20, 2011 @ 9:00am PDT  Reply to this post

• The thing by John carpenter is genius and a true classic! watched it sooo many times

  I’m actually looking forward to it, what we all need to realise is no film can ever beat an original- fact! so what’s the point in even trying to compare it! There isn’t

  And before anyone comments I’m aware it’s not a remake but a prequel, but you all know what I mean!
  So just enjoy it, stop comparing a film that was made in the 80′s to a film made in 2011

  Comment by Sally — Tuesday September 20, 2011 @ 12:31pm PDT  Reply to this post

• John Carpenter’s THE THING was actually *not* a remake of the James Arness 50?s film: Both movies were, of course, adapted from the same source material (the year 1938 short story “Who Goes There?”), but Carpenter’s version is very close to the original tale while the 50?s “Thing From Another World” wanders wildly in other directions.

  John W. Campbell (as Don A. Stuart) wrote “Who Goes There?” The story is public domain, and easy to find. Actually pretty advanced subject matter for 1938, which Carpenter nailed far better and more accurately than the 50?s picture.

  Comment by Lance Mazmanian — Tuesday September 20, 2011 @ 2:25pm PDT  Reply to this post