John Carpenter's The Thing

[stu]

So, looks like a prequel is in the works. Hrmm...

http://www.filmschoolrejects.com/news/universal-officially-announces-the-thing-from-new-caprica.php

This isn’t necessarily new news, but it does move recent rumors into the realm of official announcement.  Universal has hired Ronald Moore to write the big-budget “remake/re-imagining/prequel” of John Carpenter’s The Thing.  They’ve also hired on Matthijs Van Heijningen to direct.  Variety confirms the film will take place in the Norwegian camp that first discovered, housed, and was destroyed by the shape-shifting bastard from the nether regions of space.

This info has been floating around as rumor for a while, but now that it’s official the same comments, questions, and issues remain.  The best part of the announcement (the only good part actually) is the involvement of Moore.  The man has shown his brilliance for the past few years with his Battlestar Galactica reboot, so there’s a chance this could actually be interesting.  Van Heijningen is a wild card, as his previous credits consist solely of commercials.

[Margalis]

Spoiler: They all die and the thing is frozen in ice. 

[UnSub]

Spoiler: They all die and the thing is frozen in ice. 

... except for the dog.

There is no way that this prequel film can live up to "The Thing". No way. It isn't needed to explain anything. Bad stuff happened at the Norwegian camp. That's it, end of story.

[Big Gulp]

There is no way that this prequel film can live up to "The Thing". No way. It isn't needed to explain anything. Bad stuff happened at the Norwegian camp. That's it, end of story.

I love how all these remakes are farmed out to McMovie directors and fucking scabs.  Who in their right mind would even want to try and better The Thing, Halloween, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre?  They're classics for a goddamned reason.

Remakes and sequels are where you separate actual directors from hacks.  Case in point:  David Fincher and Alien 3.  He didn't say, "Hey, I'm going to remake Aliens, but bigger and better!".  He's smart enough to know that you're not going to out-action Cameron, so he goes a different route.  You get some hack like Brett Ratner, though, and he'll reshoot Man Hunter with a higher budget and just call it Red Dragon.  Not an ounce of shame that he's taking sloppy seconds from Michael Mann, because again, he's a scab hack who's just in it for the paycheck.

[stray]

One horror remake I wouldn't mind seeing (not to say one is planned) is Poltergeist. The world needs a good haunted house movie again. And umm... it might be one of the cases that'll benefit from modern effects. Besides, it's not classic enough as to seem untouchable, like Chainsaw. It could probably be improved upon.

[HaemishM]

There is zero fucking reason to make a prequel to The Thing, and especially not something by that grabass Ronald Moore. I'm sure halfway through the movie, 3 of the residents of the camp will turn out to be Things in hiding.

[Ozzu]

It could be much worse. At least it isn't a remake. It's pretty tough to top the best horror movie of all time with scrubs.

Still, I wish they would just leave this "franchise" alone.

[Yegolev]

The world needs a good haunted house movie again.

Keep saying that and we will get another House of Wax.

[Jain Zar]

There is no way that this prequel film can live up to "The Thing". No way. It isn't needed to explain anything. Bad stuff happened at the Norwegian camp. That's it, end of story.

I love how all these remakes are farmed out to McMovie directors and fucking scabs.  Who in their right mind would even want to try and better The Thing, Halloween, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre?  They're classics for a goddamned reason.

Remakes and sequels are where you separate actual directors from hacks.  Case in point:  David Fincher and Alien 3.  He didn't say, "Hey, I'm going to remake Aliens, but bigger and better!".  He's smart enough to know that you're not going to out-action Cameron, so he goes a different route.  You get some hack like Brett Ratner, though, and he'll reshoot Man Hunter with a higher budget and just call it Red Dragon.  Not an ounce of shame that he's taking sloppy seconds from Michael Mann, because again, he's a scab hack who's just in it for the paycheck.

The thing is, Alien 3 was a piece of shit.  On its own its a passable movie with a bunch of bald guys who all look alike.  As a sequel to my favorite movie of all time its a giant pile of ass that basically tells the audience of Aliens "HEY FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER!" by stomping over the whole fucking POINT of it.

Though Fincher wasn't the guy responsible for Fight Club and Seven then.  He was a music video director who Fox probably hoped wouldn't piss of Weaver and her giant fucking ego.

[Big Gulp]

Though Fincher wasn't the guy responsible for Fight Club and Seven then.  He was a music video director who Fox probably hoped wouldn't piss of Weaver and her giant fucking ego.

He came in when another director flaked, and then the studio recut his version of the movie.  What you're seeing isn't David Fincher's Alien 3 (and even with that said, it's still not bad), it's 20th Century Fox's.  To this day we don't have a directors cut of Alien 3 because Fincher washed his hands of the whole thing.   Fincher learned from that and never let another movie get taken out of his hands.  For instance, the producers of Seven were adamant that that movie wouldn't end with a head in a box.  Fincher was willing to walk away from the movie unless he got the version he wanted.  And thankfully, now that he's tied to the hip with Brad Pitt he can basically do what he wants.

Contrast that with Ratner, who essentially is just an errand boy for the studios.  He'll come in, shoot quick, edit quick, and wrap it up under budget.  The studios love him for it, but he produces shit.  A guy like that is always going to get work because he doesn't cause problems for the studios and will happily be their little bitch.  Of course, that doesn't produce art, but it's great at producing fast food movies and generating profit.

[Tannhauser]

Big Trouble is my fave Carpenter movie.  I mean come on! 

But The Thing is one seriously fuckin' scary movie.  And gross.  It ranks up with Jaws for suspense and dread.

PoD is a great film too, but not in the same league as the two above.

Hmm gotta Netflix me some Carpenter movies...

[apocrypha]

The thing is, Alien 3 was a piece of shit.  On its own its a passable movie with a bunch of bald guys who all look alike.  As a sequel to my favorite movie of all time its a giant pile of ass that basically tells the audience of Aliens "HEY FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER!" by stomping over the whole fucking POINT of it.

Alien 3 is my favourite of the franchise. Aliens was a great film but it was an action flick, not a suspense survival film like Alien. I thought Alien 3 brought it back to the original and made the alien actually seem powerful and dangerous again. Plus, whole thing was an allegorical piece about the early treatment of AIDS sufferers imo.

Totally agree that Aliens & Alien 3 appeal to different audiences, but I don't think that's a bad thing. You could make exactly the same criticism of Aliens with respect to fans of Alien.

[Margalis]

The thing is, Alien 3 was a piece of shit.  On its own its a passable movie with a bunch of bald guys who all look alike.  As a sequel to my favorite movie of all time its a giant pile of ass that basically tells the audience of Aliens "HEY FUCK YOU COCKSUCKER!" by stomping over the whole fucking POINT of it.

This is exactly my view. Killing off two of the characters in the opening credits? If you don't want to do a sequel just say no.

It reeks of the way new comic writers take over, immediately kill off the characters they don't like and resurrect old characters they do like. If you are continuing a series you have to show some basic respect for it, you can't just lazily jettison the parts that don't appeal to you.

And yes, a bunch of pasty white dudes who all look alike was a terrible direction to go in, especially after the strong and diverse casts of both earlier movies. The camerawork was mostly crappy as well, all the Alien chase scenes were terrible. The original is vastly superior in every respect.

[DraconianOne]

Must be that time of year.  I could have sworn we had exactly the same discussion about Aliens, Alien 3 & Alien Resurrection about this time last year just before AvP:R came out.

As for the Ron Moore doing a remake/whatever of "The Thing" - which part of this is news?  Ron Moore announced he was working on this in June 2007 - so it was hardly a rumour and definitely not new news.

[Ironwood]

 Plus, whole thing was an allegorical piece about the early treatment of AIDS sufferers imo.

What ?

[apocrypha]

 Plus, whole thing was an allegorical piece about the early treatment of AIDS sufferers imo.

What ?

The big picture

Alien3
by David Fincher

Science fiction has always held a fascination for me. It has the potential to construct alternative worlds where you can create utopias, while actually talking about what concerns us today.

The Alien trilogy framed a whole genre of science fiction film with its three very different narratives linked by the character of Ripley (played by Sigourney Weaver), a strong assertive female lead not prepared to submit to either the company or the Freudian monster that seeks to possess her.

If the first film, Alien, introduces the idea of body horror, of the boundaries of the body under threat, the second, Aliens, is a Vietnam war film with high tech guns aiding marines on a rescue mission. The third ­ Alien3, directed by David Fincher ­ is fundamentally different and worth watching. Written by Vincent Ward, who made the excellent film The Navigator, the film sees Ripley crash landing on an isolated prison planet.

From the beginning this instalment of the trilogy is very different from the others. The other two survivors from the previous film ­ Hicks, a soldier, and Newt, a young girl ­ turn out to be dead and so the neat nuclear family unit that is part of the right wing message of Aliens is shattered in the 1990s version.

The bleak, desolate planet on which Ripley finds herself is populated by a colony of male prisoners beyond the pale of even other prison populations. Its talk of contagion, viruses and the iconography of the prisoners all point to what the film is about for me ­ an allegory for Aids.

What the film turns on is the growing realisation amongst these men that they have no choice but to fight for their very existence because, along with Ripley, who carries an alien foetus inside her, an alien has also landed on the planet. Some of the prisoners seek to blame Ripley for unwittingly bringing the monster with her but she is defended by the leader of the group who sees her as much a victim as the rest of them and unites with her to try and destroy it.

Most effective in the film is the strength of resistance of Ripley and the prisoners who are fighting not just the monster but the corporation that wants it as a weapon. The parallel experience of gay men in America and Britain fighting not just a virus but state indifference and prejudice couldn't be clearer.

In one scene they gather to decide on their course of action. The company lackey says they should wait for it to rescue them and not do anything that might rock the boat, but Ripley argues they should remember that in the eyes of the corporation they are all expendable. Dillon, the leader of the prisoners, continues in the same vein, `You're all gonna die. The only question is how you check out, on your feet or on your knees begging. I ain't much for begging.

Nobody gave me nothing. So I say fuck that thing. Let's fight it.' This could be straight from the speech by Larry Kramer which launched Act Up (the militant gay activist group) in New York when he said, `If my speech tonight doesn't scare the shit out of you, we're in real trouble. If what you're hearing doesn't rouse you to anger, fury, rage and action, gay men have no future here on earth. How long does it take before you get angry and fight back?'

Ripley soon realises that she is carrying an alien foetus inside her and this makes her a valuable commodity to the company. She refuses to let them control her body and rather than allow herself to be taken alive to breed the alien, she throws herself into the fire. Some people might view this as a negative ending, but I think it's like the ending to Thelma and Louise where rather than let the state take away the freedom they have come to discover they carry on driving. Alien3 isn't a cheery film but then the experience of the last 15 years of Aids hasn't been either. However, it has been one where a group of people marginalised and considered expendable have learnt to fight back and not accept the status quo. The `fuck you' that the remaining survivor exclaims at the end of the film to the company thugs isn't the clearest declaration of socialist thinking, but the spirit of resistance is where socialists start.

John Lynch

Now I think that review (from Socialist Review, 1996) takes it a step too far, and that that particular view is just one possible interpretation, or even just an indication of subconscious influences on Fincher, but I think the parallels are strong.

I know I'm in a minority in liking Alien3, but there is more depth to the film than most people seem to think, and if it disappointed fans of the gung-ho action flick (of which there's no shortage in Hollywood) then so be it. There are so many cliches in mainstream films, so much predictability and safe, formulaic output, that personally I cherish any decent attempt to break some of those cliches and for me Alien 3 does that very well.

Edit: On-topic! A prequal of The Thing that wasn't predictable, formulaic, cliche-ridden Hollywood tripe would be worth making. Magic 8-ball says "Unlikely".

[Ironwood]

"Away and raffle yer bunnet."

 

[Engels]

I'm with apocrypha on this one. Aliens was a fun movie, but it was hardly nuanced. The two subsequent movies utterly fail at mass-market appeal , but of course cannot be taken seriously as art house movies, so they fall through the cracks. I'm not saying that in the future they will be called Classics of 20th century cinema or some such, but they did explore the core questions the original movie, Alien, brought up. I personally really liked the last movie, in particular for the art involved. Of course, they made the mistake of trying to put some action into the flick, and as many of us know, the French just aren't that hot on making action flicks, Femm Nikita aside.

[LK]

Seems the popular trend nowadays is to mine movie / TV IP from the 80's in the hope that they can reignite them (Terminator, Transformers, GI Joe, The Thing, etc.). I imagine around 2020 we'll start seeing movies that take advantage of quality 90's movies.

...

Ok, probably just more sequels from extremely popular 80's flicks.

[Merusk]

Seems the popular trend nowadays is to mine movie / TV IP from the 80's in the hope that they can reignite them (Terminator, Transformers, GI Joe, The Thing, etc.). I imagine around 2020 we'll start seeing movies that take advantage of quality 90's movies.

...

Ok, probably just more sequels from extremely popular 80's flicks.

It'll depend on what the 30 somethings then were into 10 years ago.  Pokemon?  Blue's Clues "behind the scenes" comedy? I don't know.  In 2030 you can expect another Star Wars revisit and some Yu-Gi-Oh with another Batman revamp based on my nephews and son's tastes.

[Nevermore]

I eagerly await the sequel to Independence Day, wherein the evil alien overlord Llib Setag finally patches that security flaw in their flying saucer OS and recommences the attack on Earth.

[stu]

As for the Ron Moore doing a remake/whatever of "The Thing" - which part of this is news?  Ron Moore announced he was working on this in June 2007 - so it was hardly a rumour and definitely not new news.

lrn2read. The first sentence of that article I linked says "this isn't necessarily new news." The point is, there's actually some movement on it. Sometimes you're alright, but for the most part you're a jerkoff.

[DraconianOne]

Sometimes you're alright, but for the most part you're a jerkoff.

That's exactly what my wife says to me. It must be true.

Now I think that review (from Socialist Review, 1996) takes it a step too far, and that that particular view is just one possible interpretation, or even just an indication of subconscious influences on Fincher, but I think the parallels are strong.

That interpretation has got to be one of the worst I've ever read about Alien3 but then it is from the Socialist Review and so he does have an agenda which no doubt involves ignoring anything to do with religion including the very explicit themes of faith, punishment, redemption and sacrifice. Also, don't blame Fincher - he just helmed it. Look to Walter Hill and David Giler who wrote the screenplay for it.

[SnakeCharmer]

That..um...interpretation of Aliens3 was almost as an entertaining read as the premise that Firefly/Serenity was an entire series and movie was nothing but a sexist slam against women or something equally retarded.

[Jain Zar]

That review is pure shit.  An ad hoc potential family is clearly RIGHT WING?

Seriously?  Really?

And I have been bitter about Alien 3 since it came out, and seeing Weaver's comments in the Alien Quadrilogy set just set the angry on overdrive.  Fucking egotistical CUNT.

Even worse considering the Mark Verheiden Aliens Dark Horse comic trilogy was so fucking superior to the 2 Alien movies we got after Aliens its not even funny. 
(Of course Weaver wouldn't want THAT.  It made the stories about Newt and not RIPLEY ALL THE TIME. )

As far as I am concerned 3 and Resurrection are alternate timeline movies from a more horrible, sucky universe where mediocre, silly movies come from.

Yet its funny I don't have the bile for AvP 1 and 2 everyone else seems to.  I don't expect high intelligence from them, and its got Aliens and Predators killing people and each other so pass the nachos and beer.
(Though again, Dark Horse did it better.  Hawt Japanese corporate type learns to unbitch herself and help save cattle rancher space colonists at the same time.  And becomes such a bad ass she actually gets adopted by a Predator hunting pack! )

[WindupAtheist]

Alien 3 was shit. If you like it, fuck you.

[Tannhauser]

No fucking way Aliens 3 is a good movie. 

[Merusk]

You should have known Newt was gonna be dead when they announced A3. She's not an integral part of the story, and the girl was 14 by then. Get over it already. 

[sidereal]

IS THAT ALL YOU GOT?!

[DraconianOne]

You should have known Newt was gonna be dead when they announced A3. She's not an integral part of the story, and the girl was 14 by then. Get over it already. 

Frankly, Newt should never haved survived Aliens. But's that my own problem and I'm dealing with it my own way, thank you very much.

[Margalis]

Hicks, a soldier, and Newt, a young girl ­ turn out to be dead and so the neat nuclear family unit that is part of the right wing message of Aliens is shattered in the 1990s version.

Really?

A movie where macho military clowns are beat down by savages, where the military-industrial complex kills of an entire colony of people in order to cultivate a biological super-weapon and where the main human badguy is a slick corporate schill has a right wing message?

Not seeing it.

[apocrypha]

Now I think that review (from Socialist Review, 1996) takes it a step too far

I gave the source of that review for a reason guys, try not to froth too much 

Alien 3 was shit. If you like it, fuck you.

Yeah cos the world would be awesome if we all had identical tastes wouldn't it? 

[Ironwood]

Yes.

It would be interesting, at least, to watch all you assholes try to fuck my wife.

[Riggswolfe]

To go back to an earlier derail:

I got PoD on DVD after our earlier discussion. I'd forgotten how fucking creepy that movie is. Creepy dream images from the future? Yeah, fuck that. Oh, and the ending? Haunting. Very haunting.

Oh, and how did I forget that the blond brother from Simon and Simon is in that movie?

[HaemishM]

Oh, and how did I forget that the blond brother from Simon and Simon is in that movie?

It was that rocking pr0n moustache he was sporting.