Another reason for leaving the SJ a mystery

dk

Yes but you did have a lackluster game-sequel and a prequel/remake which fared as they did...

The prequel sucked if you already saw the 1982 version- it was essentially the same movie. The PS2 game was so so for its time but neither gave real origin answers.

For me, the prequel was a cross between the 1982 remake and the 1951 original, but was completely unnecessary as we learned its fate in the 1982 movie (even though the Norwegian camp was just the remnants of the burnt set of the American camp). And I still hold to this day that a sequel should be done which leads into The Invasion of the Bodysnatchers.

But ironically, I may have just (maybe, it is a theory after all) removed all mystery about the Space Jockey in my latest thread The Third Moon And Its Relationship To The Xenomorph.

I am reminded of a short story of The Thing a member alerted me to a long time ago- I cannot recall the title. It was written from the thing's POV. It was interesting and left the reader with some understanding and even a sympathetic view of the thing.

Oh, I agree, remember at the end it was attempting to build a spacecraft to leave Earth. It had no intention of wiping out mankind, even though it had the capability to do so.

Back to the main point- we never knew the true nature or origin. It was a mystery to ponder and most people were fine with that. Similarly, the Alien franchise would do well to leave some mystery. These days it seems many want everything explained to the finest detail thus destroying any mystery and leading to more questions that probably cannot or will not be explained in a reasonable amount of time in movie form.

Indeed The Thing is one of my favorite movies, i think the Prequel was flawed, some iffy CGI but mainly the Ending was Pants....

But we still knew NOTHING about the Organism/Parasite or what ever we call it, i think indeed Invasion of the Body Snatchers is pretty much similar to what we see the THING as.

The Interesting Thing about the Movie indeed was the Building of the Space Ship, this is wonderful because of the ambiguity involved which can lead to many debates and speculation, we have to wonder why Blair Thing was building a Craft... was it to get off this Baron Wasteland to Infect the Greater Population?   Or was he attempting to Leave Earth.

I assume the intentions was not good, because we had Norris Thing and Palmer Thing too and so we have to ask was those TWO also planning to leave with Blair Thing? Or was Blair Thing attempting to get off Earth to Spread the Organism/Parasite to other Worlds?

I did plan a Prequel to The Thing way back in 2003,  i was going to explore the events leading to that Ship heading to Earth 100'000 years ago....   I was pondering was this a Accidental Outbreak of a Bio-Weapon Created by a Race for a War.  Or was it a Parasite that was Accidentally uncovered.

So i was pondering, was the Pilot trying to escape some horrors but got infected, or was he attempting to drop the Parasite but got infected....  I worked somewhat on it but abandoned it as well it was becoming a bit Space Jockey Incident meets indeed Body Snatchers.

dk - I liked The Thing 2011 very much.

And I would like to know everything about the Space Jockey. So I hope his story won't be left a mystery in the next Alien movie.

Ati I think the 2011 prequel might work for those whom had never seen the 1982 version. I did like the ending though- it linked up very nicely to the 1982 movie.

The Thing is an old favourite of mine and as tempted as I am to add my critisms about the prequel, I have experienced the rip off Harbinger Down (2015) with Lance Henriksen. It’s like watching the after effects of someone seeing how many piri piri olives they can cram up their shitpipe.

Harbinger Down Trailer

Batchpool LOL- rip off as it seems to be, I will watch if found on Netflix or Hulu+- it's Lance after all! Is it really that bad? I have seen some stinkers.

@ dk

Its worth a watch just to see how much has been ripped off from The Thing. It also plays out a bit like Alien in that people get bumped off one by one. The effects are also very reminiscent of The Thing era. It’s not that bad. In some respects the story line could be a continuation of The Thing in that, what would have happened if the ice surrounding the alien craft had melted ( that’s not what happens btw).  Its a low budget (not too low) Alien/Leviathan/Thing movie

The Thing game (~2002), I enjoyed the first half of that game. Great atmosphere, very eerie and isolated. I recall some very memorable sections of that game....Dead Space-esque like kill rooms.

Got pretty crappy and turned into a poor corridor shooter later in the game though. 

As to the OP. Agreed. The Thing was more frightening because it was a total alien entity with no real motive but to spread and consume

@ Big Dave,

I must say that is the first time anyone as inferred that Norris Thing and Palmer Thing as separate entities, as I have always imagined the creature to be singular. Yes, it was burnt down when it assimilated Bennings, but I feel that was the only point it had duplicated itself. I always felt it was working its way through the team one-by-one, hiding as each individual team member, I have never heard of anyone thinking it was trying to subjugate the entire team with Thing replacements. 

I have always imagined a sequel would take place with MacReady, Childs, Kate, and the Thing each contained in hermetically sealed chambers within the remnants of the site now converted to an uber-secret facility where the Thing, the survivors, and the ship are being studied. In this I imagine a nuclear device being planted beneath the Things chamber, set to detonate should it attempt to escape. The story would conclude with the device detonating, destroying the facility and all within and sending the Things cells into the atmosphere, where they would circulate before falling back down to the surface, carried by the weather fronts to the US, and landing upon leaves and creating Body Snatcher pods.

The ambiguity would have been left open - did the thing want to set off the device and infect the planet or was it coerced by its captors? Were the survivors human or other Things? Was the Thing a victim or a perpetrator? Does the Thing lose become lesser in intelligence as it copies more individuals?

"Its worth a watch just to see how much has been ripped off from The Thing"

Well it was the Effects team who worked on The Thing 2011, what these guys did was a lot of work for that movie that got replaced by some dodgy CGI, so they set out to make a movie thats similar where they can basically show people...   "look you can make effects like that 100% Practical"

The end result for the Thing 2011 was some CGI was poor especially the latter scenes.  We see it with Alien Covenant too, if you do CGI you have to be careful because some rushed scenes can look poor and with AC, some are ok but some really are far behind a Blockbuster Level.

@Gavin

I am not sure what the Thing actually is, it appears to be some kind of Parasite to me, i would assume it can assimilate more than ONE host and so act like a Virus, but then it acts as ONE Entity yet is many and so it would be like some kind of AI Virus, where it infects many but still acts as a WHOLE, kind of like a Hive Mind.   And so yeah i guess similar to the Bodysnatchers.

I think your idea was kind of cool...

I had pondered a sequel back in the 90's where i was thinking that MacReady kills Childs, but finds out he was Human, and gets Arrested and thrown into a Mental Ward.

This movie would take place 10-15 years latter and reveal that indeed as with your idea, a Biological Weapons Division has set up a Base 250 miles away from Outpost 31 and had set off a Small Nuke on the outpost from the Thing but prior recovered some Frozen Specimens and had began Testing the Organism, in order to see if it could help with Repairing of Damaged Cells and thus give a answer to Regenerate Wounds.

MacReady Escapes and finds out about this, and goes off to Antarctic to investigate Outpost 31 with a small team and they then get captured and taken to be questioned as its a Quarantined Area.

He is taken to a Outpost where the Military are trying to Re-Engineer the remains of the Space Ship to improve our Space Race Technology and McReady finds out there is another Research Facility near by and he tries to escape but is captured and taken to the Biological Facility where the Scientist tell him they have come far to exploiting and manipulating the Organic Parasite for their own gain.

McReady warns them, but they say they have Quarantine Procedures and can and have contained outbreaks.  But then McReady holds the CEO Hostage and then in a attempt to Destroy the Facility areas that hold the Experiments, he unleashes the THING on that Outpost.

So basically Scientist had set up a secure place to study The Thing with many protocols to safeguard against outbreak and its Ultimately McReady who in a attempt to Sabotage their Plans and Destroy the Organism/Parasite he actually causes a Outbreak.

I do think we could maybe speculate similar could have happened on LV-223

I only got as far as a 8 page broad Plot, back in 1996 though..

gavin, can we be sure the thing was leaving earth and not just trying to escape the arctic and travel to a more populated area?

dk - I know and like The Thing 1982 as well. I ove its OST! I like both of them. Perhaps it is a scandal but I like the 2011 movie better. The scene before the burning of the creature (which is before the ship scene at the end) is brutal. However, they should have applied the original soundtrack of The Thing 1982 in the prequel. Not only at the end of it...

I wanted to add the piece of info about the effects team and Harbinger but BigDave was faster. :)

Dave writes:

Well it was the Effects team who worked on The Thing 2011, what these guys did was a lot of work for that movie that got replaced by some dodgy CGI, so they set out to make a movie thats similar where they can basically show people...   "look you can make effects like that 100% Practical"

The whole situation is funny in my opinion:

The makers of The Thing 2011 wanted to include practical effects in the movie but they were not satisfied with the result, the effects looked terrible, so they decided to use CGI. But they did not have much time, so they had to work fast. However, I think the important scenes look OK.

Then the rejected effects team wanted to show how talented they are and the movie Harbinger... was created. But it looks horrible in my opinion, so I think it was a clever decision to replace the effects of The Thing 2011.

BigDave is right, the two movie might have suffered the same problem: the practical effect does not work, so they choose the CGI version, but they do not have enough time, so the result is not satisfactory...

Damn...

Indeed The Thing 2011 and Alien Covenant both tried to rush and not give more time and money to improve the Effects... The Thing 2011 Effects could have worked with some CGI Gloss over... but the replacement to CGI just did not look good enough..  especially the later scenes.

The Thing Ending as far as Kate surviving... sucked

It however would leave it open for a Sequel to the 1982 The Thing to take care of, because well Kurt Russell is old now and he can only return if they set the Sequel many years latter....

But a more direct sequel could work, if we are shown or hinted that they recover McReady and Childs, and then they also discover Kate, Frozen and infected.

BigDave - Some people think that the movie Life belongs to The Thing universe. If you look at the closing scene... :)