The Thing

On the long list of movies that don't need to be remade, The Thing is near the top. The story and acting are fantastic. The feeling of isolation, the distrust, the paranoia are elements most horror, thriller, or sci-fi directors would love to have in their films. The special effects, brought to us by Rob Bottin and the late, great Stan Winston, look amazing despite the fact that they're nearly thirty years old. Why, then, are we being subjected to a remake (excuse me, "prequel")? I imagine the conversation went something like this. "Hey, people might be vaguely familiar with the idea and/or name of this film! I bet that's worth some money right there!"

As a side note, John Carpenter seems to be the king of remakes. The Thing will be the fourth of his films to be remade, following The Fog, Assault On Precinct 13, and Halloween. There'll be a fifth, mark my words; they've been trying to figure out a way to redo Escape From New York (1981) for years.

Who has been charged with the task of fighting off the Thing in this new film? Who better than Ramona Flowers? Answer: just about anyone.

Yeah, she's got Thing killer written all over her. The idea of having a female protagonist is so mind-numbingly stupid it's borderline insane. Do you remember how many women were at Outpost 31 in the original? A grand total of zero. But in this age of political correctness, can you imagine the shitstorm the filmmakers would have to go through if they released a movie featuring a team of all-male researchers?

The halfassed reason given for why Ramona will be the main character is because the filmmakers didn't want to have to compete with the pure badassery of Kurt Russell's R.J. MacReady. That's understandable. MacReady is one of the smartest and toughest characters ever committed to celluloid. Instead, they wanted their protagonist to be more of an Ellen Ripley type. So instead of comparing and contrasting her to MacReady, they want us to compare her to the strongest female protagonist in the history of film. What a wonderful idea.

Judging by the trailer, Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character will not only be leading the forces in opposition to the Thing, she'll also figure out everything about the creature. So she's really some awkward combination of Ripley, MacReady, and Wilform Brimley's Dr. Blair, who did the figuring and calculating in the original. The guy who wrote this movie must've been sitting in front of his computer wearing a pair of Bad Idea jeans. The only way Mary Elizabeth Winstead's character should be able to make any kind of a dent in the Thing is if it takes the form of Michael Cera.

Possibly the biggest problem with this film is that they're claiming that, rather than a remake, it's a prequel focusing on what happened at the destroyed Norweigian base visted by MacReady and company near the beginning of the original film. Did you count how many characters in the trailer are speaking in a foreign language? Norweigian my ass.

Look at the sets. Familiar, no? They look an awful lot like all the sets from the original. The director says he used Carpenter's film as a guide for what the Norweigian base should look like, doing his damnedest to make them ring true. You know what Carpenter used for the Norweigian base? The American base after it was blown to hell. So, for all intents and purposes, this movie will be using the exact same sets.

In just two and a half minutes of trailer it can be presumed numerous sequences from the original movie will pop up in this new version. You know, like what happens in a remake. A dog is seen trying desperately to break free of its pen, probably in an effort to escape from the Thing. And since it's established that the creature must transform itself into a dog in order to be a dog at the start of Carpenter's film, it can be assumed that we'll be subjected to a similar but less-interesting dog pen transformation sequence.

We also get a shot of a computer readout explaining the process the Thing uses to destroy and imitate other lifeforms. If this is truly a prequel, it would have to look like it was made using 1982 computer technology. Fortunately, we know exactly what this technology looks like because it was already presented to us by Wilform Brimley in The Thing. Unfortunately, this new computer readout looks like it could've been on CSI last week. Prequel my ass.

Have you ever heard of a sequel or prequel using the same name the original movie? It almost never happens because, when trying to talk about or make reference to one of the movies, confusion would undoubtably occur. At least when Final Destination (2000) did it they added an article to the title to make in semi-different, thus giving us The Final Destination (2009). You know when an identical title is used? When remaking a movie. For example: Halloween (1978) and Halloween (2007); The Fog (1980) and The Fog (2005); Assault On Precinct 13 (1976) and Assault On Precinct 13 (2005). Another example: The Thing (1982) and The Thing (2011).

If you're remaking a movie one thing you may want to include is music from the original, especially if said music was particularly memorable. Like, for instance, the music from The Thing. Director Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. (what's up with this dude's name?) has brilliantly decided not to include Ennio Morricone's score from the original film. Of course, even if he had wanted to include it, it would be impossible seeing as Morricone's score doesn't exist except as background music for DVD releases of the original movie. He turned it in, Carpenter told him it sucked (which it does) and then rewrote it himself. Carpenter gave Morricone the credit on the film just because he's a nice guy.

This is what it's come down to. Hollywood won't even admit that their lousy remakes are lousy remakes. They've got to hide behind the term "prequel," hoping it will fool you into thinking the movie doesn't suck for a few moments longer.