According to this timeline (based largely off the shooting script) says it takes over about six days, although I don’t think the film makes that very clear. It is at least two days, though - when the thing kills the dogs in the kennel, everyone is in bed after the excitement of the previous day. At this point, it’s already replaced at least one of the human - either Norris, or Palmer. Possibly both. If both characters were killed that night, then what they were seen wearing earlier in the film is meaningless - they would have changed out of those clothes before going to bed, and the creature could have put them back on the next day. Indeed, one of the first clues they find that the creature is taking over people is a pair of shredded long johns.
Wow, that’s surprising; the movie, from my recollection, does not make that clear at all. I guess that does help explain the clothing issue. Unfortunately, it also seems to introduces other questions, like why doesn’t The Thing just take over people while they’re sleeping? (unless they just stayed up for the 4-5 days?).
Not sure how I feel about that…
One interesting note about the clothing. When Clark locks the dog-thing in the kennel, the way the film is cut, it appears that the dog-thing attacks as soon as Clark leaves. It’s actually supposed to happen several hours later: Clark is wearing a completely different outfit when he comes back in.
You know, for being the smartest person on the camp in regards to Thing-101, the chick was pretty naive. Oh you have the keys to the vehicles? Great! I’ll go with you in this storage room. Alone. With my back turned. And my guard down. :rolleyes:
I noticed something in the original a week or so ago when it was on cable. I’m gonna presume everyone’s familiar, so no spoilerboxes. Fans, help me out here:
Okay, so, Norris goes all Thing-y and kills Doc Copper. Norris’s head sprouts legs and skitters off, but Palmer spots it, and utters the famous line, “You gotta be fuckin’ kidding me…”. MacReady kills it, and it’s off for the blood test.
Blood-testilarity ensues. But the blood sample that reacts is Palmer’s! So, if Palmer was already a Thing, why did he point out Norris’s escaping head to the others, rather than pretending he didn’t see it and letting it get away?
Much debated. It’s one of the main arguments for the hypothesis that the Thing is such a down-to-the-last-detail replicant that it can actually use its host personality as an additional blind. The absorbed host personality thinks it is still perfectly normal, but the Thing personality is in the background, ready to take control when under threat or the time is right. So Norris, Palmer, etc. might have had no idea that they were actually Things - the perfect camouflage.
ETA: In fact you might be a Thing right now and never know it :D.
Another angle is demonstrated by the inspiration behind Mac’s blood test - that every glob of thing cells, shaped like a blood stain or a spider-head or a fully formed man is an independent animal, with its own will to survive. It will work together with whatever cells are part of it’s “network,” but once cut off it won’t reveal itself to save another unless it has an advantage. That’s just not good for survival.
After all, if the Palmer-Thing exposed itself to intervene when the Norris-Thing was discovered (and killed) it probably realized it would get killed too. Better to let the other potential victims think you’re one of the good guys, engender a little trust, and then assimilate them when the opportunity presents itself.
Mac seemed to have it pegged pretty good though halfway through the movie:
“I know I’m human. And if you were all these things, then you’d just attack me right now. So most of *you *are still human. This thing doesn’t want to show itself. It wants to hide inside an imitation. It’ll fight if it has to, but it’s vulnerable in the open…”
Damn that was a good movie. Haven’t worked up the nerve to see the prequel based on what I’m hearing of it…
I haven’t seen the new film, nor will I probably (nothing against this particular remake, just not a movie-goer, really), but something I appreciated about the 1982 The Thing film was the irony of 1) making a remake while 2) having your titular antagonist be itself a remake — that’s the Thing’s main scare, remaking other people/animals. So a remake of a remake, where the villain is a remake, I can live with that.
I figured the Thing infected you, as others have said, and that you didn’t know it. When the Thing kills the doctor (the scene when the body is being defibrillated), just prior to that, the guy who wound up being the Thing complains about not feeling well, so I always figured if you were infected, you probably didn’t know it; it may take a while for the the Thing’s chemistry to overtake you. Then again, I can’t remember off the top of my head when that guy ever came in contact with the Thing, and if he did, how he managed to survive if he did.
One nice touch I always liked from the Carpenter version: once Blair has become a Thing, (most notable when he shoves his Thing-stuff in Garry’s mouth), it doesn’t wear Blair’s glasses anymore. Doesn’t need them.
Bumping this because I finally saw the prequel this weekend.
Lars is the guy left at the end who gets the just-arriving helicopter to chase the dog, saying “that’s no dog”, then (in the 1982 movie) gets shot by the Americans after he accidentally shoots one of them. I’m not sure he was thingified (though he could be, and the Thing inside is just letting the Lars persona continue on).
Before that point, I believe they mentioned a Russian (?) base that was within driving distance. I think they’re sort of leaving this open, either for a sequel or just because they want to leave an unresolved ending just like the original. Did she make it to that base? Was she a Thing? She certainly was in close proximity a bunch of times. I really liked how she burned the guy out over his earring, and we don’t find out if he was actually a Thing. Did she just misremember and overreact to paranoia? Was she a Thing, and eliminating the last human who might have challenged her?
I thought it wasn’t as good as the 1982 version, but if you’re a fan of that movie, it was worth watching.
Also, there were a bunch of scenes that were really dark. Not in a “it’s scary because we can’t see well, and there could be monsters lurking in every corner” way, more like “I can’t actually tell what’s happening any more. Did someone just die? Who? Where are they?” I thought this might be a display problem on the TV I was watching on, but there were plenty of scenes that were properly lit. Was this just a problem with my setup, or is the film actually like that?
The Thing duplicates spoke English when they had to…
Yes, but that doesn’t answer the question one way or the other.
Well, reading more comments that followed after yours, it seems like a mixed bag of scenes. You got the one guy outside in the snow howling at the team as they are about to torch him (no English), then you have the guy (whoever’s shadow that was) who got changed by the dog apparently able to pass off as Human the next morning.
This alien either has to be able to incorporate memories of it’s victim, or it needs to learn languages, names, and possibly other social cues so quickly as to avoid suspicion.
The rule is probably “whatever best suits the needs of a suspensefull plot”.
Well, no, that’s the point. It doesn’t necessarily have to incorporate or learn about its victims. It may be able to run its victim’s personality almost like a computer program, with the alien intelligence acting like the operating system. This human personality may not be aware that it’s no longer human. When Palmer is strapped to the couch, waiting for his blood test, “he” might have been just as shocked as everyone else in the room when his blood leapt out of the petri dish - at least, until the Thing-intelligence asserted dominance and shut down the Palmer personality while it defended itself. But the creature’s personal intelligence might not have direct access to the contents of the surface personality - the personality might be a “black box” to the creature, whose contents it cannot access directly from the outside.
Ive been toying around with the idea of a board game version of the Thing based on how Clue works but with a twist- you draw some “mystery” cards face down. Some mean you are a Thing. Hence the player himself is ignorant of his Thing-ness unless certain actions happen (blood test, etc). As a survivor your objective is to eliminate all Things and escape. If you are knowingly a Thing youre objective is to repair your ufo and escape, assomilate everyone else, or sneak off without being revealed by survivors. The randomness could mean some gabes NOBODY got Thinged after all, or everyone is a Thing (but not collectively aware of it) 
My feelings exactly. I went to see it in a movie theater a couple of months ago and quite enjoyed it, but it was a bit of trash entertainment. I really wasn’t knocked out like I was by the original.
Man, the FX were soooo much better in the original. CGI has ruined that kind of grossness forever.
By the way, did anyone else get shivers when they saw this recent headline?
Fire incinerates Antarctic base
(It’s tragic I know and one shouldn’t make light of it, but the Thing is one of the first horrors I ever saw and I must have watched it about 20 times. Fire in an Antarctic base is such an iconic thing for me.)
Have you played the Battlestar Galactica game? It’s got a similar sort of mechanic with Cylons. Some players are human and some are cylon, but you don’t know exactly how many cylons there are, and no one knows who is. Partway through the game, you get new cards, and some people who have been human are now cylons.
I agree. I only saw the movies after I had read this story (actually, *because *I read this), and at least for me it completely changes the tone of the movies. It goes from being a well-done monster story to something else, and the Thing itself becomes almost sympathetic.