# John Carpenter's \*The Thing\* - question **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 27, 2006, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347 "2006-02-27T19:14:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![teela\_brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d9b06d/32.png) [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/21 "2006-02-28T00:54:31Z")
> [@kaylasdad99](#): > > I was already older than a teenager when I saw it, but it made me wish I was a member of the Academy, so I could nominate that actor for some kind of award. > > I wonder what the director told him his motivation was… Okay, previous posts have convinced me that I had better not see the rest of this film. Could you provide a spoiler on this point? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/22 "2006-02-28T00:58:08Z")
> [@teela brown](#): > > Okay, previous posts have convinced me that I had better not see the rest of this film. Could you provide a spoiler on this point? It’s been a while, but as I recall, WHen the head on spider legs runs by, the Black guy says, “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’.” ---
**Author:** ![Baldwin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baldwin/32/7264_2.png) [@Baldwin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baldwin)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/23 "2006-02-28T01:16:44Z")
_Posted by Carnivorousplant:_ > [@](#): > > Quote: > Originally Posted by teela brown > Okay, previous posts have convinced me that I had better not see the rest of this film. Could you provide a spoiler on this point? > > It’s been a while, but as I recall, > WHen the head on spider legs runs by, the Black guy says, “You gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’.” Great line – but that wasn’t “the Black guy” (Keith David); it was (I _think_) Palmer (David Clennon). Though the “jump out of your skin” (interesting choice of words) moment referred to might be: [spoiler]when Vance (played by Charles Hallahan) apparently goes into cardiac arrest during a very tense confrontation, Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) gets out the defibrillator to start his heart. Rips open Vance’s shirt, powers up the machine, brings down the paddles – and Vance’s chest splits open, the ribs grotesquely modfied into enormous fangs which **bite off Dr. Copper’s arms!** Jesus Christ! You should have heard people in the theatre, back in 1982 when I saw that with my girlfriend (the only girlfriend I ever had who would go to horror movies with me). So Dr. Copper pulls back blood-gushing stumps – and what gave that shot its realism is that in that moment you were really looking at a bilateral amputee, wearing a latex replica of Richard Dysart’s head, with special effects makeup on his stumps to make it look like they’d just been severed. It’s always amazed me, the amputees who work in movies and do just that kind of scene – isn’t it traumatic to be essentially reliving the worst event of your life? Anyway, it’s not a movie for the squeamish.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/24 "2006-02-28T01:31:53Z")
> [@Der Trihs](#): > > Don’t you remember the scene where they find the flying saucer type machine it had been building ? I assumed it was a reference to that. Yeah, I think that that was precisely what I was remembering from that story… ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/25 "2006-02-28T01:35:26Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Let’s just accept that it’s a Magical Monster Detector), but it never seems good enough to be any use. When Captain Dallas fgoes into the air ducts, they tell him the monster’s coming, but not _from which direction_. Talk about useless! The use of the gimmick in Christian Nyby’s/Howard Hawks’ 1951 version makes sense. The use in Alien makes me wish the crew of the Nostromo outta the gene pool. The detector was working just fine; the problem is the crew was too panicky/unthinking to be able to figure out what it was saying. The hysterical chick just kept saying how the monster was right there, but they weren’t thinking in three dimensions - it was, IIRC, in the ceiling/passage above Dallas. **teela** , I’m bad with gory films, but this is one of my husband’s all-time favorite SF/horror films, and I love it too. Yes, it’s gory. It’s also very suspenseful and does wonderful(ly horrifying) things with what special effects technology they had at the time. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/26 "2006-02-28T01:42:26Z")
> [@Baldwin](#): > > Though the “jump out of your skin” (interesting choice of words) moment referred to might be: > > [spoiler]when Vance (played by Charles Hallahan) apparently goes into cardiac arrest during a very tense confrontation, Dr. Copper (Richard Dysart) gets out the defibrillator to start his heart. Rips open Vance’s shirt, powers up the machine, brings down the paddles – and Vance’s chest splits open, the ribs grotesquely modfied into enormous fangs which **bite off Dr. Copper’s arms!** Jesus Christ! You should have heard people in the theatre, back in 1982 when I saw that with my girlfriend (the only girlfriend I ever had who would go to horror movies with me). > > So Dr. Copper pulls back blood-gushing stumps – and what gave that shot its realism is that in that moment you were really looking at a bilateral amputee, wearing a latex replica of Richard Dysart’s head, with special effects makeup on his stumps to make it look like they’d just been severed. It’s always amazed me, the amputees who work in movies and do just that kind of scene – isn’t it traumatic to be essentially reliving the worst event of your life? > > Anyway, it’s not a movie for the squeamish.[/spoiler] As you say. But for My money the really good acting was where Charles Hallahan stre-e-e-tches his neck out so far that he head falls off onto the floor, then he sprouts king crab legs out of his face and scuttles off down the corridor. \*Brava! Brava!\* Author! Author! ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 2:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/27 "2006-02-28T02:38:19Z")
One of my favorite gruesome bits : When one guy turns around, the doctor suddenly rams his hand into the guy’s mouth and under the skin of his face. Then the doctor-Thing calmly looks around, while the guy struggles on the end of his arm. > [@LiveOnAPlane](#): > > Yeah, I think that that was precisely what I was remembering from that story… Actually, I was speaking of the scene in the _movie_ with the saucer, in the generator room IIRC. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/28 "2006-02-28T03:11:22Z")
> [@](#): > > The hysterical chick just kept saying how the monster was right there, but they weren’t thinking in three dimensions - it was, IIRC, in the ceiling/passage above Dallas. as I recall, it was on the same level as Dallas – he was just directed the wrong way. The Alien did have a tendency to go up or down, and it descended to take out Harry Dean Stanton’s character, but Dallas just ran/crawled int its arms. ---
**Author:** ![MackoUr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/eada6e/32.png) [@MackoUr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MackoUr)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 8:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/29 "2006-02-28T08:11:53Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > as I recall, it was on the same level as Dallas – he was just directed the wrong way. The Alien did have a tendency to go up or down, and it descended to take out Harry Dean Stanton’s character, but Dallas just ran/crawled int its arms. I always thought that “motion detectors” were flawed because Bishop made them and had an interest in killing off the crew. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/30 "2006-02-28T08:49:36Z")
“That’s not dog. It’s imitation.” IIRC “Ya think that thing wanted to be a dog? It wanted to be us!” and “I been think’. If just a little bit of this thing can infect us, we should each prepare our own food, and we should only eat from cans.” As others have said, the Thing was in the form of one dog. It absorbed the other dogs in the kennel, adding their mass to its own. So the Thing wasn’t turning into a dog. It was turning dogs into the Thing. Does it get worse? Much, much worse. Constant dread and paranoia mingle with moments of seat-wetting horror. I love this film. I have the action figures. After this last computer upgrade, I can finally try out the videogame. **LiveOnAPlane** The Thing in the film is clearly intelligent. It destroys the stored blood so that it can’t be tested. It plants false evidence that MacReady is a Thing. The Blair Thing was able to quickly build most of a spaceship. Finally, when it looks like the humans might kill it, the Thing destroys the heat source. “It wants to freeze again.” It knows that the humans will die, but it will be undamaged when somebody thaws it out. ---
**Author:** ![LiveOnAPlane](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3d9bf3/32.png) [@LiveOnAPlane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LiveOnAPlane)\ **Post date:** [February 28, 2006, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347/31 "2006-02-28T17:13:48Z")
Der Trihs and DocCathode: You’re both right…I did NOT remember that scene from the movie, and the creature was definitely intelligent. Much closer to the original story than I remembered. Thanks for the correction. I have a good memory, it’s just short! [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/john-carpenters-the-thing-question/346347.md?page=1)