I didnt realize the soundtrack was Morricone. Ennio Morricone - can the man do no wrong?
I read the original short story “Who Goes There?” last year in an old sci-fi anthology. It was written in the late thirties. Actually quite good for the era, Campbell was the editor of Astounding Science Fiction. John Carpenter’s movie is much darker, but is for the most part quite faithful to the story. The original movie was a bastardization.
I know you’re praising it, but it’s damning with faint praise. “Actualy quite good for the era”?? It was good for any era, and the Thirties and Forties produced a lot of excelent science fiction. (IIRC, Who Goes There? was actually very late for Campbell – 1940s rather than 1930s) To say that Campbell was editor of Astounding is like saying that Lincoln was a U.S. President. He was an Astounding editor, in more ways than one, and discovered and nurtured an impressive array of writers. His letters and editorials are well worth reading. Campbell, arguably more than anyone else, buuilt modern science fiction.
I really like the film of The Thing, but I have to admit that I liked Campbell’s ending better. (If you don’t know – he ends it shortly after they find the Thing’s mode of escape. But instead of destroying it, they get the last Thing, and get the Space Propulsion as a bonus.) The ambiguity of the film, which I really don’t think adds anything to the story, isn’t there.
By the way, it’;snot that fire doesn’t destroy the Thing. I think it’s peretty clear that you have to be meticulous in burning all of it, or else parts can survive. I also suspect that the Thing ought to be considered as an invading bacteria or virus, and that the body’s own defensive mechanisms can destroy it unless overwhelmed. Otherwise we’d all be Things because of random cells that flaked off it and that we inhaled. There’s gotta be some sort of minimum number of cells needed for successful overtaking of an organism.
Final note: One of my bosses took a sabattical to lead an expedition to Antarctica. We gave him a sendoff with an ice-cream cake. And a VHS copy of The Thing (Carpenter’s version) to watch over and over on the trip.
Are you certain of that, Cal? I always interpreted the seagull bit at the end to leave open the idea that maybe there was more to it.