Who knows? Maybe they were both Things, but unaware because part of hiding was convincing itself it was human?
It’s been almost 45 years and were still talking about this movie. Not bad for what was a box office disappointment in 1982.
‘E.T.’ is one of the most terrifying aliens; he has the ability to telepathically bond with a child and remotely control him, use a child’s electronic toy to summon an invasion fleet, and levitate hundreds of pounds of children and bicycles through the air. There is literally nothing that could stop them from crushing peoples’ rib cages or make them start murdering each other, or even just sucking out their life force like he does to Elliott.
Although I can’t find it online, Ebert also had a negative review of They Live which made it clear that he missed the essential metaphor of the film, mistaking it for a dumb (and in his mind badly made) action movie. Plus, how can you dunk on the movie that gave us the Shakespeare-esque quotable, “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum.”
I mean, would an answer give more weight to the film? The point of the movie is the paranoia; not knowing whether “The Thing” survives as Childs (and definitely not as MacReady; we see him trying to destroy the Thing right up to the end of the film) or not is part of that sense of unease and ambiguity.
Stranger
Yes. Childs was drinking gasoline. You can see it on McCready’s face after Childs takes a drink. He smiles and knows. And while McCready’s breath blows out the foggy breath of a human in the cold air, there is none from childs.
The Thing (10/10) Movie CLIP - Why Don’t We Wait Here, See What Happens (1982) HD
It seems Childs has foggy breath at 1:31 in the video you linked.
Also, if infecting someone is that easy, most of the movie doesn’t make sense. Why monster-out in the dog kennel, when it could just as easily infect those dogs by licking their faces, which is totally normal dog behavior? Why not just chill in the dog kennel while the one person it infected beforehand goes around and licks everyone’s toothbrush? If nothing else, why not mutate into a form that spews aerosolized Thing-cells every where, then go hide in an air duct?
The kennel is the only time we see the Thing attack something with the intent to assimilate (as opposed to being discovered) and it does it by jabbing big fleshy tentacles into its victims and pumping them full of genetic material. (Metaphor? What metaphor?) I don’t think you can get infected by trace amounts of genetic Thing material - it appears that it takes enough that getting infected necessarily involves severe physical trauma.
You can also see other characters, whom we know are infected by the thing, visibly respirating - most notably Bennings, when they catch him mid transformation.
IIRC, Carpenter’s stated that Childs appearing not to breathe wasn’t intentional. Both actors were on the same (cold) set, and they didn’t do anything to make Keith David’s breath not show. It was just the way the scene was lit that happened to make MacCready’s breath show up so much better on film.
Of course, something doesn’t have to be intentional for it to inform your interpretation of a movie, but I’m not a fan of this theory. Your breath is visible in the cold because your body heat is warming the air you inhale, which then condenses when it hits the cold air outside again. For the Thing not to have visible breath, it either isn’t breathing (which makes that whole “talking” thing a neat trick) or it’s body temperature is the same as the air outside, which also seems unlikely - that’d be a pretty serious flaw in its camouflage, and would raise some questions about how well a mammalian body/host would work if it’s not maintaining its internal body temperature.
I honestly thought you were going to say “that Keith David seems when trying to pass himself off as an ordinary human.”
I can believe that Keith David is too badass to bother with respiration.
I loved The Thing when it came out, and sat through it twice (I was at a drive-in). I had re-read the original John Campbell story, and loved the way Bill Lancaster (Burt’s son) had pretty faithfully adapted it. I hated (and still hate) the ambiguous ending. I prefer Campbell’s.
When I learned that there was more animated footage for the shots near the end, but that they were axed because they didn’t quite fit the style of the rest of the film, I wanted to see them. I didn’t get to until years later, when they were an extra on the DVD.
I didn’t like the later prequel, which I thought didn’t do any favors for the 1982 version. And I’ve pretty much avoided the comics, videogames, and the like.
To me, the 1982 Thing is one of the best science fiction movies ever made. Oddly enough, I still like the original, despite its vast departure from the story, and to which the 1982 film pays homage.
So what was Campbell’s ending? Use spoiler quotes if you need to.
The remaining Good Guys catch the last Thing (which, IIRC, was Blair, as in the movie, who was building a vehicle – NOT a flying saucer – to get away from the base) and torch it. They assure themselves that all Things have been destroyed. The anti-gravity device the Blair-thing was building actually works (they stopped Blair-Thing just in time), so mankind gets its technology as a bonus.
Dude co-wrote Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls. I think he may have been a bit prudish about violence (although he highly praised films like Goodfellas and Platoon), but a lot less so about sex and nudity. Siskel may have been a bit more prudish in that direction.
Probably.I’m remembering his reaction to Blue Velvet, white-knighting for Isabella Rossellini, and it struck me as prudish at the time, but that was eons ago, and the only occasion that came to mind.
This right here. Knowing whether MacReady or Childs, or both, is the Thing defies the entire premise of the film. The point is you never know, you’re paranoid. The communist… uh, I mean, the Thing could be anyone around you. Leaving the audience not knowing is the perfect ending.
The Thing isn’t supposed to be a whodunit detective mystery.
Absolutely this!
Regarding Child’s earring mentioned upthread: I doubt The Thing would have any trouble copying a piece of metal. The human body already contains trace amounts of metals like iron, zinc, and copper, so it’s not like that kind of material is unfamiliar to it. Plus, it can apparently mimic foreign bodies as intricate as gut flora and even viruses—which barely count as alive. If it can flawlessly imitate an entire human being, then mimicking a tiny, attached earring would be—child’s play.
The thought of the Thing searching for and putting on jewelry just doesn’t seem very monstery.
Well that’s a much happier ending! I think I prefer John Carpenter’s ending. The uncertainty and paranoia makes it better IMHO.
The Thing works like a virus by invading a cell and replacing it replication function with its own. Metal doesn’t have cells, because its not biological. There’s trace minerals in earth life (and, presumably, space life) and we can assume that the Thing has some ability to move those trace elements around to support whatever biochemistry it’s trying to emulate, but it shouldn’t be able to create more minerals, or transmute biological material into mineral or vice versa.
If it were able to infect metal, or shift biomass into mineral mass, it introduces a bunch of premise-breaking possibilities. If it can mimic metal, can it mimic a gun? If it can infect metal, could it infect an inanimate object? Why would it need to build a ship to get it to the mainland, when it could just turn itself into the ship it needs?
Can it? Like I pointed out upthread, if it can do viruses, why is it even bothering with the tentacles and the giant teeth and the other tentacles? Just spew a bunch of virus into the air, and hide under the floorboards until everyone in the camp is infected.
That makes sense. But, it doesn’t mean that the Thing couldn’t produce something that looks convincingly metallic. OTTOMH many insects have carapaces that look extremely metallic.
I’m basing the virus idea on what was said in the video linked by @crowmanyclouds upthread. It covers a sequel script (mercifully scrapped) that went into more detail about the Thing. According to it: “It said it would create a perfect imitation of someone. If they had a blood clot, it would have one too. And if they had a cold, it would even take over the cells of the virus and imitate that as well.”
Now, sure—viruses don’t actually have cells, but hey, let’s not let basic biology get in the way of a good horror premise.
As for the Thing creating something like an earring, I could imagine it sequestering trace metals or calcium and extruding it through the earlobe like a tumor or skin tag shaped like an earring. It would still need living tissue to work with, though, so mimicking something like a gun? That’s a hard nope—at least within the biological rules the film vaguely tries to stick to.