# The Thing: what are they doing in the Antarctic? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 19, 2011, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958 "2011-04-19T14:22:40Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 10:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/21 "2011-04-19T22:29:05Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > What else has he remade? As I can recall, there’s a remake of Fog, Halloween, Assault on Prescinct 13. I hear they’re planning a remake of Escape from New York, and possibly of They live. > [@Miller](#): > > Hated it. _Hated._ I’ve got kind of a collector thing going on with video games. Even ones I didn’t like much, I hang on to - I’ve got games on my shelf that have only ever seen the inside of a game console once, but I’m still hanging onto them. _The Thing_, I threw out. Haha, a console player, say no more. > [@Miller](#): > > This, I also disagree with. _The Thing_ is one of the few movies I consider absolutely flawless, and one of the few so-called horror movies that I consider genuinely frightening. Not because of the gory monster fx (which is great, but not really scary), but because of the sense of choking paranoia that the film evokes. The Thing is definitely one of my fav movies. But it is far from flawless. And the fact that it manages to be so good while having such a fair share of flaws is quite an achievement, that Carpenter should be proud of. The biggest problem of the movie is that it is constantly torn between a paranoia movie (I think the original novella was closer to that) and a very creepy horror movie. But pretty quickly, Carpenter abandons any effort to make the paranoia plot stick (the plot, not the mood) and focuses on the monster aspect. It is fairly obvious when you listen to the commentaries on the DVD that no one in the crew really knows who is contaminated, and at what point (besides, for a paranoia plot to thicken, it would have required the growing of more Things, gradually replacing everyone. From the moment that you have only one beast, you kind of sacrifice focusing on the “Trust no one”. It remains a subplot. The amusing computer projection of what would happen if the Thing came into contact with civilization is completely contradicted by the fact that there is only one Thing. It isnt the only contradiction of the movie). > [@Miller](#): > > As for the roles all those character fill, I’d expect there to be a fair amount of redundancy. They spend a lot of time totally cut-off up there. If somebody has an accident, it can be a good long while before they can get a replacement. If you only have one doctor, for example, and he gets hurt or sick, who takes care of him? I figure you want at least two people for every critical post at the station. This isnt a documentary, the two old fart doctors are completely redundant (and why the fuck does Richard Dyshart have a an earring in his nose, btw?). Half of the cast cant act, the really interesting characters are those that have their area and personalities well defined, like Childs or Clark. And, besides, Carpenter has a hell of a time shooting dialogue sequences with the full crew, the bad acting is often underlined in those. Despite so many flaws, one of the best of Carpenter’s movies, and I’m a Carpenter fan. ---
**Author:** ![Bytegeist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@Bytegeist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bytegeist)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/22 "2011-04-19T23:34:02Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > … besides, for a paranoia plot to thicken, it would have required the growing of more Things, gradually replacing everyone. From the moment that you have only one beast, you kind of sacrifice focusing on the “Trust no one”. It remains a subplot. The amusing computer projection of what would happen if the Thing came into contact with civilization is completely contradicted by the fact that there is only one Thing. It isnt the only contradiction of the movie. I’m not sure why you think there can only be one Thing at a time. For example there is definitely a point where “Jed” the dog and either Norris or Palmer are Things. (But then Jed gets killed.) Later there’s a point where Norris or Palmer is a Thing, and Bennings is well on his way to becoming another one. (Then Bennings is killed.) Later there’s a point where both Norris and Palmer must be Things, and Blair is probably getting attacked or infected off camera, up in the toolshed. There’s also a brief moment when Palmer has been exposed as a Thing and Windows is in the process of being assimilated. (Then both Palmer and Windows are killed.) ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Mudd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f14d63/32.png) [@Larry\_Mudd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Mudd)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/23 "2011-04-19T23:43:34Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > I’m not sure why you think there can only be one Thing at a time. Definite article. Duh. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/24 "2011-04-19T23:51:00Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That’s just the one the government is willing to tell you about. The real threat to our liberties comes from the creeping threat of Australian Bolshevism. “Let’s put another shrimpy bourgeoisie on the barbie, matey!” ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2011, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/25 "2011-04-19T23:52:44Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > Definite article. Duh. 😉 John Carpenter 1:1 ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/26 "2011-04-20T00:00:21Z")
> [@Bytegeist](#): > > I’m not sure why you think there can only be one Thing at a time. > > For example there is definitely a point where “Jed” the dog and either Norris or Palmer are Things. (But then Jed gets killed.) Later there’s a point where Norris or Palmer is a Thing, and Bennings is well on his way to becoming another one. (Then Bennings is killed.) Later there’s a point where both Norris and Palmer must be Things, and Blair is probably getting attacked or infected off camera, up in the toolshed. There’s also a brief moment when Palmer has been exposed as a Thing and Windows is in the process of being assimilated. (Then both Palmer and Windows are killed.) I agree with your points but they underline the incoherence of the movie. It is clear that Carpenter doesnt know if he wants a movie where the Thing is spreading (as the apocalyptic computer rendition says) or one where a monster is killing each base member and absorbing their DNA. The thing is…you never have more than one active Thing at a time in the movie. It’s basically torn between doing a virus story and a whodunit one (as I said, I believe the whodunit take is that of the original novella). Carpenter has never been a good writer in that a lot of his plots are like that. Good ideas, poor sense of story structure. It’s painfully apparent when you listen to the audio commentary. Basically the actors say that Carpenter wanted everyone to possibly be the Thing but actually never shook off his lazyness to work up a timetable of the infection. ---
**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:** [April 20, 2011, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/27 "2011-04-20T00:05:35Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > I agree with your points but they underline the incoherence of the movie. It is clear that Carpenter doesnt know if he wants a movie where the Thing is spreading (as the apocalyptic computer rendition says) or one where a monster is killing each base member and absorbing their DNA. The thing is…you never have more than one active Thing at a time in the movie. Yes you do, just not on screen. Wait - you kind of do, when Norris’ head pops off his (being attacked) body and tries to run off. That’s when they know for sure that each piece of the alien creature wants to survive, and MacReady develops the “blood test.” ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/28 "2011-04-20T00:28:29Z")
> [@BrotherCadfael](#): > > According to Stephen King, in _Danse Macabre_: Nitpick: that quote refers to the 1951 original, not Carpenter’s remake. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/29 "2011-04-20T02:16:57Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > As I can recall, there’s a remake of Fog, Halloween, Assault on Prescinct 13. I hear they’re planning a remake of Escape from New York, and possibly of They live. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Carpenter was directly involved in any of those. A quick check on IMDB lists different directors for each of them, and only gives Carpenter a screenwriter credit for the original version. That said, Carpenter’s work in general has been in a long decline. I gave up on him sometime around the release of _Vampire$_, so I don’t blame anyone for being leery of a prequel to _The Thing_. But I don’t think Carpenter has sunk so low as to cannibalize his own reputation. At least he’s still making _original_ bad movies. > [@](#): > > Haha, a console player, say no more. I don’t limit myself to one platform, although I do find myself buying more for consoles than PC these days. I generally don’t care for ports - if a game was designed to be played on a console, I prefer to play it on a console. If a game was designed for the PC, I prefer to play it on the PC. I bought _The Thing_ for X-Box. Maybe that was a mistake, and the PC version was significantly better, but as I recall, my problems with the game were pretty fundamental to the design of the game, which I doubt would be radically altered for a different platform. > [@](#): > > The Thing is definitely one of my fav movies. But it is far from flawless. And the fact that it manages to be so good while having such a fair share of flaws is quite an achievement, that Carpenter should be proud of. > The biggest problem of the movie is that it is constantly torn between a paranoia movie (I think the original novella was closer to that) and a very creepy horror movie. But pretty quickly, Carpenter abandons any effort to make the paranoia plot stick (the plot, not the mood) and focuses on the monster aspect. It is fairly obvious when you listen to the commentaries on the DVD that no one in the crew really knows who is contaminated, and at what point (besides, for a paranoia plot to thicken, it would have required the growing of more Things, gradually replacing everyone. From the moment that you have only one beast, you kind of sacrifice focusing on the “Trust no one”. It remains a subplot. The amusing computer projection of what would happen if the Thing came into contact with civilization is completely contradicted by the fact that there is only one Thing. It isnt the only contradiction of the movie). I think you’ve radically misread the plot of the film. The creature clearly has the ability to be in multiple places at the same time. There’s at least one scene (the infamous defibrillator scene) where we actually see it divide itself. There’s also all the times where they destroy one instance of the thing, only to have it pop up somewhere else - they destroy both parts of the divided thing in the med lab, there’s the guy they find out in the snow who’s still in the process of being transformed, there’s the burned corpse they find that’s evidently the remains of someone who realized they were infected, and killed themselves before the monster could take them over. If there were only one version of the creature at a time, the movie would have ended at any one of these points. > [@](#): > > This isnt a documentary, the two old fart doctors are completely redundant (and why the fuck does Richard Dyshart have a an earring in his nose, btw?). He doesn’t. He has a \*nose \*ring in his nose. Duh. 😉 Seriously, though, if having two doctors isn’t redundant in a real arctic weather station, having two doctors in a fictional arctic weather station isn’t redundant, either. It is, at the very least, realism. Moreover, having two characters with backgrounds in medicine or biology is necessary to the plot, so that you can have one of them snap and destroy the radio, once he realizes the threat posed by the monster, and another who can still serve as a mouthpiece for theorizing about the creature’s nature. > [@](#): > > Half of the cast cant act, the really interesting characters are those that have their area and personalities well defined, like Childs or Clark. And, besides, Carpenter has a hell of a time shooting dialogue sequences with the full crew, the bad acting is often underlined in those. I don’t think any of the performances were particularly bad. Granted, the movie doesn’t call for a lot of really difficult or nuanced performances, but I think the cast was, by and large, sufficient to the needs of the plot. And the plot needs a fair number of bodies to function. If you pared down the cast to just the major characters, you lose a lot of the paranoia. A smaller cast means there’s less people you have to keep an eye on, and less opportunities for the creature to kill people. > [@](#): > > It’s painfully apparent when you listen to the audio commentary. Basically the actors say that Carpenter wanted everyone to possibly be the Thing but actually never shook off his lazyness to work up a timetable of the infection. I have listened to the commentary. I did not come away with the impression that Carpenter was lazy, or that he didn’t have an idea of what was going on in his own film. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/30 "2011-04-20T02:33:21Z")
> [@Sitnam](#): > > **The Thing: what are they doing in the Antarctic?** Things. ---
**Author:** ![Isamu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/7c8e57/32.png) [@Isamu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isamu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 4:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/31 "2011-04-20T04:31:29Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Hated it. _Hated._ I’ve got kind of a collector thing going on with video games. Even ones I didn’t like much, I hang on to - I’ve got games on my shelf that have only ever seen the inside of a game console once, but I’m still hanging onto them. _The Thing_, I threw out. Yeah, I’m a big fan of the movie so I _had_ to have the game. Damn it was clunky as hell. The fear suppression mechanism in the game was a great concept but just didn’t work (when people started freaking out I gave them extra weapons, made them leader of the party etc. but they still freaked the fuck out and shot themselves :smack: ). I finished it. Once. Never played again. ---
**Author:** ![Arrendajo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e0b2c6/32.png) [@Arrendajo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arrendajo)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/32 "2011-04-20T04:51:28Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I’m really interested in the prequel film, but considering how much I love the 1982 film, I’m worried about how wrong the new one could go. Yep. Carpenter’s The Thing is one of my all time favorites. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/33 "2011-04-20T07:23:53Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > That said, Carpenter’s work in general has been in a long decline. I gave up on him sometime around the release of _Vampire$_, so I don’t blame anyone for being leery of a prequel to _The Thing_. But I don’t think Carpenter has sunk so low as to cannibalize his own reputation. At least he’s still making _original_ bad movies. **Vampires** is criminally underrated and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It also gave rise to one of my favorite Roger Ebert “Answer Man” columns ever (paraphrased): Reader: Don’t you think it’s misogynistic for the Baldwin to slap around the tied up prostitute? Ebert: Yes, slapping around a defenseless (and bound) women is a horrible thing. However, the prostitute was a vampire and seconds before had tried to gnaw off the Baldwin’s face. So slapping her around is entirely appropriate. > [@](#): > > I bought _The Thing_ for X-Box. Maybe that was a mistake, and the PC version was significantly better, but as I recall, my problems with the game were pretty fundamental to the design of the game, which I doubt would be radically altered for a different platform. I played The Thing on the PS2 and I loved it. The fear mechanism was fantastic and it was one of the most genuinely creepy games I have ever played. If you’ve still got it lying around, give it another chance. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/34 "2011-04-20T13:23:23Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > I could be wrong, but I don’t think Carpenter was directly involved in any of those. A quick check on IMDB lists different directors for each of them, and only gives Carpenter a screenwriter credit for the original version. I never said nor even insinuated that he made them. But he was paid big checks for all of these, and endorsed them all. As we are discussing a prequel/remake of a Carpenter movie done by someone else than Carpenter, how appropriate to remember all the similar projects, and how they all sucked. > [@Miller](#): > > That said, Carpenter’s work in general has been in a long decline. I gave up on him sometime around the release of _Vampire$_, so I don’t blame anyone for being leery of a prequel to _The Thing_. But I don’t think Carpenter has sunk so low as to cannibalize his own reputation. At least he’s still making _original_ bad movies. Personnaly I think his filmmaking took a serious nose dive when he separated with Dean Cundey and took on Gary Kibbe. Cundey was the technical counterpart to Carpenter’s imagination, Kibbe wasnt. > [@Miller](#): > > I don’t limit myself to one platform, although I do find myself buying more for consoles than PC these days. I generally don’t care for ports - if a game was designed to be played on a console, I prefer to play it on a console. If a game was designed for the PC, I prefer to play it on the PC. I bought _The Thing_ for X-Box. Maybe that was a mistake, and the PC version was significantly better, but as I recall, my problems with the game were pretty fundamental to the design of the game, which I doubt would be radically altered for a different platform. Nah, I was joking, as I kind of remembered that you and another poster had one of those PC Vs Console mock-wars. The system in the Thing was very cluncky on PC because it was a direct adapt of the console version. Maybe it still flowed better with a keyboard and mouse than with a pad. Anyway, I love the game, despite his cumbersomeness. > [@Miller](#): > > I think you’ve radically misread the plot of the film. The creature clearly has the ability to be in multiple places at the same time. There’s at least one scene (the infamous defibrillator scene) where we actually see it divide itself. There’s also all the times where they destroy one instance of the thing, only to have it pop up somewhere else - they destroy both parts of the divided thing in the med lab, there’s the guy they find out in the snow who’s still in the process of being transformed, there’s the burned corpse they find that’s evidently the remains of someone who realized they were infected, and killed themselves before the monster could take them over. If there were only one version of the creature at a time, the movie would have ended at any one of these points. Having seen the film at the very least a good fifty times (in various states I confess, but on those fifty something times, I swear I was at least once neither drunk nor high), I dont think it would be possible for me to misread it. Overanalyzing it maybe, but not misread. As I said, never more than one active Thing. You have several occasions where the Thing could apparently divide, yet the plot never picks up on it. If it can divide itself, if it can take on multiple human hides at the same time, then the Thing could escape easily, and overpower the crew by the middle of the movie (and there wouldnt have been any survivors in the Norwegian base). You seem to think that means Carpenter wanted to do a infection/virus like story. I think that Carpenter didnt really know what kind of movie he wanted, and went with every plotlines he thought was cool, not realizing that they were contradictory. Kudos to Carpenter’s magic for the movie being awesome enough that obvious plot problems dont harm it that much. > [@Miller](#): > > He doesn’t. He has a \*nose \*ring in his nose. Duh. 😉 > > Seriously, though, if having two doctors isn’t redundant in a real arctic weather station, having two doctors in a fictional arctic weather station isn’t redundant, either. It is, at the very least, realism. Moreover, having two characters with backgrounds in medicine or biology is necessary to the plot, so that you can have one of them snap and destroy the radio, once he realizes the threat posed by the monster, and another who can still serve as a mouthpiece for theorizing about the creature’s nature. “Necessary to the plot” is the mantra of bad writers. The two doctors dont seem to have anything different from one another (apart that one actor can act -Dyshart- and the other overplays it like few bad actors can -the constant overacting in the autopsy scene is really tiresome). As characters, they’re treading on each other’s shoes. In a whodunit, or a crew movie, that’s the last thing you want. Even if you think you need two characters essentially having the same responsabilities, they have to be really different in terms of personnality or looks. Choosing two actors in the same age range to hold exactly the same position is not the way to go. Particularly when the overabundance of characters ensures that you have too limited screen time to properly develop them and make either of them meaningful. > [@Miller](#): > > I don’t think any of the performances were particularly bad. Granted, the movie doesn’t call for a lot of really difficult or nuanced performances, but I think the cast was, by and large, sufficient to the needs of the plot. And the plot needs a fair number of bodies to function. If you pared down the cast to just the major characters, you lose a lot of the paranoia. A smaller cast means there’s less people you have to keep an eye on, and less opportunities for the creature to kill people. Oh man, there is some seriously bad acting in that movie. Even more underlined by some quite good acting from Kurt Russell or Keith David. The dialogue scenes with the full cast are really cheesy (and clearly Carpenter doesnt really know where to position his camera, nor edit the scene. Funnily, as it was shot on set, he could place his camera anywhere, I have a feeling that had it been shot on location, Carpenter’s directing would have been more inspired). > [@Miller](#): > > I have listened to the commentary. I did not come away with the impression that Carpenter was lazy, or that he didn’t have an idea of what was going on in his own film. Well, we obviously differ on this. Apparently not knowing who is infected and at what point should be the audience’s state of mind, definitely not that of the storyteller. ---
**Author:** ![lieu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c2a13f/32.png) [@lieu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lieu)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 1:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/35 "2011-04-20T13:49:44Z")
This thread got me to watch it for the umpteenth time again last night. Question: At the end when just MacReady and Childs are left and the station is destroyed and on fire, Mac asks him where he was. Childs gives a not too convincing answer of how he thought he saw Blair (?) and chasing after him got lost in the snow. So Childs very well may be infected. Mac goes on to say the Thing probably wants to just let itself freeze and wait for the inevitable rescue teams, that that’s its only way out. All the other Things have been killed (I think) and Mac knows he’s not a Thing but will soon be dead from the cold himself. So why didn’t Mac then kill Childs? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/36 "2011-04-20T14:04:06Z")
> [@lieu](#): > > So why didn’t Mac then kill Childs? Because we have no idea which one of them (if any) actually is The Thing. If you show it, you ruin one of the all-time awesome endings in movie history. But if you leave it ambiguous, you get people talking and discussing it 30 years later. Spoiler for the game: In The Thing video game, neither is a Thing. But Childs dies shortly after from exposure and MacReady goes into hiding before showing up at the end. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 2:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/37 "2011-04-20T14:08:27Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Because we have no idea which one of them (if any) actually is The Thing. If you show it, you ruin one of the all-time awesome endings in movie history. But if you leave it ambiguous, you get people talking and discussing it 30 years later. > > Spoiler for the game: > > In The Thing video game, neither is a Thing. But Childs dies shortly after from exposure and MacReady goes into hiding before showing up at the end. Actually that’s one of the other concept problems of the movie. The Thing is supposed to devour you and copy your DNA, it is supposed to be more of a doppelganger than a zombie like infection, yet, apparently, you cant tell if you’re the Thing yourself or not. Weird. But it makes for a great ending, so why bother? ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/38 "2011-04-20T15:16:18Z")
> [@Capitaine\_Zombie](#): > > Actually that’s one of the other concept problems of the movie. The Thing is supposed to devour you and copy your DNA, it is supposed to be more of a doppelganger than a zombie like infection, yet, apparently, you cant tell if you’re the Thing yourself or not. Weird. But that’s explained in the movie. The characters who are the Thing don’t know it because of how traumatic the transformation was. But they become totally aware (and start attacking the others) when provided. Like during MacReady’s blood test. ---
**Author:** ![Capitaine\_Zombie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e95f7d/32.png) [@Capitaine\_Zombie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Capitaine_Zombie)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/39 "2011-04-20T17:05:20Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > But that’s explained in the movie. The characters who are the Thing don’t know it because of how traumatic the transformation was. But they become totally aware (and start attacking the others) when provided. Like during MacReady’s blood test. Doesnt make any sense, the Thing doesnt infect people, it kills them and copy them. Why would it suffer memory problems every time it copies someone? The “I dont know I’m something else” trope belongs to infection scenarios, not doppleganger ones (at least I cant think of any examples with such a plot). BTW, I dont see at what point that “explanation” is given in the movie. In the commentary, I remember, but not in the actual movie. Where or when do they say that? ---
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [April 20, 2011, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958/40 "2011-04-20T17:43:00Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > But that’s explained in the movie. The characters who are the Thing don’t know it because of how traumatic the transformation was. But they become totally aware (and start attacking the others) when provided. Like during MacReady’s blood test. That “when provided” is supposed to be “when provoked”? I don’t remember how they explain it in the movie, but in the original short story, the creatures know that they are alien, but also are expert mimics of the organism they have taken over. In the short story, the reason why the aliens don’t band together and just attack all the humans is because they are still in a small minority and prefer to work by stealth rather than through open aggression. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-what-are-they-doing-in-the-antarctic/578958.md?page=3)