Round 2:
THE THING (FROM ANOTHER WORLD (1951) vs THE THING (1982)
LK: Okay, I’ll start. I'll say right up front that I love BOTH versions of this story; there aren't too many instances of original-and-re-make where that's the case.
ZH: Well, I'll say I half agree with you. No, wait, you're stating an opinion: I'll say that I love the remake, but while I respect the first one and recognize its positive qualities, I just can't like it as much. Which I shall explain further on.
CD: Having actually never seen either version before, this was an interesting experience for me. I did enjoy both of them, but for very different reasons, since, in a way, they are completely different films, as both of you have pointed out. One is about solidarity and the basic goodness of the human spirit, the other is about paranoia and disunity under pressure.
LK: The original is, essentially, a "Howard Hawks film", and it's got all the virtues of a "Howard Hawks film": it's about people working together well, and enjoying each other's company, and pulling together to overcome a crisis. There's always a positive buzz lurking in Hawks' films.
ZH: It's weird, but that's what bothered me when I watched it. Now, I'll admit it, I have a slight bias against pre-Night Of The Living Dead horror movies, in that I don't like movies where the outcome is already obvious from the get-go. There are some classics that I love regardless; Them! of course, and Night Of The Demon (although does that really count?) and quite a few others. But The Thing From Another World didn't quite make it for me- mainly because there was never any sense of danger. Two men get killed, and these are people we barely know; nobody seems particularly off-put or concerned that there's a monster from another world running loose. Captain Hendry is far more worried about The Girl than anything else. I found that vaguely irritating.
CD: In many ways, the original has so many of those clichés we associate with 50s films: Nicholson and Hendry blather about marriage; Carrington as the mad scientist (I chortled when Nicholson points out that Carrington "doesn't think like we do"); The Thing turns out to be another rampaging Frankenstein-esque monster; etc., but there was a degree of sophistication too. Despite myself, I really enjoyed the character of Ned Scott, and I was surprised that there was even the slightest hint of debate, as small and quickly dismissed as it is, between the rights of the media versus the activities of the military. (It's still a strange thing, though, for a child of the post-Watergate/X-Files era to see a reporter character standing alongside military personnel as they uncover an alien saucer!)
LK: I agree with the various criticisms the two of you have made; but I think we have to keep in mind all the time (and this is the reason I'm reviewing the film, after all!), is that this was the FIRST film to do all of these things. What look like screaming clichés to us were all innovations - right down to what strikes us as the biggest cliche of all: "We have to communicate with it!" So I think we all have to be wary of criticising the film for things it's not really guilty of.
CD: Sorry about that. I'm used to talking about such things whenever I review anything from the 50s -it's such a bizarre, intriguing era for me, for various reasons.
LK: No, no, my apologies, actually. I didn't mean to sound like I was wagging my finger and delivering a lecture (which is something I never do, Lordy no!). But from my peculiar point of view - I must say, what really struck me on this viewing (*studying* the film, as opposed to just watching it) is how completely the production stacks the deck against Carrington. This is, after all, the first real post-war "science vs the military" film, and it's all one way. It was startling to realise how many ways and how many times the audience is encouraged to disagree with and disregard Carrington, even though his behaviour and attitude really aren't either unreasonable or outrageous.
ZH: I noticed that too! It just connects into what was bugging me before; we know who the good guys are, and anyone who dares to question that is a dangerous fool. Or rather, a dangerous, childish fool. The military (which is a strong presence in this film, but not really mentioned much in the story or the remake), in the form of Hendry, is shown as a respectful but stern father. He knows what's to be done, and he'll make sure it gets done. Carrington is a child who never grew up, a fairly typical presentation of scientists on film (I'm thinking of computer geeks in modern cinema, mostly), and even with his natty coat and hair cut, he's got all the common sense of a baby playing with matches.
CD: One thing that interested me was how the movie sort of makes 'excuses' for Carrington, as if trying to disassociate him from his profession. The film explicitly states several times that Carrington is in some way morally bankrupt (this point is especially driven home when he expresses admiration for The Thing and nurses its 'babies,' which was for me the film's most chilling moment) and possibly deranged and, later in the film when he really starts acting loopy, the point that he "hasn't gotten enough sleep" is insisted upon. It's a little thing, but it struck me for some reason.
Then there's the fact that he isn't "punished" but survives with relatively mild injuries (although we don't see him on camera again after his failed diplomatic meeting with The Thing) - well, that might not be significant, but I'm so used to seeing a high fatality rate among those who "meddle in God's domain."
LK: In the first draft of the script - and I think it was filmed - Carrington was gruesomely killed off. Then they must have changed their minds for some reason, and decided he was "misguided" rather than wrong.
CD: I liked how the American
military/government is depicted as an almost negative force in its desire to
preserve The Thing and how, all too briefly, there's a connection made between
Carrington and Hendry's superiors. Too bad nothing's really done with it, but nevertheless
it was something I wasn't expecting at all considering the era. I have one
question for Zack: what was the military/government's
role in the story?
LK: I have a question, too: we know that the John Carpenter version of The Thing is closer to the story in terms of its alien: which version is closer in spirit? Is it a man-triumphs story, or a we're-screwed story?
ZH: Well, I guess I can
say it briefly: the remake is closer to the story in plot, but the original is
closer in spirit. To answer your
question,
LK: Which is a good moment to move our attention to the re-make. JC's version of The Thing is to me a rare instance of a re-make being done for the right reason: he made something that was clearly based on the first film, yet has an identity all of its own. JC has always been very vocal in his admiration of Howard Hawks, and he paid tribute to him by not even trying to outdo him, but instead doing something completely different.
ZH: See, that to me is the only real reason to remake a movie. It's like doing different productions of a play- you don't do it because there haven't been good productions before, you do it because you have your own interpretation of the story and want to give it a spin.
Anyway, the story has a lot of the basics of the Carpenter movie - same set-up, some of the same scenes, even the same character names. The difference is, the discovery of the blood test is essentially the climax of the thing; once they figure out how to tell who is a Thing and who isn't, the rest is relatively easy. The ending has them tromping out to Blair's shack and flambé-ing him, just before finding a ship he (or it) had built to get itself to the mainland. Basically, humanity wins, but everyone was real nervous for a while. It's amusing to read some of the character descriptions and then watch the Carpenter movie. In the story, MacReady is some sort of Greek god, towering over everyone with his commanding presence and, um, height. Then you have the scruffy loner Kurt Russell plays, who can barely hold himself together, let alone the rest of the men.
Characterization, that's one of the things most critics complain about; and while characterization has never been Carpenter's strong suit, I think it makes sense in this case. The movie is, after all, about paranoia and not being able to trust anyone. If we can barely tell these people apart as humans, how can we possibly recognize them when they're alien?
LK: But it is interesting how the characters are handled: there's so much backstory we're never really let in on. (We never even know what they're doing there in the first place!) For instance, Garry is nominally in charge, yet clearly no-one likes him, or trusts him, or respects him. What's going on there? And it's fascinating that right from the beginning, whatever the crisis, everyone immediately yells (or whispers, as the case may be) for MacReady. What's gone on before, to make that SOP?
All through JC’s The Thing, there are riffs on the first film, but each time he took them and made something different out of them. So you have the block of ice, which definitely did NOT have anything humanoid in it; and you have the videotape of the Norwegians standing in a circle, but you can't see what they're standing around (and later, the Americans stand in a similar circle, when they burn up the fake-Bennings); and you have The Thing being set on fire and crashing out into the snow, but in this case this *does* destroy it - this version of it, anyway. The other thing that gets me these days is the effects - how much better they work, being done through modelling and mechanics, than they would if the film were made now, with CGI. It's funny, I remember being completely grossed out by this film when I first saw it; but now I just get a huge kick out of it instead. I cackle like a loon all the way through - particularly when the head-spider starts oh-so-casually leaving the room.
CD: What I felt was the greatest improvement Carpenter made, besides making The Thing's ability to mimic any animal life a large part of the story, was with The Thing itself. I agree with Liz; the effects created in this movie are better than anything that could be done with CGI. Having recently seen and reviewed another 'tastefully' gory horror movie, Hellraiser, I noticed how Carpenter made this a delightfully disgusting, graphic film, yet not unnecessarily so.
The Thing goes from being a fairly standard 50s sci-fi thuggish brute to a purely Lovecraftian horror (although I liked how they was still something vaguely plant-like about the being, despite that I don't recall any dialogue associating The Thing of Carpenter's version with a carrot). It's plainly a biological nightmare, but yet, at least to me, something vaguely supernatural about The Thing, although that just might be the parallel between The Thing and something out of Lovecraft (which I doubt is accidental, given Carpenter's admiration for that writer).
ZH: I was also thinking of the Lovecraftian tone this time around. JC has said before how much he enjoys Lovecraft's work, and while the overtones here aren't as strong as in, say, In the Mouth of Madness, it's still there. What's interesting in the remake is no one ever makes any effort to "communicate" with the alien, even though it's ostensibly in human forms and can speak our language; and even more telling, the audience never expects them to try. The Thing is so blatantly alien from the beginning that it has to be hostile. I especially like it when they catch Bennings after he's been devoured, and he screams at them - it's such an eerie, awful moment.
With the Carpenter version, we open with the world already going to hell; that dog running across the snow, with the helicopter close behind has got to be one of the best openings ever, and you already can see that humanity is screwed, even if you don't know why. After all, how hard is it to kill a dog, when you have a rifle and grenades? Very hard, apparently. And the tone is set for good when the Norwegians arrive, and one of them goes to throw a grenade- and manages to drop it behind him instead. I'm probably putting a bit too much into this (and I'm now trying to figure out what the hell I'm keeping for my review), but that to me is pretty damn crucial. It could've ended there, but he made a mistake. People do that all the time. Only in this case, you're fighting against something that doesn't make mistakes - it only has to win once for you to lose forever. Ooo. Heavy.
LK: In the context of these reviews, what was very noticeable - and really depressing - was the contrast between the two Thing-s and the two Village Of The Damned-s. Everything JC did right the first time, he did wrong the second time - how did that happen!?
CD: What really surprised
me was that with his The Thing
Carpenter abolished the same clichés he ended up establishing in his version of
LK: One last, depressing
thing - I was re-reading the entry for JC's version in Phil Hardy's
encyclopaedia. He doesn't like it - as indeed few people did when it was
released. And after criticising it for almost everything, he concludes
"Carpenter's least satisfying film to date".
Phil, old boy - you should should have stuck around for
another couple of decades....
ZH: Man, ain't it the truth though.