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Posted: |
Dec 4, 2011 - 3:21 PM
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By: |
Les Jepson
(Member)
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I finally saw THE THING (2011 version) today. It was better than I'd expected from some of the opinions I've read. It felt a bit rushed, but that's par for the course these days. The paranoia aspect was definitely still there, so that was a plus. I can't fathom what the ending meant -- the woman alone, I mean. Perhaps she was afraid she was contaminated and the human part of her still had enough sway to commit suicide, or at least consider it. (There was a bit in Carpenter's version where Norris, who is contaminated, refuses to take over as leader after Commander Garry throws the towel in. This is explained by the actor himself as the human side of him trying to give his mates a chance.) Anyway, not brilliant, but not bad. I quite liked Beltrami's score -- I thought the cue for the first visit to the spaceship was very good, for example.
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Posted: |
Dec 15, 2011 - 6:18 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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I finally saw THE THING (2011 version) today. It was better than I'd expected from some of the opinions I've read. It felt a bit rushed, but that's par for the course these days. The paranoia aspect was definitely still there, so that was a plus. I can't fathom what the ending meant -- the woman alone, I mean. Perhaps she was afraid she was contaminated and the human part of her still had enough sway to commit suicide, or at least consider it. (There was a bit in Carpenter's version where Norris, who is contaminated, refuses to take over as leader after Commander Garry throws the towel in. This is explained by the actor himself as the human side of him trying to give his mates a chance.) Anyway, not brilliant, but not bad. I quite liked Beltrami's score -- I thought the cue for the first visit to the spaceship was very good, for example.
The ending with the girl isn't that different from the original, where Russell is also alone in the burning compound. We assume he's going to die of cold as soon as the flames die down, but we don't know for sure.
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Posted: |
Dec 22, 2011 - 9:29 PM
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By: |
Heath
(Member)
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Late to the party, but I've seen The Thing now. I must have been very VERY naive to expect this movie to be anythng but a typical 21st century monster-movie run-around. It's just so flat, by-the-numbers, and un-atmospheric in that straight-to-video kind of way. Child-like dialogue too. Not even cartoonish. But child-like!
Carpenter's movie had an individual style arising from his personal cinematic vision. But, to be honest, the movie's IQ was never exactly stellar. However, the IQ of this anonymous prequel is in the damn basement. I think that reflects the film makers' incredibly low regard for the intelligence of their "market-researched to hell and back" audience. They're dead wrong! The many user reviews of this movie are almost universally in agreement that it's a mediocre flick at best. I think moviegoers, of all ages, are sick of being patronized by formulaic, mechanical rubbish like this.
I feel sorry for Beltrami. Genuinely. I don't begrudge any composer getting a gig. It's a tough, frustrating business, and you're a heartbeat away from having your score tossed. I can imagine the producers telling him "Just do the stuff you and all those other guys did in all those other movies". What's he going to say? "Actually, I was thinking of maybe not just stringing a bunch of dissonant cluster effects together. I'm sick of that shit. Instead I want to achieve the kind of quiet, subtle eloquence that Morricone provided for the original, and... hey... wait. Come back." Of course not.
I'm pretty sure that Beltrami and many other younger composers wish, silently, that they'd been born forty years earlier when variety and imagination in film music was encouraged by producers and not deemed a sackable offence.
Nevertheless, I'm sure he's just grateful for the gigs.
The rant ends here.
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2011 - 3:59 AM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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Francis, I always like to give composers the benefit of the doubt.
Without any knowledge of it being the case that the director or producer held Beltrami's hand for each cue, I can only judge what I do have; I bought the Varese album, didn't do that much for me. The longer version that got out even less.
As a matter a fact, the director even stated this in the booklet: "Marco and I agreed from the beginning that it had to be a traditional classical score, a score with themes. I tend to like old scores such as, for example, Jerry Goldsmith's Alien, a score that tells us a story."
So if I interpret this correctly, the director actually wanted the better horror score, and Beltrami wasn't inhibited to standard horror fluff. Now I'm not saying his score is terrible, but it wasn't terribly creative or effective.
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2011 - 8:25 AM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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From the looks of it, that screenwriter was part of the problem as the solutions or alternate storypoints he mentions hardly sound like solutions to me. Let's be frank here;
the filmmakers wanted a prequel, the studio wanted a remake.
the filmmakers wanted authentic special fx, the studio wanted CGI.
the filmmakers wanted to make the foreigners (Norwegians) into characters (makes sense as they should be the main focus really), the studio wanted American actors speaking English. (Alien 3 de ja vu anyone?).
All good and well, but I didn't see director Matthysen mention any compromise of vision in the interviews he gave promoting the movie, same goes for Beltrami (who came in late in the game I imagine and scored the version we've seen). So again, I'm judging the movie and score they delivered and agreed to put their name on, and though I enjoyed the movie (or whats left of it apparently), the music does little for me.
P.S. regarding the Americans being present, that IMO is the biggest breach of authenticity. Think about it; If the Norwegians discover an Alien ship, are they going to alert America or are they going to bring in their own specialists? Let's say they do bring over these Americans specialists, wouldn't Kate and the doc be aware that there's already an American science base nearby the Norwegian one and wouldn't they at least contact them or bring them into the equation? I know its best not to over think these movies, but clearly the screenwriters didn't even do that.
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2011 - 1:01 PM
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By: |
Heath
(Member)
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Don't worry about plot points and holes, Francis. There are holes in Bill Lancaster's plot that you could drive a snowcat through. The entire concept is fundementally flawed. Here's why...
If a single cell of the alien is enough to overtake and assimilate an animal cell (as stated by Blair in the original, and restated in the sequel), then it's curtains for everyone immediately. The Thing doesn't need to get close and cosy with a victim to spread itself. It just needs to shake hands with you. Breathe near you. Share a cup with you etc etc. Certainly, there's so much of the monster's blood, gore and fluids splashing around that all of the characters from both films would be contaminated from the get go. I think old Bill backed himself into a corner with the concept. It's nice, sure, and it works to creepy effect. But it falls apart in seconds when you think about it.
It might have been a useful twist if the sequel had picked up on the flaw and used it to creative effect - yes, everyone is indeed contaminated and the Thing wins. It really is the end of the world... and yet none of the humans/Thing hybrids realises it, and life continues much as before. That might have been a rather delicious finale.  However, I think that idea is probably several million notches of irony above where the film-makers were operating. 
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Posted: |
Dec 23, 2011 - 4:16 PM
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By: |
Francis
(Member)
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Don't worry about plot points and holes, Francis. There are holes in Bill Lancaster's plot that you could drive a snowcat through. The entire concept is fundementally flawed. Here's why...
If a single cell of the alien is enough to overtake and assimilate an animal cell (as stated by Blair in the original, and restated in the sequel), then it's curtains for everyone immediately. The Thing doesn't need to get close and cosy with a victim to spread itself. It just needs to shake hands with you. Breathe near you. Share a cup with you etc etc. Certainly, there's so much of the monster's blood, gore and fluids splashing around that all of the characters from both films would be contaminated from the get go. I think old Bill backed himself into a corner with the concept. It's nice, sure, and it works to creepy effect. But it falls apart in seconds when you think about it.
The concept of the Carpenter movie is also flawed as the thing shouldn't reveal itself; if it keeps quiet it can take over everyone and not be noticed; where the prequel did make a nice improvement is that the thing has a problem with non organic material and this was a clever gimmick; though it does beg the question where the thing finds the clean up crew to get rid of the mess it makes and what laundry detergent it uses to clean the clothes.
Regarding the single cell explanation, I've always presumed that the thing does need to absorb the host before it can start taking over; else it wouldn't bother with the grotesque display. It would also explain why even in the prequel the little things are still pretty big; But sadly in the new version we basically learn nothing more about it, apart from that original shape that isn't much of a shape really, and that it has a spaceship with 3D tetris onboard.
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Posted: |
Jul 25, 2015 - 12:23 AM
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By: |
DeviantMan
(Member)
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For me,
THE THING prequel was a fail, not epic, just a plain fail to truly match the spirit of Carpenter's original.
They had everything money could buy, but the story just wasn't right.
Also the problem was pacing, due to today's limited attention spans, the story had to clip along, not build characters, not build suspense. The creatures were too quick and agile AND the addition of an American female protagonist works against the isolationist premise especially since she survives the ordeal. The SFX was competent, but nowhere near as viceral and unsettling. The creature on the plane, however, was a really good sequence. It's too bad the rest of this film wasn't as good as that one scene.
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