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The Thing (1982)
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 18, 2021 1:03 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Holy Cow, you did an amazing job of thinking through the possibility for this premise! Very Happy

And when I got to this part near the bottom —


Pow wrote:
Could we then have a scenario where the well meaning aliens discover to their horror what they have inadvertently done in wanting to make friends with other worlds?

Now this race is on a mission to clean up their big fat mess.

But how will the infected populace respond to their intentions?

— it was "Bingo" time for old Bud! That idea has EVERYTHING!

It starts out like a conspiracy theory — "I found evidence that aliens modified human DNA!" — then it reveals an unexpected element (the accidental introduction of alien DNA by a race who didn't mean to do it).

The aliens arrive and claim they want to fix their mistake. At first we wouldn't even believe their claim! "They want to change us for their own secret reasons!"

A group of brilliant scientist would plead with world leaders not to consider the aliens a "hostile force" until both side understand the situation better. Eventually some of our scientist become convinced that the aliens are telling the truth.

But wait a minute! If they "fix us", we'll be changed into something we might not like very much! After all, the damage is done, we are what we are, if ain't broke don't fix it! Etc. etc. etc.

However, the aliens sadly inform us that many of our diseases are caused by the "contaminated DNA" we now have, because of their well-meaning probe which landed on Earth thousands of years ago.

My God, what a dilemma! On one hand, if we allow the aliens to "undo" the change, we might live longer and have fewer diseases!

But on the other hand . . . live longer as WHAT? How will we look and feel if they somehow begin a program to reverse the process and cause all new children being born to be "real" humans instead of the hybrids we didn't even know were were?

If the hybridization began 45,000 years ago, that might explain the appearance of Cro-Magnons during the same period when Neanderthals existed.

Perhaps the alien DNA caused Neanderthals to start having Cro-Magnon babies! Shocked

So, the hybridization actually improved "early man", even though it somehow made us prone to diseases like cancer, diabetes, and alzheimer's — the "unwanted side effects" of the hybridization.

Obviously mankind is not going to be too keen on the idea of having our DNA "corrected" if it means we'll all start having Neanderthal babies!

Once mankind and the aliens learn the truth about this complex situation, these highly moral aliens will feel obligated to turn their vast medical knowledge towards curing our diseases and lengthening our lifespans! Very Happy

But of course, before this unexpected happy ending finally occurs, the conflict between us and the aliens could get pretty intense. At first the aliens might not realize that the "correction" of their error will turn mankind into cave men!

Lot's of "good intentions" will have "bad consequences" in this complex story before the humans finally learn what the aliens came to do — along with what they CAN do for us, instead of what they thought they SHOULD do!

Mike, your story idea is terrific! It would make an imaginative movie (or book) with a highly original concept! Cool

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Pow
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PostPosted: Tue Jan 19, 2021 9:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks Bud.

And your ideas have ingeniously expanded my original concept into a most intriguing story line.
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ralfy
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PostPosted: Sat Jan 23, 2021 12:13 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Back in 2002, a video game about the movie was made.

Visit this wiki entry to read the plot:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)#Plot

The gist is that two Spec Ops units are sent to investigate what happened in both the U.S. and Norwegian camps. The first team finds out what happened, with Childs dead from hypothermia, and MacReady missing.

They blow up the camp, and the team leader heads off to the Norwegian camp because they had lost contact with the second team. It turns out that there is an underground facility beneath the camp run by a corporation experimenting on Things.

Here's a 11-minute review of the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxsbDidz2GY

and a four-hour longplay:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrmHncD-z-Q

A "longplay" is a recording of the game being played, which includes cut scenes (cinematic scenes which narrate part of events) and dialogue.

This game is generally a "shooter" (the player shoots at things) combined with puzzles (the player has to enter the right codes or something like that to open various doors for laboratories, etc., using evidence from diary recordings, computer files, and other things scattered around rooms), dialogue (by talking to other characters, the player slowly unravels what is taking place), and some role-playing (the player's character is equipped with various weapons, drugs, or other things that may be found in several rooms, and must interact with team members who might die, become infected, or panic or become insane, causing them to shoot at their team mates or run away).
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 10:18 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thanks for sharing that, Ralfy! Very Happy

I like the idea of a secret underground research lab which is studying the aliens. Having it underground and in Antarctica makes perfect sense. It offers the best security for such a hazardous undertaking.

The need for such research would be vital if there was any danger of these aliens invading Earth. We'd need to know everything about the enemy to combat it. But the movie indicates that the ship is 100,000 years old, so there seems to be little chance of that happening.

However, the remains of the alien ship would be "the find of the millennial"! That would certainly be worth studying.






Perhaps the underground lab researchers attempted to warm up the inside of the buried alien ship so they could study it, and this caused the frozen remains of one-or-more aliens to thaw out and begin assimilating the researchers!

If that happened, the researchers would destroy the heating units and beat a hasty retreat, causing the ship to refreeze and trap the aliens.

But when the researchers got back to their newly-establish base near the Norwegian camp they discovered that one of members was an alien! So they imprisoned it to study the creature and learn enough about it to successfully deal with the aliens when they returned to the ship.






When they do finally go back and heat up the ship again to resume their research, things go well . . . until they realize that a second researcher had been assimilated back at the lab (the leader of the group), and "it" was now carefully causing other members to be assimilated as well!

The battle with the aliens begins all over again, just like in the original movie — but now it's happening inside a super-advanced alien spacecraft! Very Happy

A shocking new development occurs when the researchers find several members of the original alien crew who are still in cryogenic suspension tubes for the interstellar journey.






These highly intelligent aliens use advanced translation devices to communicate with the humans, who explain that the "thing-aliens" must have assimilated the rest of their crew and caused the ship to crash on Earth.





The good-aliens team up with the humans to battle the thing-aliens!

My preference for how this story would end is to have the humans and the good-aliens beat the thing-aliens, and then the good-aliens offer to share their technology with mankind so we'll be ready when we eventually venture out into space and encounter dangerous creatures like The Thing!

By gum, a sequel to The Thing practically writes itself if you start ponder the leftover elements of the 1982 movie! Very Happy

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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:47 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

This would make for a splendid sequel, Bud.

We fans have always been extremely curious as to exactly what the inside of the alien star ship looked like.

It worked quite well in both "Thing" films that it remained a mystery and that we could only imagine as to how the interior appeared.

Your sequel can clear up the mystery along with the exciting battle for survival that takes place on board the space ship.

Hollywood? Are you listening?
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2021 12:41 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Thanks, Mike! I was hoping you'd like it. The whole idea came to me in one big rush after I read Ralfy's post about the video game. Very Happy

Once I got started, new concepts kept springing up, and the whole thing played out in my imagination faster than I could type 'em out!

I strongly encourage the members of All Sci-Fi to share their own orignal ideas like the one I posted above.

Its the main reason I first created this message board back in 2006 — and I've fought hard to keep it alive and well for fifteen years, despite several disastrous crashes! Very Happy

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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ralfy
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PostPosted: Mon May 23, 2022 11:14 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

"Fathom Events Bringing Carpenter’s ‘The Thing’ Back to Theaters for 40th Anniversary in June!"

https://bloody-disgusting.com/movie/3715991/fathom-events-bringing-carpenters-the-thing-back-to-theaters-for-40th-anniversary-in-june/
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Jun 25, 2022 8:48 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some "Thing" numbers from Wikipedia.

Initially Universal Studios set a $10,000,000 budget for the movie.
$200,000 alone for the creature effects.

Universal productions estimated that it would require $17,000,000 before marketing and other costs were factored in.

As storyboards and designs were finalized for the film, the crew now estimated they'd need at least $750,000 for the creature effects, a figure that Universal executives agreed to after seeing the number of workers employed by effects designer Rob Bottin.

The destroyed American camp in the finale of The Thing was reused as the destroyed Norwegian camp. This saved $250,000 on the budget by not having to construct the Norwegian camp in the first place.

Filming allocated $11,400,000 budgeted, indirect costs brought it to $14,000,000.

The special effects budget totaled $1,500,000.

Final cut of the film cost $12,400,000 with overhead costs making it $15,000,000.

Sidebar: Remember when we would read about these sums of money for science-fiction films and our eyebrows would rise up and our mouths fall open? Well back then in 1982 these were indeed considered astronomical sums of money for any feature film.

Sidebar: Now we have Marvel superhero movies coming in with $200,000,000 budgets and think little of it!

How times have changed.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Apr 30, 2023 8:02 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

______________________________________________

Today I watched this movie with All Sci-Fi member Morbius in the ASF chat room, and he kept suggesting that the Kurt Russel's character (whose name is MacReady) was secretly a "converted" alien, all the the way through the story! Shocked

I kept offering reasons that the Kurt Russel character was a human and that his theory about MacReady was impossible.

But during the last scene in the movie, when MacReady and Childs were discussing the possibility that one of them was an alien, I suddenly realized that Tom could he right!

The beauty of Tom's concept is that MacReay might be the "smart" alien among the converted humans!

And "he" realized that the only way his species could survive would be to stage the total destruction of the Antarctic base so that it appeared that one brave human survived — while every other human was destroyed by the aliens and the fire.

The frozen body of McReady would then be returned to the nearest cilivlized area . . . where it would thaw out and begin converting all lifeforms to aliens look-a-likes!

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Morbius
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PostPosted: Mon May 01, 2023 11:17 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Some observations from the movie supporting the suggestion that MacReady was converted (infected) early on and was cunning, deceptive, and had a clear objective.

Somebody (we don’t know who) destroyed the blood. When a serum test was suggested someone destroyed the blood. This could have been MacReady and he could’ve saved some.

When they do the blood test MacReady submits his blood but we don’t see him actually cut his finger.

In addition they find ripped up clothes with MacReady’s name on it, a clear indication of conversion.

Knowing that the alien can survive even if frozen is key to MacReady’s plot. As Bud mentioned, his frozen body would be retrieved, brought back to civilization where it will thaw. In a populated area the infection could easily contaminate the world.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat May 20, 2023 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

______________________________________________

When Morbius (aka Tom) and I watched this movie in the chat room yesterday and he suggested that maybe McReady was a "converted" alien, I didn't buy it. Rolling Eyes

I mean, hell . . . he's the hero! How could he be one of those nasty aliens? Shocked

But Tom kept pointing out strange things in the story and suggesting a novel explanation for them . . . and I finally realized that he might right.

Consider these facts.

The alien copies were capable of perfectly emulating the behavior of their victims.

They were determined to survive, no matter what it took — even to point of breaking off the head of a "human" and sending it crawling away.






The aliens never demonstrated an ability to work together to help each other. They were devoted to their own individual survival.

That's an important point, so keep it in mind.

If MacReady had been converted at some point, the alien copy would have all MacReady's intelligence and cunning — but he'd feel no compulsion to protect or cooperate with the other aliens.

Therefore, he'd act exactly like the real MacReady. He'd want to convince the humans that he was just as determined as they were to kill all the aliens. As Tom pointed out, he'd destroy the blood supply, and he'd rig up a way to substitute real human blood in the Petri dish with his name on it, knowing that this would convince the humans that he was NOT an alien.

The alien/MacReady did all this because he was smarter than all the other alien/humans.

Gentlemen, I submit that an alien/dog would not be as smart as an alien/human — and an alien copy of a smart human would be smart because of this.

The intelligent alien/MacReady had no reservations about destroying any of the other aliens whose true nature became known — especially the giant multi-creature alien that showed up in the big climax!

If THAT monstrosity had frozen and then been discovered later by rescuers who came to the Antarctic station, the human race would be alerted to the presence of a terrible alien threat!

Alien/MacReady — the smartest alien of the group — didn't want that. So, he took control of the situation by destroying all evidence of the aliens' presence, and then allowing himself to be frozen so he could later be thaw out . . . and begin the aliens conquest of Earth! Shocked

Try viewing the 1982 version with the idea in mind that MacReady was the Alpha Alien who made sure that the humans were defeated by his/its own clever efforts.
Mr. Green
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