Gubaba Posted January 16, 2010 Share Posted January 16, 2010 See, that's funny, because the complaints you have about the use of CGI now is EXACTLY the same complaints leveled against The Thing when it came out, gore for gore sake, over use of special effects. Indeed: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d.../201010349/1023 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
taksraven Posted January 16, 2010 Share Posted January 16, 2010 Indeed: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d.../201010349/1023 Bloody hell!! Which side of the fence in this are you on????? :lol: :P Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gui Posted January 16, 2010 Share Posted January 16, 2010 Indeed: http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.d.../201010349/1023 I almost stopped reading when he wrote: "[...] The original story was called "Who Goes There?" It was written by John W. Campbell, Jr., in the late 1930s, and it provided such a strong and scary story that it inspired at least four movie versions before this one: The original THE THING in 1951, INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS in 1956 and 1978, ALIEN in 1979, and now John Carpenter's 1982 remake, again called THE THING." Body Snatchers was an adaptation of Jack Finney's novel Invasion of the body snatchers (he's also listed among the sriptwriters of the movie) and Alien was clearly another interpretation of Dark Star's basic plot, interestingly Carpenter's first movie while I'm at it, both of these having been written by Dan O'Bannon – although Alfred E. Van Vogt won the trial where he claimed that Alien was a rip-off of his novel The Voyage of the Space Beagle (IIRC) Usually, I don't care about such articles or the errors which may appear in them, and God knows how much there can be some in the majority of them, particularly coming from people who dislike science-fiction, but when a reviewer adopts such a condescendant tone towards a movie and its audience, I just can't resist to put back his nose into his own p00: most of the time, big heads are just that, big. And how can you take seriously a guy who makes such basic mistakes? If he's so knowledgeable, he should have avoided them. Or is it because he didn't do his job seriously? In any case, he's not really worth the time of his reader... Anyway, and despite the flagrant flaws of some of his works, Carpenter still invented something during his career, and it's particularly visible in Halloween. In such movies, Friday the 13th and Co., usually the victim is showed runing around screaming and then suddenly the killer comes up and slash the guy/girl/whatever in the gorest way possible; this makes the audience passive, because all of this happens far too much fast to give you any possibility to care about any character in the scene. Carpenter, on the other hand, chose to show the victim and the killer in the same picture and during a long moment, the latter following the former in the street, or appearing in his/her back, or any other similar situation; this may look anecdotical but, at least, this makes the audience active: during these few seconds, you care about the victim – or about the killer if you have some psychotical tendancies, nobody's perfect – you're part of the movie, you're inside of it (and in a far more efficient way than Avatar's and its 3D while I'm at it...) In the Thing, this process is pushed towards its limits, because you never know who is the alien and who is not. Maybe he pushed it too far though because there's a moment where too much tension kills the tension but at least Carpenter tried to expand his experimentation where the majority of directors would have probably followed the simplest manner of filming. While I'm at it, Ridley Scott used the same trick in his Alien, at least in some scenes... As for characterization, it's interesting to note that Carpenter didn't adopt the usual cliché of the scientists in The Thing: usually, such characters are very rationnal and always cold-headed but he chose to portray them in a very human manner, and right from the begining of the story so that the alien isn't even an explanation for such temperament So, The Thing, good or bad? Simply in the middle IMO, but tending clearly towards the former... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1/1 LowViz Lurker Posted January 16, 2010 Share Posted January 16, 2010 (edited) I know this: I loved those effects in the carpenter movie and thought it was a scary monster/alien/creature/thing and so long as they can make me scared, the other stuff like how deep/original the characters are, is more like the icing on the cake for me and may not be enough to stop me from seeing it. It will probably end up getting pwned by the alien prequel though. Maybe one day we'll get a "the thing vs the predator vs alien" movie so people have something even bigger than this to bitch about. I'm pretty sure the thing would easily beat the other aliens and humans with ease just for being able to mimick them. Maybe a terminator would survive against the thing since robots know their own kind and I doubt the thing could trick their sensors. Really the terminator would easily get beaten by humans because dogs can sniff them, but the terminators could probably beat the thing easily just because mimmicking a machine would be hard, and if the liquid metal version could morph into a thing of its own, then the thing could have problems trying to figure out whose mimmicking IT. It would be like a spy vs spy movie. Every known alien race will be paranoid of its own machines and its own kind and starting killing each other because they accuse each other of being the thing. (except for the terminators on earth after they sucessfully killed off all human life and starting expanding onto other worlds) Edited January 16, 2010 by 1/1 LowViz Lurker Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reddsun1 Posted January 17, 2010 Share Posted January 17, 2010 See, that's funny, because the complaints you have about the use of CGI now is EXACTLY the same complaints leveled against The Thing when it came out, gore for gore sake, over use of special effects. True, true. I'll be the first to acknowledge my hypocrisy. I enjoyed lots and lots of B-movies when I was younger; sci-fi, action, horror flicks that were pretty cheesy and pointless. Still do, for the most part. Always on the lookout for that next "worst movie ever." Love the reviews and random thoughts at badmovies.org Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
big F Posted February 3, 2010 Share Posted February 3, 2010 I remember back when I was about 11 My dad used to get a film from our local Video rental store every weekend. If it was new out or cool we saw it. Back in those days the ratings thing meant nothing to me as, my Dad would just say if you dont like it just go and play out side. by the age of 11 I was already wathcing quite adult horror and scifi, like The Thing and such from 80's. Im sure now that a prequle or remake will be a 12 or U cert film so it will be nothing scary or suspenseful <sp> As most films now are only 15 cert at most, cant remember the last 18 I saw at the Cinema. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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