Here's 'The Thing'...(Hollywood remaking John Carpenter classic)

[Sequoia]

One morning last week, while enjoying my coffee, I stumbled across that headline in Daily Variety. I nearly did one of those Danny Thomas spit-takes.

For those not fluent in the rat-a-tat La-La-Land verse of Variety-speak, that announcement means that Universal Pictures is planning to remake John Carpenter's 1982 masterpiece The Thing. This is a colossal boner on so many levels I don't even know where to begin.

I'll never understand why Hollywood feels the need to remake perfectly good films, let alone classics like this one. You want to remake the original Ocean's 11, knock yourself out. The original was crap. But this feels like Gus Van Sant's Psycho all over again, doesn't it?

I'm aware that Carpenter's film was itself a remake (kinda) of Howard Hawks' 1951 sci-fi flick The Thing From Another World. But even though Hawks was a genius, that movie wasn't proof of it.

http://www.ew.com/ew/article/commentary/0,6115,1564164_21_0_,00.html

I have to agree. I can still remember how frightening that was. The 1950's one wasn't scary at all to me, but John Carpenter's leave it alone! With all this blizzard weather maybe I ought to see it again so I can be really, really, really scared all over again!

[eyepaddle]

1. I know this will sound odd, but that movie

(Or actually the Alan Dean Foster book, and then the movie) was what really planted the seed that made me want to go to Antarctica.

I can say there were (thankfully) no alien attacks when I was down there.
Except of course for the movie which is a McMurdo favorite, and there was this one guy who was a little off.... :rofl:

[Hand]

2. Great line from Hawks' original...

About halfway through. You have to remember that this is an isolated Arctic airbase with maybe thirty men and one woman. Anyway, at some point they're all gathered in the mess hall and the lady makes up a big pot of coffee (this was 1951, after all). Having brewed the coffee, she then turns to the assembled men and with a straight face asks, "Who wants some?" :rofl:

[Lautremont]

3. I love that movie.

I saw it five times in the theatre alone (I was 11!) and have watched my DVD copy plenty of times since.

The funny thing is that they'll never be able to replicate the tough, uncompromising tone of the 1982 version. Not in a million years. I'm lukewarm on the idea of remakes in general (though a few gems have resulted from the practice: Carpenter's Thing, Cronenberg's Fly), but tend to simply not see them if I'm not interested.

But they can sort of diminish the originals, or quasi-originals, by forcing an association with the new, usually suck-ass, version. If they're really good they can completely eclipse the original (hey, Casablanca was a remake), but mostly they just serve as a foul miasma floating around the earlier version, contaminating its mystique.

All that said, what would a movie called "Carpenter's Thing and Cronenberg's Fly" be like? A little odd, I'd bet.

[RebelOne]

4. I much prefer the 1950s version.

Much better than Carpenter's remake.

[Rob H.]

5. John Carpenter's 'The Thing' is one of my favorite sci-fi movies

I wish the powers that be in moviedom would just leave some films alone. The story, the effects (yes, they're great even if they are pre-CGI, a tribute to Rob Bottin's mastery), the cast, why mess with it?

I'd be willing to bet that whoever remakes it will change the downbeat ending, too. If it gets remade, I'll be sure and add it to my 'must-miss' list.

[Frank Cannon]

6. JDC's The Thing is a sci-fi/horror classic

It is probably my favorite horror movie. I've seen it at least a half a dozen times, and the "blood test" scene still makes me crazy and gives me nightmares.

Even the scene where Kurt Russell and the boys discover the makeshift spaceship in the basement freaks me out. I don't know why. I think Carpenter really captured the fear invoked by stuff that is just too weird.

Remaking that movie is just so, so wrong. Hopefully this new version will die a well-deserved death at the metroplex.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

7. Ah.

The remake of the remake of the campy 50's sci fi flick based on the Lovecraft story.

Nope, nothing can go wrong there.