The Thing (2011 film)

It's Not Human. Yet.

The Thing is a 2011 science-fiction horror film directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. and written by Eric Heisserer based on the novella Who Goes There? by John W. Campbell. It is a Prequel to the 1982 film of the same name by John Carpenter, and stars Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton, Ulrich Thomsen, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, and Eric Christian Olsen.

In it, a team of Norwegian and American scientists discover an alien spacecraft buried deep in the ice of Antarctica. During investigation and exploration, the body of an alien found within the craft, which they retrieve and store, still encased in ice, in one of the buildings of the base from which they are operating. The alien, though, is very much alive, bursts from the ice, and escapes. They pursue it, and discover that it is a shapeshifter when it kills one of them and begins transforming into him even as they (apparently) kill it.

However, the creature is not dead, and the base becomes the site of a dangerous -- and familiar -- cat-and-mouse game, with no one sure who is human and who can be trusted. In the end most of the team is dead, and the alien is in the form of a dog. As it flees, the two survivors chase it in the Norwegian helicopter, with one leaning out of the open doorway, trying to shoot it with a scoped rifle, thus leading into the events of the 1982 film.

Tropes used in The Thing (2011 film) include:

Badass: Lars, who seemingly out of nowhere appears with a flamethrower when a Thing attack occurs. Kate also applies, who by the third act is even referred to as "The Boss."
Badass Adorable: Kate, intelligence and bravery aside, has been described by a review as "looking like a cute teenager trying to buy booze with a fake ID rather than an actual adult."
Belly Mouth: the Thing loves to pop out of the chest and turn the ribs into teeth.
Black Dude Dies First: Subverted. The resident black guy is directly set-up as The Thing's first victim, but it completely ignores him after breaking free. He later survives a seemingly fatal helicopter crash, and ultimately doesn't end up dying until the mid-point/climax of the movie where all the secondary characters get slaughtered.
Body Horror: Due to CGI, there's a LOT more gore, tentacles, fangs, teeth, and bodies splitting apart then in the original. The two-face thing is the embodiment of this trope.
Chekhov's Gun: It's discovered early on that the Thing cannot duplicate inorganic material, such as metal. This comes back when Kate checks people's mouths to see if they have dental implants or not. It's also used to reveal that Carter is a Thing at the very end of the film, due to his missing earring.
Chekhov MIA: The husky. It appears he's dead at the beginning of the movie, but then we see him running during the credits, trailed by Lars.
Combat Tentacles: Used by the Thing to kill or wound several people, usually as a prelude to assimilating the surviving biomass when it has time.
Conspicuous CG: All over the place, which is a real shame since the animatronics the CG painted over were great on their own.
Continuity Nod: Being a prequel, this is to be expected. Among them are:
- The fire-axe, and how it got stuck in the door.
- The UFO, discovered in a massive chamber underneath the ice.
- The two face-thing, and how it eventually appeared in it's melted state.
- The block of ice, and what it looked like before it was found by MacReady.
- Who ended up being the suicide victim found with his throat and wrists cut.
- Those flamethrowers they give the Antarctic teams sure do have a bad habit of failing at critical moments.
- Lars is the only one of the Norwegians who can't speak English and knows where the grenades are. Sure enough, it's him at the beginning of the original film who shouts useless warnings in Norwegian at the Americans and tries to toss a grenade at the Thing.
- Things love the chest-mouth thing they pulled on Norris.
- Also comparing stored blood with blood samples taken from everyone. In the prequel the Thing hastily burns the lab -- whereas the Thing at Outpost 31, knowing in advance that this test will likely be used on it, has the time to destroy the stored blood in a way that implicates the camp leader.
- There is also a combination Chekhov's Gun Continuity Nod, because at the end of the 1982 film, Childs still has his earring.
Cosmetically Advanced Prequel: Being released almost 29 years after the original, CGI is heavily used this time around, with relatively few instances of puppets or other practical effects being utilized.
A Crack in the Ice: The movie opens with the Norwegians in a snowcat homing in on a Distress Signal. They discover where it's coming from when the ground opens beneath them and they become wedged in a crevasse with their headlights shining down on a Flying Saucer.
Distress Signal: How the Norwegians find the Flying Saucer. The signal sounds even more creepy and otherworldly than the signal in Alien.
Downer Ending: While the Thing is prevented from escaping in its UFO, everyone but Kate and Lars is dead. Kate's nowhere to be found when help arrives at last, and Lars goes after the last Thing (in the form of a husky). If you've seen the original film, you know what happens to him.
Doomed by Canon
Executive Meddling: According to screenwriter Eric Heisserer, the studio wanted a "leaner and meaner" film. The result was that the film has been gutted of most tension-building or exposition scenes, leaving just the straight-up violence with the monster. Worse, they built very expensive animatronics for the alien which look genuinely horrifying, but the final version of the movie switched to CGI effects to make the alien's attacks faster. The CGI is okay, but its truly shocking when you see the level of detail that went into these animatronics. Further, we can tell from various cast and crew interviews that a lot of the movie's runtime was cut to focus on the action scenes and for pacing.
Expositron 9000: The base computer, during the explanation of The Thing's infection and replication mechanism.
Fate Worse Than Death: When the Thing assimilates some of its victims via direct contact, they're aware of what's happening, and are clearly in great pain during the process. One of them, with a Thing lodged in his mouth, silently begs Kate to kill him. Another is practically melted into one of the things, then dragged off before we see the process completed.
Genre Savvy: The Thing becomes progressively more intelligent after each of its encounters. After being burned under the shed, it learns to try and isolate the cast members one by one. When's it's overpowered anyway, it starts trying to sow dissent amongst the group. In addition, it shows that it's perfectly willing to sacrifice parts of itself in order to take the pressure off it. Finally, it keeps its dog form in hiding in case all of its other forms are killed.
Here We Go Again: The ending of this film dovetails into the beginning of the 1982 film.
Hope Spot: Kate and Carter have stopped the Thing from escaping, head back to the snowmobile, and are going to head for a Russian research station about fifty miles away. Then Kate notices that Sam is missing his earring...
Impostor-Exposing Test: It's theorized that Thing blood will react when exposed to human blood, so a test is quickly created in order to see who's human or not. The Thing then sets fire to the lab, destroying the test, and forcing the humans to use a more primitive method of seeing who has dental implants or not.
Idiot Ball: The Thing, after it exposes itself, can't help but to assimilate anything in its path, even when it puts it in danger. For example the Leah-Thing stops to assimilate Karl, leaving it exposed in the hallway. Also the Carter-Thing could have easily killed Kate and simply drove to the Camp by itself, but doesn't in the interest of preserving its cover, despite Kate being clearly suspicious. Kate herself makes some bad judgement calls like ordering everyone to split up despite not being enough weapons to go around.
It Can Think: The Thing cleans up one of its murder scenes, attempts to extinguish a fire (though this may be pure luck on the Thing's part), leads Kate into a trap, and finally briefly manages to power up the ship.
It Was There I Swear: Kate realises the Thing has assimilated a human when she finds blood in the shower. When she goes back after the helicopter crash, the shower stall has been cleaned up. While this removes the evidence, it also tells Kate that the Thing is still among them, and wasn't just on the helicopter.
Jerkass: Dr. Sander Halvorson
Let's Split Up, Gang!: After the Thing is fully revealed and everyone believes Kate, the expedition still ends up splitting into teams of two even after it's been made abundantly clear this is a terrible idea. It turns out that ultimately nothing bad comes of this tactic, but it was still rather careless on their part.
Load-Bearing Boss: The flying saucer's power system shuts down after both its control system and the Thing is destroyed.
Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: If the American pilots hadn't escaped, overpowered Lars and taken over the base, the Thing probably wouldn't have had the necessary chaos to continue its spree.
Not His Sled: The director stated there was originally a shot of a laboratory on the ship, which would have proven that the Thing is a different species than the creatures who made the ship. The original film shows that the Thing is perfectly capable of building its own ship, however.
Nothing Is Scarier: The Thing's original form is vaguely insectoid, but we never get a very good look at it.
Prequel: And not a distant one -- it ends literally minutes before the predecessor film begins.
Retcon: What the UFO looked like and its condition at the end of the film, the manner of the Split-face Thing's death, and of course the original number of people at Thule station.
Red Herring: Just like in the original film, none of the characters seemingly set up to be the Thing actually turn out to be the Thing.
Shapeshifter: The Thing, of course.
The Un-Reveal:
- While a shape can be seen inside the block of ice, we never see exactly what the thing looks like inside. What few glimpses we do get suggest that it looks like a massive, tentacled, multi-limbed insect of some kind.
- Some fans theorized that the film would explain what the Thing was doing in the UFO. While we do see inside the UFO, we never get a clear answer as to what its relationship is toward the Thing. Director van Heijningen originally intended to show that the Thing was an alien sample collected by the UFO's pilots that broke free, but the subplot was cut for pacing issues.
Trailers Always Spoil: Most if not all of the trailers for the prequel have footage that clearly shows that Griggs, Juliette, and Edvard are all assimilated and replaced by the Thing during the film. This is particularly egregious as it turns out they were the only characters that were secretly assimilated by the Thing. Also, recent television spots very briefly show Carter being lit on fire by Kate in the snowmobile at the ending of the movie.
What Happened to the Mouse?: We don't have any clue what Kate will do at the end of the film. We do, however, find out that Lars and the Huskey-Thing were simply hiding while the climax took place.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Edvard acts dazed and stunned by the Flamethrower explosion in order to get closer to two of the station workers.