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The Thing (1982)



Just to pick on something first: That ending. I'm not sure the movie has one, really. 

At the beginning of the movie, we see the alien spaceship crash into Earth. We're then given the idea that it may have been buried in the ice for 100,000 years. Whatever the Thing is, it was able to wait for its moment. 

When the alien makes it over to the American station, how did it know that the American station was there? That's one question. It took out the Norwegian station, but was it not happy being in its current form? Did it want to look human? If so, why?

We'll never get to know, because this movie, just like the early Alien and Predator movies, never gives us any look into what the Thing is thinking. All we know is that it's advanced. It knows how to travel in space, and it knows how to mimic any lifeform it comes into contact with. 

And it can stay frozen. 

Humans cannot. Macready (Kurt Russell) has a plan, and that plan is to blow up the American station. How does that work, though, if the Thing can just freeze and wait? How will the Americans know that they've killed it before they themselves freeze to death? 

I don't know if a sequel was ever planned, but in 2025, John Carpenter did say they were working on one. Well, 40+ plus years between sequels... I guess it's been done before, but that makes it sound like they weren't thinking of making a sequel when the original came out. Maybe they just realize the ending left it open for one, and forty years later, they've finally developed a story that will explain what happened. It sounds to me like the Americans never completely killed the Thing after all. 

Rating: 4/5 stars

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