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John Carpenter's "The Thing"

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:09 am
by Artemio
A couple of years ago a good friend of mine gave me "The Thing" DVD. I had only seen parts of it on TV back in the time, and when I finally watched it fully I thought there were some similarities to Snatcher. I don't mean direct ones, but the main theme of the movie is trust. How easily we can loose trust on another human being.. and then, paranoia, suspense and that great seen with the blood test.

Throughout history suspicion
has always bred conflict.
The real conflict though,
resides in people's hearts.
This conflict has just begun.


I thought back then that maybe Kojima was kind of inspired by it. Since he is a Carpenter fan (although his was a remake, but a great one I believe.

I just watched the HD-DVD version again, and man did they do a great job in the movie. No CG (well the cell animation, but you guys know what I mean). All puppets and miniatures. I kind of miss that in actual movies, all rendery and stuff.

Anyway, just wanted to share that thought with you guys.

疑い、それはいつも闘争を生んできた。
本当の闘争は人の心にあるのかも知れない。
今、闘争は始まった許りである。


Doubt, conflict has always bred from it.
Perhaps the real conflict is within people's hearts.
For now, the conflict is just beginning.


(Pardon by bad translation. Osiris, if you want to make a better one please go ahead. Since I learned just some Japanese it is a bit difficult to try to give the same ideas without sounding too artificial, specially when thinking the translation in Spanish and with my lacking ability in the subject)

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 6:22 am
by Solidé
Yes, i've seen The Thing too, and it's actually one of my favourite horror movies ever.
hmm.. but i never thought, or noticed the similarities to Snatcher.

Interesting :???:

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 2:45 pm
by Henry Spencer
If you ask me, I think it's Carpenter's best film! Some nice references from Snatcher, well spotted Artemio!

Posted: Sun Mar 11, 2007 8:23 pm
by Rick Deckard
It's only a remake of sorts, in that it takes just a handful of ideas from The Thing from Another World (a terrific sci-fi horror in its own right), specifically: the title/main logo (which is lifted directly), the remote Arctic outpost setting, the general premise i.e. finding a crashed spaceship in the ice (then unintentionally reviving an alien lifeform) and a few lines of dialogue that Carpenter presumably threw in as an homage: "You can't burn the find of the century. That's gonna win somebody the Nobel prize!" etc. Essentially, that's it. TTfAW is fairly standard '50s Hollywood horror, complete with uplifting, patriotic sentiments at the end and the man-in-a-rubber-suit type of movie monster running about, causing a brouhaha. Watching that film and reading John W. Campbell Jnr.'s short story Who Goes There? makes you appreciate just how original Carpenter's film really is - it takes next to nothing from either of its source material; it's all down to JC's direction and Bill Lancaster's brilliant screenplay. I mean, just compare the endings: a man made of broccoli lured into a trap and electrocuted to death followed by "America's foe thwarted anew!" versus the wonderful ambiguity of 'Who's human?' that underlies the entire film, very bleak but very effective. Also, I couldn't agree more regarding the lack of CG in favour of puppets and miniatures (although there is one CG shot I believe - the tentacle pulling the dynamite underground near the end - which is possibly the only 'thing' about the film I dislike): while many other SF and horror films have dated horribly, others like this one, Alien and Blade Runner etc. remain as visually impressive and convincing as they did on release. I'd say this was definitely an influence on Snatcher - I don't doubt Kojima's a fan, and there's plenty of lines throughout the game that put a real emphasis on paranoia and doubt, which is of course the most interesting idea behind the 'snatcher' concept: not knowing who's human. For anything on The Thing, the fan-site Outpost #31 is your best bet - it's ridiculously extensive, with everything from the original short story to the deleted scene featuring Kurt Russell's blow-up doll...

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:38 am
by ShinjiPG
Rick Deckard wrote:It's only a remake of sorts, in that it takes just a handful of ideas from The Thing from Another World (a terrific sci-fi horror in its own right), specifically: the title/main logo (which is lifted directly), the remote Arctic outpost setting, the general premise i.e. finding a crashed spaceship in the ice (then unintentionally reviving an alien lifeform) and a few lines of dialogue that Carpenter presumably threw in as an homage: "You can't burn the find of the century. That's gonna win somebody the Nobel prize!" etc. Essentially, that's it. TTfAW is fairly standard '50s Hollywood horror, complete with uplifting, patriotic sentiments at the end and the man-in-a-rubber-suit type of movie monster running about, causing a brouhaha. Watching that film and reading John W. Campbell Jnr.'s short story Who Goes There? makes you appreciate just how original Carpenter's film really is - it takes next to nothing from either of its source material; it's all down to JC's direction and Bill Lancaster's brilliant screenplay. I mean, just compare the endings: a man made of broccoli lured into a trap and electrocuted to death followed by "America's foe thwarted anew!" versus the wonderful ambiguity of 'Who's human?' that underlies the entire film, very bleak but very effective. Also, I couldn't agree more regarding the lack of CG in favour of puppets and miniatures (although there is one CG shot I believe - the tentacle pulling the dynamite underground near the end - which is possibly the only 'thing' about the film I dislike): while many other SF and horror films have dated horribly, others like this one, Alien and Blade Runner etc. remain as visually impressive and convincing as they did on release. I'd say this was definitely an influence on Snatcher - I don't doubt Kojima's a fan, and there's plenty of lines throughout the game that put a real emphasis on paranoia and doubt, which is of course the most interesting idea behind the 'snatcher' concept: not knowing who's human. For anything on The Thing, the fan-site Outpost #31 is your best bet - it's ridiculously extensive, with everything from the original short story to the deleted scene featuring Kurt Russell's blow-up doll...
Nice wall of text :\
Am I being to rude? Maybe I'm just telling that this wall of text makes me avoid reading the text at all :P

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 7:08 am
by Rick Deckard
Don't bother, then. If it's that long it's probably not worth reading anyway.

Oh, right then, just for you...
If I was a better person I would have wrote:It's only a remake of sorts, in that it takes just a handful of ideas from The Thing from Another World (a terrific sci-fi horror in its own right), specifically: the title/main logo (which is lifted directly), the remote Arctic outpost setting, the general premise i.e. finding a crashed spaceship in the ice (then unintentionally reviving an alien lifeform) and a few lines of dialogue that Carpenter presumably threw in as an homage: "You can't burn the find of the century. That's gonna win somebody the Nobel prize!" etc.

Essentially, that's it. TTfAW is fairly standard '50s Hollywood horror, complete with uplifting, patriotic sentiments at the end and the man-in-a-rubber-suit type of movie monster running about, causing a brouhaha. Watching that film and reading John W. Campbell Jnr.'s short story Who Goes There? makes you appreciate just how original Carpenter's film really is - it takes next to nothing from either of its source material; it's all down to JC's direction and Bill Lancaster's brilliant screenplay.

I mean, just compare the endings: a man made of broccoli lured into a trap and electrocuted to death followed by "America's foe thwarted anew!" versus the wonderful ambiguity of 'Who's human?' that underlies the entire film, very bleak but very effective.

Also, I couldn't agree more regarding the lack of CG in favour of puppets and miniatures (although there is one CG shot I believe - the tentacle pulling the dynamite underground near the end - which is possibly the only 'thing' about the film I dislike): while many other SF and horror films have dated horribly, others like this one, Alien and Blade Runner etc. remain as visually impressive and convincing as they did on release.

I'd say this was definitely an influence on Snatcher - I don't doubt Kojima's a fan, and there's plenty of lines throughout the game that put a real emphasis on paranoia and doubt, which is of course the most interesting idea behind the 'snatcher' concept: not knowing who's human.

For anything on The Thing, the fan-site Outpost #31 is your best bet - it's ridiculously extensive, with everything from the original short story to the deleted scene featuring Kurt Russell's blow-up doll...

Image

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 9:22 am
by Marc
Yes, Kojima has said The Thing from Another World is one of his favorite films (he said the Carpenter version is also good, but he likes the original more).

As for the translation of that text, the original one in Snatcher was pretty good, though perhaps I would add the word "perhaps".

Throughout history, suspicion
has always bred conflict.
Perhaps the real conflict, though,
resides in people's hearts.
This conflict has just begun.

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:39 pm
by 87th
I love The Thing, but I haven't seen it in years. I might buy a DVD of it after learning about the links to Snatcher.

Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 12:53 pm
by Henry Spencer
@ Rick Deckard; I think T2 still looks just as visually impressive now, as it did back in the day as well!