Comments on: 'Imagine what these scenes would be like'

'Imagine what these scenes would be like'

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:23:01 -0800

'In 2005 Sci-Fi Channel announced that it would make a sequel to The Thing with Shawshank Redemption/The Mist director Frank Darabont serving as a producer. This earlier Thing sequel project was to be a four-hour mini-series written by Darabont's former assistant David Leslie Johnson and broadcast on the cable channel.' The Return of The Thing screenplay reviewed: Part 1, Part 2.

The sequel was briefly mentioned in an interview with Darabont by SuicideGirls (NSFW). Previously on MetaFilter: 'Who Goes There?', the short story THE THING is based on. John Carpernter's THE THING: THE MUSICAL.'The Things', a story from the other viewpoint, by Peter Watts. The website Outpost 31, with THE THING video game. And an in-depth analysis, attempting to resolve the ending.

By: Tomorrowful

Tomorrowful — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:51:26 -0800

I'm really tired and need to eat dinner, so when I started reading this post, I thought that Sci-Fi was making a crossover between The Thing and The Shawshank Redemption. I'm also tired enough that I didn't see any real issue there.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:56:40 -0800

10 reasons we still love John Carpenter's The Thing 30 years later.

By: nathancaswell

nathancaswell — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:57:00 -0800

paging artw to the thread, please pick up the professional white courtesy phone, please pick up the professional white courtesy phone,

By: nathancaswell

nathancaswell — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:57:11 -0800

BEATEN

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:57:28 -0800

That wasn't me.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:57:50 -0800

...or was it?

By: nathancaswell

nathancaswell — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:58:23 -0800

what's with this torn set of fatigues with "ARTW" written inside in sharpie?

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:58:47 -0800

I should probably watch The Mist so I can properly complain about the ending I presume I'm not going to like.

By: figurant

figurant — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:59:19 -0800

I'm interested, but wary. Why don't we just wait here for a little while... see what happens...

By: 2bucksplus

2bucksplus — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 15:59:31 -0800

I wish I could tell you that MacReady fought the good fight, and the Thing let him be. I wish I could tell you that - but the universe is no fairy-tale world.

By: Kevin Street

Kevin Street — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:00:43 -0800

...or was it? If you're wearing a different coat, I'm outta here.

By: MattWPBS

MattWPBS — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:01:48 -0800

Quick, someone tie Artw to a couch and get a flamethrower.

By: Panjandrum

Panjandrum — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:02:18 -0800

I thought that too, Tomorrowful, and was all excited about The ShawThing: Red's Mist until reading comprehension kicked in. Still... TIM ROBBINS: I understand you're a man who knows how to get things. MORGAN FREEMAN: I'm known to locate certain things from time to time. KURT RUSSELL: Then locate where that Thing went! Because it's time to get busy living or get busy dying!

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:04:58 -0800

Quick, someone tie Artw to a couch and get a flamethrower. Please keep the MeFi slash fiction on your own site.

By: Kirth Gerson

Kirth Gerson — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:05:53 -0800

No love for James Arness, huh?

By: Mblue

Mblue — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:07:20 -0800

The original will always be the best, so many have tried to copy, and failed.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:08:30 -0800

I should probably watch The Mist so I can properly complain about the ending I presume I'm not going to like. Just re-read the short story and then imagine what could be the worse thing that could happen next. No worse than that. Much worse. Worse and stupid.

By: eyeballkid

eyeballkid — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:10:47 -0800

You've gotta be fucking kidding.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:13:41 -0800

Well, I have been spoilers on this and my spoiler is... SPOILER ...he offs his wife and kids because the world is fucked, but, ha ha, the world isn't fucked at all! Soldiers turn up and everything's okay! He offed his wife and kids for nothing and everything else will be fine apart from that, isn't that witty and clever? /END SPOILERS It just sounds a bit crap too me - it's cruel while at the same time lessening the story. But, that said, I've never actually seen it to confirm that.

By: Mblue

Mblue — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:16:41 -0800

The most copied. Alien.

By: zarq

zarq — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 16:57:13 -0800

the man of twists and turns: "John Carpernter's THE THING: THE MUSICAL.'The Things', a story from the other viewpoint, by Peter Watts." what Tomorrowful: " I thought that Sci-Fi was making a crossover between The Thing and The Shawshank Redemption." In your defense, it sounds very much like something they would attempt.

By: mrbill

mrbill — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:07:59 -0800

Nothing will ever beat the "transmitted dream sequence" in Carpenter's _Prince of Darkness_. It *still* wigs me out a little bit.

By: We had a deal, Kyle

We had a deal, Kyle — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:10:38 -0800

THE MIST SPOILERS CONTINUE It just sounds a bit crap too me - it's cruel while at the same time lessening the story. I'm ambivalent about it. It changes the story by collapsing the scope of the ending down from bleak-outlook-for-society to grim-conclusion-for-protagonist. But "people under pressure do grim things to each other" is really the theme of the whole story -- and maybe even more so the movie. The mist is an external McGuffin that keeps them bottled up in the market; the real horrors are how they respond to that stress. Plus it's an undercutting of your expectations of how Hollywood movies are supposed to end. The family you've been rooting for the entire movie escape to freed--WHOA WHAT THE FUCK? it's shockingly audacious. Alternatively: it's a cheap and nasty twist ending that irredeemably sours a decent-enough monster movie. It's worth a go though; until that derail it's a fairly faithful and fairly successful telling of the King story. And it's kinda nice to see one of his more tentacley ones done.

By: byanyothername

byanyothername — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:16:19 -0800

I love The Things. I love Peter Watts. I have never seen the film, and while I'm sure it's great at what it does, it's not really something I see often in my alley. I don't really see a lot in alleys, generally, though. I really oughtta move.

By: Mister Moofoo

Mister Moofoo — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:25:35 -0800

According to Darabont, Stephen King told him that he liked it better than his own (or something to that effect). On the other hand, King is famous for shit endings.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:28:28 -0800

The Thing (2011) almost had it's own Space Jockey (sorta).

By: Mblue

Mblue — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 17:32:25 -0800

King is famous for shit Once.

By: vhsiv

vhsiv — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:04:29 -0800

So it's been 9 mos. since The Thing (2011) was released and we've all been served heaping piles of Thing and Alien prequels. Has Hollywood learned it's lesson or are we all going to have to endure more recycled crap? Are they counting on old fanboys showing up to see how someone fucked-up a good idea, or are they just hoping to be sustained by the bored mallrats? A Prometheus sequel is just about guaranteed at this point. Are we going to have to go another decade with reboots and prequels before someone comes up with a new science-fiction idea? Anyone want to make book on remakes of Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions? Anyone?

By: the man of twists and turns

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 18:07:35 -0800

Two different posts, zarq. Both are fascinating!

By: Renoroc

Renoroc — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 19:30:33 -0800

Yeah, the world missed out on Thing vs. Sharktopus! Boo hoo hoo...

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:17:36 -0800

vhsiv: "So it's been 9 mos. since The Thing (2011) was released and we've all been served heaping piles of Thing and Alien prequels. Has Hollywood learned it's lesson or are we all going to have to endure more recycled crap? Are they counting on old fanboys showing up to see how someone fucked-up a good idea, or are they just hoping to be sustained by the bored mallrats? A Prometheus sequel is just about guaranteed at this point. Are we going to have to go another decade with reboots and prequels before someone comes up with a new science-fiction idea? Anyone want to make book on remakes of Matrix Reloaded and Matrix Revolutions? Anyone?" What are those? Only movies they made about those were The Matrix and The Animatrix. So, what are the odds we could get Matt to give us a pony that could filter out these damn alternate dimension dwellers? This is SO stale.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:28:12 -0800

So... Any thoughts on the Darrabont script? I'm not entirely convinced by it - once the thing reaches the mainland it's basically game over unless a nuke can be scrambled in time - too many vectors for escape. Given that the thing stays put and concerns itself with humans rather than transforming an ever increasing circle of landscape, plant life included, into The Things then I guess the Andromeda strain meets Body Snatchers like plot they have is fun enough, but it doesn't really say what the resolution to that would be, so it's pretty hard to judge.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:35:12 -0800

...and by Darabont I mean Johnson, of course.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:45:38 -0800

BTW, The Thing features, IMLTHO, the coolest bad ass line EVER (and I especially love it's blatant plausibility)... "Well. Fuck. You. Too...."

By: the man of twists and turns

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:48:13 -0800

In the movie THE THING, it didn't show any interest in food, so I think we can cross off mere biomass from the list of targets. Plants are a trickier subject - in the linked treatment, it implies animals (and large ones, at that. Imagine it if got a dragonfly, or Monarch butterfly, and travelled, oh, a thousand miles in fifteen directions...) and humans only. I'd guess that they decide to nuke the town. Lots of links to the script - all hosted on Megaupload.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 20:55:25 -0800

If anyone could find a copy of the script NOT on MegaUpload, let me know. I can prolly come up with some way to host it for fellow MeFis. Yes, I will take the risks on it.

By: Artw

Artw — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 21:42:29 -0800

Alegedly some concept art - pretty standard stuff.

By: the man of twists and turns

the man of twists and turns — Mon, 09 Jul 2012 22:07:30 -0800

From what I can glean, the ending is that the things attempt to build a few score or so of the flying saucers, and crew each one with an iconic spider-legged head. Weird.

By: Mezentian

Mezentian — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 00:36:57 -0800

I loved the The Mist. You people are crazy. And who doesn't love Dead Can Dance? But a Sci-Fi Channel sequel? Man, that thing would have sucked harder than The Black Hole. ScFi (or SyFy) does not really give good SF. For every Battlestar Galactica or Stargate Universe, there are a dozen Tin Mans or Flash Gordons or fifth series of Farscape. But would have hate-watched it, probably. Or the same reason I will see Batman 3 or Spiderman 4. And, while The Thing prequel was ... barely okay, can I add my choice to the need for a sequel to The Thing with Shawshank Redemption's cast. That thing is Oscar Gold!

By: Chekhovian

Chekhovian — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 04:44:25 -0800

Spidman 4 was actually pretty great, shockingly enough. And batman 3 is getting great early reviews...so fingers crossed...

By: Dormant Gorilla

Dormant Gorilla — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 09:57:33 -0800

...Wait, there was a fifth season of Farscape?

By: mule98J

mule98J — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 12:09:43 -0800

That's just great...yet another travesty of Campbell's truly disturbing tale--reducing insightful themes of paranoia and racism to yet another slash and bash film that's infested with over the top, computer generated whack. I sort of liked James Arness, though.

By: Hogshead

Hogshead — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 15:14:35 -0800

Gaah, all these articles describing the ending of Carpenter's original as 'ambiguous'. It's not, it's completely clear once you know what to look for. Breath vapour. (Yes, a spoiler--for a thirty-year-old movie that you've probably watched more than once. I look forward to your bitching.)

By: Mezentian

Mezentian — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 17:22:00 -0800

...Wait, there was a fifth season of Farscape? Ever so briefly it existed as a thing that was happening. But then they axed it before filming could start. On the plus side we got Peacekeeper Wars, which was nice of SyFy. On the negative we had S5 torn from us before it was born and replaced with Eureka or Ghost Hunters.

By: vhsiv

vhsiv — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 16:39:23 -0800

(IMHO Peacekeeper Wars sort of sucked. Season 4 kicked to boots off, but PK Wars tried and failed to tie off 4 seasons of loose ends in 3 hours. IMHO, it just didn't work.) (Everybody but Stargate SG-1 lost on that one.) Just keep spending all your development money over at MGM, Bonnie! Those guys actually know less about science-fiction than you do! One day, Viacom will get off of their asses and create a proper genre network, sans the Sharktopi, and steal your advertisers. Fie!