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The Thing
2011 · Film · 103 min
Part of The Thing Collection
Directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.
When paleontologist Kate Lloyd travels to an isolated outpost in Antarctica for the expedition of a lifetime, she joins an international team that unearths a remarkable discovery. Their elation quickly turns to fear as they realize that their experiment has freed a mysterious being from its frozen prison. Paranoia spreads like an epidemic as a creature that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish in this spine-tingling thriller.
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1938 -- Who Goes There? is a science fiction novella by John W. Campbell Jr. In the story, scientists discover 20 Million year old space craft in Antarctica. They accidentally thaw the alien pilot who can kill and take on the personality of its victims. People are dying; no one trusts anyone, etc.
1951 -- The Thing From Another World, directed by Christian Nyby, is a sci-fi film in which scientists go to North Pole to investigate a UFO, find crashed craft and frozen alien. They take alien back to base and unintentionally let it thaw. (see above)
1982 -- The Thing a film directed by John Carpenter. Same basic story as above (but as in the original, the plot takes place in Antartica).
2011 -- The Thing a film directed by Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. Same basic story again, but it is the prequel to the 1982 version.
That's the later 2011 prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter film.
In the 1982 film, it's a dog-clone-thing that brings the chaos from the Norwegian base to the US one.
Minor nit, but I don't think they reveal that the creature in The Thing was cut out of the ice and revived until the much later 2011 prequel. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(2011_film)
Edit: Looks like I'm wrong. Apparently the ice block is in the John Carpenter film, but things aren't spelled out in great detail. I need to watch both of these again...
When I came back from watching "Arrival" I immediately looked Heisserer up, thinking "this guy did his job well, he must be behind some other interesting movies". Yeah. "Final Destination 5", "The Thing" remake.
Makes you wonder how many very talented people are stuck doing shitty things in any industry because things just didn't line up for them. At least they have for Heisserer, now. He's like the inverse of Lindelof, who turned out after all the hype to be a phony.