MovieChat Forums > The Thing (1982) Discussion > Other ways to kill The Thing besides fir...

Other ways to kill The Thing besides fire?

posted 4 years ago by sONOMArEturns (1253)
19 replies | jump to latest

The movie only explores fire/blowing it up as a possibility, probably because that's all the characters had to work with. However, I'm sure there are other ways The Thing could be stopped, especially since even fire didn't seem to work every single time.

What about acid? Could you drown it in something? I wonder what electrocuting The Thing would do; would every cell just lose its form and turn into a giant pile of goop on the floor? That would be interesting.

[–] e3e34ifj (1341) 4 months ago

Acid or a nuke are the two best bets. Just dip it into a vat of acid and every cell would melt into nothing. A nuke would disintegrate each cell. Maybe you could throw it into lava. It just needs to be something that would kill every single cell, and there simply aren't many things disposable to the average person that could do that.

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

Nuke or lava are essentially the same as fire.

[–] Foster (876) 4 months ago

It's in the blood ---right

How many places like this would have enough acid to Drown it, or destroy all the blood??

Electrocution might work but I'm not as certain of it

FIRE destroys everything, and as shown in the movie is controllable

HAVE to wonder why an Antarctic research station would have so many flamethrowers???

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

I wondered that flamethrower issue myself some time ago. You can find some discussion about it via this link:

https://moviechat.org/tt0084787/The-Thing/61801a63cbd665694bbffa7f/Flamethrowers

[–] e3e34ifj (1341) 4 months ago

Real Antarctic bases used to have flamethrowers and thermite charges to clear ice and snow but could only be used by highly trained personnel, typically ex-military. However, unlike the movie, which uses gasoline flamethrowers, Antarctic bases use either propane throwers or LNG thowers, because gasoline in real life would freeze instantly in most Antarctic conditions. So while it's technically not fully accurate as depicted in the film, it's entirely within the realm of possibility that a real base, especially in 1982, would have flamethrowers.

However, the use of guns and firearms is completely outlawed in Antarctica, yet Outpost 31 has dozens of them. If there's one thing that's incredibly unrealistic about the film, it's that everyone has guns. They'd all get fired immediately and thrown in jail for smuggling guns to Antarctica in real life.

[–] tvfan (8415) 4 months ago

Although they didn’t have the time and resources, they could have developed a virus, bacteria, or pathogen that destroys it but not affect humans.

[–] Ace_Spade (9364) 4 months ago

Cancer?

It regenerates cells so quickly that, if you found something carcinogenic to the Thing, you might basically make it turn itself into a mass of tumors within hours.

[–] BKB (6196) 4 months ago

Freezing it seems to be the sure fire method provided it stays frozen solid and doesn't thaw out ever