MovieChat Forums > The Thing (1982) Discussion > Being a bit critical, the alien shows no...

Being a bit critical, the alien shows no intelligence

posted 4 months ago by Fillums21 (191)
11 replies | jump to latest

I've watched this movie and the prequel a few times. I watched both last night again.

But putting my critical hat on, it seems to me this alien being is very stupid for a 'thing' that has crossed the galaxies to get to Earth.

For example, when it breaks into bits and those bits are like 'baby' aliens that make sort of baby noises. A species like that has no point.

All I see is a squid crossed with an octopuss, that shows zero intelligence and has all the survival skills of a squid or octopuss.

If this movie is remade AGAIN, I'd like the see the alien depart from the squid octopuss and into a life form that shows intelligence and has a structure fit for something that would have came to Earth in a spaceship.

[–] BKB (6126) 4 months ago

It showed enough intelligence to go from one person to the next while infecting them and attempting to accomplish it's goal

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

Maybe the alien's intelligence is dependent of a shape it takes.

[–] MEWsHusband (53) 4 months ago

I thought of it as less of an alien entity and more of a virus, it doesn't need a brain, it just needs to spread.

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

Yeah, but did the same species build the spacecraft it used to arrive on the Earth or did it just infect more intelligent species and used their spacecraft.

[–] MEWsHusband (53) 4 months ago

As far as I know it's a parasite that was on the ship and not the aliens that were flying it themselves.

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

Altough, it did try to build some kind of vehicle as a Blair-thing, so I believe it had some non-terrestrial intelligence.

[–] MEWsHusband (53) 4 months ago

We do know that it can replicate a person to act just like the real version would have, so maybe there is a form of knowledge absorption from the entities it copies.

[–] pjl69 (2435) 4 months ago

Yeah, that's a good point.

[–] Syb (18) 4 months ago

From what I understand, the "virus" spreads to whatever lifeform it can find, prioritising finding the most intelligent lifeform or in a pinch, whatever lifeform will prolong its survival e.g. the wolf at the start, to find new hosts. Once the virus spreads to an intelligent lifeform, it seems to gain its level of intelligence e.g. the doctor sabotaging and salvaging equipment to build a new spacecraft. It also seems to retain the intelligence it's assumed, similar to the Borg (ref the doctor again, building a spacecraft he wouldn't have had the knowledge to build), which then makes it irrelevant whether the same species built the spacecraft. Seems to be more of a scavenger species, retaining what it's learnt, similar to "School Reunion" in Doctor Who.

[–] MEWsHusband (53) 4 months ago

Yeah that's pretty much exactly what I was thinking. Rather than it being a scavenger species, I see it more as a tick that sucks the life out of a person as well as it's intelligence and mode of survival.

[–] untitled6 (278) 4 months ago

It's not alien, it's a virus that spread in an Alien craft. And that craft crashed into earth.