MovieChat Forums > The Thing (2011) Discussion > Did the Thing build the spaceship, or ju...

Did the Thing build the spaceship, or just take it over

posted 8 years ago by Todd_B
12 replies | jump to latest

I'm leaning towards the latter. I'm guessing it was similar to what happens when a cruise ship gets struck with norovirus, and soon the entire boat is infected. I'm guessing an advanced race picked up the Thing (intentionally or not) and it got loose, killing all the aliens on board. The thing is really just a multi-cellular virus after all.

I don't see how a parasitic shape shifting life form could build the stable civilization necessary to invent space travel.

More than that, why did it leave the ship and go out in the cold again?

[–] Tom_Rocks 8 years ago

I think that it tried to take over the spaceship but failed which resulted in the ship crashing to Earth.

[–] Todd_B 8 years ago

I found this in the FAQ, which makes more sense than the idea that there was a civilization of the Things out there.

In the original script of the 2011 movie, it was made much clearer that the crashed UFO was piloted by a race of aliens that collected several foreign specimens. One of them was a Thing that later broke free from its pod, and caused a massacre among the other organisms on board. This forced the pilot to crash on Earth, to stop the Thing from spreading. However, since this information did not make it to the finished movie, the Thing's ultimate motivation is left open for speculation. It is certainly possible that its ultimate goal is a combination of theories; e.g. it was taken to Earth against its will, but like any organism, it has (or has received) a built-in instinct for self-preservation and perpetuation, which goes against its capacity for reason

[–] scochs-1 8 years ago

Man, that would have been cool to see any of those ideas integrated into the movie...

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[–] Todd_B 8 years ago

Apparently in the movie when Kate enters the spaceship, that giant tetris item in the middle of the ship was originally supposed to be the dead body of an alien. But they decided that that was too confusing, so they just covered it up with CGI and all those weird tetris things.

[–] CptnBetty 8 years ago

Funny... I came to the same conclusion on my own after watching both films - not reading all the FAQs or backstory.

One thing I was slightly disappointed with the prequel was the discovery of the spaceship as it didn't match the 1982 film.

Other than that, I really enjoyed this movie.

[–] scochs-1 8 years ago

The disappointment for me, was that in the 1982 film, there's video showing the Norwegians blowing up the ice with thermite, to expose the space ship.

It this film, they have the engines of the ship turn on?

I'd heard the reason for this is because it is not plausible for thermite to blow up that much ice. But for me, and how much I like the 1st film, for continuities sake, if the Norwegians melted 100K years of ice with their Zippos, by gawd they should have done that in this film too.

Also, it really would have been entertaining to explore the ship a lot more too. Perhaps see aspects of an intergalactic zoo in the making.

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[–] snake2410 8 years ago

In my current head canon I'm thinking maybe they did try thermite, between the part where they explore the ship and where they dig out the "thing", or even when they originally rescued the guys that discovered it.

It's been a few years since I'd seen the original and my Shout blue ray doesn't arrive for another couple weeks so I can't watch the scene where they use thermite unless I dig out my old DVD so something in that could change things.

Inaccurate chronology and continuity in prequels and sequels is something that can really pull me out of a film unless I can find a way it can work.

[–] scochs-1 8 years ago

I agree with you - if I can plausibly make sense of a continuity issue, I'm more than willing forgive the film makers if I like the movie (which I did like this one.)

I tell you what though, when this movie came out, hard core '82 Thing devotees RIPPED this flick to no end because of stuff like this on this page! I mean, that was my welcome to the IMDB boards and hence why I've got this damn signature block!

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[–] snake2410 8 years ago

I'd consider the 1982 The Thing as one of my favorite movies of all time and I still enjoyed this one. I've never watched both back to back though. My Shout Factory CE of the 82 film should arrive in about a week and a half, if the 2 weeks early ship is accurate, so I snagged the 2011 blue ray to do just that.

[–] sean-van-der-smythe 8 years ago

There is no such thing as a "multi cellular virus". Viruses and cells are completely different things.

[–] Todd_B 8 years ago

It is science fiction. The Thing resembles a multi-cellular virus that infects and takes over other multi-cellular life forms.

[–] merlinmunstache 8 years ago

I like the idea of it taking over the ship from another Alien race, but it does try to escape in this one by starting up the ship (I'm guessing that was it's plan?). Also in Carpenter's original, it builds a new craft from random 'earth' machine parts. So despite it's hideous natural form, it's clearly highly intelligent, and more than capable of intersteller space travel.