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Let Sleeping Aliens Lie
A View of The Thing
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Antarctica, winter (as if it isn’t always winter in Antarctica), 1982, a frozen mass of breathtaking vistas, kinda like Aspen before the Hollywood ski crowd choppered in. This icy wonderland at the bottom of the world is also the setting for the third adaptation of The Thing, a better-than-expected sci-fi thriller about a team of snowbound scientists battling a really pissed off alien that has no problem assuming the identity of its victims.
Speaking of “aliens,” Mary Elizabeth Winstead does the Sigourney Weaver thing as Kate, a pretty good looking paleontologist who leaps into the abyss at the chance to travel to Antarctica to help a Norwegian scientific team, complete with beards, bulky sweaters and names like Lars, Olav and Peder. The nosy Norsemen have apparently discovered a creature that crash-landed on Earth a millennia or so ago and their alien discovery is not at all happy about being thawed out of its ancient ice-nap.
After a simple tissue sample sets the alien loose upon the scientists in a series of gory rampages, it becomes clear that the creature can appear identical to its victims. Kate and company must not only battle the monster outside, but the paranoid demons within as they try to discern which among them is the real deal, and which is after a free human meal.
Interestingly enough, though they bear the same title, this year’s The Thing is actually a prequel to John Carpenter’s now classic 1982 version and a distant cousin to the The Thing From Another World, the 1951 Cold War-era picture about a thing from another world and by paranoid association communists in the backyard. All three pictures are based on John W. Campbell Jr.’s story “Who Goes There.” And in keeping with the theme, director Matthijs van Heijninhen Jr.’s 2011 edition can also be seen as either an ambitious Antarctic action adventure, featuring helicopters, shiny knives, guns and even flamethrowers (got Alien BBQ?), or it can be interpreted on a political level. After all, dress ‘em up, take away the misspelled signs and lawn chairs and Tea Party “activists” can easily shape shift into the appearance of normal people. In the spirit of ‘50s sci-fi historian Bill Warren, “Keep watching the skies!”and the Newsweek covers.