The Thing - Upcoming TV remake?

Here is the news:

The Thing: Well funnily enough this news ain't a joke it seems. The Sci-Fi Channel has been going mini-series crazy recently after both the "Dune" efforts and Spielberg's "Taken". Now they've greenlit two more, the first being "Six Days 'Til Sunday" about a man trying to stop his own death which he's forseen happening in six days. Its the other one though that has got people's tounges wagging. John Carpenter's 1982 flick "The Thing", arguably the filmmakers most memorable work, is getting a four hour remake for the cable channel. The film, which itself was a remake of a 1951 horror flick, had a group of scientists in the Antarctic discovering that a shape-shifting alien creature has arrived in their camp and is killing them off by posing as a member of the expedition. The film was filled with many very gory makeup effects which'll no doubt be updated with not as dark and more CG reliant style techniques. Thanks to 'Clint' & 'Ryan'.


Hmm, I love the original. Its got great atmosphere, fx and style. Kurt Russel is excellent as McReady, so I doubt that the remake will be as good as Carpenter's film.

The Thing is one of my favorite movies of all time. This new version will SUCK completely, like all of the Sci-Fi channel's movies and mini-series do. They all just feel cheap and cheesy. We don't need a remake of The Thing, there's no way to improve on that masterpiece. I wouldn't mind seeing Carpenter get back together with the same screenwriter and try a sequel, perhaps. Maybe one of the Things actually managed to get away and the movie could be set seveal months later as the Things are slowly taking over the Earth. That would be cool.

I would watch the Pilot. But I won't expect something great, the 1982 Film is one of my favorite horror films. They shouldn't do a televison on it. A sequel would be okay, the plot should be something like video game or a prequel thats shows why the Alien crashed landed on earth.

I heard about this a long while ago, never thought it would get off the ground. But from what I remember, this mini-series will actualy be more based on the original short story (Who Goes There) that gave birth to the 1951 film and Carpenter's remake.

So it's a prequel series?

No, not a prequel. John Carpenter's '82 film was influenced by John Campbell's story "Who Goes There?", which was written in the 30s, I think. Along with the 50s film too, as REG said.

The remake would have to concentrate on the original story. If so, it would be really stupid for the remake to be titled "The Thing." There's no way it can compete with the '82 classic.

Any of you guys who haven't read the original story ought to track it down. It's pretty different from Carpenter's remake, and will help you to appreciate Carpenter's version (much like Cronenberg's take on "The Fly").

This Sci-Fi effort has the potential to be good, but like the usual in-house stuff that airs on that network, it will probably be arse. With really bad CGI.

Damn, now I wanna go play the game again! :D

The original movie is pretty good, too.

Totally unnecessary money being spent on a TV remake.

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Originally posted by Dolemite
The Thing is one of my favorite movies of all time. This new version will SUCK completely, like all of the Sci-Fi channel's movies and mini-series do. They all just feel cheap and cheesy. We don't need a remake of The Thing, there's no way to improve on that masterpiece. I wouldn't mind seeing Carpenter get back together with the same screenwriter and try a sequel, perhaps. Maybe one of the Things actually managed to get away and the movie could be set seveal months later as the Things are slowly taking over the Earth. That would be cool.

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Carpenter's work is a remake of a movie from the 1950s...

And Despair, considering that you like the Shining mini-series more than the movie, I would say you're the last one who should be making rash generalizations about how this mini-series will live up to the film.

Shining was less depending on special fx than The Thing. When dealing with relatively small budget, mini-series usually get, you cant expect high level of fx work, plus as it was noted, new remake will probably utilize all cgi for creatures, which I'm pretty sure wont be as awe inspiring, or scary as actual animatronics and prostethics of 82 film.

If you havent read Who Goes There, I reccomend it, since its a great short novel. Carpenter did a great job capturing some of the spirit of the book, but also added a great element of paranoia and feeling of dread, Original novel ends up on more positive note than Carpenter's version as well.