Alien (1979) VS. The Thing (1982) SPOILERS

Alien was 'inspired by' It: The Terror Beyond Space'. Just a bigger budget and superior SFX. And, of course, Sigourney.

I mean, in the most general sense, sure. Monster on space ship. The tones are different, production quality, talent on board, etc. One inspires dread, the other is 50s cheese. Idk, I don't think Alien loses any credit whatsoever given the drastically different levels of competency.

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Of course it doesn't lose any credit. It's an incredible movie.

But when they made it, they knew that they were working off the premise of 'It! TTBS".

I think so.

That's exactly right. It could have multiple points of view because it could be any living thing on screen at any one time.

I've got to say that I haven't seen The Thing in quite a while and this thread's made me want to see it again. I did watch the prequel again a few months ago. It's certainly not as fresh in my memory as Alien, but I've probably seen that many more times.

Ellen Ripley is way more than just a "final girl" though. She is one the horror genres first and few genuinely strong female characters, possessing intelligence, independence, bravery and more than one form of strength. She is not a damsel in distress, nor is she just there to be eye candy. She is portrayed as a strong, survival-oriented human being, equal to any male hero in any other movie. She takes charge, demands to be respected and heard, and often realizes before everyone else how dangerous the situations are, and often ends up having to be the one who takes care of things.

Final girls don't necessarily need any skills. Sure, they often end up killing the monster/murderer, and are often the sole survivor. But other than that, they can often come across as almost helpless in the beginning of the movie, they can often be damsels in distress who just happen to end up saving themselves, their level of intelligence can vary from movie to movie, and they are often eye candy who just scream and run around in fear throughout the movie until they happen to be the sole survivor at the end. Sometimes they even hide behind the protection of a brave male character (boyfriend, best friend, whatever), until he also dies, and then they have no choice but to kill or be killed. And to kill or be killed is something human beings from all walks of life can accomplish when they're desperate enough - it takes very little skill overall.

Just rewatched them both less than a month ago, and while I love them both, The Thing just didn't age as well.

Alien seems timeless. even the clunky obsolete tech on the ship still seems to fit with that world.

"When you're pushed, killing's as easy as breathing"

I was reading that thinking: what if Lambert had been the survivor? Ironically Veronica Cartwright thought she'd been cast as Ripley right up until shooting. Weaver's excellent in Alien but I've always rated Cartwright as well. It's a perfect cast, and it makes me sad that John Hurt's gone; a melancholy thought being that he's the first of the actors to die in real life as well as in the film. I was surprised to see that Harry Dean Stanton's 90 — good lad .

The other thing that came to mind is that we've just had Women's Day and there have been reports of an F-Rating for films to highlight the involvement of women in a production. The Bechdel test was mentioned and a cut scene from Alien occurred to me, where Ripley asks Lambert how intimate she's been with Ash — I think that's their only one-to-one conversation, so on that basis Alien would likely fail the Bechdel test.

I reconciled the hi-tech Prometheus environment with Alien by thinking about it as the product of immense wealth. I suppose it would make sense for a workhorse like the Nostromo to be used until it was literally falling to pieces, no matter how clunky the tech and as long as it worked. It's a bit like when you used to see tape spools in series like Doctor Who, as if that was the height of progress in the future .

I just write it off as for their line of work it makes more sense to use very basic, easy to repair stuff as opposed to more state of the art stuff like they showed in Aliens. even in todays high tech touch screen world there's still plenty of factories that use old analog on/off buttons because they're sturdier and more reliable. more fitting for their environment.

the same with a deep space crew that might not have the ability to repair a more sophisticated system. like they say, the more you muck up the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

I really like both Alien and The Thing. They are somewhat different though [and not talking about the scenario]. Alien is far more darker and claustrophobic, though The Thing's set is pretty much an Iceberg with no way to go.

The Thing also dwells more on the "I can't trust anyone" while Alien deals more directly with a given enemy that is lurking.

Both are great.

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The thing, the story is way more interesting. The short story it was based on was great too. I like alien too but the whole not knowing who is who and being trapped in Antarctica is way creepier to me.

It is a fantastic, paranoia-laden idea. And a similar idea in that the Thing and the Alien are like an infection. The Thing could just as easily be a biological weapon, just as the Alien is supposed to be.

Part of me does wonder if you could actually do a plot about humans trying to weaponise the Thing for their own gain (especially considering the theory that it was originally a biological weapon created by aliens that happened to break free of its containment and cause the UFO to crash in the first place). Of course, the issue would be is that it is even more of a liability than the Xenomorphs for so many reasons - that and the resulting stories would probably just play out like clones of the Alien sequels anyway.

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Spoilers for Prometheus:

Yeah I wish there were more like it. There seems to be a shortage of horror sci-fi.

When these discussions come up, I always think back to Doctor Who by default, having been a fan for so many years. It has a plethora of base-under-siege stories, one of which, The Seeds of Doom, was directly influenced by The Thing from Another World. A few years ago I was very impressed by The Waters of Mars, particularly for its outstanding production design, and it used a clever spin on zombies called the Flood, a sentient virus that infects people through water.

A couple of months ago I was also very entertained by the film The Last Days on Mars. Well worth a look.

https://m.ranker.com/list/alien-fan-...n-fan-theories
Apparently, the thing is in the same universe of Alien, created by the engineers aswell, one took command of one of the ships and it crash landed in antarctica

One thing I keep hearing people say about Alien online, and including one of my friends, is that they don't like how you see Ripley in her underwear, and they thought it was exploitative to do that, like they just couldn't have the movie without that one little eye candy.

However, it seems that she had to change clothes to get into the astronaut gear, so doesn't her being in her undewear for a few seconds, naturally play into the story, since she had to change clothes?

WTF

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did this mf really get bumped over a fan theory