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

Which movie do you think is better? I just rewatched both after a while and it's tough to decide, as they both have their pros and cons.

Starting off with The Thing, I feel that John Carpenter over foreshadows and gives away too much in the first act possibly. The opening shot is off a space ship, and so you immediately know the movie is about an alien. So later, when the Antarctica crew finds the spaceshift wreckage, it doesn't come as a surprise at all, since you already saw a spaceshift fly towards Earth in the opening shot.

I admit I like Predator and didn't mind the opening spaceship shot there, but with Predator, there was no spaceship found later, if I recall, so it's not like a surprise was being ruined as much, per say.

Also in The Thing, the dog is concentrated on too much, constantly observing what is going on, and looking concerned when the helicopter flies away to check out what happened. Then the dog goes into a room with a shadowy figure that looks just like Norris, in shadow shape... then the screen fades to black. So we know that something bad happened to Norris, and it therefore, is no surprise later, when Norris turns out to be one of the Things.

When Clark takes the dob back to the cage outside and locks the dog up, we see a close up shot of the dog transform, and I felt this gave away too much, too soon as well, cause we are seeing so much from the alien's perspective and less from the humans perspective.

It would have been much more mysterious and scary, if we saw it from the human's point of view. They hear the dogs barking, go outside to see what's wrong, and then see the alien holding a dog captive.

It just would have been more exciting for us to only see what the human are prevy to seeing, from their point of view, making it more mysterious.

I also feel that Blair figured out that the Thing was an imitator, way too soon. Then the whole crew knows The Thing can imitate anyone, yet they keep splitting off in separate directions instead of sticking together. It would have been more exciting if the crew didn't know until later, and was more clueless therefore.

So I feel that Carpenter just overshadows too much. Where as in Alien, they show everything from the human's point of view the whole way, which makes it a lot more mysterious and exciting in it's build up, rather than blowing it's load early per say.

However, Alien doesn't have near as sophisticated as a plot as Alien and does turn into a basic haunted house thriller formula, that is set in space. Some argue that the haunted house/slasher formula was not a cliche at the time, but the movie did come after Halloween and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, so it does feel like that same formula, at least to me. Not that it's necessarily a bad formula, but it seems to abandon it's plot somewhat and then retreads to a formulaic repetition perhaps, if that makes sense.

Where as you could argue that The Thing, has much more of a guessing plot with more twists and turns, since you do not know who is what.

However, there may have been too many twists, with some of them being thrown in just for the sake of twists in The Thing, as a couple of them felt gimmicky, just thrown in their, cause the writers' could perhaps, where as the others were good.

What do you think?

From what you've said about The Thing, I think you've missed the entire movie.


The shadow of Norris... wasn't Norris. That shadow was played by a crew member, one of the lighting techies if I remember rightly.
A lot of people say it look like Norris, even me... but, it isn't. That shadow person, has even been admitted by Carpenter, is anyone. Any of them.
Carpenter has also said even he doesn't know himself who it was (Nauls, Norris, Macready, whoever). In his mind, it can be any of them.


Also, the focus on the dog wasn't as much as you have read into it. The dog was odd, and showed odd behaviour for 2 scenes, both of which lasted 4 seconds, but that was about as far as it went with the animal.
Also, when the dog Things-Out it was meant to be shocking, it was meant to look painful and shocking and put the audience on the backfoot and scare the viewer. It was intended to be a visceral scene that brings an element of realisation to the viewer that this alien, is not just a horrific thing... but also was able to imitate that animal so perfectly that not even the other dogs knew it was an alien until it began to change into the gruesome monster.


The rest of the film is then seen from the human point of view. It builds on the paranoia amongst the group... for instance the blood-pack scene... Childs says "Is that supposed to clear him?" when one of the guys has an idea.
Childs, is instantly blaming and pointing fingers at other members of the group as to who is an alien... the rest of the group are doing the same, but Childs' line is a perfect example of what they are all thinking.


As for Blair... he figures out what the Thing is, an imitator... but keeps his discovery to himself and writes into a journal... and instead of telling the group because he knows immediately that he cannot trust any of them, he goes on a rampage and destroys the radios, chopper and kills the rest of the dogs.
Blair knows immediately there is no way out, and he takes steps. One of those steps was of course keeping his discovery to himself.
The others in the group simply think he's gone nuts and they lock him up.


As for the spacecraft at the start... anyone who goes into The Thing, should already know it's an alien before the movie starts. The creature's origin was never a secret, even in the novel.

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It's the "bomb under the table" scenario, really - if the bomb suddenly goes off and kills the people at the table, it's a shock, but if the bomb's been revealed to the audience then there's the suspense of wondering when the bomb will go off and if it will end up affecting the people at the table in any way. That's what The Thing does - it establishes that there is an alien with the shot of the UFO but it takes another 30 minutes or so for the alien itself to reveal itself. The fact that it's obviously going to be the stray dog is a given, so now the question becomes when the dog actually reveals itself to be an alien (and encourages you to pay attention to its behaviour beforehand, such as when it approaches the mysterious character - I don't necessarily think it was any of the characters, but I always thought it was a toss-up between Norris and Palmer because both of them are revealed to be Things at various points of the story and they both have prominent, curly hair). During this first act, the film also concentrates on developing the cast and their perspectives (especially their tense relationships with one another, which plays into their actions and thoughts when the alien finally appears) and having them launch their first course of action, which is to figure out what happened to the Norwegians and their base. It's more interesting to see the characters try to figure things out as quickly as possible and launch their own plans which may help or actually backfire spectacularly (Blair destroying the radio/dogs, splitting up into pairs, the blood test, etc.) rather than just have them stumble into the alien's path and get attacked.

I do think that's the kind of stuff that gives it an edge over Alien myself, but they are both very good films.

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Oh yeah... the OP saying The Thing is, for want of a better word, transparent...




The Norwegian at the start, while aiming his gun at the dog, says: "Se til helvete og kom dere vekk. Det er ikke en bikkje, det er en slags ting! Det imiterer en bikkje, det er ikke virkelig! Kom dere vekk, idioter!"


Translated is: "Get the hell outta there. That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! Get away, you idiots!"



First scene of the film, gives away basically the entire plot... yet nobody notices because we don't speak Norwegian.

So if they showed it in Norway, would that part be dubbed into English?

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Alien vs The Thing is interesting debate because both films are fantastic, obviously I prefer The Thing.

Here are the main reasons why

1. Dogs die, cats live, if we learned anything from John Wick dead animals take a film to a different level. Not only do the dogs die but we see them in action, they are central to the plot and could even be viewed as foreshadowing to the crew.

2. Alien has just one on-screen death and zero kills. Dallas and Brett are infected, Lampert and Parker are killed off screen. Only Kane is killed on camera with the chest burster everything else is left to the imagination. The Thing on the other hand you get the deaths you still get those great off camera deaths and but you also get things like remnants of characters.

3. One film ends with a question the other ends questionably. I don't know if the science of Alien is sound, if you could just flush and alien out of your life pod and the pod wouldn't just end up destroyed thanks to the atmosphere. The Thing ends much like how it begins with a chess match between two figures.

Alien — I can answer that question instantly . I love The Thing as well. Maybe the reason for Alien's superiority is that The Thing doesn't always maintain the believable threat ("Yeah, **** you too! " – in Alien you could almost be watching a documentary it feels so realistic.

I was thinking of Predator as soon as you mentioned the spaceship. I think the difference is that Carpenter was partly referencing The Thing from Another World. Predator would have been better off dropping the spaceship, although I'm sure the trailer gave away that the creature was an alien anyway. Alien is so good because although we know what the monster is, we don't know what to expect.

Yeah, that's an interesting take on it, definitely. I would say thought that it works because we've already been told that something made the helicopter passenger want to shoot the dog. The question is how long do you preserve the mystery before you need some action – I think at that point something did need to happen and we needed to be privy to it before the station personnel.

I must say I like the way it's done in the prequel, possibly more than in this one.

I love both films and am glad I live in a world where I do not have to pick between the two for me that would be like deciding which do I like best apple or an orange it simply would depend on my mood for which one I would prefer they are both so close. I can easily tell you which one had the best sequel though lol.

Oh God yeah .

Seconded!

Not even close for me. Alien is considerably better in every aspect IMO.

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Oh yeah.

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I love John Carpenter but I have to agree, there's no comparison.

I think both films were masterpieces for different reasons.

Alien because of the pace and building tension, along with the great ensemble cast and natural acting chops.

The Thing because of some of the same reasons. Carpenter and his crew really delivered a moody horror. Even the score seems to have been overseen by Carpenter (had to have been).

I cannot choose. I have them both in their best possible home video formats and re-watch them at least once every couple/few years.

I wish they still made movies as simple, elegant and complex (simple/complex meaning that the editing doesn't try and do a drum solo, or plot devices aren't drowning the experience).

Today's thrillers are a lot different, for better or worse. I feel as if the 1980's had some peak film making going on. Then, it just stopped happening all of a sudden. I could go on forever but I don't wanna hijack the thread.

Cannot choose, personally. Both titan films.

"A titan against a titan! [cackles insanely]"

But even if we did not see the dog transform, we would still get action, cause McCready and the others would come out to see what was wrong, and stil open fire on the dogs and The Thing with the shotgun. So wouldn't that be enough action?

It feels like it still blows it loads, cause it's like the equivalent of making Jaws, where you would see the shark close up all the time, eating people close up all the time, rather than showing more mysterious points of view, to make it scarier, if that makes sense.

And to say that the shadowy figure isn't Norris is kind of a stretch cause it looks just like Norris in shadow. Either Carpenter intended it, and maybe he was just trying to say it wasn't later, to come off like he wasn't foreshadowing so much... or he actually didn't intend it to be Norris, yet the person he shot in shadow, looked so much like Norris, that it was an accidental fluke. In which case, I still think he over-foreshadowed it.

Even if it's not Norris, you still see the dog enter a room with a guy in shadow, so you know something bad happened to that person, after it fades to black. So it still overforeshadows that the dog was bad.

And to say we already know the dog is bad from the opening scene where the Norwegian guys try to kill it, well I didn't get that impression. From all I knew, those were just a couple of crazy guys possibly, since they had grenades, and one even blew up his own helicopter pilot, recklessly, with a grenade.

So I think it's safe to say that we do not know for sure that the dog is bad, but then when you have him enter a room, with a shadowy figure, then fade to black, it's giving too much away.

But just because The Thing is a remake, I don't think that means they should still show an opening shot that gives away that it's an alien movie. I mean when you watch the remakes of King Kong for example, they do not have opening shots that give away that the movie is about a giant ape, and when you watch the remake of The Fly, they do not have opening shots that give away that it's about a man-fly.

So why is it justified to give that much away, here?

Just my opinion here.

I saw Alien when it was released, and thought it was incredible.

That being said, I've rewatched all the Sigourney 'Alien' films multiple times, except for the original. I like the other three much better, my favorite being Alien: Resurrection.

The Thing is different. It is a special movie. I appreciate it in a much different way than I do the Alien series.

And how can anyone be surprised by the spaceship? As has been mentioned, the movie is a remake.

By action I meant the Thing transforming. Plus I think it was more frightening – actually harrowing – to see the dogs react and be consumed before the men were alerted.

Well Alien's a masterclass for that isn't it? Withholding explanations, making you fear your own shadow. But with The Thing I think there was already that foreknowledge, from the novel, from the first film take on the story, at least for a certain section of the audience. Alien was fresh, albeit using familiar cinematic devices to convey it.

I'm thinking back to when I first saw the film. I knew nothing about the story at all, but I don't remember watching that scene and thinking either of those men were mentally ill – more that they were terrorized, and even if the dog itself wasn't a threat, what was it carrying?

It's a version of the original story with homages to the 1951 film isn't it? Better than being a remake in that sense. I think the main thing Carpenter references from The Thing from Another World is the shot of the crashed spaceship, but yeah, you didn't have to have that shot from space as it takes away from the claustrophobia and the isolation – actually so did the equivalent shot in Predator .

Predator is worth thinking about on this subject. One of the things I really liked about it was the mythologizing of the alien as if it was a local demon, a part of the region's folklore. It could have been something supernatural that was after the soldiers, especially if we never saw the obviously technological Predator-vision. Or at least we could have been led astray into thinking that.

From Dusk till Dawn has to be one of the best examples of preserving a surprise twist. A friend of mine saw it without any spoilers at all and I would have loved that.

No? The action of the dog splitting apart is supposed to give us a hint of what's coming - by the time the others show up, it's turned into something completely different. Plus, it's the shock - we've known it was almost definitely going to be the alien, but for it to suddenly reveal its true form in such a surprising and disturbing manner is part of what makes it (and the film at large) scary.

But the monster in Jaws is just a shark, whereas The Thing and Alien are dealing with made-up creatures that have to be shown so that the audience can know what they are. Also, while the film does show the Thing's point-of-view from time to time (mainly while it's still the dog), to do it as much as they did it with the shark in Jaws would also miss the point of the creature a bit. What makes the Thing scary is that it can imitate anyone or anything - by giving it a specific viewpoint, it takes away the fear and mystery that the creature inspires. What makes the shark scary in Jaws does not automatically make The Thing scary.

That's your interpretation.

Wait a minute. First your problem is that showing the UFO at the start gives away that an alien is going to show up, then when the very next scene shows the dog being chased after by the Norwegians you don't automatically assume that it has something to do with the UFO? It's basic storytelling - by showing us the UFO straight away, we know to expect an alien at some point in the story. The very next scene shows us the dog getting chased by the men, so now we question why the men would be chasing a dog and trying to kill it. As you say, the obvious assumption is that they're crazy (which is what the American characters think as well), but we the audience have already seen the UFO. The film is trying to tell us that there is a connection between the UFO and the dog chase, even though we don't find out the specifics until later on in the film.

For all your complaints about how this movie does too much foreshadowing, it's strange that you didn't immediately comprehend what the very first piece of foreshadowing was trying to do.

Again, it's the whole "bomb under a table" scenario I outlined above. When you see a bomb under a table in a movie, you don't think "Oh, there's a bomb under the table, the film gave too much away and now I won't be surprised when it goes off", you start thinking about when it's going to go off and whether it will hurt the people at the table or if they will get away before it goes off. The Thing is not "ruining the surprise" by showing you the dog behaving weirdly, it's making you pay attention to what it does and making you wait for when it will actually "go off" at the humans. That's suspense instead of just a shock.

I've already gone into detail above, but in short - because that's what works for this film. Criticising The Thing for not doing the exact same things as Jaws or saying that other films would be worse if they did the exact same things that The Thing did is a rather limited way of looking at The Thing itself. Instead of seeing what The Thing does and immediately thinking "that's wrong", you should try thinking "why did they do that?" It's a film that rewards patience and attention on its own merits.

I think I'm one of the few who would call The Thing boring, but I can not finish that movie. Big fan of the Alien and Predator franchises both. The original Alien was so simple and brilliant in taking the haunted house concept into space. The best final girl. Brilliant creature design with immaculate blocking and editing to disguise its shortcomings as a practical effect. Some of the shots of the ship are beautiful. Really big fan.

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