Oh my god The Thing

But... but... maybe there's really -bad- whiskey in the bottle at the end! Boom!

I... never picked up on that, sadly.

Clearly John Carpenter has been replaced by the Thing! See Ghosts of Mars for proof.

(I was wrong.)

Yeah, the thing can perfectly imitate its host. It can tell the difference.

Is anyone else blown away that John Carpenter went to Giant Bomb? That has to be some sort of milestone!

Quickly, we must inform everyone!

Call me crazy, but I remember as a kid watching a TV versions and the ending had a narrator saying that people arrived and not finding any survivors. Dark Horse comics did a great series of The Thing which takes place right after the movie.

One of the most distinctive pieces regarding if Childs was infected was because of his coat for most of the film and at the final scene.

I don't think the bottle was filled with gas or anything like it. It's whiskey like when MacReady was playing Chess against the computer. Both the introduction scene and the finale mirror each other. Chess is a very dynamic game with surprises much like how Mac was struggling to discover which fellow crewmen (pawns) were assimilated (taken out). It ends in a full circle with Mac doing exactly the same thing towards a different enemy.

Despite Carpenter disproving the theory, this thread has completely absolved the internet of any wrongdoings up to this point!

Bah, I prefer the gasoline/whiskey bottle ending theory no matter what Carpenter says. If I was him I would have went with it and looked like a super genius of film. Seriously..wtf happened to that guy?

Also, Childs rocks up with a flame-thrower and Macreadys already looking on his last legs. If Childs is the Thing he has all the cards at that stage.

@Frumpa said:

Also, Childs rocks up with a flame-thrower and Macreadys already looking on his last legs. If Childs is the Thing he has all the cards at that stage.

Yeah, that's always been the deal as I saw it. There's no reason for Childs to even hesitate to finish off Mac. Mac even says it.

Man, that was a rockin' theory though. Re-watching the clip, I can definitely see where the theorist was coming from.

I hate to dump on the parade as it's a REALLY mind blowing cool take on the ending... But The Thing would know whiskey from petrol. It has all of Kieth Davids experiences and memories, as well as all of the other mens in its genes. It could FLAWLESSLY imitate human speech, behavior patterns not just of humanity but specific to the person. There's no way in hell it would make that huge glaring mistake. I saw a very convincing youtube video arguing for David as the Thing, and I'll post it if I can find it. I'm sure it's made an appearance already. Any way one key thing that I know you guys brought up is that David is in a completely different coat for that last scene.

http://theoriginalfan.blogspot.com/

Here's an AMAZING The Thing blog for any body that's interested. Well worth a gander.

I never watched the Thing, the Norwegians at the start of the movie kinda ruins it for me since they say that it is the dog... Or something like that, I can't remember honestly.

Well at least this led me to see who JC follows on Twitter so I now know this:

Also, Childs rocks up with a flame-thrower and Macreadys already looking on his last legs. If Childs is the Thing he has all the cards at that stage.

Fuck. This makes the movie awesome-er.

@patrickklepek said:

Holy shiiiiiiiiit.

My sentiments exactly!

Gentleman, you have arrived.

That solves that.

FUUUCK!

what nice thread to find just relaxing after a twelve hour shift.

if anything. childs is most definately "the winner" of the situation.

Wait, so the key to getting a shout-out from the staff is to blow their mind about the plot of a well-loved piece of media? Well, let me tell you a few things about Ocarina of Time...

@TooWalrus:

You do realize that you're, like, the twelfth person to ask me about this, right?......I'll get started on the banner.

@Video_Game_King

Wait, so the key to getting a shout-out from the staff is to blow their mind about the plot of a well-loved piece of media? Well, let me tell you a few things about Ocarina of Time...

I'm way more interested in this- want a shout-out from me?

@TooWalrus:

No, it's got a lot more to do with Link's motivation to get the Master Sword, or the utter lack thereof.

@TooWalrus:

You do realize that you're, like, the twelfth person to ask me about this, right?......I'll get started on the banner.

@TooWalrus:

Probably. (I've never played Shadow of the Colossus. Or ICO. Or...ICO, again, because I don't think they made a third game for me to use as an example.)

@patrickklepek: That is cold water on fire if I've ever seen it. Damn!

The truth is out there.

@JJRage said:

This just changed my life forever.

Im not sure if i can sleep tonight.

I think Carpenter's memory is suspect based on the most recent photo taken of him:

GAME ON.

What? I didn't want to know that! I liked the way I saw the ending before: bleak and ambigious.

@Castiel: It's Whiskey according to the director. Good enough for me Cas.

I love Vinny, but he is all wet about The Thing. That movie is a classic. Scary, suspenseful, well written, well acted, well paced. Yeah, it has some early 80s practical effects business but everything else was amazing about it. Besides, even though some of the monsters are janky as hell, the stuff they do is creepy. The chest opening up, scary! The tentacles coming out of the dog, scary! The head scurrying away still gives me chills and the blood testing scene is a classic. Carpenter's magnum opus in my opinion, though I understand why some might say it's Halloween and Escape from NY also has a place in my heart.
 
I haven't watched the 2011 The Thing yet but I have not heard good things about it, so am not really interested.

That is one awesome theory, but personally I still feel the ambiguous nature of the ending to be the greatest and leaves the answer for the viewer to decide, like Inception.

@KevinK: Watch the prequel. It's okay to good, and if you can't get enough Thing content it could be a lot worse.

So I just finished watching it, this thread gave my reason enough to rewatch it(at least I thought i've seen it before, but after watching it now, I realized i've always caught it near the end). So as far I saw at the end, the bottle they were drinking from was a bottle of scotch that Macready was drinking all through the film. How do I know it was that bottle, well if you look very closely as Childs takes a sip off the bottle you can see the label. Also Macready never used those bottles as molotovs, he was using dynamite, so don't know were that dude with the theory got molotovs from. 
 
That's just my two cents.

I watched The Thing for the first time about a week ago (I'm 34. I've already handed in my Nerd Card), and nothing like this occurred to me at all. I feel embarrassed that I don't come up with this kind of goddamned amazing idea, and proud-by-association that I am a geek (on probation - I'm earning that card back) like the people that do.

I mean, the Thing game was written by Carpenter and so it should be canon, and that throws this entire theory out anyway, so...yeah

Fuckin Keith David id in The Thing!? Why haven't I seen this movie?

I just bought this print, so this thread is highly relevant for me at the moment. I'd love to know if it's meant to be ambiguous if one of them is the thing, since he is so straight forward in saying it's whiskey...