I know this subject has been beaten to death but

>>82321897
>If Childs was the thing in the end
This is an assumption that everyone has accepted as fact because retarded Internet

>tfw everybody was The Thing

>If one of us is The Thing™©®, I don't think either one of us are in any shape to do anything about it

The entire shelter is blown up, and no matter what happens, they're both going to freeze to death very shortly.

Except if one of them is The Thing, it will just hibernate for another 100,000 years instead.

>not asking the thing to morph into a woman so you can have fun before you die

It won.

It didn't have to kill him, no matter what happened Mac was going to die and the Thing would survive.

Why shatter the tension with petty violence?

>>82322121
>asking the thing to morph into a woman so you can have fun before you die

>the last thing you ever experience is feeling tentacles getting shoved up your dick hole as it's face starts to absorb your face

I think the guy who slit his own throat had the right idea

>the thing was the whiskey

>>82321897
The answer is both were things

If either was a human, and they knew that they were going to die, neither would take the chance of the other possibly being the thing, so both would have just tried to kill each other

but neither did so logic dictates they were both things

>>82322263
>>82322322

I think Keith David was actually the first one to finally spill the beans on the ending in an interview.

>Look you fucking dumbass they're both drinking straight from the same bottle at the end of the movie, so both of them are the thing

I think John Carpenter was kind of pissed that he finally spoiled 30 years of a supposedly """ambiguous""" ending

>>82322226
Well then kindly ask to be absorbed AFTER you die then. You might also want to ask for some tentacle dick action, it might feel good.

>>82322220

More than this, it needed another corpse.

If it was the only thing not burnt to shit when/if another crew arrived, there would be a small chance that they would piece something together and figure out that the odds of a sole survivor ran the risk of that thing being contaminated and should be disposed of like everything else.

Two corpses dying in supposed solidarity next to one another is a far better way of blending in and surviving to another encounter.

>>82322420
Why would the thing be in whisky?

>>82322063
Or another teams comes. See's the 2 frozen bodies. Brings them back to civilization for funeral etc etc.

>>82321897
Why would he do that?

Mac will freeze to death and the thing will just hibernate. Why even bother killing him?

>>82322794
Not the whiskey. The bottle.

Listen to MacReady's tape.

The thing can infect another person just with one cell. So he personally came up with the idea that everybody should only eat canned food, and only cook their own meals.

He definitely wouldnt be putting his lips on a bottle that somebody else just drank from. ESPECIALLY not a filthy nigger

Hey that reminds me. If it literally takes ONE CELL to infect somebody. People shed their cells all over the place all the time. Could you get infected just by touching a doorknob?

>>82322055
pretty much this

>>82322794

the thing enters the whisky after it takes a sip because individual cells

the thing is not a hive mind, they do not actually know who is who inherently, so by seeing childs drink freely from the bottle, his identity as a thing was assured, which put macready thing at ease.

>>82322845
the only correct answer

you guys obviously never played the Thing video game where Mac clearly survives

>>82322907
I would think dead skin cells would be, well, dead, unable to infect. Fresh saliva on the other hand would probably be active enough to infect through sharing a drink.

Maybe look at the transmission of STDs through secondary contact, but double the efficiency on account of it being alien super organism and you'd probably get a decent comparison.

>>82322907

I prefer to think it has to actually make its way into your system like a real infection, and that a single thing cell can't just bore it's way through your flesh because it shook your hand

File: IMG_0774.jpg (18KB, 586x251px) Image search: [Google]

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>you could be a normal person surrounded by Things

Why didn't the Thing just go infect some penguins and swim around in the ocean until literally every living thing in the water was a thing

>>82323441

the thing can't survive in the cold

>>82323550
it can by mimicking whatever animal it infects.

>>82322420
Wait I'm confused. How does that explain anything?

>>82323079
and it takes more than one to make it past your innate immune system.

Isn't it accepted now that both were the Thing?

>>82323926

it makes no chronological sense for macready to be the thing, but the entire point was that by that point in the film, it really didn't matter. the thing won

>>82323926
Not really. It wouldn't make sense for Mac to be the thing anyway. It's possible that it was Childs but I prefer to believe neither of them were infected.

>>82321897

The Thing doesn't want to just kill everyone, it was just trying to escape

Let me redpill you on this
The thing didn't exist at all
It all make sense

Do infected individuals still have consciousness? I mean, do they actually believe they are uninfected or is the thing just mimicking those emotions?

And, if an infected individual were left alone, would they just shut down like a robot and remain completely still until prey appeared?

>Mac and Child's are found frozen stiff
>Taken back the the next base and are kept in deep freeze to preserve evidence
>Samples are taken and the bodies are cremated for ease of transport
>Samples taken to lad for study
>The thing ends up in an incinerator/deep storage after study wrongly concludes viral infections prominent in both individuals
>Boring sequel until a lab tech drops a specimen

>>82324582
So then what?

They were all having a bad trip on Palmer's stash?

>>82324594
Bump, good question

>>82325381
What do you think man

>>82325702
I remember reading people's ideas about that a while ago somewhere. From the film we can guess at least that when others aren't around Things act somewhat obliquely in their own self-interest and carry out plans like with the old guy trying to recreate the spaceship. Although there's still the question of whether that's just the Thing mind acting totally or a subconscious influence on the unsuspecting infected's intelligence. They basically perfectly mimic and absorb everything about the person, but are they just emulating or actually simulating the person's consciousness? That would be fucking spooky desu

Watch invasion of the body snatchers if you haven't already

>>82325950
> simulating the person's consciousness

definitely spooky. I think this is possible because it actually copies their brain which = frontal lobe = personality

>>82326065
Indeed, but the idea of an alien consciousness that can perfectly imitate a human one and yet remains sort of transcendent above that with its own completely predatory motives is equally chilling.
Oh and also you might enjoy Philip K. Dick's short story The Impostor.

>>82322937
Except for Clark. Everybody but Clark.

>>82326065
Op here..

Which brings me to my OP. If they are able to mimic each person's personality, wouldnt they be able to express anger or vengeance?

If so I think it would have used that flamethrower to defeat the person who's been trying to kill it the whole time.

>>82323023

Yeah, and childs body is found too.

Doesn't matter, MacReady is gonna torch him regardless, which is why he laughs.

Whether Childs is himself or not, MacReady is going to burn him alive and then freeze content that their little chess match is over, rules be damned. Just like when he broke the computerized chess game at the beginning when he couldn't beat it fairly.

>>82321897
>I know this subject has been beaten to death but

Mate, it's never not a good time to discuss The Thing

>>82323815
The flask had gasoline

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If you want to count it as canon, at the end of pic related (which was written as a direct sequel to the film ), Mac would have survived and was human. Childs died from hypothermia, so even if he was the thing, it was too weak to do anything to Macready. At the end, Mac rescues Blake (character you play as) in a chopper.

they cant both be the thing because it would know if the other thing was also him

one of them was still human

>>82327162
I agree.

As intelligent as the thing is (makes a tunnel and builds a space craft in a matter of hours), I think it would know if it was in the company of one of its own.

>>82321897
Because Antarctica was actually hell

>>82324195
>the thing won
It's still frozen in Antarctica, so let's call it a draw.

>>82326730
How is this game? Worth playing? Rundown?

There's a somewhat popular short story on the internet from the Thing's perspective. I can't remember if its just fanfiction or whatever but it basically chronicles the psychology of the Thing.

>>82327621
Old, generic TPS, but it has some interesting ideas, like a fear and morale system for every friendly NPC you meet, and they can actually mistrust you and you can earn their trust by doing things like killing thing monsters in front of them, or doing the blood test, plus they can also be the thing in disguise so you can use the test on them. However, as you play the game you realize the game is cheating and many characters you meet are scripted to be a thing no matter what, they're just waiting for some story moment to trigger their transformation. Even if you give them a blood test a minute before this moment, it will say they're not infected. That plus the antiquated console control style does it no favors.

Meh, it's ok. There are worse ways to spend an evening.

>>82321897
He wasn't the Thing.
>>82322420
Carpenter said Childs wasn't the Thing, Russell said guessing who was it wasn't the point of the ending.

It's a cheap ambiguous ending, but worked for the movie.

>>82327858
I'm pretty sure it's a short story written by some sci-fi writer called The Things. If i remember right it was really well received.

>>82327621
I never played it besides the demo back in the day, but I watched a playthrough a few months ago right after watching the movie. Seemed pretty cool, since your squad mates do get infected along the way and you have to figure out who is or isn't infected. But the guy playing knew the game already so he would immediately kill the person he already knew was infected. Kinda took the suspense out of it.

>>82324594

Obviously they do otherwise the thing wouldn't have thing'd out when Macready was burning their blood.

>>82326377
I like this interpretation.
Amazing how a little laugh can generate such a range of opinions on what it means. Great acting/filmmaking.

>>82322121
It can't just morph into a woman, it absorbs the genetic material of its victims.

>>82327859
Hmm first person is more what I was hoping for, but I'll give it a YouTube check out at least . Spanks anon

What would even happen if everything in the world became a thing?

>>82327859
Not to mention it was pointless to reveal Things because they were more useful as a medic or whatever than dead.

>>82328509
Simple. The things would convert the planet into either an arc or into a space depot from which they could send more things into space to infect more species and worlds.

Reproduction is the imperative of all life. You could probably write a good short story or movie about a human colony ship coming into contact with aliens only for all the humans to actually be Things, but the humans act like they aren't aware. Make it so the humans say that they'd "found" a strange lifeform in space and act out an entire pantomime with the aliens to eventually get onto the aliens ship so they can locate the alien homeworld.

>>82327858

http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/