The Thing 2011 Posters
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The Thing - 2011 Film Info

From the producers of Dawn of the Dead comes the chilling prelude to John Carpenter's cult classic film.

When paleontologist Kate Lloyd travels to an isolated outpost in Antarctica for the expedition of a lifetime, she joins an international team that unearths a remarkable discovery.

Their elation quickly turns to fear as they realize that their experiment has freed a mysterious being from its frozen prison.

Paranoia spreads like an epidemic as a creature that can mimic anything it touches will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish in this spine-tingling thriller.

After creating the Dawn of the Dead remake, producers Marc Abraham and Eric Newman began to look through the Universal Studios library to find new properties to work on.

Upon finding John Carpenter's 1982 film The Thing, the two convinced Universal to create a prequel instead of a remake, as they felt that remaking Carpenter's film would be like "paint(ing) a moustache on the Mona Lisa".

Eric Newman explained; "I'd be the first to say no one should ever try to do Jaws again and I certainly wouldn't want to see anyone remake The Exorcist... And we really felt the same way about The Thing.

It's a great film. But once we realized there was a new story to tell, with the same characters and the same world, but from a very different point of view, we took it as a challenge.

It's the story about the guys who are just ghosts in Carpenter's movie - they're already dead. But having Universal give us a chance to tell their story was irresistible."

In early 2009, Variety reported the launch of a project to film a prequel—possibly following MacReady's brother during the events leading up to the opening moments of the 1982 film—with Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. as director and Ronald D. Moore as writer.

Matthijs van Heijningen, Jr. became involved in the project when his first planned feature film, a sequel to the Dawn of the Dead remake, was cancelled by the studio three months before production began.

The abandoned project was supposed to be a zombie film taking place in Las Vegas, written and produced by Zack Snyder, who directed the Dawn of the Dead remake, and co-produced by Abraham and Newman, called Army of the Dead.

Needing to start all over again, he asked his agent to see if there was a The Thing project in development, since Alien and The Thing are his favorite films.

As a fan of Carpenter's film, he was interested in the project because, being European himself, he had always wondered what happened at the Norwegian camp.

In March 2009, Moore described his script as a "companion piece" to Carpenter's film and "not a remake." "We're telling the story of the Norwegian camp that found the Thing before the Kurt Russell group did", he said.

Eric Heisserer was later hired to do a complete rewrite of Moore's script. Heisserer explained that in writing the script, it was necessary for him to research all the information that was revealed about the Norwegian camp from the first film.

Eric researched down to the smallest details, so that it could be incorporated into the prequel in order to create a consistent backstory.

The decision was made to name the film the same title as the first film, because the producers felt adding a "colon title" such as Exorcist II: The Heretic had felt less reverential.

The Thing 2011: ADI Practical Effects

The practical effects we would have seen in the final film presentation if they hadn't replaced it with bad CG.

The Thing - 2011 Plot Summary

In 1982, an alien craft is discovered beneath the Antarctic ice by a Norwegian research team: Edvard, Jonas, Olav, Karl, Juliette, Lars, Henrik, Colin, and Peder. Paleontologist Kate Lloyd is recruited by Dr. Sander Halvorson and his assistant Adam Finch to investigate the discovery. They travel to the Norwegian base in a helicopter manned by Carter, Derek, and Griggs.

They trek through an ice cavern type passageway where they meet up with Edvard and his staff, who take them to the alien craft. After viewing the spacecraft, Kate, Sander and Adam are told the group also discovered an alien body from the crash buried in the ice. A patch of frozen ground is marked by flags where they can see a vague alien shape buried in the ice.

They determine they could dig it out in a half day. The crew go back to the base to make plans. Adam questions why the alien would leave the safety of it's ship. Henrik speculates it may have been looking for warm refuge. The body is brought to the base in a block of ice. Sander wants a tissue sample of the alien, Kate questions Sander on taking such a risk.

Sander dismisses her protest and Karl drills a hole in the ice block, collecting a small sample of the alien's flesh. That evening, while the team celebrates their find, Derek sees the alien burst from the ice and escape the building. The team searches for the creature and discovers that it killed Lars' dog. Olav and Henrik find the alien under a shed which then grabs Henrik with an extended tenacle.

Olav starts screaming, calling attention of the others who arrive. While the creature is attacking Henrik savagely, Carter and Peder begin firing at it with their hand guns. They hurl canisters of gasoline under the shed and ignite it with a flare. The shed is engulfed with flames while they hear the creature shrieking in agony, killing both the alien and Henrik.

Carter informs the others they are going to take Olav, who is in bad shape, to a military hospital. Sander questions Carter what he plans to tell them, which Carter says he will tell them the truth. Sander tells Edvard in Norwiegan they are running out of time. Edvard orders Jonas and Peder to bring in the Thing corpse, Sander begins an autopsy.

He uses a cutting device to split open the underside of the alien. They see a human form encased in an embiotic sac. The alien corpse reveals that its cells are still alive and are consuming and imitating Henrik's own. Derek, Carter, Griggs and Olav take the helicopter to seek help. Kate discovers bloody dental fillings near a blood-soaked shower.

She runs outside to flag down the helicopter after it takes off. When it attempts to land, Griggs transforms into the Thing and attacks Olav, causing the helicopter to crash in the mountains. When Kate returns to the shower, she finds the blood is gone. The team agrees to evacuate, but Kate confronts them with her theory that the Thing can imitate them and has likely already done so.

They dismiss her claims, but Juliette says she saw Colin leaving the showers. Juliette and Kate look for the vehicle keys to prevent the others from leaving, when suddenly Juliette transforms and attacks Kate. As Kate flees, she runs past Karl who is consumed by the creature instead. Lars arrives with a flamethrower and burns the Juliette-Thing.

Carter and Derek return to the base, but the team refuses to believe that they could have survived the crash. Kate has Carter and Derek isolated until a test can be prepared to verify they are human. Adam and Sander work on a test, but the lab is sabotaged. Kate proposes another test based on her belief that the Thing cannot imitate inorganic material.

She inspects everyone and singles out those without metal fillings: Sander, Edvard, Adam, and Colin. Lars and Jonas go to retrieve Carter and Derek for testing, and discover they have broken out of isolation. As Lars searches near a building, he is suddenly pulled inside. The group hears Carter and Derek breaking into the building and rushes to intercept them.

Edvard orders Peder to burn them. Peder takes aim, but Derek now has a gun and shoots several times, killing Peder and rupturing the flamethrower's fuel tank which ignites. The explosion knocks Edvard unconscious. Carter orders everyone to the rec room, Jonas and Colin gather Edvard carrying him over their shoulders. Kate warns Carter not all of them are human.

Suddenly Edvard's arm separates from his body and transforms into a Thing and attacks Jonas. Edvard/Thing while on the floor swings a lethal tenacle at others, it punches a bloody hole into Adam's stomach. Carter is trying to incinerate it, but his flamethrower craps out on him. Derek is also attacked by the Thing, impaling him with it's tenacle.

The Edvard/Thing crawls over to Adam to assimilate him. Kate manages to fix the flamethrower and shoots a flame stream at the Edvard/Thing, but it escapes the room. Carter tends to Derek, but he dies from his mortal wound. Kate torches Jonas and Derek before she and Carter pursue the Thing. Sander, who fleed from the rec room to hide, is attacked by the Edvard/Thing and is also infected.

Colin is hiding elsewhere, hearing the sounds of the Thing nearby. After they separate, the Thing - which Edvard and Adam are fused, corners Carter in the kitchen, who is tucked in a corner wielding a large kitchen knife. The Thing turns, see Carter and charges him. Kate burns it before it can attack. The Thing bursts through the wall of the building heading outside.

Kate continues her onslaught of flames until it dies. Then they hear the sound of a snowcat starting up. Kate and Carter see Sander drive off into the blizzard and pursue him in the remaining snowcat. Kate asks Carter what happened to Lars. Carter replies they didn't kill him. They arrive at the now-active spaceship. Kate falls into the ship and is separated from Carter.

She hears the engines of the alien craft starting up. Meanwhile, Carter is wandering the corridors of the ship calling out for Kate. Kate enters a chamber with a column of light prisms, not seeing that the Sander/Thing is right behind her. Confronted by the creature, Kate destroys it with an explosive grenade and the damage deactivates the ship.

As Kate and Carter return to their vehicle, Kate accuses Carter of being a Thing because he is missing his earring. When she confronts him, Carter points to the wrong ear. Kate ignites the snowcat's cockpit with a stream of flames, Carter screams the sounds of the Thing. Kate retreats to the other snowcat, just sits there, her fate unknown.

The following morning helicopter pilot Matias arrives at the base. Colin is shown to have committed suicide in the radio room. Lars orders Matias at gunpoint to show his dental fillings to prove he is human. The Thing, in the form of Lars' deceased dog, runs out of the camp, and Lars and Matias give chase in the helicopter.