The earlier first version loosely based on short story ¨Who goes there¨ by John Campbell (published in 1938) is titled ¨The Thing from another world¨ by Christian Nyby and under the guidance of Howard Hawks with Kenneth Tobey , Margaret Sheridan , Edward Franz , Dewey Martin , John Dierkes , and James Arness as the monster , later to win fame as Marshal Matt Dillon from ¨TV's Gunsmoke¨ . Being a potent lesson how to direct a film in low budget and it holds a subtle but efficient intrigue . It deals with a team of military and scientists at a remote outpost discover a buried spaceship , as the astonishing crew form a ring around the flying saucer frozen in the ice (it was shot at the RKO Ranch in the San Fernando Valley in 100-degree weather) . Monster movie in which an alien menaces an isolated scientific community , it is a giant seed-dispersing vegetable and runs amok . It is set in Arctic : an extraordinary continent of awesome beauty . It is also home to an isolated outpost where a discovery full of scientific possibility becomes a mission of survival . It deals with a lonely group of scientists who take on the most dangerous creature of universe that sucks the blood from sled dogs and scientific alive and unaffected by missing body parts , cold or bullets . Then , the creature , accidentally unleashed at this marooned colony , in this vast , intense land a parasite will pit human against human as it tries to survive and flourish . In the thriller ¨The Thing¨ , paranoia spreads like an epidemic among a group of researchers when an accident frees the alien from its frozen existence . Acceptable , estimable and well-made action/terror/thriller in which scientists and military in the Arctic are confronted by an alien craft and a monster that is accidentally thawed and wreaks havoc . Being professionally directed by Christian Nyby , assisted substantially by Hawks (and its said filmmaking) , who provides a punchy suspenseful Sci-Fi about an unwelcome alien survivor alive . The gradual as well as notable built-up suspense is quite superb as when the monster is shown largely to create a real menace , though some moments looks a little clumsy as well as awkward and when the creature is doused with kerosene and set ablaze is believed to be the first full body burn accomplished by a stunt man . There are also some implausibities but they are carried some measure of conviction thanks to Howard Hawks . This exciting film packs chills , thrills , guessing , paranoia , absence of all characterization and spectacular FX by that time , though nowadays dated . It takes a liberal stand in exposing the tension of men when confront an alien that is unearthed by a crew of international scientists . It packs a thrilling and intriguing musical score by Dimitri Tiomkin . Cameraman Russell Harlan contributes an evocative as well as appropriate cinematography , though there is available a horrible colorized version . And being partly filmed in Glacier National Park and at a Los Angeles ice storage plant . ¨The thing¨ emerges as a distinctly Sci-Fi/terror movie and one might be recommending for its solid cast , FX , special makeup , cinematography by Harlan , and being masterfully made by Christian Nyby and supervised by the great Howard Hawks . It is one of the best of the Cold War allegories and a lot of filmmakers cited the movie as a key , influential film in their lives. This one was remade in 1982 , being the best version directed by John Carpenter , it was starred by Kurt Russell and an all-star-secondary cast as Wilford Brimley , T.K. Carter , David Clennon , Keith David , Richard Dysart , Charles Hallahan , Peter Maloney , Richard Masur and Donald Moffat ; here the monster has the ability to turn itself into a perfect replica of any living being , it can look just like you or me , but inside , it remains inhuman . And the modern version in which producers convinced Universal Studios to allow them to create a prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing instead of a remake , as they felt Carpenter's film was already perfect with a shape-shifting alien .¨The Thing (2011)¨ by Mattijs Heijmingen with Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton resulting to be inferior to previous but still being acceptable . This ¨The Thing¨ serves as a prelude to John Carpenter's classic 1982 film of the same name that is one of the great Sci-Fi classics . However , the filmmaker copies several scenes from Carpenter movie and Christian Nyby film .

"The Thing" doesn't date well and seeing this now after the remake, I must admit that the remake, despite its gorishness, is more suspenseful after all. Despite a good build-up of atmosphere at points (the team forming a circle around the ice, the electric blanket melting the frozen alien) and some effective staging in the action spots, the film tends to be over-weighted with dialogue and one-dimensional characterizations (the scientist who wants to communicate, the army man who lives by the book, the eager-beaver subordinate. But by far the most irritating of all is the single- mindedly-after-a-scoop newspaperman breezily perpetrated by Douglas Spencer. Why the other characters defer, kowtow and play along with such a cretin is not satisfactorily explained despite a lot of lip about freedom of speech, the U.S. constitution and the taxpayer's money). Some of the special effects are not much either (e.g. the plasma-grown "plants"), despite all the hoo-haa that is made about them in the film, and continuity tends to be somewhat choppy. Just as suspense is being built up, the alien is pushed out of focus for some dull dialogue scene frequently featuring the tedious Mr. Spencer. The very careful staging of the players and the way they are grouped and the careful cutting indicates to me that a lot of the film was certainly directed by Nyby and not by Hawks as is often claimed. It's dull, over-respectful-to-the-script direction which, despite a great use of overlapping dialogue, does not ultimately convey the realism or the semi-documentary approach the director is obviously aiming for. A music score which is silent for many sequences and then suddenly obtrudes doesn't help either. Production values are very moderate. Despite the film's classic status it is not — and never was — all that good. It would have been more suspenseful with much tighter direction, with slicker continuity, with about 15 minutes trimmed from the running time and with more concentration on atmosphere rather than talk. The players are an uninteresting, B-grade lot too!

There is really no doubt about it here, in my opinion. There are some examples of movies that people would qualify as being "sci-fi" prior to this classic. There were movies that co-mingled that idea of sci-fi with horror to some degree. None had the impact that this movie had on Hollywood. It launched the 50s sci-fi boom. It led to a legion of imitators. It created the blueprint for the entire history of sci-fi horror that comes after. Every ALIEN, PREDATOR, etc owes a debt to this film.Despite the fact that there were so many imitators to follow in the 50s, none of them come close to this film's power. None seemed able to capture what it is that truly made this movie so great. A large part of this begins and ends with Howard Hawks. He is not credited as the director, but I'm not going to retread that familiar territory. Spielberg isn't credited as the director of POLTERGEIST, but we all know who's movie it is. Christian Nyby is forever a historical footnote. The guy who gets no credit for the success of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD because it is so clearly Hawks film in every way. The hordes of b and c grade films to come after clearly never had that luxury.I believe that one of the things that keeps this movie so tightly constructed is the co-mingling of military and science. Sure, other movies followed that blueprint, to varying degrees of success. I have seen A LOT of 50s drive-in films and a great portion of them tend to fall to far into one side or the other. The majority of them go too far into the science and forget the action. Too many nerds and not enough heroes, so to speak. We all know those movie I'm talking about where some scientist rambles on and on with big words and terms that almost sound made up, trying to forcibly to inject scientific credibility into its' monster. Too often, the end result reels like an old 60s educational film with made up mumbo jumbo that derails the movie. On the other hand, too much action without the scientific aspect of it, and some of the mystery is missing.This movie perfectly encapsulates both sides of that formula. The scientists want to preserve and study the monster. They supply us with meaningful explanations of its' origins and the nature of the creature, without ever feeling hokey. The soldiers are perfect heroes, cracking wise while playing brave. They are bent on destroying the creature and act as the duality to the science in a perfect way.The setting, also, has a lot to do with the success of this film. You feel the cold in a palpable way, especially when the heat goes out in the final act and the heroes have to deal not just with a monster, but with the stark reality of the nature around them. The history of horror and sci-fi has plenty of desert and jungle movies, but because of the natural difficulty in filming in the arctic, the snowy environment has not been done so much and it still feels fresh.One of the most genius aspects of the movie is that gradual way that it introduces its' monster. The biggest problem with much of 50s sci-fi is that the creature designs left something to be desired, yet the film makers constantly made the poor decision to highlight the monstrosities far too much. The more we see the monster the more ridiculous it looks. We all know the cliché that our imaginations provide much more fear and terror than our eyes can ever conceive. This movie plays with that wisely. We get a quick glimpse at first, then a silhouette. It is not until the finale that we really get a chance to breathe in the monster in full glory and that makes this movie all the more impactful and terrifying. When we do get to see the monster, it is a great design, simple yet effective. Something more than human, but reminiscent enough to have added impact.There are plenty of "classics" that film critics and buffs will tell you that you have to see. This is required viewing, though, an absolute classic that has stood the test of time and still carries terror.

The Thing From Another World its considered a classic by many fans of science fiction, but some other sci-fi fans consider it to be overrated and that it pales in comparison to the John Carpenter remake, but I think they are both just good enough for me to like them, not great, just good.The movie deals with the subject of how much should science advance?, this subject its presented to us by one of the scientist who wants to study the monster in order to get a much deeper understanding of this monsters origin, which its said to us that the monster came from a planet where plants evolved, instead of animals, this is a rather interesting theory.The film also has a overlapping dialog, which many people say its distracting, and other people say its realistic, but it didn't bothered me, it was definitely interesting but nothing that I think deserves high praise.Overall, the film may be slow at times or even boring and uninteresting, it has some elements to it that makes it different than a average monster sci-fi flick, its worth a watch.