Platypus-8

For too many years, the words "John Carpenter's" have preceded sub-standard films. His late 70s and early 80s however, were superlative in excellence, and The Thing is a shining example. What might be best are the two critical factors- that the film has heft behind its style, and that Carpenter did not fear making it dark.

Having heard of the film's reputation, I took the opportunity when Target became sufficiently anxious to be rid of this merchandise that they marked Logan's Run on dvd down to 5.99. While some have praised the film for it's inclusion of landmark 70s bathing beauty Farrah Fawcett, I call this one of the film's low points. In addition, while the film generally portrays the future convincingly, the sets are somewhat bare. Furthermore, I do believe that the Old Man sequence is longish, though the old man is enjoyable to listen to.

So those are the flaws as I see them. On the other side, Michael York is a pleasant changeup from more typical scifi stars. The effects were as enjoyable as the contemporary Black Hole. Most importantly, the film contains something that is integral to science fiction yet has been regularly left out since the work of Jules Verne and others. Here I speak of genuine intelligence and coherent philosophy. Enjoyable though the then-groundbreaking effects were, this alone sets the film apart. And let me finally state that I eagerly await the arrival of the wall-mounted Chick Generator Matrix from the folks at Bell Labs.

Am I wrong? I swear that "Gustavo Re" actually is Burt Young of Rocky fame. It was said on MST3K that this was the case and other people making comments have said this. It looks exactly like him. Could the world be unfortunate enough to have two Young brothers separated at birth?