Bottin lobbied hard to play Palmer, but it was deemed impossible for him to do so alongside his existing duties. As the character has some comedic moments, Universal brought in comedians Jay Leno, Garry Shandling, and Charles Fleischer, among others, but opted to go with actor David Clennon, who was better suited to play the dramatic elements. Clennon had read for the Bennings character, but he preferred the option of playing Palmer's "blue-collar stoner" to a "white collar science man". Powers Boothe, Lee Van Cleef, Jerry Orbach, and Kevin Conway were considered for the role of Garry, and Richard Mulligan was also considered when the production experimented with the idea of making the character closer to MacReady in age. Masur also read for Garry, but he asked to play Clark instead, as he liked the character's dialogue and was also a fan of dogs. Masur worked daily with the wolfdog Jed and his handler, Clint Rowe, during rehearsals, as Rowe was familiarizing Jed with the sounds and smells of people. This helped Masur's and Jed's performance onscreen, as the dog would stand next to him without looking for his handler. Masur described his character as one uninterested in people, but who loves working with dogs. He went to a survivalist store and bought a flip knife for his character, and used it in a confrontation with David's character. Masur turned down a role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial to play Clark. William Daniels and Dennehy were both interested in playing Dr. Copper, and it was a last-second decision by Carpenter to go with Richard Dysart. Dean Cundey provides the cinematography on The Thing and he also deserves credit for helping to make the film so stylish and terrifying. A creature bearing the face of a dog lies on the floor. Various unnatural formations such as legs and tentacles are present on its body.

Records the default button state of the corresponding category & the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie. Actor(s): Kurt Russell, Keith David, A. Wilford Brimley, Richard Masur, Thomas Waites, Donald Moffat

pinball machines, even as the interior design is otherwise spartan and visually uninteresting. The HDR colors far exceed the output on the Blu-ray, The production intended to use a camera centrifuge – a rotating drum with a fixed camera platform – for the Palmer-Thing scene, allowing him to seem to run straight up the wall and across the ceiling. Again, the cost was too high and the idea abandoned for a stuntman falling into frame onto a floor made to look like the outpost's ceiling.[69] Stuntman Anthony Cecere stood in for the Palmer-Thing after MacReady sets it on fire and it crashes through the outpost wall.

Where Carpenter was clearly inspired by Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, his own alien movie is original and intriguing in its own right. There's a rhythm and an environment that equals Scott's in every way.Actor Wilford Brimley in 2012. He was cast for his everyman persona which would allow audiences not to notice his absence from the story until the right time.

A satisfying example of a movie that today – 18 years after – looks downright muscular in its simplicity. The first thing to notice is the richer, darker colour scheme of the image – slightly darker than the Arrow version, the vibrancy in these colours from the WCG employed, especially the dashes of colour dotted throughout the film, help give the image more depth and texture. Fine detail is considerably sharper and more noticeable, without ever feeling artificially so – the first clear examples include the establishing shot of the camp at 6:22 as the Norwegian helicopter flies over it when every mast is clearly delineated against the sky on the 4K disc, less so on the Arrow version; similarly at 8:26, the Norwegian with the gun screaming after the dog has razor sharp clothing lines on the 4K, a much softer version of which is on the Arrow disc; as MacReady arrives at the Norwegian camp by helicopter at 16:39, the crisp lines of the burnt clothing at the bottom of the screen on the 4K disc are nowhere to be found on the Arrow disc; and the list goes on… Art Booklet (includes production notes, excerpt of the script, behind the scenes photos, early concepts) An elderly Caucasian man with a gray mustache and gray receding hair faces the camera with a neutral expression. DTS:X audio. A few supplements not included on Universal's original Blu-ray are now available on the UHD disc. The bundled Blu-ray is identical toHorror-meister John Carpenter (Halloween, Escape from New York) teams Kurt Russell's outstanding performance with incredible visuals to build this chilling version of the classic The Thing. In the winter of 1982, a twelve-man research team at a remote Antarctic research station discovers an alien buried in the snow for over 100,000 years. Once unfrozen, the form-changing alien wreaks havoc, creates terror and becomes one of them. The disc presents a native 3840 x 2160p resolution image with the original widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, and uses 10-bit video depth, High Dynamic Range, a Wide Colour Gamut(WCG) and is encoded using the HEVC (H.265) codec for HRD10. John Carpenter’s iconic 1982 classic, THE THING , one of the most celebrated sci-fi horror movies ever made, has been newly remastered and restored and will be available in stunning 4K Ultra HD for the very first time in the UK on 20 September 2021, courtesy of Universal Pictures Home Entertainment.

It then makes for great movie history trivia, that The Thing has gained such a remarkable afterlife on video, DVD and television. Both financially and critically. Carpenter's version is less a remake of the Howard Hawks' version than a more faithful adaptation of John W. Campbell's short story "Who Goes There?' (on which both were based), and critics today point out how well Carpenter plays his characters against each other. Kurt Russell will never top this one, and he gets a brilliant sparring from the entire cast. The Thing assimilating dogs. Stan Winston was brought in to help complete the effect. It was operated on a raised set with puppeteers working below. For more about The Thing 4K and the The Thing 4K Blu-ray release, see the The Thing 4K Blu-ray Review published by Martin Liebman on September 15, 2021 where this Blu-ray release scored 4.0 out of 5.The Thing's special effects were largely designed by Bottin, who had previously worked with Carpenter on The Fog (1980). When Bottin joined the project in mid-1981, pre-production was in progress, but no design had been settled on for the alien. Artist Dale Kuipers had created some preliminary paintings of the creature's look, but he left the project after being hospitalized following a traffic accident before he could develop them further with Bottin. Carpenter conceived the Thing as a single creature, but Bottin suggested that it should be constantly changing and able to look like anything. Carpenter initially considered Bottin's description of his ideas as "too weird", and had him work with Ploog to sketch them instead. As part of the Thing's design, it was agreed anyone assimilated by it would be a perfect imitation and would not know they were the Thing. The actors spent hours during rehearsals discussing whether they would know they were the Thing when taken over. Clennon said that it did not matter, because everyone acted, looked and smelled exactly the same before (or after) being taken over. At its peak, Bottin had a 35-person crew of artists and technicians, and he found it difficult to work with so many people. To help manage the team, he hired Erik Jensen, a special effects line producer who he had worked with on The Howling (1981), to be in charge of the special make-up effects unit. Bottin's crew also included mechanical aspect supervisor Dave Kelsey, make-up aspect coordinator Ken Diaz, moldmaker Gunnar Ferdinansen, and Bottin's longtime friend Margaret Beserra, who managed painting and hair work. Watch in awe at the scene where it walks through the hallway and stares at a human shadow, slightly tilting its head forward in stalking position like a wild wolf. This is a fine piece of animal training, sure, but that's not the point. This is as spooky as anything ever made in a horror movie. John Carpenter’s unquestionable classic on yet another disc release that may well be the best it's looked, even if it's not the best it has sounded…