Thing/Another World -- comparison to The Thing (1982)

While to me The Thing (1982) isn't a remake as much as different take on the Who Goes There? story, The Thing from Another World (1951) certainly opposes Carpenter's film interestingly in terms of characters and the period for which they're separate. Air Force guys, all full of camaraderie and trust, battling an "intellectual carrot" (how the kind boggles!) nearly eight foot tall and full of menace. Arness and that imposing presence best used at a distance but given heartstopping door opening jolt to the audience. Apply Vietnam, Watergate, the Manson Family, and ever increasing dangerous world, and you have quite a different bunch in Carpenter's film. There's no ribbing from soldiers towards their captain about his incident with a female scientist or unity, except for an overzealous genius scientist who considers the alien plant superior and that humans should just die because it is so, among those at the North Pole outpost. In Carpenter's film, all the men just about are loners or with snark and disregard dole out snide comments towards each other. There's not a whole hell of a lot of pleasantries or collective alliance even before the damned thing arrives, so when it does the situation gets ugly. You don't see misery in Howard Hawkes film while in Carpenter's the long stay at the science station has divided all men. It was an interesting watch of the Nyby / Hawkes' The Thing. Like Forbidden Planet, The Thing...(1951) is a film I can never tire of. It has lots of wit and snap-turtle dialogue that comes without breath from the entire cast. Carpenter's The Thing has men who can't stand talking to each other and would far prefer to not associate with each other at all much.