Here's a few nits for the Howard Hawks' film, The Thing From Another World:

The scientist and air force men go to the UFO crash site. The area surrounding the spacecraft has been iced over. Yet, everyone is able to walk over the ice without stumbling or sliding once.

Why doesn't anyone have something covering their faces? I mean, sure, they're wearing coats and all, but this is the North Pole where it's colder than a witch's elbow. Surely they'd want to protect their faces from the fierce cold.

So the Thing's basically a plant. Why would it need to wear clothes? Of course, at one point in the film, the Thing is set on fire. Presumably its outfit was destroyed by the flames. Yet later in the flick, near the climax, we see it's still has its jumpsuit on.

"Watch the skies!"

It probably made the clothes out of its own body. Like Odo. I mean, it wouldn't want to offend people!

How could a naked plant offend anyone? You'd have to be a very strange pervert to be offended by a nude carrot. (BTW, have I mentioned that this is a pretty damned good movie?)

"Watch the skies!"

In Ray Harryhausen's excellent book RH:An Animated Life,he writes that he approached the producers of TTFAW with the idea of doing the alien in stop-motion.This would have made an already great film even greater! The make-up for Jim Arness as the Thing is underwhelming in photos that I've seen.Fortunately his scenes were brief or the lighting was darker on him & he was at a distance in the film's finale.But if RH could have created an alien,non-humanoid,creature,which follows the novel Who Goes There?,upon which the movie based on,this would have indeed been an eerie movie.Too bad that the producers took the undemanding route instead.Still,its one of the giant SF films ever!

Just watched the remake for the first time and figured it would be easier to post here than making a new board.

Anyway, the end of the movie has one of those classic horror movie nits that has fans yelling at the screen. Specifically, our three survivors who are hanging out and planting dynamite in the generator room decide to do it separately. You know, instead of sticking together. And it gets really bad when the first guy dies, the other, Nauls I believe, decides he'll just wander off and investigate by himself a strange sight or sound that he picked up. Good choice. Three guesses how that ends.

2021 marks the 70th Anniversary of this Sci-Fi Classic.

The Thing (played by a pre-Gunsmoke James Arness), an alien from another world, crashes in the Arctic. He is found and brought back to nearby base, on which are a group of scientists and military personnel. Once the Thing gets thawed out, it goes on a rampage.

One of the scientists, Dr. Carrington, repeatedly says throughout the movie that they must find a way to communicate with the alien, make friends with it. Never mind that said alien has shown nothing but hostile and murderous intentions (it kills two of the scientists).

Near the end of the movies, just before the military guys manage to kill the Thing, Carrington tries to talk to it. He asks it to listen to him, to realize he is a friend, to teach him knowledge. The Thing stares at Carrington for a few seconds and then casually bats him aside. The alien meets its end seconds later. Carrington survives, but he gets a broken collar bone for his trouble.

Carrington was working under the mistaken premise that just because a culture is more advanced, that makes it more peaceful. Well, the Spaniards were more advanced that the native populations of Mexico and South America, and that didn't stop them from slaughtering whole civilizations. Carrington should have considered that.