Invasion Alert: Mini-Review of The Thing Screenplay, New Prometheus Details, Avatar Goes Disney + Brooklyn Decker Surfaces for Battleship!

By Jason Apuzzo. • I had the chance recently to read the screenplay for The Thing, which opens next Friday, Oct. 14th. To sum up my reaction in a nutshell: I liked it, given that the film’s basic requirement is to serve as a direct prequel to John Carpenter’s 1982 thriller. I frankly would’ve preferred a totally new interpretation of the original story, instead of a prequelized version of Carpenter’s; be that as it may, my sense is that if you’re planning on seeing the film next Friday, and aren’t otherwise bothered by the new film’s lack of star-power – or the kind of intense, sci-fi gore associated with Carpenter’s original film – you’re likely to have a good time.

This new version of The Thing, which is set back in 1982, sweeps you into the story quickly and efficiently, introducing a variety of new, relatively low-key characters – including, most importantly, young paleonthologist Dr. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) and helicopter pilot Sam Carter (Joel Edgerton) – who along with several others travel to the Norwegian ‘Thule’ research station in Antarctica, where a mysterious saucer … and an even more mysterious occupant of the saucer, frozen in ice … have been discovered by the Norwegian research team. If you’re familiar with the original Carpenter film, you already know what ends up happening to the Thule station, discovered by Kurt Russell in the original. If you don’t already know, I won’t spoil it for you – but suffice it to say that ‘things’ go badly, as it were.

This new, prequelized version of The Thing feels like it has a lot in common with Ridley Scott’s original Alien, in the sense that the story is built around a thoughtful young woman who keeps her wits about her while the rest of her team descends into hysteria, paranoia or is otherwise carved into pieces like so much whale blubber as the alien ‘thing’ slowly wreaks its havoc in the isolated station. Much as with Sigourney Weaver’s Ripley in Alien, Kate Lloyd here doesn’t really do very much or assert herself prominently until about halfway through the story – she simply keeps her eyes open, while others pursue their various agendas, largely blind to the danger in their midst. It should be a good role for Mary Elizabeth Winstead; I hope she makes the most of it. (Winstead talks about the parallels between her role and Weaver’s Alien role here.)

Truth be told, I’ve only recently become a fan of John Carpenter’s 1982 version of The Thing, which I went back and re-watched a short while back. Although the film is moody and atmospheric, with some nice performances from Kurt Russell and the supporting cast, I still strongly prefer Howard Hawks’ original – although it’s basically true that Carpenter’s film is more ‘faithful’ to the original conception of the morphing, imitative creature in John W. Campbell’s 1938 short story, “Who Goes There?” For my taste, Carpenter’s film gets a little lost in its gore and disgusting excess – losing its suspense every time we’re forced to watch the creature transform into some repulsive new hybrid of man and beast. Alas, expect more of this sort of thing in the new film – no doubt amped-up by digital technology.

What Carpenter’s film has going for it, however, is a genuine sense of terror and dread that has been lacking from a lot of sci-fi alien invasion films of late. So many of the current alien invasion projects (Battle: Los Angeles, the Transformers movies, Skyline, Falling Skies, Battleship, etc.) are basically sublimated war films of one kind or another. John W. Campbell’s original story, along with Carpenter’s telling of it, introduce the much more terrifying notion that an alien might be right beside you – a shape-shifter, ready to destroy and/or assimilate you on a moment’s notice. This new version of The Thing re-awakens the primal fear associated with not trusting someone, that creeping sense that the person next to you might not even be fully human – an eerie, paranoid notion that is actually what much of 1930s and 1950s sci-fi was based on.

So what should you expect, in terms of what will be different about this film in comparison to the original? Truth be told, relatively little – with just a few exceptions, as the new film’s screenplay really does fit Carpenter’s film like a glove. (Incidentally, it’s cool to read a screenplay that says: “Cue Morricone’s score.”) On the positive side, and without spoiling too much, something’s that’s been unexploited by the two previous versions of The Thing (1951 and 1982, respectively) has been the saucer by which the creature arrives. Expect to spend more time around and also inside the saucer in this new version; what happens there is intriguing and suspenseful. On the neutral side, the ‘test’ for determining whether someone is really human or not is clever – but doesn’t necessarily provide as suspenseful a moment as there was in the Carpenter version. On the negative side, I thought that this new Thing screenplay really lacked something that both the Carpenter and (superior) Howard Hawks versions had: crackling humor. This new Thing is a very sober, straight-forward, dour-‘Norwegian’ telling of the story – a telling that really needed the kind of humor you get from having a group of wise-cracking American characters around. Humor is a great way to relieve fear and tension, and I’m concerned that this new film will be lacking it.

We’ll find out soon enough. In the meantime, there are some new clips out (see here, here and here) from the film, a red band trailer and new TV spot, Joel Edgerton talked about the film recently (noting the parallels between Cold War fears of communism and terrorist fears today), the film’s Russian poster looks pretty cool, and a new comic book series supporting the film’s launch is being released. And speaking of comic books and alien threats in the Antarctic, Lorenzo di Bonaventura – who seems to own the rights to every alien invasion property in existence – just picked up the rights to the Area 52 comic book from back in 2001.

• Speaking of Alien and alien-related prequels, there’s been a lot of chatter recently about Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, although none of it as exciting as the leaking in August of images from the film’s Comic-Con showreel. I’ve seen those images, by the way, and would love to post them here – but I’m not eager to be contacted by Twentieth Century Fox lawyers about it, so you’ll just have to go someplace like here to see at least a few of them. In any case, what these images reveal are two things: 1) the film already is looking extraordinary in terms of its dark, retro-design, really pulling you back into the murky, claustrophobic world of the original film; 2) Prometheus is quite obviously an Alien-prequel, Sir Ridley’s coy assertions aside. This is really looking like a film not to miss next summer.

Screenwriter Damon Lindelof revealed a few details recently about Michael Fassbender and Charlize Theron’s characters … SPOILER ALERT … Fassbender will be playing an android, no doubt of the intense/brooding variety, while Charlize will be playing a corporate suit (surprise, surprise!) … END OF SPOILERS … also: the film has a new ‘official’ synopsis, and Guy Pierce and new cast member Patrick Wilson are out talking about the film.

• In semi-related news, Ridley Scott announced recently that he will be directing the next Blade Runner film – in whatever form that will take – although Harrison Ford will not be involved.

• Entertainment Tonight recently did a cheerful little behind-the-scenes feature on Battleship, which you should make sure to see. Much as with the Hasbro-Michael Bay Transformers, it looks like director Peter Berg received a lot of assistance from the military on this film, and Berg otherwise talks about working on the film here. We also now have the first official photo of Rihanna appearing in the film, cast members Alexander Skarsgard and Hamish Linklater are out talking about Battleship … and, of course, most importantly, we finally have the first official photo of Brooklyn Decker in the film (see below). She’s looking a little frosty.

• Many more new sci-fi/alien invasions projects are suddenly moving forward. Most intriguingly, there’s word that the Roberto Orci/Alex Kurtzman adaptation of Ender’s Game is already casting; that’s big news, if they’re already that far along. Also: just yesterday Orci, Kurtzman and Jon Favreau sold some sort of sci-fi/White House/secret government agency show to ABC, that will hopefully resemble Men in Black more than, say, The Event; Isaac Asimov’s Caves of Steel is also moving forward at Fox, and Asimov’s Foundation novels now have a screenwriter for director Roland Emmerich; the dystopian young-adult novel Legend just got picked up by the makers of the Twilight films; the CW is going to be doing a dramatic-comedy series about a female alien bounty hunter; no less than Jean-Claude Van Damme will be starring in a new Brit sci-fi thriller called UFO; and there are a few other big sci-fi/alien invasion projects that got picked up recently called Second Sun, Spaceless and Offworld – the latter of which is “a sci-fi safari movie set on an alien planet.” (So are safari movies p.c. now, so long as they’re set on alien planets?) Also: Gareth Edwards wants to make a movie with Timur Bekmambetov that will only feature robots, no humans. Welcome to L.A., Gareth! It’s true, it’s mostly just robots around here.

• It’s easy to forget that yet another alien invasion thriller will be hitting us before year’s end: The Darkest Hour. Catch new interviews with the cast (here and here), with director Chris Gorak, and with producer Timur Bekmambetov. The Moscow-based alien invasion thriller opens on Dec. 24th, Christmas Eve, which may make it a tough sell – as eager as I am to see Moscow invaded. I never have my shopping done by the 24th.

• As you’ve probably heard by now, Avatar is set to become a theme park attraction for Disney (see here, here and here). I won’t belabor the obvious point: namely, that Walt Disney would be horrified at this. He would never sanction the politicizing of Disney theme parks in this way, which is implicitly what’s going on here. No matter how hard they try, Disney executives will not be able to scrub Avatar’s political and environmental agenda away from the project, and Disney share holders should be giving Robert Iger hell for this. Of course, they aren’t. [Sigh.] In other news, Sigourney Weaver apparently will be back for the next Avatar, and Cameron may be filming the next two films at 60 frames-per-second – which only makes sense provided some theater chain is willing to show it that fast.

• There’s been a lot of news … but also no news about the next Star Trek. Yes, J.J. Abrams officially committed to the next project (was anybody surprised by that?), and somebody’s out there pitching a new Star Trek TV series, and Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and Abrams himself have been out talking about Trek 2, and there’s a new comic book series coming that will supposedly lead into the new film, but we really don’t know very much about the new project at this point – or even when it will be hitting theaters.

What we do know about the rebooted franchise is this: that the first film from 2009 was good but not great, and it seems highly likely that four years will end up passing before the second one arrives in theaters. Why? Because, frankly, the various parties involved here have been frittering away their time on lesser projects (Super 8, Cowboys & Aliens, and too many TV pitches) while one of sci-fi’s greatest franchises sits around cooling its heels in the lobby. Paramount really should’ve locked Orci and Kurtzman guys in a room – like Michael Bay did for the Transformers movies – and ordered them to crank the screenplays out before too much time passes. I’m sensing a ball being dropped. Again, the same people who whine endlessly about what George Lucas has done to the Star Wars franchise should take a hard look at what other people do when given similar franchises.

Speaking of Transformers, read here about how Megan Fox still hasn’t seen the new Transformers film, and how she’s addicted to Halo.

• I’m getting worried about John Carter. First it was Disney weirdly dropping ‘from Mars’ from the title, then it was the uninspiring first trailer (with depressing music from Peter Gabriel?), now we’re hearing about reshoots and early footage not getting a good response. Is another ball being dropped here? We won’t know until March of 2012, when the film debuts in IMAX and IMAX 3D. Otherwise, Willem Dafoe and Taylor Kitsch (here and here) are out talking up the film, and you can find out more about the film here from Disney’s D23 presentation. We’ll continue to hope for the best, because this could be such a wonderful, epic series that would take sci-fi back to its roots.

• Willem Defoe has also joined Guillermo del Toro’s alien invasion monster/kaiju epic Pacific Rim, along with a few other new cast members (see here and here), and the film also has a new producer. Del Toro is feverishly designing the film’s monsters right now. The hype for this film will be off-the-charts when it’s released in 2013; Del Toro will need it to do huge business, though, if he’s ever going to be given At the Mountains of Madness.

• On the Video Game Front, it looks like we’re definitely going to get a Mass Effect movie; also, Gears of War 3 is out (read reviews here and here, and check out a trailer); check out screenshots of the forthcoming Aliens: Colonial Marines game; and check out the trailer for the recently released Resistance 3.

• On the Creature Invasion Front, there are new updates here and here about the status of David Fincher’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea; director Marc Forster is out talking here and here about World War Z, there’s a new Criterion edition of the original Godzilla coming (also: is this what the new Godzilla will look like?); and we’re still waiting for the trailer to Piranha 3DD – even though the film comes out next month!

• In other Sci-Fi/Alien Invasion News & Notes: the Star Wars Blu-rays had a monster opening, setting them on a path to overtake Avatar as the top selling Blu-ray set (hooray!), and you can read about the 45 deleted scenes included in the set; Cowboys & Aliens will be hitting Blu-ray in December; Super 8 hits Blu-ray Nov. 22nd;  Attack the Block hits Blu-ray on Oct. 25th; Steven Spielberg is currently in pre-production on Robopocalypse (I loved the novel, btw), and the film has a July 3rd, 2013 release date; Jessica Chastain has been cast opposite Tom Cruise in Horizons; some set photos have leaked from Total Recall, plus Colin Farrell and director Len Wiseman are already talking about the film; the Will Smith/M. Night Shyamalan 1000 A.E. has a June 7th, 2013 release date; set photos are out for the Neill Blomkamp/Matt Damon Elysium; the ratings for Terra Nova in its second weak are not bad (I’m still not watching it; its basic premise doesn’t work for me and I’ve had enough of Stephen Lang after Avatar); read here about Men in Black 3’s 60s/retro aliens and make-up effects; The Nye Incidents now has a screenwriter; director Shawn Levy talks here about his new alien invasion comedy Neighborhood Watch, and there’s casting news on that film, as well; the Tron Uprising series has a new trailer; Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity 3D is set for a Nov. 2012 release; the alien invasion craze has now even hit Italy; and watch a new trailer and read a review of the new Spanish indie film Extraterrestrial.

• AND IN TODAY’S MOST IMPORTANT NEWS … I thought we’d take a look at Amanda Seyfried’s cool, retro-sci-fi look for the forthcoming In Time, possibly the only thing that has me interested in the film at the moment. If this is how Women of the Future will look, it makes a great case for staying healthy!

And that’s what’s happening today in the midst of the ongoing Alien Invasion!

Posted on October 7th, 2011 at 1:24pm.