Wherein The Remake I Dread Begins To Show Its Face: The Thing Movie Poster And Leaked Trailer
By TK | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (31)
Every cell in my body cries out at the thought of a remake of The Thing. Carpenter’s 1982 film (a sequel of sorts to the 1951 The Thing From Another World) is a near-perfect slice of science fiction film making, so much so that even now, it’s relatively clunky effects are still affecting and impressive. I love everything about the movie, it’s a go-to flick that I watch several times a year, and it’s probably Carpenter’s best film (though my favorite Carpenter film will forever be Big Trouble In Little China). And while Carpenter has been mouldering of late, and delivering unfortunate and disappointing fare like The Ward (a film that he should have simply just stayed away from altogether), one cannot deny his classics, and The Thing is at the top of that list.
When I heard that Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. was remaking the film, I went into a foaming, screaming rage. Don’t bother telling me not to get upset over remakes — it’s not going to change anything, it’s not going to make me any less frustrated, and it’s just going to make me think you’re more of an annoying asshole than I already do. It’s one of my few sacred cows, and even though a decent cast has been assembled — Joel Edgerton, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, and Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje are featured players — we’ve had so many shitty, derivative and downright unimpressive remakes in the last several years that it’s hard to feel anything but impotent fury at the idea. It doesn’t need to be remade. It’s an excellent, flawless film (despite what my esteemed colleage Mr. Morton thinks), that has little room for improvement. A remake of it seems an ultimately pointless and uninspired endeavor, but when has that ever stopped Hollywood?
So with all of that bitter preamble aside, the first official poster for the film has dropped, and it’s two things: a remarkable throwback to the 1982 film… and also, a damn good fucking movie poster. Sure, the tagline is a little too easy, but still. That’s solid work. It got me a teensy bit more interested in the film, and for a naysaying, irate malcontent like me to say that, well, that’s an achievement in and of itself. Do I think the film will do anything more than suck festering lizard balls? No, I do not. But at least they made a good poster. That’s something, I guess.
AS an added bonus, if you’re willing to brave the blurry-as-fuck camera and the audience noise, here’s a leaked copy of the trailer. I’m sure a real copy will show up soon enough, but if you just can’t wait, well, here it is. It doesn’t give us much, and since it’s so damn wiggly, it’s hard to really know what’s going on. But the tone and music feels like an homage to Carpenter’s film, which is a little odd and of course leads us to ask, “Why bother?” We’ll see.
Enjoy, I guess.
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Comments
Posted by: Protoguy at July 13, 2011 11:00 PM
That poster looks great and gives me hope, and then the trailer dashes it to pieces. The sexist in me hates that Russel is being seemingly replaced by a woman, but more to the point, the tense, tedious atmosphere of the 80's film's Arctic station's environment added so much more to the suspense than that Kumbaya shit they were throwin out there.