Extra Terrestrial Nanotechnology

Rating: 10/10 (10 August 2000)

This movie is converged excellence!
The light in the movie is either blue (the cold antarctic), red (burning torches and fire) or just plain mat colors (in between the cold antarctic and the fire) which really 'highlights' the atmosphere from scene to scene.
The script allows for the classic 'a few humans cramped up in terror' setup and really separates the boys from the men during the course of the movie. The build up of suspense and character developments are well balanced. This is actually one of the last sci-fi horror movies that has true cinematic class without having to dwell on block-buster one-liners or cliches (at least not apparently).
The casting for the movie is excellent. The different personalities truly mimic a small society (in despair) with the 'rationals' battling the 'emotionals'.
The special effects are very realistic. The use of classical effects (as opposed to computer animations) give the movie a very natural 'dirty' look which blend in very well with the surroundings.
The only Thing that can be hard to grasp is the plausibility of the mechanics of the Thing. I saw the movie back in 1985 for the first time. At this time the way the Thing worked was imaginable but lacked a frame-of-reference.
Since this time the concept of nano-technology has become more and more common. So if you watch this movie nowadays and have previously read something about nano-technology then the concept of the Thing has true merits.
And the state-of-mind of the Thing, with more or less the same determination whether it's in a state of individual blood-cells or in a state of one of it's victims is excellent.
Better than the original. I'm glad the movie never had a sequel.