2011

Director: Matthijs van Heijningen

Genre: Sci-fi horror

A common complaint about Hollywood is that they make too many sequels and remakes. Now, this is obviously because such films have already built up a bit of a fanbase. If someone liked the original, there's a good chance that person will go to see the remake. 

Remakes also come with several disadvantages. Firstly, they are always going to be compared to the original. Secondly, these films have to justify their own existence. They aren't just here to tell a story because we've already seen this exact story. A remake has to do something drastically different. The Thing (1982) did something drastically different from the 1951 film, The Thing From Another World. It expanded on the ideas of the story, and used impressive special effects to shock and disgust a new audience. 

But don’t worry. This film is actually a prequel. So none of the issues mentioned above apply. Right?

There's a point in the remake where the main girl falls down a hole into an alien ship. A man who looks like Kurt Russel tries to catch her and he calls out her name in panic. But... he calls her the wrong name. He calls her Jess. The character's name is Kate. I asked my roommates and they heard the same thing. Maybe we all had a shared auditory hallucination because we were so bored.

The Thing is a film about identity and how fragile this concept can become amidst a tundra of bland ice and snow. But the 2011 remake has no identity. It has no passion, no emotion, no thought, and no care behind it. I would have rather watched unbroken footage of a glacier. 

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