The ThinG from another world VS THE THING
In this article, I am going to compare The Thing from Another World created in 1951 and compare production context, plot devices and the individual characters to its remake created in 1982, The Thing. I will do this using their mise-en-scene, cinematography, sound design, Editing, technology and symbolic elements. Starting off with their finance, The Thing from Another World, directed by Christian Nyby used an estimated $1.6 million while The Thing, directed by John Carpenter used about $15 million. You might think that $13.4 is quite a big difference financially however, what we do have to take into consideration was how there is a 21 year difference in creation. Through research, I realised it meant that $1.6 was considered to be worth $5.5M in 1980. As a result, there is still quite a difference which we see as there is a major difference between the two. This is mainly due to the time period of when it was created and what the audience liked at the time.
The mise-en-scene generally remains the same as they are both set within cold regions during the winter, ''Officers Club Anchorage Alaska'' for The Thing from Another World and ''Antarctica, Winter 1982'' for The Thing. This is purposely done as cold regions are known to raise your adrenaline due to the lack of lighting and the chills which fill your throat. John Carpenter use of colour was really effective in the films as the colors used tend to absorb all the light and reflect non while with Christian Nybys, it was quite hard to get that effect since the colour grading was black and white. This meant in order to achieve the same effect, he relied on the use of sound. Within both films, we see lighting, mainly low key lighting play a big role when it comes scenes within office the officers club or whenever we meet the creature. This effect takes place through use of light within the buildings, the time of day they shot the scenes located outside or even the outfits they wore and how light reacted towards it. This is because dim hues and shadows are conventions for horror films as it increases tensions due to its mysterious and dark atmospheres, controlling how much of the surroundings and characters are revealed.
Moving onto the characters. The 1951 film focuses on a group of both men and women researchers along with soldiers who portrayed to be clean-cut, square-jawed heroes which matches the Cold war era it was created in. They work together to try and get rid of the Thing as a team but on the other hand, we see the researchers, mainly Dr. Carrington to be quite selfish. He's main concern rather than humans survive is gaining knowledge of the thing. Due to this, he wants to protect the creature even after it has began to kill everything near to its sight. In 1982 version, we see a variety of people from different cultures appear however, this time we do not see any female characters. Similarly, Dr. Blaire was very selfish with any type of research he found by destroying all forms of technology found however, the men even though they were living together, they are separated through their own self-interests. This may be the reason why almost non of them survive once the Thing shows up.
Now, I'll talk about the technical differences. In 1982, there was a big difference in a lot of features. This included ratio, audio quality and technology since we finally got to see the original version in colour. There are definitely more types of shots used to showcase more within the movie. This included two shots, mid shots, more frequent uses of pan shots etc. I feel this was more effective than the original 1951 version as we mainly saw full shots or mid-long shots. The audio also massively improved. Some of the dialogue in The Thing from Another World was not clear which means without subtitles, I would have issues understanding the context of the film if it wasn't for the visual elements. This is why when The Thing came out, I feel the audience was able to feel more tension which resulted in the movie having a more strong and effective emotional engagement with the audience.
In conclusion, I feel that both movies were effective in their own individual ways however, in Nyby's 1982 version, I feel what we are lacking would be the same amount of paranoia we get in the original version. This is because we already know everyone will die which technically ruined the suspense and spoils the movie. I think though that it would suit the 1982 version due to all the visuals which were replaced. This was quite effective as in the 1980's, religion was still a very big part of modern life. Having a devil like creature filled with goretastic visuals who kills a humans souls was definitely something audiences would talk about.