>“The Thing” is a great barf-bag movie, all right, but is it any good? I found it disappointing, for two reasons: the superficial characterizations and the implausible behavior of the scientists on that icy outpost. Characters have never been Carpenter’s strong point; he says he likes his movies to create emotions in his audiences, and I guess he’d rather see us jump six inches than get involved in the personalities of his characters. This time, though, despite some roughed-out typecasting and a few reliable stereotypes (the drunk, the psycho, the hero), he has populated his ice station with people whose primary purpose in life is to get jumped on from behind. The few scenes that develop characterizations are overwhelmed by the scenes in which the men are just setups for an attack by the Thing.>That leads us to the second problem, plausibility. We know that the Thing likes to wait until a character is alone, and then pounce, digest, and imitate him–by the time you see Doc again, is he still Doc, or is he the Thing? Well, the obvious defense against this problem is a watertight buddy system, but, time and time again, Carpenter allows his characters to wander off alone and come back with silly grins on their faces, until we’ve lost count of who may have been infected, and who hasn’t. That takes the fun away.
I think The Thing is mid too but not for those reasons.
Post the review where he claims Predator is racist because the alien head tendrils look like dreadlocks.
Mac wants a WHAT?!
Was this nigger actually famous in his time or is one autistic Wikipedia admin just obsessed with putting him in every movie page?
>>220853945i mean there was no higher authority on movie reviews besides award councils. him and his buddy wasn't exactly sinking movies with their reviews though.
>make a buddy system>your buddy is the thing>you are dead for free
>>220854169He also assumes that people in crisis situations always act rationally and plan logically, which anyone who's ever been in a real life or death emergency (i.e, somebody that's not a fat kike movie reviewer) would know is rarely the case.
>>220853945It's weird, basically he was important among critics, but since back then nobody gave a fuck about critics because almost no one used the internet, and to read their reviews you had to physically buy the newspaper and read it, they really had no impact on movies.It's only since the internet has become big enough, and rotten tomatoes/metacritic have invaded ad space that critics actually hold any power now.
>>220853945yes he was Red Letter Media for boomers
>>220854300So he was an idiot that anyone with sense ignored.
>>220854296>and to read their reviews you had to physically buy the newspaper and read itYou know there was an entire culture around getting that newspaper in your hands to read during breakfast, right?Dogs were trained for it.. Kids' first jobs involved it. They made a Gameboy game about it.
>>220853703>spend entire life talking shit>die of mouth cancerKINO
For most of the movie they don’t know how the thing operates and by the time they do, there are multiple crises at the same time and too much distrust among them.
>>220853945He was well regarded, which is honestly the perfect symbol for the pointlessness of critics. If someone who this frequently missed the point of the things he watched was venerated as the greatest critic, then critics simply have no value and can be discarded.
Yet another one who couldn't understand Carpenter back then
>>220853945compare him to the youtube "critic" dogshit slop you see. I can name maybe 2 good reviewers jeremy and dan. thats it
>the people that hate Ebert are always mad that he shits on their adolescent slop like The Thing and never for disliking an actually good filmsays it all
Considering that most of Carpenter's films were box office and critical failures, it's incredible to see how the vast majority of them have increased in value over time.The case of this film is unique. It premiered at the worst possible time because the collective consciousness was heavily influenced by ET and Star Wars. A decade later, due to the high demand for VHS tapes and television, it became a cult classic, and now there is debate about whether this film is the best horror film of all time.
jaw dropping stuff
>>220853703I bet he didn't like Vampires either.
>>220853945back then people actually took movie critics seriously (for no good reason) and he was the most famous one
>>220853945He was king of the normies
Who has taken his place now?
When talking about The Cable Guy, Ebert said it was a bad move for Jim Carrey to play an antagonistic, unlikable character instead of something like every other movie he'd done at the time.But then he'll turn around and complain about other actors not challenging themselves.
>>220854296nigga hosted a tv show for more than 20 years, he wasn't a newspaper-only film critic.
>>220854259He’s also overlooking that by the time they’d figured out how the Thing operates, it was too late for a buddy system.
>>220853703The characters are one of the things that set John Carpenter's movies apart from the other horror and action movies of the time. He basically invented both the final girl and the slasher villain, two of the most beloved horror archetypes of all time, and everyone loves characters like Snake Plissken and Lo Pan. Ebert was just plain wrong here.
>>220856074I cry myself to sleep every night knowing I will never be as cool as Lo Pan.
>>220856074Ebert giving a positive review is one of the reasons Halloween became a hit althougheverbeit
>>220854622Exactly, they're dealing with incomplete information throughout, and the film shows us the effects of paranoia and isolation and sleep deprivation on each unique individual personality. All of these people are smart, at least in their own specialty, and we see them each making poor decisions which seemed correct to them under the desperate circumstances of the time.
>>220853703>I found it disappointing, for two reasons: the superficial characterizations and the implausible behavior of the scientists
ebert was the only critic in the world who realized that the engineer scene in alien was special. other critics were lambasting it during it’s premiere. https://youtu.be/56QczObaTPE>>220856074lol zoom zoom i am about to describe a few characters in the film >black guy not named Childs >doctor guy… but not wilford brimley >wilford brimley>lumberjack guy who makes a bad move >headphones guy whose head explodes great film but yeah character depth is exactly the thing to attack.
>alright let's buddy up, here bro, you go buddy up with someone who might be the fuckin thing
>>220856417Okay, now compare the characters in The Thing to the characters in any horror movie other than Alien. With most horror movies it's just>the final girl (copied off Laurie from Halloween)>her boyfriend>a bunch of teensor more recently it's>a boring family>some zoomers>maybe a knowledgeable mystic Van Helsing typeAlien had the best horror cast ever, but honestly The Thing probably had the second best cast.
>>220853945>>220853703He's a great writer and could wax poetic about films he loves and understands, but he also had frequent blind spots and often wouldn't "get it".
>>220853703>"Friday the 13th is an immoral and reprehensible piece of trash" >Siskel and Roger Ebert spent an entire episode of their TV show berating the film series because they felt the movies would make audiences root for the killer. >They called Cunningham "one of the most despicable creatures ever to infest the movie business." and published the address for Charles Bluhdorn, the chairman of the board of Gulf+Western, which owned Paramount, as well as Betsy Palmer's home city and encouraged fellow detractors to write to them and express their contempt for the film.
