Changed my mind on which Sci-Fi flick is my FOAT.

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The thing was a damn good movie because it wasn't just science fiction, it was horror and suspense and revulsion all rolled into one.
The paranoia that came with not ever being able to trust anyone, ever, that you are infected and you're slowly being taken over and you don't even realize it, and if you do you cannot fight it.
That was part of what made the Thing so powerful as a film, more so than Blade Runner. 2001 was more of a thinking man's Sci Fi film, where as the Thing was more of an action man's Sci Fi. That's a big part of the thing's appeal as well.

Blurry line, and one that 30 different people will have 30 different opinions on. You could also say Alien is a horror movie.

The UFO and the alien makes it sci-fi.

IMDb classifies it as Horror | Mystery | Sci-Fi., which describes it pretty well.

Oh, same as an RPG.

. . . What ever we want it to be.

I'm one of those who say Alien and The Thing are horror movies first and foremost. Sci-fi is the setting; not the core genre behaviour. Brokeback Mountain is hardly a Western after all; it just has a cowboy setting.

Perhaps we should have two categories then: setting and genre behavior. Only true Sci-Fi gets both.

Aliens is just bad. 2001 is where it's at.

Cut out the chimps and the monolith's influence, along with the psychedelic scenes, and I'll support your view.

I can agree that the psychedelic sequence is far too long.

Always loved The Thing. It just plays that "who can you trust?" aspect so well. The alien will definitely kill them but there's that second fear of trust in your fellow man.

Remember when Obsidian was supposed to make an RPG based off of the Thing? Would've sucked for the 'dex Combatfags but it sounded like a worthy venture. Certainly better than everything they've done since.

After watching tons of shitty 2000's movies and then seeing The Thing and shortly Alien for the first time I just wondered why everything in movies is made differently nowdays if it's just for the worse. I like the old actual sets and animatronics and what not better than modern CGI, I like the stable cameras better than fucking tapping on the back of the camera to make things seem more intense, I like some scenes the like of which you never see anymore such as The Thing's opening... Felt good watching these movies.

Planet of the Apes. Awesome movie, Heston, the costumes, the music, all awesome. Also my first taste of post-apocalypse, and the concept blew my mind.

Planet of the Apes was a very good film.

Dat ending. One of the strongest images of my childhood.

People who consider Alien to be primarily a Sci-Fi film must also consider Jason X to be primarily a Sci-Fi film, not a horror film. They're exactly the same movie, except one is good and one is bad (but funny).

for taking so long to check out Carpenter's masterpiece.

But for acknowledging its genius.

So...

Have we watched the same 2001? I agree with people who say it looks amazing for something made in the 1960's, or any period. Considering that almost two decades later Lucas made Star Wars, and you could really improve it with CGI, though not in the way Lucas did - 2001 needs no touch up. But it's just a shitty movie.

I'll try to recall the plot points and whatever. It starts with a bunch of apes screaming at a monolith and some music that some people seem to think is amazing. Then there's a long as fuck sequence of just space shit floating around, guy running in a space-wheel, people talking (which admittedly is one of the few things that show its age). A lot of space masturbation for a long time, and though impressive to look at, it doesn't do anything. Also, two decades later or so, Star Trek the Movie did the exact same space masturbation, had more of a plot, and yet people called it shit.

Some shit happens. HAL goes evil. Movie turns into space horror. I don't even remember how they got to this point. Were they sent off to examine a second monolith on one of Jupiter's moons or what was the dealio? 2010 had a much more coherent plot. Anyway, stupid light-show later, more monolith and some text. What an amazing fucking movie.

Not Kurt. There's no point in Kurt saying what he does if it was him. The character interactions in that movie are just fucking astounding along with everything else. Actual praised to fuck dramas don't have the quality of drama and characterizations as The Thing does. Keith David and Kurt Russell in the same movie, not to mention amazing secondary cast including Brimley, is just magic.

Whether or not either of the guys were taken over at the end is actually irrelevent IMO. The movie leaves it up to the viewer to make that guess. That was the whole point of how it ended like it did; they both knew they were going to die out there, so what does it matter?

Still, once the fire burned out, the cold would set back in, and the alien could then go to sleep which is what Mac stated it wanted to do. So...

Many many to all mah fellow Thing-lovin' niggaz.

Also, if you haven't yet check out this awesome short story that tells The Thing from the Thing's perspective (fuck what an awkward sentence):

"The Things" by Peter Watts
http://clarkesworldmagazine.com/watts_01_10/

The death of David was much better in the book than in the film (displayed as a psychedelic light show). From this point we learn that HAL and David now exist with the Monolith. I skipped the "monoliths made us evil as apes, by influencing our intelligent development, in an experiment" chapters, though (which is its mission, the creation of intelligent life through experimentation, as we learn in the novels 2010 and 20XX).

Sorry, Clarke.

2010 suffered some hammy acting at times, muddled scenes, but otherwise I found it quite enjoyable -- as it lacked these fantasy elements. It was in essence "Go forth and repair the derelict. Watch the Chinese fail catastrophically. Get the fuck out of here before HAL blows us up, again!).

Yeah, but I'd watch that for John Lithgow alone.
The king of hammy can generally be awesome at anything he chooses to do.

Have you played the PC game? It was pretty decent in its own right and it gives its own version of what happened after the movie ended. Of course it's difficult to accept it as canon, even if JC approved it.

All right, first of all, screw everyone in this thread who isn't giving Aliens proper respect. It's a masterpiece that was waaaaaaaaaay ahead of its time.



Now,

For those who really liked: The Thing (1982) - IMDb

Try to get a copy of the DVD commentary. JC and Kurt Russell drink beer and talk about things that happened on the set, reminisce about the cast/crew's shenanigans, and wax philosophical on the various themes of the film. Highly recommended.

More info:

http://www.ratethatcommentary.com/detail.php/388
http://www.amazon.com/Thing-Collectors-Edition-Kurt-Russell/dp/B0002CHK1S

Nice. I wonder if it's on Blu-Ray?