Cool movie, stop hatin'

I agree. A scary, hard-driven sci fi-horror film. Not a classic like the Carpenter film. Not a "rigid" prequel because it did violate some of the history and exobiology previously established in the Carpenter film. But as a horror story which is more than "in The Thing genre", but does offer some speculation as to what happened to "the Swedes" before the dog and the Norge chopper appear at MacReady's base. It's an effort. Not an excellent one, but watchable, entertaining, and frightening.

I agree that the prequel is definitely a cool movie.

I liked it, but it was basically a remake of the original. I was hoping for some more information on the origin of the creature.

The biggest problem with the film, is that the original Thing was such a milestone in horror, that it would be a very tough challenge to surpass it. The tension, the acting, the atmosphere, the score and, of course, the special effects. While they don't look quite as amazing as they did back then, they still hold up WAY better and are much more believable than the garbage presented here, everything is spot on in that film.

It says a LOT about the quality of a film when it's 30+ year old version holds up better in every single respect than the one that barely came out 4 years ago (I know it's supposed to be a prequel, but for f.cks sake, it follows the original in basically every plot point and it even has the same title...). The original is way more than just a random popcorn horror film, it doesn't matter that it's called "The Thing", it's one of the greatest achievements in film history and if you're going to follow it up, you better get your sh.t together and do everything you can to make it as good as possible and aside from the practical effects guys who got their amazing work ruined by the producers, it's very obvious that they didn't and this was nothing more than a shameless cashgrab.

"Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?"

I'd rather watch the 1982 version since they're the same damn film with different director and actors.

It would have been much better if it made sense. The fact that most of the vehicles, props, and clothes look modern, and nothing like you would see in 1982. The fact that pretty much all of the thing's attacks make no sense in the original context. The fillings test being entirely based on the concept of everyone having fillings...

It's like someone read the plot synopsis for the original movie and then figured that was enough information to do a prequel. I would be fine with the CG bs and all of that if the movie just made sense.

80% of the special effects completely stunk (awful CGI), among other problems. If they had stuck to the more "practical effects" of the thing autopsy scene then I might be more forgiving. They blew it. There were just two scenes I considered worthy of Carpenter's masterpiece: (1) the autopsy scene, and (2) the fillings check scene, which was pretty tense.

Having just finished watching it, I have to agree with the OP.

It's not as good as the 1982 film, but it's not completely awful. Certainly not nearly as bad as I was expecting. All in all, it was a decent enough piece of brain-in-neutral entertainment. I say around 6 stars worth.