Can a thing morph back to its previous imitations?
I've always assumed this before, but after re-watching it and noticing how it operates and on what and how events happened, I'm beginning to consider that it can't, but I haven't exactly thought it through completely, so I was wondering if any of you know whether it can or not.

Dear OI, Well, you know where I stand on this. :wink: But why have a new thread? XidiouX

I think it's highly likely that it could, after a Thing-Out, change back into a previous imitation. In the movie we don't really see it get a chance. Take Spider-Head Thing for example, it sprouts legs and eyes from what we might assume came from a previous, perhaps alien victim. If these are parts of a previous creature, I don't see any reason why it couldn't, given sufficient mass, reform completely into any of it's previous incarnations. Indeed, if it were beneficial to completely transform into a dog (for example) it very well might (the Thing's track record of making smart decisions notwithstanding of course - but that is a whole other topic).

There is a deleted scene from the ending in which we see a dog run away from the smoking outpost, pausing to look back at it for a moment, then turning around continuing.

I thought that was the Norwegian outpost?

No. It depicts #31. However, it is easy to mix up the two because the outpost and the Norwegian outpost are one and the same. They merely filmed the early scenes of Mac and Copper investigating the burnt camp after destroying it.

A little OT here, but I personally think that the dog-looking-back-at-the-burning-outpost-ending scene would be really nice to have in the final cut.

Future Filmmaker: I think that's a very good point then. . . Assuming all of the dogs were killed by Blair in that version, I would have to agree with you. However (of course), since it was an ending from another version of the movie, couldn't it be possible that not only the plot was modified for this version, but also how The Thing "works"? In the common version, you have to wonder, if it could simply jump back and forth from imitation to thing-mode, why so few people were assimilated and to why it ignored so many good opportunities.

I believe that could be explained by my view that the Thing did not intend to assimilate everyone and everything. It's actions show that avoids confrontation of any form (I believe both small scale and large scale) and that it merely seeks to leave the planet using whatever means necessary. Since the Thing has shown that it is capable of pragmatic thought, I don't find this to be a far-fetched theory. Especially it passing up the opportunity to assimilate Clark when he was alone with one for over an hour, Windows when alone in the radio room for long amounts of time, Childs in the room with Palmer, etc. If you think about it, it only assimilated the the mechanic, the geologist, and the meteorologist. Everyone else was probably needed for its self-defense. Being stuck in ice for 100,000 years could lead to severe boredom with any creature and it could also lead us to believe that this creature or weapon (whatever it was) was on the run from other species hunting it.

From what I remember, it never really "avoided" confrontation; and when it wanted to be alone from everyone else, it was because it wanted to go with someone, like Palmer to Childs (while also trying to put weight on Windows). I assumed The Thing's priorities were to imitate every life form on the planet from Blair and MacCready's thoughts (although maybe not necessarily at first when its ship was landing roughly).

The thing could've wanted to simply get back to its home planet, but if it really did, wouldn't it not risk getting frozen again by turning off all the power near the end of the film? I always thought that the thing was merely trying to infect the entire world population, and since it started in the Arctic, it could only make very few casualties on its part, explaining why it only immitated certain individuals who posed the biggest threat (Macready was always up in his shack.)