Talwyn, we have learned to never trust John Carpenter's interviews on this movie for anything other than technical knowledge. :D

:D Perhaps, however it IS the right ending, two humans dying in the cold. The interesting thing listening to JC & Kurt Russell in the commentary was that they were talking about how they had never quite set on the ending & whether Mac was perhaps infected but they ditched that idea when KR improvised the last scene with Keith Davids. From my view point, they both have to die & be human at the end, otherwise the denoument is wasted. It suits the narrative and seals the tone for the entire picture, that being that there was no real hope for the men of Outpost 31, only that they could perhaps stop the Thing from destroying the world.

But Talwyn. We all know that this is no modern day cliche action movie,they dont have to have a happy ending.There isnt any rules for this type of film.I believe for this type of film it would make sense that they were infected at the end.

Thats how Carpenter wanted to ending be. Only thing that's missing is "End?" sign at the end :D . Thnw it would be prefect ending :D

Talwyn, if you watch John Carpenter's other movies like Big Trouble in Little China, Halloween, Ghosts of Mars, and In the Mouth of Madness, almost all of his films have no real conclusion. They all end with a continuation of conflict, reflecting Carpenter's own character in real life. Most of his films end bleakly. In this, we are left questioning our hero's own humanity and left with a man we no longer trust. Actually, the point you bring up, about the denouement being wasted is probably what some critics would complain about.

I get where you guys are coming from but it still seems to me that it would be a shame to introduce the possibility, right at the very end, of both Mac & Childs being Things. Yes, critics mention the denoument because adding in new plot threads right at the very end can potentially ruin a story. It's just not good story telling. Sure, if there was a sequel planned it'd have merrit but there wasn't and JC said he wanted the film to be as close to the short story as possible. Hence Mac & Childs left facing death by cold, as men...not things. I believe that if they are things, it's reduces their achievement of survival and cheapens the sacrifice of their own lives. And yes, I've watched all of JC's films and I agree with you, they all continue the "struggle" at the end. However, the Thing is different. The battle is over but a bit of lingering doubt remains, especially with Childs. Yet I'm convinced that they are both human and if anything, Mac's offer of the whiskey to Childs shows he's willing to extend a bit of trust to Childs. And trust was in short supply. Perhaps this debate has something to do with the modern phenomenon of the dislike of closuer? I wonder? Do we, as a modern audience, want stories that never end?

Oh, btw, JC did one happy ending: "Starman" No doubts there :wink:

I just watched The Thing again, and I saw something I didn't notice before. Near the end, right before the scene where Mac, Garry, and Nauls start planting the explosives in the generator room, the trio see's Childs (flamethrower and all) running quickly through the snow. Now I'm not sure, but to me it looks like Childs was going more away from the main building, and more towards the generator basement (where Blair-thing was going.). Plus the fact that the trio (and the audience) saw Childs running around this early in this sequence of events, and that Blair-thing was the only one that Childs would be pursuing, just makes this seem all the more believable to me. (Maybe Blair-thing was trying to lure Childs from his post? A smart move, if this was indeed Blair-thing's intent.) So in the end, I DO believe Childs ("I thought I saw Blair.") and think that he's human too, just like Mac. The above events strengthen my decision to believe Childs. Besides, Mac only told Childs to torch Blair if he saw him without the others, and we know already that he has a temperament problem, and so he probably wouldn't just sit there in the base if he saw Blair.

I agree that he was running to where Blair was, but Blair should have no hesitation about assimilating Childs, one of its grea-*test*-('") threats. Mac must have not been thinking straight when he left Childs behind.

All the Thing would need to do is sneak underneath the snow and grab him from there. That's what it attempted to do with Mac. There are dozens of ways it could have done it. But that isn't the point. Childs was heading to the location that the Blair-thing was mostly likely at. Heck, I'd stress that by the time we see Childs wandering the snow, he was already assimilated. Just imagine the entire exchange of dialogue at the end as being said by two things. If you do that, then it would be easier to believe that he was.

Then I must ask, why would an assimilated Childs be following Blair-Thing? (Sorry if it seems like I'm trying to shoot holes into your plot-theory, but I find the idea of Childs-Thing pretty interesting, hence my persistent questioning.) Edit: Also sorry if it seems like I'm being too "hard headed" about this, but I just find it very hard to accept that Mac would destroy Blair-Thing, then sit down and suddenly he's a Thing.

It's okay, dude. Constructive criticism is good. If you were barking insults at me, that'd be different. I think we can all be hard-headed at some things and it's not always a bad thing. Perhaps Childs was not following Blair at all. He was headed for the building with the generator room. Soon after, the lights go out. That's pretty suspicious... Now Mac is a bit more complex on proving that he could be infected. There was something "off" about him in that last scene and there is the possibility that Things compete. Though, I'm unsure if they do because of their collective nature. I don't see them as selfish as humans are.