Norris

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

If his heart was so bad like so many of you insist, why did he stress it by rappelling down to the space-ship? (he would have needed to climb back up too)

Joined: 18 Aug 2006 Posts: 129

Perhaps he took a calculated risk because he was excited to get down and look at the alien ship. Alternatively, if he was completely taken over by this point AND Things are aware that they are Things, strain on his heart wasn't a worry because his heart doesn't actually do anything.

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

That is always what I am saying Khan. When Norris colapses, it isn't because of a heart attack. His heart (if it even still exists) isnt necissary.

Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 392

A visit to an alien spaceship? If that isn't worth risking death for, then what is?

XidiouX

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

But I am sure that it (the heart condition) would have come up, Xidioux, and if I was Mac I would be suspicious at Norris's lack of wheezing or chest pains. My father has congestive heart failure, any activity, even just walking up my driveway makes him out of breath.

Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 392

It's possible that, at this stage, Norris did not realise how serious his condition was, or rather, could quickly become given suitable provocation (according to the script, Norris's heart condition was initially 'incipient', i.e. it was just beginning to develop.) Undoubtedly, he knew that he was overweight and felt out of breath after strenuous activity, but was prepared to risk his well-being to investigate the ship given the unique and historically significant situation he found himself in.

XidiouX

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

No where in the movie that was released do they mention that Norris has a heart condition (like I said before, if we are to discuss things that got cut from the movie, we should also discuss Fuchs getting impaled by a shovel in the greenhouse). If Norris actually had a heart defect he would have shown obvious distress from all the activity of rappelling down to the ship. And later, I believe, he colapses because he is becoming fully Thing. He also had that monster head inside him, eating him from within.

Joined: 18 Oct 2008 Posts: 102 Location: Kansas

For very much the same reason Charles Bishop Wayland went down to the pyramid in AvP: To be part of history. Even if he'd died in the process, his legacy would be that he'd died exploring an alien spacecraft. Bragging rights sometimes last beyond the life of the individual.

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

Huh? Whay are you talking about Vlad?

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

People aren't understanding the point that I am trying to make. When Norris rappells down to the ship, he is NOT out of breath. This means that A, he doesn't have a heart problem. Or B, he is infected and his heart is no longer neccissary. Either of these Things has repercussions later in the movie; it means that he did NOT have a heart attack prior to the chest bursting scene.

Joined: 09 Aug 2009 Posts: 167 Location: Canada

A "heart problem" doesn't mean he'll necessarily be out of breath, but I do agree that it would be fairly dangerous (if his heart gave out).

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

My father has a heart condition, and I am pre-Med. People with heart problems get out of breath, especially after heavy exersize (rappelling down a steep cliff) and have angina (chest pains).

Joined: 09 Aug 2009 Posts: 167 Location: Canada

Okay, I'm just saying there might be other types of heart conditions that differ in symptoms. I really don't know. Razz

Joined: 07 Feb 2009 Posts: 46

They don't really say what kind of heart condition the "alternate" (by alternate, I mean the Norris character that possesses qualities not shown or described in the mainstream film release, but perhaps mentioned in pre-edited versions of scripts, etc.) Norris has, do they? I am in no way versed in medical or biological science, but it seems to me that most kinds of heart conditions would confer an inherent cardio/respiratory difficulty on the individual. The only type of condition that I am aware of that maybe doesn't fit this is when someone has something like a heart murmur (a valve that is not formed right/positioned wrong, I think), only because I know someone with this condition, and they can perform normal, even strenuous physical activity without any abnormal breathing stress.

But anyways, I totally agree with Ghodi here, in sticking with what is actually in the normal, theatrical release, which as far as I can tell, mentions nothing, nor even implies anything about a heart condition. I maintain as well that the Norris clutching his chest scenes was the Thing matter infestation taking him over from the inside out.

Joined: 18 Oct 2008 Posts: 102 Location: Kansas

GhodiGirl wrote:

Huh? Whay are you talking about Vlad?

I was talking about the reason why he'd go down to the ship if he did have a heart condition, using a parallel from another movie to illustrate the point.

Joined: 15 Jun 2007 Posts: 392

One major issue concerning the interpretation of The Thing that requires clarification is the role played by imitation organs. As Blair discovered, they "seem to be normal" but are they just for show, or do they play a functional role, perhaps identical to that of their original counterparts?

Humans and, indeed, all other known species obtain information about their surroundings through their senses. All known creatures possess organs which are particularly sensitive to certain kinds of environmental data and are able to capture it and send it with high fidelity to one or more information processing centres. Does The Thing acquire information about its surroundings in a similar manner?

When in full disguise as another creature, it pays for The Thing to behave as though it acquires information only by the same means as a bona fide member of the same species, although we can imagine that it would obtain a strategic advantage by discretely making use of any additional information-acquisition mechanisms at its disposal. So, does an imitation human see through its imitation eyes in the same way as a real human? Does it see only through these? And likewise with the other senses and their associated organs?

It is clear, from behaviour of the Palmer-Thing blood sample, that Things in general can obtain environmental information through means other than imitation sensory organs. When MacReady pricked the sample of Thing blood contained in Palmer's petri dish, the imitation blood detected this and acted to preserve itself, in the process sealing the fate of the remainder of the Palmer imitation. It was no longer part of that collective, and felt neither a sense of loyalty nor had a pragmatic belief in strength of numbers in relation to its parent organism. And when it came in contact with MacReady's hot wire, one cannot say whether or not it felt any pain, but it is clear that the heat itself presented to it an existential threat, and was recognized as such. It escaped through an unknown locomotory mechanism as improbable in a blood sample as any means of acquiring and processing sense data. And this mysterious ability to propel itself was used to move it to safety, under the couch. How could it know where to go, without eyes?

Yet...yet...on the other hand, consider how the Norris spider head escaped. It needed both legs and eyes to do so, and so it grew them. What conclusions can we draw to about this? That the Palmer blood could 'see' to some extent, enough to succeed in its short term goal of escaping to safety, but the Norris head, being an overall better prospect of a creature, would require a more sophisticated visual system in order to achieve its more elaborate goals, and had proportionately sufficient disposable mass to create one. The inescapable conclusion is that The Thing does indeed use imitation sensory organs for information acquisition. Had the remaining human personnel at Outpost 31 decide to dissect the charred Norris head, they would have found that its stalked eyes were entirely functional. Not only would they, in this regard, have seemed to be normal, to a large extent, they really were. If not, why would Jar Jar Norris have bothered to grow them, especially when its cover was blown?

Clearly then, when in disguise as an indigenous creature, it also requires sense-acquisition organs, organs that seem to be normal and, to a large extent, are. Inevitably, the eyes and ears of a human imitation really are at least eyes and ears. However, being comprised of Thing tissue, they have additional capabilities. So, a Thing's eyes really see, and, moreover, a Thing really needs replica human eyes to take the form of an acceptable human imitation and to see as well as a human; no less although maybe a little better, if we take into account the generic environmental awareness of all Thing matter as evidenced by the behaviour of the Palmer blood sample. As a brief aside, could this faculty be the reason why the Blair imitation could dispense of the original's spectacles?

But what about its non-sensory organs? Consider an imitation of a creature with a conventional mammalian circulatory system. Does its heart beat and does this Thing need its heart to beat in order to function as the imitated organism? Obviously, we have Norris in mind here but let's forget about hearts for a moment and think about lungs instead. The principle is the same: they are internal organs which are necessary for survival in the genuine organism and for whose existence, operation and integration with other biological systems there is ample, accessible evidence and which a convincing imitation must display. So, consider respiration and the Norwegian dog-Thing.

Its chest is seen to oscillate in a manner consistent with breathing. It is seen to exhale carbon dioxide in a manner consistent with breathing. Why? Because it is breathing. How? With its lungs, which "seem to be normal", both in terms of function and, if we extrapolate from Blair's Norwegian Thing autopsy, appearance. The dog-thing undoubtedly has lungs which are responsible for the observable phenomena. And the structure of a Thing would have to be massively and unnecessarily conspiratorial in order to manifest the most basic respiration-like phenomena with a completely different cause. The same considerations apply to the Norris-Thing. Yes, it had a heart. Yes, it really did what Norris's heart did, and for exactly the same reasons. Yes, its proper operation was necessary for the integrity of the Norris imitation.

But there's something else, isn't there? When a Thing is revealed as such, the complicated and interdependent biological systems which governed its operation while in imitation form are torn asunder and something else takes over. And in the case of the Norris-Thing, it had no choice. The game was up and it could no longer function as a human without doing something 'superhuman', e.g. walk around as normal with rosy cheeks without a living heart pumping oxygen to its imitation cells and exhaling carbon dioxide in the usual way. It was, in every sense, backed into a corner and had no option other than to reveal its underlying true nature and hope for the best.

XidiouX

Joined: 20 May 2007 Posts: 277

Xidioux, are you familliar with Rupert Sheldrake? He introduced the ideas of Morphic Fields, and Morphic Resonance. When you look at a flock of flying birds wheeling in unison, how do they not run into each other? They know where all the other birds are through the use of Morphic Fields. Of course birds still have eyes and ears, and use both of them.