Tagged: original cut

Harbinger Down: The Real Prequel to “The Thing”!!

I just checked out the long awaited trailer for a movie I’ve been pumped about for quite some time time now, Harbinger Down! If you follow my blog at all you’ve probably heard me complaining a lot about CGI and how there aren’t nearly enough movies these days that utilize rad practical monster effects like they used to back in the 1980’s. Well Alec Gillis at Studio ADI announced a while back that he planned on making a full on monster movie utilizing all practical effects only using CG to eliminate things like rods or wires.

You see a while back they made a prequel to the classic John Carpenter Monster flick “The Thing” and Gillis and his crew were hired to do the special effects, they were told to use all practical monster effects to keep the same vibe as the 1982 classic. They went hard to work and filmed much of the movie with the effects but at the last minute the studio changed their mind, and CG’d over all of there work, claiming that people these days like their movies to look more like modern video games. The movie was bashed by fans of the original and did little at the box office. So here is Alec Gillis’ response to what happened to them, a movie that bears some resemblance to the premise of The Thing, as if him and his crew is giving the fans the movie that they were hoping for in The Thing prequel. So take a look at the trailer, this one is on the top of my list!!

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Is There an Alternate Version of “The Thing” 2011 Prequel?

I finally got around to watching “The Thing” 2011 prequel I have been trying to avoid for so long. The original 1982 movie of the same name is probably my favorite monster movie of all time! So giving this new movie a chance after hearing about how shitty it was really was a hard thing to do-but I decided to see for myself if the movie sucked as bad as the reviews suggested. My verdict? Yeah it was pretty damn sucky.

First of all this movie was really not much of a prequel. It was basically a remake that tried to do everything the original did but just ten times less impressive. Sure it linked at the end to the Carpenter version but overall this movie didn’t bring anything new to the table. The story was pretty bland, as were the characters even though the movie was pretty well shot and looked very similar to the original-all except for the special effects.

Now we all know that the 1982 version is really the king of practical monster effects. It still remains to this day as perhaps the most creepy and realistic looking effects on screen. The new version however looked as fake and pathetic as ever. Like something out of DOOM interacting with real people. But was it always meant to be that bad? I guess not. The movie originally boasted that no CGI would be used and from what I have read 80% of it was shot with bad ass practical monster effects. Then when the movie was show to the studio they were told the monsters were too slow and they needed the monsters to be jumping around more ect. So they had to go back and reshoot and mostly cover up the old effects with CGI to give it a more modern look. By modern it ended up getting a more fake video gamey look that the kids love so much today. Anyway I am curious-is there a version out there with the original effects?! How about releasing a special edition original cut version? Well here’s a little video that shows you some of the magic that could have been in the 2011 version…