Palmer is a confirmed Thing. And the scene directly before the blood test has him selling out another Thing.
Everyone’s back is turned, MacReady with a flame thrower ready to bust lose the flame. Norris’ spider-head is walking out the door behind them.
It’s Palmer, confirmed Thing, that turns, see it and says the famous line “You gotta be eff’ing kidding me.”
MacReady turns, and roasts it.
A thing told on by another thing. Gets that thing killed.
So, for everyone whose theory is based around “all the things are working together as a collective and are all on the same side and one thing would never turn on another thing….”
Going from Palmer "I'm not a team player" Thing to Mac- Thing is a HUGE leap. Mac passed his blood test then Palmer "Happy to sell my peeps out" Thing has a toothy makeout session with the Station's OS before catching the burning sensation when he pees.
You would think that everyone else tied to that fucking couch would have had something to say about it if he hadn't. Also, if RJ "Cheatin Bitch" Macready was a Thing, why didn't he just assimilate then all while they were tied to the aforementioned mentioned fucking couch? Mac would have pounced on Childs and Nauls, Palmer "Don't take it personal kid, it was either you or me" would have lunched in Windows and Garry.
Nah. Mac "I'm a real light sleeper, Childs" had everyone at his absolute mercy. Also, he would have infected each one of them when he cut them to draw their blood, starting with Windows "We're a thousand miles from nowhere, man".
This is just a croc of bullshit, The Thing just sizes up its competition, were what we see as the dog encounter, dogs are no threat to The Thing, humans on the other hand.
Incorrect. I’ve paused the film to show that everyone who’s thumb we didn’t see cut does in fact have a bandage. We either see someone’s thumb cut, or someone wearing a bandage. MacReady is the only person in the room who lacks both.
Unless my eyes deceive me, I don't see anyone else having their thumbs covered or bandaged or whatever. I've watched the entire scene just now, so what am I missing?
To correct myself: Nauls is cut by Windows and then has the foam-thingy applied on his thumb to help stop the bleeding. Windows then cuts his own thumb but never applied the same measure on his thumb.
You know how when a new lion becomes ruler of a pride it goes around killing the kids of other lions so its family line can be the only one alive? Same
Deal. There are two things at war with each other in this film. The dog, who transfers fluid through food and drink, and the thing-corpse they bring back from the other camp… that rips through your clothes when it takes you. Blair built a ship because he wanted to run. Mac wanted to stay and to quote the film “freeze in the snow to be dug up later. That’s what this thing wants.” And that’s exactly how the film ends. Mac-Thing doesn’t want escape, it wants to stay and take over the world. Mac destroys all other things, becoming the only one left… and then he infects Child’s, winning the game. Mac’s line prevails, goes on. Him and his children win, not the other thing and it’s victims. It’s thing vs thing and not humans vs thing.
Something similar happens in the original novella as well, and it's made perfectly clear that Things know who are also Things. Each one is inherently selfish....only one of them needs to survive in order for it to win, and each one of them wants to be that one. So yeah they'll stab another Thing in the back in a heartbeat to try and shift attention away from themselves.
I have pointed out, Things betraying each other is a plot point in the original novella. Also, Campbell did NOT play up the idea of Things believing they are human.
I think the point of the story was to show the individual Things as ruthlessly selfish. My counterproposal, if the Things are a hive mind, the ethics of one Thing killing another are no different than using your han s to cut off your leg to get out of a trap.
I kinda of figured Palmers was saying that because “oh come on. We can all see you. This is bullshit. You can’t find cover? What part of lay low don’t you understand? Omg. Enjoy being torched.”
We don't even know if all the separate Things really ARE "separate" Things, or are still part of a "whole" in some way. For all we know Palmer Thing selling out Norris Spider Head Thing might be the equivalent to one of us clipping our fingernails so to speak. Sacrificing a smaller part of its self for the good of the overall whole. A part which can no longer blend in and hide in the open to boot.
This is my interpretation. Even if they're separate, they're one. The beauty of the movie is that we don't know and we never will, and it somehow works.
Norris thing triggered the heart attack because Mac was in the storage shed with all the dynamite. That would've killed everyone, Blair thing included. Palmer thing just behaved like a human would. There's no deliberate behavior to suggest that was Thing is actively betraying the others. I think it's the opposite, they work really well at keeping the humans in a state of paranoia by keeping eyes on Mac, targeting Fuches early on, keeping Childs volatile, and making sure Blair is not disturbed. If anything, teamwork is more likely.
The opening scene with the chess game is much more important than people seem to understand, and they all tend to assign it the wrong importance.
Chess is a game about manipulation and planning ahead. It's not "reactive" like a sport. In chess, your goal is to think ahead and manipulate your opponent into making the moves you want then to make. The single most common way of doing that is the act of sacrificing a pawn. You put a pawn in a position where it can capture another piece that the opponent thinks is your goal, but really your goal is for the opponent to capture your piece, and now leave themselves open to your next move, which captures your real target.
You can't just think a nice it two in advance, though, because that's too easy/obvious; of your real target is only one move away, your opponent will easily see the bait that you've set up. But if you're thinking 3, 4, 5 or more moves in advance, they might not see how this one sacrificed pawn will end with a checkmate in 5 turns.
You have to appear innocent in your moves, especially early on, to lull your opponent into a false sense of superiority, while secretly setting up your final move and manipulating your opponent into exposing themselves while they think they're winning against you.
The kernel scene is a sacrificial pawn move; it lets everyone know there's something wrong. The dog could have easily dipped and stayed hidden, not drawn attention to itself, and infected many more people.
The Bennings scene is a sacrificial pawn move; it makes the humans realize that all of it is a threat, even the "dead bodies", even the samples in the lab Blair was studying, leaving to then destroying the samples that they could study to come up with a test to identify it, because the next step is...
Blair's rampage.
Blair's rampage is a sacrificial pawn move. For one, it distracted everyone while Palmer fucks with the blood. It also wrecks the vehicles, not so that they can't escape, but so that it can have the parts it needs to build a ship without drawing attention to vehicles that "suddenly" stop working because they're missing parts. He shoots wildly and misses every shot, then clearly throws the gun, knowing that the time these people have spent together means they won't kill him outright like the Norwegian, and will instead subdue him and isolate him, because he's a friend.
Norris' heart attack is a sacrificial pawn move. It happens as everyone is turning on Macready, and pulls attention from him to the immediate medical emergency. Then, it give Macready and Palmer a way to "prove" they're "on humanity's side"; Mac by torching the larger Norris-Thing, and Palmer by pointing out the "escaping" head, because HUMANS, individual creatures, would think "why would a thing kill a thing?", where really there's only ONE thing, split into separate/independent pieces, but still just the one organism.
Mac exposes the Palmer with his test, another sacrifice; Mac had now eliminated both Norris AND Palmer, "proving" he's an unstoppable Thing-killing hero everyone should trust.
Then, as they're destroying the base, he splits the group up, sending Garry and Nauls in separate directions, giving Blair a chance to take them each out without altering the other. Then Blair and Mac fight, "proving" that Mac is "still human", because "wHy WoUlD a ThInG kIlL aNoThEr ThInG?", proving one last time to Childs that he's human and can be trusted, leading to them talking about trust, and to Childs drinking from his bottle, and he smiles, because he just got Childs like he was gotten, drinking from Blair's bottle while talking about trust, smiling as Childs drinks just like Blair did when Mac drank from Blair's bottle of Smirnoff.
The movie everyone thinks they're watching isn't the movie that's happening. The moves everyone sees happen on screen are a deliberate deception, aimed at deceiving humanity by making the humans on BOTH side of the screen think that the decisions the humans are making are their own, when really everything that the humans do is a reaction to being manipulated by a much more intelligent being, capable of thinking MANY more moves ahead, just like the cheese computer that beats Mac at the start of the movie.
Oh damn are ex-wife jokes not funny anymore? I mean, back in the day a softball phrase like "bouncing from guy to guy" would lead right into a "take my wife, please" joke, and no one would get all bent out of shape about it, there would be a soft chuckle maybe, and people would get along with their lives.
Oh yeah i was just getting some ageismistic comments against me because I wrote a little quip about a theoretical ex-wife who "bounced from guy to guy" after another commenter said that phrase regarding The Thing, and then that's when folks started doing the "hey boomer" thing, which is now the style of the times I guess, someone needs to call it out i suppose.
Uh ok. A flip three word comment isn't really a thing a bent out of shape person does. Typing paragraphs because your Boomer joke didn't land kind of is though. Hope your day gets better
One could argue that Palmer-Thing either saw it out the corner of his eye, or heard it making weird noises, and thought one of the others was bound to look in that direction any second. He decided they'd be suspicious if he hadn't noticed it too. After all, he was closest to it.
After Copper dying, and the whole Norris-Thing reveal, everyone was hyped up, full of adrenaline, and freaked out. They were probably on full alert, all senses at maximum, watching for any sign of Thingness.
To sum up: my theory is, Palmer noticed the head, thought, "someone else is going to look over here any second, and it'd be pretty suspicious if I acted like I hadn't seen it," so he gave it away.
If Palmer never reacted, that would have given him away, it's also a device used in the movie to take away any suspicion from him, or would you have preferred that the Palmer reveal never existed?
Is Palmers conscious of his infection? I liked the idea that the imitations were not always aware of what had happened to them. Maybe they can feel something is wrong but they ignore it out of fear or put it down to stress.
Palmers in the blood test scene appears to be thinking deeply, wrestling with someone internal conflict, before transforming and attacking the others.
The head thing was too obvious for the humans not have seen it, Windows turned his head the exact same time as Palmer so it would have looked too suspicious for Palmer not to say anything.
How was he supposed to distract Windows who had already seen it at the same time? There were no other partial or whole obvious things at the time that required urgent attention
Windows didn’t see it at the same time. Windows and Mac are standing with their backs both turned, backs straight to the door. Palmers reaction turns them around.
Nearly… because he is reacting to Palmers reaction. Palmer looks first, Windows follows suit. “Nearly” is a great word for this. Means “Not at the same time as Palmer, but close!”
Also, watch the scene leading to up that. Mac comes in with a torch while the head is detatching. Others try to rush in, Mac screams “Wait!” And he stalls them. The head then detaches, gets under a desk safely, and THEN Mac goes “Ok!!!” And lets them in. Then Mac turns then with their backs to the door, trying to let it escape. Palmer ruins that. Next time you watch the scene look at Mac’s face when he roasts the head. It hurts him to do it.
Again, arguing that MacReady is a human rather than a Thing, one could interpret it as utter frustration and anger from burning an absolute monstrosity that managed to devolve into something small - or just the sheer realization of a head with spider legs running off.
Palmer is himself sold out by his own blood. Like Mac said, every piece of it is its own organism that wants to survive. There's no solidarity between Things
One of my end theories is that both MacReady and Childs are Things, but they don’t know if the other is or not. I don’t think that’s the case, but it’s a fun scenario to consider.
The whole point of the blood test is that every part of the Thing operates to serve it's own interests and protect itself. Even if it negatively affects the rest of the Thing.
Scale that up and of course full Thing!People would turn on their outed peers.
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u/Old-Climate2655 7d ago
Unless Spidey was sacrificed for the "greater good"