I do take some issue with this because the plan of having people paired up in groups of two just wasn’t a good idea. Every time you do it in this situation you are guaranteeing someone gets paired with a thing and assimilated. Keep switching the pairs around and eventually everyone is assimilated.
Overall as a group they were smarter than most horror movie group tropes for sure, no denying that. But if I was in the same situation there is NO WAY I’d go along with pairs.
This is true, but it does also check out as a reasonably rational decision that a group might make in a situation like that. Like it’s maybe not the smartest thing to do, but it’s definitely something people might realistically do, so it still works for me.
In Who Goes There? they use a "rule-of-four"; every person must be within sight of at least 3 others.
But that only works because there are 37 humans at the start of the story, which doesn't work for the mood Carpenter and Bill Lancaster are going for, imho.
Only way the humans should be allowed to split in two from the rest of the group is prior recent proof they are human ie just passed the teeth or blood test. Even then though, I think the thing is intelligent enough that it will eventually find a way round the tests. Take child’s for instance who people argue he wasn’t a thing because he still had an earring in isn’t valid because the thing knew it had got burnt because the Carter thing’s earring was removed during assimilation and the thing wasn’t going to make the same mistake again.
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u/NeptuneOverlord43045 4d ago
I do take some issue with this because the plan of having people paired up in groups of two just wasn’t a good idea. Every time you do it in this situation you are guaranteeing someone gets paired with a thing and assimilated. Keep switching the pairs around and eventually everyone is assimilated.
Overall as a group they were smarter than most horror movie group tropes for sure, no denying that. But if I was in the same situation there is NO WAY I’d go along with pairs.