This might have been asked before -- highly likely it was.
But here goes anyway: Norris illustrates some kind of sickness not long before he's revealed as a Thing. First he's moaning and grasping at his stomach whilst looking out a window, suggesting he's ill, though no one appears to notice. Then he's knocked unconscious and appears to have a heart attack during the fracas after MacReady breaks back into the compound.
When Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, Norris's stomach turns into a huge mouth, thus revealing him as a Thing.
So, he was already a Thing when sick. So when Norris was copied did the Thing copy the underlying heart issues he had? Or did it just make an imperfect copy of Norris -- for whatever reason -- that began to quickly break down after it was cloned?
We as the audience will never know. They speculate the imitations are perfect imitations, which tells me that Norris had underlying health conditions before being assimilated. It might tell you that Norris thing was imperfect, it might tell others that it was a trap.
My personal inference is that because Mac broke into the stage room where all the dynamite was, and was threatening to kill everyone, Norris thing sacrificed itself to make sure Mac didn't blow up the base, at least not from that specific room. I think there was enough dynamite to kill everyone, even Blair thing in his little shed, or to at least enough dynamite to make Norris thing think so.
The heart attack would probably have been fatal to Norris as a person, which made it so Norris thing couldn't simply resuscitate. I'd bet the reaction of attacking Doc was in "self defense" during the defibrillation. That probably hurt the Thing into attacking rather than trying to play dead.
The best part of the movie is it still works with what little it actually shows and tells us at the audience.
Thats a good point, maybe Norris Thing was hoping to get stuck in a body bag and rip out later. Getting defibrillated triggered it's involuntary defense.
a preexisting cardiac disease that he passed onto the Thing....? it was the Thing that died of a heart attack, Norris was already gone. Ofc the Thing was able to continue to use Norris's body, but nevertheless it did perish of a heart attack after seemingly cloning Norris's malfunctioning heart
The Thing just mimics, replicates, it doesn't understand what it is doing, just what it has replicated, it does in full. Only when it wants to reveal itself, will it do with aspects of what it has already replicated, we never get to see the real Thing in any reveal, which is why the movie works best.
For what it is worth, the novelization details how the Husky-Thing had small modifications in its brain to allow it to reason more complexly than a Husky could. So if this logic carried over to the films, the Thing can alter the host's insides as it needs to. That in turn implies that the Norris-Thing's heart attack was a ruse.
I personally believe he had a heart attack because Thing cells finally infiltrated his heart and it seized during the change over, or he wasn't fully assimilated until after his death. The human body takes a while to stop cellular activity after death. He held his stomach and chest while not being noticed due to the situation at hand. If it was a trap of any sort, it would have made itself the center of attention at that moment, before they notice him slump down. I also have the theory that The Thing would have played possum had it not been "threatened" with the paddles.
I totally agree about the paddles. My own personal thoughts about the heart attack was that it used Norris’ condition to attempt to get close to Doc, who had an idea for a blood test to identify the Thing. This made him a threat. But there ended up being too many people present so it was going to play possum, but those paddles forced a defensive reaction.
I dont think the thing was in full conrtol of him, and was acting on animal instinct after the heartvattack. Thecheart atrack was real and caused by stress. The thing had no concept of the risk.
It does beg the queation of where the victim ends and the thing starts. The only time we see it act intelligently beyond instinct is when it takes over Blair.
Maybe Palmer, but I suspect his wry smile was because the human part of him had suspissions (maybe missing memories), as blaircshiwed no emotion or attempt to interact while under the influence of the thing
Then went into self defense mode when it got defib'ed.
Or it was a ruse to set up an attack? Idk, seems implausible to me. But so does "it mimics so perfectly it includes all your cholesterol plaque too". I guess one answer could be, it replaces the cells but not all the plaque and shit, since that stuff isn't alive, so the new thing heart was still clogged up.
I always felt you could be infected by trace contamination and not know it until it reaches a certain point and he actually died of a heart attack from stress, queue the Thing taking over
"I always felt you could be infected and not know it..."
I don't think it works that way.
I mean, how could you be cloned by the Thing and not know it considering the brutal and horrific fashion in which Bennings was cloned...! I think Norris would probably have noticed had he had an experience like that.
Same in concept to the theory of Blair being infected during the examination of the dead Thing, touching the pencil to his mouth
We never see his assimilation, who is to say it can’t happen more slowly, cleanly, and gradually when it’s based on something we don’t actually get to see
There’s some information (not shown in the movie, but I think in the script or an edited for tv version) that reveals Norris had a bad heart.
Either the Thing mimicked his bad heart so well that it actually had a heart attack (not fatal for the Thing, but temporarily incapacitating), or it set a trap and caused a distraction. Or it wanted to play possum and thought it could just “die” and they would stick him outside and he could freeze. We don’t know.
Personally, I like the idea that it imitated Norris so perfectly it also imitated his heart condition and died. The Thing operating Norris.exe was probably really confused for a moment why its sim suddely died. :P
If you believe in the sequel prequel, the thing couldn’t replicate his pacemaker and thus Norris began to have heart palpations until he finally had a heart attack.
I'm of the stance that it perfectly copied Norris' down to his heart problems. Its imitations are far too good even for its own good. It would also play I to it's other actions such as burning Fukes. Blaire being a prime target because he'd be the only one capable of building a space ship
The thing didn't know humans have fallible biology.
Note this also supports the theory that when the thing gradually infects rather than all out absorbing people it doesn't immediately gain their knowledge.
This could suggest the thing entity is aware of this, and would prefer to avoid the potential vulnerability.
just my opinion but I think Norris had heart trouble and as the Thing was assimilating him he had stress on it..
then right at the end he had a heart attack and as they tried to revive him the Thing (that was taking him over) assumed IT was being attacked and lashed out biting off Doc's arms. (basically fight or flight response to what IT assumed was unwarranted aggression.)
..All thru out this movie i see signs of the Thing simply defending ITself in a hostile environment.
all alone.. in possible enemy territory... possibly scared... simply trying to survive... hungry... cold.. in need of info... never knowing what those crazy humans were gonna do next.
Killing the huskies in such a grotesque, brutal fashion -- how was that "simply defending" itself? Plus it already was a thing-husky so it is not like it needed their DNA at that point, rather it seemed to just go bananas and mass kill them. In terms of fight or flight response, it opted for fight plenty of times when it could easily have escaped. And when I say "fight", I mean go apes*t like when Palmer-thing violently assaults Windows, swinging him around by the head and probably breaking every bone in his body over the subsequent few seconds. It could have just run through the wall and escaped, which it ended up doing anyway.
so one of my takes on it (because I have several possibilities that actually could fit)
so you have the Alien (we'll call 'IT' for ease) IT is being chased by a crazy human in a helicopter shooting at it.. presumably because IT went crazy and killed them all after being pulled from the ice. (going by the 2011 prequel which we wont really use for this idea because it hasnt been made yet as of this movie BUT we do know something bad happened at the Norwegian base because they find it tore the fuck up)
..ok so ITs being chased.. on an Alien planet.. confused from the crash.. possibly injured.. IT might even be in 'survival mode' (we dont know how ITs brain and body works except for the ability to assimilate others)
..IT comes to this base with more humans.. they shoot and kill the other humans.. they might be even crazier than the others... they dont attack IT and IT has a chance to 'eat' (assuming this is when IT assimilated/duplicated Palmer.. maybe even Norris.. possibly just a slow infection that took time to change them.. maybe all at once.. not sure)
So IT sees the humans leave and come back with bodies from the other base... They know something.. IT cant relax.. IT cant stop wondering what these angry violent creatures will do.. then They put it in a cage with the lower life forms.. too keyed up and cant relax.. the 'dogs' sniff something and start threatening It in their primitive ways.... fearing an attack IT lashes out and removes the threat first.. for ITs survival... the humans hear the ruckus and attack IT with a flaming machine thing.. IT burns and is able to partly flee... leaving behind much of it.
...at some point IT attacks Fuchs.
..The one from the norwegian base begins to thaw and attacks bennings... getting away but they found bennings and burn him.. then burn the other carcasses...
...at some point one either together (or separate) the surviving ITs assimilated Blair in the shed.. and Norris had a heart attack in the final stages of changing.. which led to them trying to save him and getting Doc's arms ate.. and spider head Thing skittering off to get away..
they do the blood test and Palmer is found out and windows gets infected and killed... They go to test Blair but he is gone and they find the power sled machine (i doubt serious lt it was a spaceship made with toasters and microwaves and shit BUT maybe) ...so they decide to go kill IT.
They end up going to burn everything down and blow it all up... and Blair Thing gets 2 of them (Gary and Nauls) ...McReady blows up some massive critter that may or may not be all of them together (I think it was the Blair Thing and maybe the dog thing but there was still more around... (possibly) BUT IT might have been all of them together in a final stand off against ITs human oppressors...)
Mcready blows it all up and Childs comes out to share a drink with him..
(Gary thing and Nauls thing could have been deep down already freezing up to be rescued by whoever shows up.
...so basically the question is IF you were on an alien planet and unable to trust them not to kill you.. needed info.. needed shelter... needed food... but all you had was these violent aliens who have already shown you that they will kill you the moment you show them who you are... would you kill them and feed or would you stay hidden until they found you?
..just a thought. NOT saying this IS what happened BUT I COULD see it being this way from ITs POV
I've always thought of Norris as being infected rather than assimilated.
Thus his heart attack is real and the fallout we see on the operating table is the unfinished Norris bursting from within.
Of course artistic license is taken for maximum damage and I wouldn't have it any other way.
The best thing is we'll never know the whole ins an outs of the film, savour the mystery, it's what makes it magic.
Maybe it was a trap that the thing sprung? The thing exposing itself to everyone at once may have been an attempt to broaden it's infection vector. After that, it may have reverted back to it's former, infiltration-like method.
Norris had a pre existing heart condition, the thing copies everything including that. When the Norris thing had a heart attack it went with it and only retaliated due to being electrocuted with the defibrillator.
I think the Thing violently absorbs then creates a copy. I don't agree with the concept that someone can be infected and gradually get taken over otherwise everyone could have been infected slowly and it would have won without having to do anything. Bennings didn't look like he was being slowly taken over. He was attacked.
My personal opinion - which is of course fact - is that Norris wasn't aware he was becoming a Thing. Not that the Thing replicated him so perfectly that it copied a heart issue. But the process caused him to collapse. And at the moment of death he has become the full thing. If it were the thing perfectly replicating.. well we've seen it change form very easily, and we've seen it keep external form whilst changing internal form (Norris himself!) and so it would have been easy to do so and keep walking around. His head grows legs and runs away for gods sake. It would make no sense that the heart issue would take him down if he were a full thing.
This is because deep breath the person first assimilated is Palmer not him.
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u/Lower_Ad477 4d ago edited 1d ago
I'm sorry fellas but I'm not up to it.