The Thing From Another World

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For all of its impact, and for all of the praise the film has won since it debuted, The Thing From Another World has been dogged by two persistent criticisms.

The first, I have to concede: in terms of concept, the film's "intellectual carrot" is a big step downwards from the shape-shifting alien of John W. Campbell's original story, and in visual terms, it brings to mind not so much a being from another planet as a variation on the Jack Pierce / Boris Karloff Frankenstein's monster. The makers of the film concealed this limitation as well as they could with stark shadows and camera set-ups; perhaps no one at the time could have filmed Campbell's monster convincingly. (Except for Willis O'Brien? I wish he had tried!)

The second criticism I find hard to accept. Many have argued that this film sets military "practicality" and force above scientific curiosity. For example, in the words of John Baxter:

"Typically for [producer Howard] Hawks the characters quickly separate themselves into professionals and dreamers. The airman, the reporter he takes with him and some of his crew are professionals; the scientists, and especially their leader, are dreamers. Hawks's contempt for the former comes out clearly in the various exchanges at the base, science and scientists generally shown as being incapable of adjusting to the real world."

-- Science Fiction in the Cinema, A. S. Barnes & Co, New York, 1970.

I have never seen this in the film. What I find, instead, is a nuanced opposition between a community of reason and flexible thought (a community of soldiers and scientists), and one authoritarian scientist who prefers to work alone within his own assumptions, who considers knowledge more important than communities or individual human beings.

This authoritarian scientist, Dr Carrington, begins with an argument that most of us would find reasonable, and which, in the context of the film, is undeniably true:

"When you find what you're looking for, remember it's a stranger in a strange land. The only crimes involved were those committed against it. It awoke from a block of ice, was attacked by dogs, shot by a frightened man. All I want is a chance to communicate with it."

Later in the film, however, when the Thing is revealed to be a possible biological threat to the world, Carrington goes beyond this argument to stress that human beings are expendable:

"We've only one excuse for existence: to think, to find out, to learn. It doesn't matter what happens to us. Nothing matters except our thinking. We've fought our way into Nature, we've split the atom... We owe it to the brain of our species to stay here and die, without destroying a source of wisdom. Civilization has given us orders."

Carrington has learned about the Thing by conducting experiments in secret. The other scientists, equally curious, have kept in mind reasonable precautions against too quick an investigation without proper safeguards. When Carrington proposes an immediate examination of the frozen Thing, Dr Chapman mentions the risk of contamination by germs from another planet, and the possible risk of damage to these alien remains by the atmosphere of Earth. Even the scientists eager to learn about the Thing right away come to disagree with Carrington when they realize the implications of the creature's biology; they join the soldiers and contribute to the fight. Carrington's assistant comes up with a method to destroy the Thing, and Dr Redding offers a refinement of this plan.

When the scientists warn Carrington that mental and physical exhaustion have clouded his judgement, he ignores them. Still, he does have a point: no effort has been made to find a means of communication. In the end, he puts his own life at risk to find such a means, but without endangering anyone else. For this, he earns the respect of the soldiers, even if they disagree with him. Carrington's flaw is not scientific curiosity, not "dreaming," as Baxter would say, but a refusal to see his own limitations, and a disregard for the community of his fellows.

In contrast, the military leader, Captain Hendry, shows concern for his men and for the scientists around him. When the men want his ear, he listens; when scientists object to his actions, he apologizes, explains that he must have military authority to act on their terms, and then he requests that authority by radio. He does the same with Ned Scott, the news reporter: he imposes a news blackout, but also requests permission for the news to be spread. Hendry never assumes that he knows best, but he keeps eyes and ears open to events as they develop; in that sense, he is more scientific than Carrington.

Carrington is willing to conduct experiments in secret; he leaps to conclusions, and then sticks to them ("Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors.... No pleasure, no pain, no emotion, no heart. Our superior in every way"), but Hendry is an open leader, dedicated to a task yet willing to accept new information and to improvise. Carrington sets knowledge above life and community; Hendry is determined to keep his community, military and scientific, alive.

This focus on community permeates the film, and might explain, in part, why critics rushed to pan the John Carpenter remake. The camaraderie and cooperation of the first film was tossed out in the second, for legitimate reasons: Carpenter wanted to convey the breakdown of a small group, not the cohesion. I believe the critics, very much like Dr Carrington, brought assumptions to their viewing of Carpenter's film that distorted their perspective. The Thing was not The Thing From Another World, and it should have been reviewed on its own terms, just as the original film should be considered by what it reveals on the screen, and not by the reductive implications that critics have imposed on it.

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