There is now a third movie in what could now be referred to asThe Thingfranchise.

There has consistently been a new movie version ofThe Thingevery 30 years or so since 1951. Who Goes There?first appeared in the pulp magazine Astounding Stories in 1938.

It is a well-written piece of short fiction that gets a lot of mileage out of a simple premise.

Once the alien thaws, it comes to life.

The Thing is finally detected and destroyed by MacReady, the bases assistant commander.

The Antarctic research station of Campbells story has become a US Air Force base in Alaska.

The Thing itself is now a classic guy-in-a-suit 50s sci-fi monster movie alien.

The decision to dump the shape-shifting angle is interesting, given the Cold War era context of the film.

Protecting the rest of world from the evil creature is paramount.

The films central conflict is just like the film it was shot on: black and white.

However, he kept very little of the original film in the remake.

The setting is back once again in an Antarctic research station.

The malevolent alien returns to its shape shifting assimilation roots.

The movie characters are not exactly identical to Campbells.

With a creature so deadly and so evasive, it becomes every man for himself pretty quickly.

Who is the bigger threat, the monster or other people?

Carpenter and his effects crew created some incredibly creepy and wonderfully cinematic appearances for the eponymous monster.

The Thing itself is filled with pulsing veins, spurting blood and unknown organs.

The Thing is disturbing and compelling at the same time, and tinged with an undertone of pathos.

The Thing is an exaggerated version of its enemies.

It is fighting for its own survival and self-preservation, just like its human counterparts.

In 1982, the Cold War had heated up once again in the early days of the Reagan era.

Gone were the dominant anti-war, anti-establishment ideologies of the 60s and 70s.

That portrayal may explain why the film bombed in its initial theatrical release.

Ultimately, on an almost subconscious level,The Thingis bleak and nihilistic.

The nihilism of the film holds up much more strongly over multiple viewings.

That is perhaps whyThe Thingonly attained its classic cult status after its initial home video release.

Thirty years on, however, its erase the rumours were wrong.

But there is a prequel.

The new version ofThe Thingdepicts events that immediately precede the classic 82 version.

In terms of narrative, thats a prequel.

However, the movie has the exact same title as the 1982 movie.

Ostensibly, that makes it a remake.

Or maybe a premake?

The now classic themes ofThe Thingare all present: terror, paranoia, violence and plenty of elaborate effects.

The story focuses on the Norwegian outpost referred to in the opening of the 1982 film.

Gone, for instance, is any sense of pathos for the alien creature.

The creature is violent, aggressive and horrifying.

Like the man-monster in the 51 version,The Thingis evil.

The paranoiac undertones of the story are probably the strongest feature ofThe Thing2011.

The currentThingis unmistakably a product of a post-911 landscape.

We live in a time when most of the western world still remains on edge about potential terrorist attacks.

Those plotting such attacks, we are told, are potentially living in our midst.

The recurrent trust no one theme ofThe Thingplays particularly chillingly in 2011.

Their actions in their quest for survival against a deceptive and powerful enemy are often morally compromised.

The young American female scientist seems to intuitively understand the potential threat of the creature almost from square one.

Unfortunately, her more mature male colleagues do not share that intuition.

The Thing2011 is often intentionally ambiguous both in terms of its narrative and its morality.

Her choices make for some of the most emotionally charged moments in the film.

Is Lloyd a hero or an anti-hero?

Did she do what was necessary to survive?

Or did she irrevocably cross morally unacceptable boundaries?

What was that about a post-911 world again?

At the current rate of prequels and remakes, we are due for another version ofThe Thingin roughly 2041.

What changes to our world will the next 30 years see?

More importantly, how will those changes impact the story and underlying themes of the nextThingmovie?