History Trivia / TheThing1982

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The film features very '80s hair (most notably on Creator/KurtRussell), loads of Cold War paranoia, and a plot that mirrors the AIDS crisis.

** Doc and Blair checking the corpse of the dead Norwegian that Garry killed. Garry takes the Norwegian's ID tags and reads his name, Jans Bolen. Childs is asked by Garry if the Norwegian said something before he was shot, and Child's response is, "Am I starting to look Norwegian to you, bwana?"

** [[spoiler:Creator/KurtRusssell was almost injured in the scene where he blows up the Palmer-Thing with a stick of dynamite. Apparently, he had no idea exactly how big of an explosion it would produce, and the reaction that he has in the movie is genuine.]]

* GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: This movie has become part of the culture in Antarctica. It is a long standing tradition in all British Antarctic research stations to watch it as part of their Midwinter feast and celebration held every June 21.
* NamesTheSame: The actor who plays Windows is named Thomas G. Waites, but is no relation to [[Music/TomWaits Thomas Alan Waits]]. This is lampshaded in the DVD commentary.

* ImprobableAge: The makeup effects, a landmark at the time and still very impressive, were done by Rob Bottin, who was only twenty-two at the time. Although Bottin did work for a year without giving himself a day off, often sleeping and eating on set and Creator/JohnCarpenter sent him to a hospital for exhaustion.

* RealLifeRelative: Creator/JohnCarpenter's wife Adrienne Barbeau voiced the computer.

** [[spoiler:Blair-thing was originally shown onscreen much longer in really bad stop-motion scene which Carpenter deleted]].

* EasterEgg: During the kennel scene, one of the Kennel Thing's tentacles hits it in the right eye. Then the head turns to the right and growls, before looking back at the men. It requires a frame-by-frame or .12 or slower DVD viewing to catch the tentacle striking the eye. This actually explains why the kennel thing turns to the side and growls, in the first place.

** [[spoiler:Creator/KurtRusssell was almost injured in the scene where he blows up the alien Palmer with a stick of dynamite. Apparently, he had no idea exactly how big of an explosion it would produce, and the reaction that he has in the movie is genuine.]]

* ReCut: When airing on basic cable, the movie is naturally cut for extreme violence and to make room for commercials. However, a special re-cut was made for airings on TBS/TNT. Much gore was cut out - so much so that some deleted scenes were restored to fill out the running time. Additionally, there are opening and closing narrator sequences (the former providing exposition for the main characters and the latter running over an alternate ending).

** [[spoiler:Originally, Bennings was killed with a screwdriver from behind by an unidentified person in a blue coat (presumably Blair) while he was inside the kennel. Beginning of this scene where he enters the kennel, sees someone and says "Clark?" was used for early TV cuts and it was also in deleted scenes in Special Edition of the movie. Carpenter mentioned that he wanted to make Clark look more suspicious with this scene, but after viewing the scene in early previews, it didn't fit well with rest of the movie, and it felt more like something out of Carpenter's ''Film/{{Halloween}}]].

** Doc and Blair checking the corpse of the dead Norwegian that Garry killed. Garry takes the Norwegian's ID tags and reads his name, Jans Bolen. Childs is asked by Garry if the Norwegian said something before he was shot, and Child's response is, "Am I starting to lookNorwegian to you, bwana?"

** Creator/NickNolte turned down the role of MacReady, as did Creator/JeffBridges.
** Creator/ClintEastwood was considered for MacReady.

** [[Blair-thing was originally shown onscreen much longer in really bad stop-motion scene which Carpenter deleted]].

* ImprobableAge: The makeup effects, a landmark at the time and still very impressive, were done by Rob Bottin, who was only twenty-two at the time. Although Bottin did work for a year without giving himself a day off, often sleeping and eating on set and John Carpenter sent him to a hospital for exhaustion.

* ReCut: When airing on basic cable, the movie is naturally cut for extreme violence and to make room for commericials. However, a special re-cut was made for airings on TBS/TNT. Much gore was cut out - so much so that some deleted scenes were restored to fill out the running time. Additionally, there are opening and closing narrator sequences (the former providing exposition for the main characters and the latter running over an alternate ending).
* ShrugOfGod: Carpenter has admitted he could never decide if [[spoiler:Childs]] was human or not in the end.

* CompletelyDifferentTitle
** Brazilian Portuguese, O Enigma De Outro Mundo (The Enigma Of Another World)
** Chinese, 突變第三型 (The Third Mutation)
** Danish, Det grusomme udefra (The Cruel Outside)
** Japanese, 遊星からの物体X (Object X from Outer Space)

* SpecialEffectsFailure: When Palmer-thing leaps onto the ceiling, you can see a part of the tile fly off the ceiling, and then stick back up onto it. This was because that part was filmed with him on the ground, and the film was simply transposed to make it look like he was attaching himself to the ceiling.
** Whenever a tentacle wraps around something, it does so in an oddly rapid way. This is because all of the tentacle wraps were done in reverse.

* HeyItsThatGuy: Jed, the wolf dog who played the Norwegian dog-Thing also acted in ''Literature/WhiteFang''.
** More to the point, Blair is played by a non-mustachioed Creator/WilfordBrimley.
* HeyItsThatVoice: Mac's computer is voiced by Adrienne Barbeau, who was married to John Carpenter at the time, and who would later go on to voice Catwoman in ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries''.

* NamesTheSame: The actor who plays Windows is named Thomas G. Waites, but is no relation to [[TomWaits Thomas Alan Waits]]. This is lampshaded in the DVD commentary.

* HeyItsThatVoice: Mac's computer is voiced by Adrienne Barbeau, who was married to John Carpenter at the time.

* CompletelyDiffrentTitle

* ShoutOut:
** The scientists finding the saucer is an exact recreation of the scene in the 1951 film.
** The effect used for the main title is a slicker version of the one used in 1951.

* ExecutiveMeddling: An extremely bizarre example: the basic cable edit actually makes the movie a lot bleaker and nastier. Carpenter hates it for precisely this reason.

** More to the point, Blair is played by a non-mustachioed WilfordBrimley.

* HeyItsThatGuy: Jed, the wolf dog who played the Norwegian dog-Thing also acted in ''WhiteFang''.