History WMG / TheThing

Meat and organs would be extracted from 'tame' Things, and when the individual's body tissue got too low to be useful, it could be given a new organism to assimilate into itself (replenishing its mass) or encouraged to replicate a new organism. Bam, infinite meat!

However the above theory leads to a 2 way (somewhat interconnected 3-way) theory from many short previews of most of the Predator films, Comics, or related video games clearly stated that the Predators were a Bounty Hunting species and not just a [[ProudWarriorRace proud race of alien Hunters]] but a active somewhat law enforcement/mercenary species like [[StarWars Mandalorians]] who hunted the most dangerous alien criminals in the Galaxy/Universe for thrill seeking kicks and (presumably) giant loads of alien cash.

*** "Slow Assimilation" would work as an infection, from contact with one single cell, or Thing slime/blood etc. At first, like any infection, you wouldn't know it's started. But, then, you may start feeling weird and start getting a bit sick as the Things ravage your immune system and take over your body. It really picks up speed as it approaches significant fractions of the body. At the 1/2 mark, it becomes an instant assimilation of the other half of the body. Blair and Norris are often presumed to have been assimilated this way. It may be possible that all of the mend had some thing cells on them and that Mac and Childs would be assimilated by the end of the movie, or later. The main obstacle to this type of assimilation is that the cells have to burrow through the dead skin layers to get into the body, or come into contact with soft tissues or open wounds. One of the upsides to this type of assimilation is that there would be no torn clothing from an attack.

The Thing was trying to get back to its home planet, or back into space, for its own reasons. Unfortunately, its extremely ruthless about this and is perfectly willing to assimilate anyone it can should it be possible that doing so would help it escape.

One of the characters was originally played by a female actress, however the actress had to drop out of the movie due to being pregnant. Her replacement just happened to be a male actor. It’s never been revealed which character was originally female, however it was most likely Fuchs based upon dialogue and how other characters respond to Fuchs. Also, given Fuchs’s offscreen death, Fuchs’s death was most likely written with a female character in mind but they had to change it to offscreen once a male actor took the role.

Humanity is the only species that has forced the Thing to adapt and evolve so much that it eventually becomes unrecognizable. GENTEK is a restructuring of Whitley's Gen Inc. All the experiments eventually cause it to change and mutate to the point that it can now form inorganic matter out of it's body as it's cells bond more with mettalic elements at the same level, to help protect it from fire

*** Anti-anti-anti Jossed because Carpenter was joking, as he is wont to do

Technically this makes a fair amount of sense as this would make the films content more of a "Insane Slasher escapes from the asylum" plot that Carpenters earlier films were highly noted for. Finally (segewaying back to the theories name) this shows the possibility that not all of the Things are genuinely malevolent and are in the general benevolent and possibly exploratory species that use their cellular absorption ability to not conquer but to merely observe other sentient species by disguise (justifiable given their "True" UncannyValley like monstrous appearance) and as with the "criminal" Thing as a primary means of food ingestion and digestion.

*** Anti-anti-Jossed since Carpenter has said before he considers MacReady human, and that it was ambiguous whether Childs was a thing very deliberately.
*** Anti-Anti-Anti-Anti Jossed because Carpenter was joking, as he is wont to do

*** "Ingestive Assimilation". This is a more of a middle-of-the road assimilation type. It deals with what happens if one is unfortunate enough to eat a Thing, or encounters a Thing that is too small for an aggressive assimilation. Basically, once the Things are in the mouth, they would attack the soft tissues, where they have quick access to the blood vessels. From there, it becomes a jumpstarted Slow assimilation. Outside the body, a mosquito Thing or mouse Thing may bite a person and then inject their entire biomass into them. Again, this becomes a slow assimilation from that point. But, unlike a more traditional slow assimilation, the increased starting biomass of the Things means that it will be completed faster than the infection model.

[[WMG: The defibulator would've utterly killed The Thing.]]

* Conversly, who's to say that IT isn't a Thing?

The remarkably similar plot of Ridley Scott's hit, coupled copious amounts of mind twisting narcotic smoke and alcohol, warps [=MacReady=]'s antisocial dislike of the rest of the camp into a fulfilment fantasy wherein he has a JUSTIFIED excuse to burn and kill the men that he's sick and tired of spending the last 3 years with, their forms warped and mixed with his UsefulNotes/VietnamWar flashbacks into distorted and grotesque abomination by the psychadelic effects of the weed. The trip ends with Childs, the teammate closest to him in personality and the only one he liked, sharing a drink with him as heroes, as his fantasy fades to black and he groggily stumbles back to reality...

* Alternatively, the Things that comprise the creature's body share a consciousness until enough damage disrupts it. At which point, all the individual parts go back to being seperate animals and flee accordingly.

* The Thing could be a hive mind at a celluar level. One Thing-cell on its own in a host somehow can survive on its own; but it chooses to assimilate and work in numbers with the ones next to it to survive as a whole, even if that means killing other, separate Things to maintain its disguise. Thing-cells co-operate with cells in direct contact with them, using shared data, memories, forms, etc. In massive numbers, ie. assimilated prey, they can as conscious animals that see other Things as part of a pack. The blood samples were not in contact with their parent forms and act as a separate organism that react in self defense to the wire, and Palmer-Thing knows it is ousted. (Note: There is no hive mind intelligence; compare to Franchise/{{Dead Space}}'s Necromorphs.)

If you think about it (but not too much) all of the named films take place in settings that either are in or as close to realistic places and time/eras no different then what you see outside on a regular basis. Even the futuristic setting of the Alien films aren't that super fantastic not everyone has lasers or their own cutsey talking companion robot. And all of the even remotely implied or guessed backstories of the alien characters take place not just mearly far away from our own planet, but seemingly our galaxy as well.

All of this suggests that our universe mainly consists of EldrichAbominations and general biological un-humanoid horrors (the unnatural in appearance "Starbabies" from 2001 would also have to be thrown in there as formerly humanoid species that had no choice but to evolve themselves into this all powerful form (according to Arthur C. Clarke) in order to merely survive) that constantly wage inconceivably massive intergalactic war using other abominations as living bio-weapons and all other alien species are either by natural evolution or massive genetic engineering (the Predators could be either one of these) are all powerful warrior beings (this also explains Kryptonians and Daxamites however they mercifully kept their humanlike appearances) just for basic survival. Basically we all unknowingly just live in a [[CrapSackWorld Crapsack universe]] and just dont realize it yet.

This theory also helpfully explains the ''Franchise/AlienVsPredator'' films and source material comics, If Xenomorphs (alien biomechanical creatures that can decimate entire civilizations by just breeding) are only used as training practice for their '''Children''' what in God's name do their parents and grandparents Hunt? (and on a '''Regular Basis'''!!!).

This by its own merit also proves that legendary 1920s Horror writer H.P. Lovecraft was correct (or as close to factually correct as possible) about all of the creatures contained within his Cthulu Mythos connected story universe. Basically it proves that somewhere the Great Old Ones do exist and may genuinely be worshiped on other planets as gods. It also proves that all or most of the horror based ScienceFiction of the past 100 years was created by some artists, writers, or movie makers had "dreampt" these horrific creatures while they were asleep (in someway this is proven by Dutch modern artist Creator/HRGiger (who coincidentally designed the appearance of the Xenomorphs in the Alien films) who frequently had vivid and disturbing nightmares in which many of his drawn and painted creations appeared.) via long range telepathy (a process of alien communication frequently mentioned throughout early alien centured literature).

It's ablility assimilate mammals is just a weird chemical reaction, and an aversion to NoBiochemicalBarriers. Given the right conditions, we could do the same thing to another alien species.

*** First, viruses don't 'force the cell to take on a normal appearance'. Viruses infect already-healthy cells and hijack their already-present internal protein-producing machinery to make more viruses. Second, something that has the characteristics or behaviour of one organism does not make it that organism. Otherwise, bats are really birds since they have wings, fly and eat insects, and dolphins are really fish because they have fins, swim in the sea and eat other fish. The Thing's cells are NOT viruses, they are specifically a cancer metaphor. In the context of the film, the idea that the Thing's cells 'infect' like viruses is a THEORY, one that is never actually proven in the film. The film shows (in graphic form) that to assimilate organisms it needs time to assimilate and then imitate them. This is why the dog-thing takes so long to assimilate the dogs, and the 'dead' thing attacks Bennings but is only partway through assimilating him before it is discovered.

* There are more variants to both sides of this than can be counted. It's one of those "ask 100 people and you'll get 100,000 opionions" kind of topics...

** The things convert living cells into other Thing cells. The precise mechanisms for this is unknown, but quantum computing is suspected to be involved. The origional Thing could have simply been an alien who contracted a disease of some sort.

** The prequel does give glimpses of what the thing looked like in the ice, but background information given in various cast and crew interviews state that the thing does not have a true form, per se. Or if it did, it was long before it reached earth.

*** And then Jossed when you are forced to admit Carpenter's ultimate statements on this film: the ambiguities are delberate. There isn't meant to be an obvious answer.

* Doesn't really make much sense. Especially considering that one being assimilating another has to inject some of their biomass into the target. So, they're essentially all clones. Note that Palmer's blood seems to try to go back to him once it's back on the floor. It looks like it's trying to get away from Mac and "go back home". Also, there are little details, like Palmer and Norris looking at eachother when someone suggest that Mac has been infected, as if to say "I didn't infect him, did you?".

** But why do all this? If you look at it with the idea that Soviet intelligence somehow got wind of the Norwegian camp excavating a mysterious object from the snow (moving all that thermite in particular must have taken months of preparation), suddenly a lot of other puzzle pieces fall into place, like why the radio won't work on a day where the weather's good enough to fly around for miles. If they had a plant in one or both outposts, it would be that much easier to keep tabs on the excavation, and limit outside help by interfering with the radio's signal strength. As soon as he realized they'd found an alien, Fuchs could've discreetly snuck in and boosted the signal to a Soviet away team somewhere on the continent during one of Windows' many lapses in attention, then waited for the right opportunity to escape.

* One of the characters was originally played by a female actress, however the actress had to drop out of the movie due to being pregnant. Her replacement just happened to be a male actor. It’s never been revealed which character was originally female, however it was most likely Fuchs based upon dialogue and how other characters respond to Fuchs. Also, given Fuchs’s offscreen death, Fuchs’s death was most likely written with a female character in mind but they had to change it to offscreen once a male actor took the role.

** If you want to get REALLY paranoid about the rest of the team, remember how Copper was the one who wanted to visit the Norwegian camp? He was also the one who insisted on bring back their research, and pegged ''exactly'' what the empty ice block was from with no other evidence. Now, when they bring the Norwegian-Thing back to base, who's the shocked Fuchs looking at? And who does he later try to prevent being tied up? Copper.

* It's possible that when the Thing attacks a human, it leaves the conscious untouched, while replacing their subconscious. And when nobody's around, the Thing jumps into the driver seat.
* If it replaces every cell (including brain cells, of course) with its own and merely imitates those cells, then there's no reason why the person's conscious would still be present. They would be dead and replaced by something else. Also, The Thing would remember - from its victim's perspective - being attacked/assimilated and would therefore be aware of what it is.

* The fact that the Things are extremely susceptible to fire, and pretty much immune to all other forms of damage would mean that the Predators would have to hunt them with plasma-casters only. The plasma-casters are notoriously difficult to use against moving targets. Young Predators, and even those shown hunting the humans in the Predator movies, would be too inexperienced to even consider hunting the Things. Thus, if the Things were a product of Predator engineering, it would be for the older, more experience sharpshooters to prove themselves and brag about. Wolf from AvP 2 would be the kind of Predator who hunts the Things.
** This was always an issue for AvP for me but also works for this WMG. Why would the Predators purposely make it crash in Antarctica, when the Predator movies go to great lengths to show they don't like the cold and only ever appear when it's extremely hot? If they didn't want it to infect earth then choose another planet. Oh and don't say that it crashed at a point in history when the continent wasn't covered in ice because we see it at the start of the movie.

[[WMG: Norris was infected by ingesting Thing cells]]
Specifically, cells from the Norwegian Thing. If you pay attention to the characters, you may be able to notice that Norris is the only overweight guy in the entire camp. If this were any other movie, you could just write that off as simply a product of the actor being overweight. But in The Thing, this is obviously another important clue left to us by Carpenter.
Notice in the scene where the guys all gather around to look at the Norwegian Thing. A subtle detail is that all of the men are inhaling the fumes coming from the cooked Thing's body. Norris, not having eaten any fresh meat in weeks (hard to come by in the Arctic) relishes the smell, and goes for a midnight snack in the middle of the night (possibly sleepwalking). It's also possible that the Thing shifted itself into something much more appealing in preparation, like a steak.

Humanity is the only species that has forced the Thing to adapt and evolve so much that it eventually becomes unrecognizable. GENTEK is a restructuring of Whitley's Gen Inc. All the experiments eventually cause it to change and mutate to the point that it can now [[ohcrap form inorganic matter out of it's body as it's cells bond more with mettalic elements at the same level, to help protect it from fire]]

[[WMG: The Thing is a progenitor to the Redlight virus, which was the viral ancestor of the [PROTOTYPE Blacklight/Mercer Virus] ]]

[[WMG: The Thing is a progenitor to the Redlight virus, which was the viral ancestor of the [[PROTOTYPE Blacklight/Mercer Virus]] ]]

[[WMG: The Thing is a progenitor to the Redlight virus, which was the viral ancestor of the [[PROTOTYPE Blacklight]]