The Thing (1982 film) is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Article milestones Date Process Result March 1, 2018 Good article nominee Listed July 31, 2018 Featured article candidate Promoted
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This article is poorly written and developed, needing significant attention. A lot of information found in this article is either not properly sourced or unsourced. This needs to be adjusted so that unsourced information is given proper citations from reliable sources and, if none can be found, removed from the article entirely. The article contains some poorly written/developed sections that need to be rewritten and expanded, these sections include the production section which is both underdeveloped and poorly written, and the release section. These both require extensive rewrites, with the production section requiring significant expansion. In regards to the production section, it should contain the following sub-sections:

• Development
• Casting
• Special Effects (or Creature Design)
• Filming
• Post Production (if needed)

This article does have potential of becoming FA status if enough attention is given to it but, considering the general scope of it, a collaborative project might be necessary to get the job done. If needed, I can help with this process once I finish all the other projects I've got stacked up. Hopefully some people can come along and give this article the attention it needs to be fully realized.--Paleface Jack 17:19, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

I totally forgot about this so I'm posting it now before I forget again... I made a special user draft a while ago for The Thing (the title antagonist). Any information gathered on the character can be added to this when possible. I am still very much swamped with work at the moment so I am limited to only doing small edits and additions at the moment (although I probably shouldn't be doing as much as I have been doing as it takes away from the work I have to do). In regards to the film's home media releases, Allmovie and Amazon are your best bet for reliable information on each individual release (including VHS). Hopefully this helps.--Paleface Jack 16:56, 8 February 2018 (UTC)

• I need references for the 4th comic book "Questionable Research"
• The Razzies awards and Saturn Awards
• Any notable cultural impact stuff
• DVD/Blu Rays
• Merch
• Music

Other than that, I'm going to expand the critical reception section, and long term add a Themes section, but it's pretty much ready to go to GOCE in prep for GA. But if anyone can get me these refs I'd appreciate it, as I've ended up putting in a lot more time that I thought I'd have to. I should've thought of how hard it is to google "the thing" before starting XD Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 14:41, 5 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DVD and Blue-Ray stuff can be found on Allmovie page for the film.--Paleface Jack 18:18, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

This review is transcluded from Talk:The Thing (1982 film)/GA1. The edit link for this section can be used to add comments to the review.

Reviewer: Ssven2 (talk · contribs) 09:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I will review this article. Thank you.  — Ssven2 ^{Looking at you, kid} 09:34, 19 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Looking over this article. It seems pretty good. There are some small pieces of information that still need to be given citations such as the info mentioning the novelization being based on the second draft of the screenplay (I couldn't find any mention of that when I looked around for sources). I mentioned below that the film was included in the well known book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die. I includes a quote from the book's entry on it.--Paleface Jack 16:36, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. I will look at the article and provide some comments first thing tomorrow.  — Ssven2 ^{Looking at you, kid} 10:59, 24 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments

• "The Thing has spawned a variety of merchandise including a 1982 novelization, haunted houses, and board games, sequels in comic books and a video game of the same name, and a 2011 prequel film also of the same name." — Can be rephrased as "The Thing has spawned a variety of merchandise including a 1982 novelization, haunted houses, board games, sequels in comic books, a video game, and a 2011 prequel film of the same name."
• "David Foster and Lawrence Turman pitched an adaptation" — "pitched" sounds a tad informal. Try something more formal.
• Add the year for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
  • Hi Ssven, I added the year, changed "pitched" to "suggested", I redid the lead sentence "haunted houses, board games, and sequels in comic books, a video game of the same name, and a 2011 prequel film also of the same name." - The latter three I wanted to make clear that they are story continuations rather than just a video game, otherwise it emphasises only the comics as sequels. At least the way I am reading it. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 19:46, 25 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• Add the year for Logan's Run (the novel that is).
• Wikilink "pro- human" and remove the space between the hyphen and "human" (i.e. change it to "pro-human").
• Can you reword "who was interested but was never pursued" to avoid repetition of "was" in close proximity?
• Add the year for Escape from New York.
  • Added year for Logan's Run
  • I can't seem to see an article for "pro-human"? Just one for "Pre-human"
  • Changed to "who showed interest"
  • There is a year present, there's an earlier mention of Escape from New York in the writing section.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 22:09, 26 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]
• "Filming then moved to the Universal lot in summer when the outside heat was over 100 degrees. The internal sets were climate controlled to 28 degrees to facilitate filming." — Celsius or Fahrenheit? BTW, try something else other than ending the first and last sentence with "filming". Kind of looks odd.
• Wikilink "humidifiers" and "misters".
• Wikilink "double pneumonia".
• Why is outpost in "Outpost wall" capitalised?
• Wikilink "Panasonic"
• Add the years for "The Faculty, The Mist, and Slither".

I'll look at the sources tomorrow.  — Ssven2 ^{Looking at you, kid} 12:51, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

DoneDarkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:32, 27 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I have a few concerns of my own so I hope you don't mind if I chime in:

• I don't want to be mean or anything, but I find the writing in the Reception section to be rather pedestrian. It's not quite of a well-written standard yet. Perhaps WP:RECEPTION could be of help.
• In my book, Screen Rant is not considered reliable, as the company states in their Terms of Use that the website is likely to be inaccurate: "The website is an editorial based website providing commentary, general information in relation to film, television and related topics. Information on the site may contain slight errors or inaccuracies; the Website does not make any warranty as to the correctness or reliability of the sites content. The Website does not provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy of the information. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies and errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors. Other articles and content are opinion based (or commentary) and should not be considered factual.
• Amazon isn't a very good source for the home media releases either because it is an online business. A reliable alternative would be AllMovie: [1]
• The quoted text in the first paragraph of Cultural impact section exceeds at 50 words so it should be rendered a blockquote or paraphrased, if possible, without quoting.
• I prefer you change the Metacritic source with a reliable, independent source which states that the 2011 prequel received mixed reviews on release. Review aggregators are not really arbiters of critical consensus.
• Is Goodreads (FN 161) an acceptable source? Genuinely asking.
• Page ranges are separated by en dash, not hyphen; footnotes 39, 129, 162 and 163 have no credited author/publisher inline; and the author's last name at FNs 85, 135 and 168 is spelled "Lambie", not Lamble.

I enjoyed reading the article as I hover through it and gave the thing some c/e (pun intended). Slightlymad 08:03, 28 February 2018 (UTC) —[reply]

• • The reception section was mostly like that when I got here, I was aiming to bring it to good, then build up the Themes and Reception before taking to FA. It's a time issue more than anything, I've already spent 3 weeks more than I wanted to on this article as sourcing information was far more difficult than I expected.
  • I disagree here, the quoted text is basically a "If we do something wrong you can't sue us", it doesn't mean the information is wrong.
  • Amazon is used sparingly, and each one has a separate source, it's mostly used to source the content on the disc and the HDDVD version which I can otherwise find no info on. I don't know if it is on AllMovie unless that is what "hi def" is referring to.
  • Reduced the quoted text.
  • Added some more sources.
  • Seems fine to me, it's high ranked on Alexa, has a decent enough article here, content doesn't seem to be user generated.
  • Fixed. Thanks. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:37, 28 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

OK, the article looks good for GA. Reception should be redone from scratch, though, at least brilliantly written. A bunch of quotes doth not great prose make. Best of luck to your FA journey. Slightlymad 05:15, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

GA review – see WP:WIAGA for criteria

1. Is it reasonably well written?

   A. Prose is "clear and concise", without copyvios, or spelling and grammar errors:

   B. MoS compliance for lead, layout, words to watch, fiction, and lists:

2. Is it factually accurate and verifiable?

   A. Has an appropriate reference section:

   B. Citation to reliable sources where necessary:

   C. No original research:

3. Is it broad in its coverage?

   A. Major aspects:

   B. Focused:

4. Is it neutral?

   Fair representation without bias:

5. Is it stable?

   No edit wars, etc:

6. Does it contain images to illustrate the topic?

   A. Images are tagged with their copyright status, and valid fair use rationales are provided for non-free content:

   B. Images are provided if possible and are relevant to the topic, and have suitable captions:

7. Overall: Passed, my queries were met and solved by the nominator.

   Pass or Fail:

Thank you for addressing the comments, Darkwarriorblake. The sources now look good to go. Congratulations, the article has passed.  — Ssven2 ^{Looking at you, kid} 08:16, 1 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is looking great! So I had a small break in my work so I was able to take some time to look for some sources and give advise here. Before I list the sources, I recommend creating a sub-section within the references section titled Bibliography which lists all the literary references in alphabetical order. You can get the bibliography style format in Wikipedia citation tool for Google Books by copy pasting the url of the book you selected in Google Books once you've generated the citation, click the check box ref=harv and then click make citation once' you've added the page numbers. The generated citation that begins with Cite Book is the one you will need to capy and past into the bibliography section of the article. All literary references that include multiple pages should be cited under the sfn citation code when sourced in the main body of the article and will be generated automatically in the references section. Now to the requested references. I do have the original copy of the novelization of the film (I wasn't able to find any references in the free time that I had that state that the novel was based on the second draft of the screenplay) and I will include both the cite book ref and the sfn ref here:

Alan Dean Foster (1982). The Thing: A Novel. Bantam Books. ISBN 978-0-553-20477-3. {{cite book}}: Invalid |ref=harv (help)

MacReady, Bennings and Childs chase infected dogs out into the snow (Bennings dies): ^[1]

Nauls death: ^[2]

I also found the film mentioned in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die Where it's called (Quote) "One of the most influential horror movies of the 1980s, much imitated but rarely bettered. Along with the films of David Cronenberg, The Thing is one of the prime texts to explore the themes of bodily invasion that pervade horror and sci-fi movies of that decade. It is one of the first films to unflinchingly show the rupture and warp of flesh and bone into grotesque tableaus of surreal beauty, forever raising the bar of cinematic horror."^[3]

--Paleface Jack 17:52, 19 February 2018 (UTC)

Thanks Jack. Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 18:46, 20 February 2018 (UTC)[reply]

No problem.--Paleface Jack 18:59, 20 February 2018 (UTC)

There seems to be a lot of similarities with the X-Parasites of Metroid Fusion, so it might be appropriate to add it to the video game references sentence towards the bottom of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:41:C100:6FCF:61D5:B545:ABF4:4B27 (talk) 14:58, 29 March 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Darkwarriorblake asked at WP:RX, in the thread "The Thing 1982, Anne Billson BFI book", which pages of Billson's 1997 book (ISBN 0-85170-566-9) support the statement in the article, "The film received negative reviews on its release, and hostility for its bleak tone and graphic violence."

"The film received negative reviews on its release, and hostility", is strongly supported by page 8, which reads, "When John Carpenter's The Thing was unleashed into cinemas in 1982, it received an almost unanimous critical drubbing on both sides of the Atlantic." The book goes on to name and quote eight critics, six of whom were negative.

"For its bleak tone" is a plausible summing up of the first two paragraphs of page 10, although bleak tone isn't mentioned in the context of critical reception.

"But The Thing went belly-up at the box-office, and not just because of the overwhelming blanket of negative criticism. Just as likely to have been a factor was the prevailing mood of the times. In 1982, the political philosophies of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were filtering through to the masses, resulting in an overall feeling a long way from John Carpenter's ironic, subversive, anti-authoritarian tone. ... Carpenter's films evinced a cynical sensibility more in tune with the innovative, iconoclastic 70s, with their conspiracy theories and downbeat endings, than with the Mammon--worshipping workaholism of the yuppie decade ... Even more damaging ... [was E.T.]. Audiences weren't keen on the idea of a space monster which did unpleasant things to the human body. They preferred an alien equivalent of the teddy-bear and wanted reassurance that, if there were something out there, it would be benign. They also wanted the promise of life after death, the comfort of religious undertones, and a heartwarming love story with a sob-into-your-hanky sentimental ending. 'You must remember the time it [The Thing] was released was the summer of E.T',' says John Carpenter, 'And it was a very bleak and hopeless film.'"

The phrase "and graphic violence" misses the mark slightly. "And graphic special effects" would be a fairer paraphrase of the critical opinions detailed on pages 8 and 9:

"disgusting ... absolutely disgusting ... too phony looking to be disgusting ... special effects transformations were 'let loose on us by the bucketful, and satiation rather than horror is the result' ... stomach-turning special effects ... There was grudging general agreement that the special effects, though 'far too gory' ... were amazing, but this went hand in hand with an evident distrust of their presence in the first place. Special effects, according to the received critical wisdom, are cheap stunts with no integrity ... They pander to the baser instincts of the vulgar crowd and, if they involve blood, they're especially tasteless and unnecessary."

I leave it to editors here to adjust the citation and/or text as they see fit. --Worldbruce (talk) 15:54, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you very much for your time and help Worldbruce Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:48, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

So I've noticed for a while now that there isn't any article on the character of The Thing, which is kind of sad considering how significant the character actually is. As such I started a draft for the character which people can work on expanding. I will include the link to it here.--Paleface Jack (talk) 17:02, 1 November 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think the Thing has any real character traits besides the urge to survive. It's only personality comes form what it has assimilated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bosk1935 (talk • contribs) 22:24, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

HAL333 wishes to include speculation in the article that paints the deliberately ambiguous ending in a certain light. That is that Childs is the Thing because MacReady's bottle of Whiskey is actually a molotov cocktail (despite having no fuse) and that despite knowing everything the assimilated knows such that they can perfectly imitate them, they won't know what Whiskey should taste like. It's a theory, it's also entirely speculation and the only thing we see in the film for definite is that MacReady hands Childs a whiskey bottle and it ends with neither knowing who is the Thing. Two of the sources HAL333 has used to support the inclusion of this theory are WhatCulture and ScreenPrism, neither of which are reliable sources and the one that is reliable, the Huffpost article here, specifically has Kurt Russell ignoring the theory entirely and asserting the ending is only about the ambiguity between the two men. I am disputing the inclusion of this ending as fanfiction and I would appreciate the input of others to settle the matter completely.Darkwarriorblake / SEXY ACTION TALK PAGE! 21:56, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Also, please note that the above section has multiple fallacies. Why is Darkwarriorblake insisting that it is whisky. It never states such a specific thing, and you recently said that it was scotch. Both of which are wrong. You also stated that it can't be a molotov cocktail because there is no fuse. The piece of fabric used as a fuse in a molotov cocktail can easily be removed. Note that the bottle has no cap. You also claim that we should not include this because it is just "speculation." I invite you read multiple other wikipedia articles, such as The Shining or Eraserhead, where you will find plenty of speculation about particular scenes of the film. (HAL333 (talk) 23:50, 9 December 2018 (UTC))[reply]

Hey, Darkwarriorblake if you think you are right, just add your perspective to that wikipedia article. Because that's just like your opinion, man. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bosk1935 (talk • contribs) 22:23, 9 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I added that section so disagreeing users could put down their full perspective. And an analysis of a film-ending is not fan-fiction. I invite you to add your opinion. Why don't you add your opinion and mention Kurt Russel. I cited that article because it begins by describing how controversial different interpretations of the ending are and explains the main theories about it and the accompanying evidence.(HAL333 (talk) 22:44, 9 December 2018 (UTC))[reply]

I agree with DWB. I don't think commentary from whatculture.com or screenprism.com should be included. Also, there seems to be some original research woven into this analysis, such as "This means that at-least one of them is the Thing." We should stick to what sources like Entertainment Weekly say and ignore fan analysis. NinjaRobotPirate (talk) 04:01, 10 December 2018 (UTC)[reply]