Star Wars versus The Thing

[DudeGuyMan]

The same thing is seen via direct microscopic observation in the new prequel, alien cells assimilating human ones and then imitating them while floating around on a slide. Additionally, the camp dogs in Who Goes There? were infected after killing a creature. Whatever got into their mouths was enough. There's also the above-referenced theory about Blair being infected by his pencil.

In the novelization of the first movie Blair muses that a little bit might not be enough, and that only a direct takeover would work, but who knows if Blair was even correct? There isn't really a canon policy for The Thing, but I think the bulk of the available evidence points toward the "a little is enough" theory.

[Shroom Man 777]

How did the first person got infected anyway? I forget.

[CaptHawkeye]

A scene early in the movie shows the dog stalk someone into a room alone. We only see someone's shadow but i'm willing to bet it was Palmer.

[DudeGuyMan]

I thought the shadow looked more like Norris, personally.

[Molyneux]

I thought the shadow looked more like Norris, personally.

If I remember correctly, it's actually a crew member. They decided to leave it in because it keeps just who gets infected first ambiguous.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

The same thing is seen via direct microscopic observation in the new prequel, alien cells assimilating human ones and then imitating them while floating around on a slide. Additionally, the camp dogs in Who Goes There? were infected after killing a creature. Whatever got into their mouths was enough. There's also the above-referenced theory about Blair being infected by his pencil.

In the novelization of the first movie Blair muses that a little bit might not be enough, and that only a direct takeover would work, but who knows if Blair was even correct? There isn't really a canon policy for The Thing, but I think the bulk of the available evidence points toward the "a little is enough" theory.

In my personal canon, the new prequel simply doesn't count unless it gives me damn good reasons why it should. I just prefer the 'Needs a good deal of the body at once' theory simply because I want to make things at least a little challenging for The Thing.

As for the dogs, in the movie you see an awful lot of tubes and other organs spreading from The Thing into their bodies/mouths. The other most visible infections you see are the corpse sticking lots of tubes into redbeard, Palmer chewing on radioguy's head, and Wilford Brimley mouth-raping the military guy right at the end. In all cases a fairly compelling argument could be made for rather rapid body-replacement going on through the point of connection between the two parties with quick organ/tissue/fluid transfer happening through the bottleneck (the tubes in the dogs' throats/bodies, the tubes in redbeard's body, whatever can't be directly seen when Palmer's chewing on radioguy's head, and whatever's coming out of Brimley's hand into military-guy's mouth).

Also keep in mind when heart-attack guy transformed and bit doctor-guy's hands off, subsequent testing of doctor-guy's blood showed that he wasn't infected, despite clearly having open wounds exposed to Thing bits. Granted, in this case it might just be that the infection took a lot longer to spread through the corpse from such a small initial dose.

I thought the shadow looked more like Norris, personally.

If I remember correctly, it's actually a crew member. They decided to leave it in because it keeps just who gets infected first ambiguous.

That's the makers' official stance on the issue. It could be heart-attack guy who later infected Palmer, or it could be Palmer who later infected heart-attack guy, or it could be someone else entirely who later infected both (they never tested Brimley, after all. Maybe he was infected first and faked the whole madness and cut off communications once he saw the rest were at least somewhat aware of the threat).

[CaptHawkeye]

You mean Blair, and I seriously doubt the Thing would do something like that because A. It cuts off an avenue of escape for it and B. For Blair it's a bizarre and unusual behavior which called out attention to him and brought on suspicion. The exact opposite of the Thing's usual MO. So it had not yet assimilated him.

[DudeGuyMan]

In my personal canon, the new prequel simply doesn't count unless it gives me damn good reasons why it should.

The combination of it being a major motion picture (not some oddball secondary project) and it having an absolutely slavish devotion to continuity buy it a sort of B-grade "unless contradicted by the first one" canonicity in my book, but your mileage may vary. It does fit in better with what we see on screen in the first movie than the novelization of the first movie itself, which changed the order of events a fair amount.

Additionally, while Who Goes There? differs substantially from the movie, I don't discount it entirely, either.

In all cases a fairly compelling argument could be made for rather rapid body-replacement going on through the point of connection between the two parties with quick organ/tissue/fluid transfer happening through the bottleneck (the tubes in the dogs' throats/bodies, the tubes in redbeard's body, whatever can't be directly seen when Palmer's chewing on radioguy's head, and whatever's coming out of Brimley's hand into military-guy's mouth).

Introducing a larger number of Thing cells via brute force would logically lead to a much faster conversion, which may be desirable in itself. It's also possible (very possible to my mind) that someone who is merely infected, and has to cross the threshold from "human but infected" to "a Thing" while walking around in the open, would show symptoms that would reveal him to a small, paranoid population like that of the Arctic camp.

Also keep in mind when heart-attack guy transformed and bit doctor-guy's hands off, subsequent testing of doctor-guy's blood showed that he wasn't infected, despite clearly having open wounds exposed to Thing bits. Granted, in this case it might just be that the infection took a lot longer to spread through the corpse from such a small initial dose.

Much longer, one would think. Plus we don't know that it can infect a corpse at all.

[Lord of the Abyss]

In all cases a fairly compelling argument could be made for rather rapid body-replacement going on through the point of connection between the two parties with quick organ/tissue/fluid transfer happening through the bottleneck (the tubes in the dogs' throats/bodies, the tubes in redbeard's body, whatever can't be directly seen when Palmer's chewing on radioguy's head, and whatever's coming out of Brimley's hand into military-guy's mouth).

Introducing a larger number of Thing cells via brute force would logically lead to a much faster conversion, which may be desirable in itself. It's also possible (very possible to my mind) that someone who is merely infected, and has to cross the threshold from "human but infected" to "a Thing" while walking around in the open, would show symptoms that would reveal him to a small, paranoid population like that of the Arctic camp.

A personal theory of mine (that also explains why it didn't just do something like contaminate all the food with Thing-bits) is that while a creature can be infected by only a few cells, a more massive tissue transfer allows more of the original Thing's self to be copied over. More of its memories and knowledge. So while it can infect with only a little contamination, it far prefers to go all tentacly and shove and much of itself as possible into the target. It wants to surround itself with other Things that know what it is planning, know what has to be done, and who share whatever personality/culture it has; not ignorant feral Things that have to learn "on the job", don't think like it does and will get in its way.

[Oni Koneko Damien]

Alright, just watched the movie again because I felt like it, and I think I've seen answers to two of the bigger questions in all these threads:

Will two 'separate' Things work together? Yes and no, depending on the circumstances of their creation.

Why did the dog-Thing change when it did? Because it knew it was screwed no matter what it did, so it decided to go all out and hope for a lucky break.

Alright then, first off: Things working together. Now I don't have any hard evidence for this, but take a good long look at the scene when Nauls comes back in and says he cut MacReady loose. This is definitely after the point that Norris and Palmer have been taken over, and you can see them both immediately start goading the suspicion and paranoia of everyone else. Again, not hard evidence, but I'd bet good money after seeing the looks those two gave each other, they knew exactly what they were, and were actively working together.

With this, I also wholly believe that the dog-Thing infected Palmer first, then Palmer took over Norris. On the other hand Blair was taken over a slow-infection from the dog-Thing's 'corpse', and Bennings was taken over by the remains of the original Thing at the Norwegian camp. I think that The Thing prefers to keep close tabs on its 'offspring' to better work together, keep hidden, share info, etc, and those other two were unplanned 'rogues' following a more instinctual agenda. Blair due to chance infection, and Bennings because the Norwegian camp remains were reduced to instinctual drive and simply took over the first potential host it found itself alone with.

Second: Why did the dog-Thing change when it did? I argue because it knew that it was only a matter of time before it was discovered. Watching the movie again, I think the dog-Thing impersonated a human at some point before. The movie starts with it running all the way from the Norwegian camp to the US camp, which I believe is stated to be well over a hundred mile trip. There is no way in hell a dog, or even a dog-Thing could know which direction to go unless it could comprehend and study a map beforehand, which it obviously did as a human at the Norwegian camp. So why did it become a dog? Probably first off to better be able to survive the trip, and second because it doesn't want any more attention directed to it than it has to get. If it stumbled into the camp as a Norwegian, the US members are going to ask it a lot of questions. As a dog being chased by crazy Norwegians, however, it's quickly taken in and mostly forgotten except by Clark.

With that in mind, you can see the dog-Thing watching the team members. I think first off it was looking for a suitable human host to take over among the group, which it found in Palmer (what better host than someone already accepted as harmlessly crazy, and thus kind of expected to act a little weird? And it pays off since no one suspects Palmer even up to the very end). Secondly it was watching to see how the US team would react to and investigate the Norwegians. It saw MacReady and Copper leave for the Norwegian camp, and it saw them return with the Norwegian Thing corpse. It then watched Blair performing the autopsy and came the the conclusion that it was definitely going to be discovered within a few days at most: Blair would perform a microscopic analysis and tests, discover the cellular mimicry, determine it's an alien mimic. The team would put two and two together and start questioning why the Norwegians were chasing a dog across the Antarctic, then start wondering if the dog was really a dog at all.

So in the end, the dog-Thing changed because it knew that it would be discovered anyways, might as well take a gamble. I'm guessing it figured if it could quickly assimilate the rest of the dogs without anyone noticing, then any cross-tests performed between it and the other dogs would fail to produce results. And I'm guessing it took a gamble with what it saw of Clark, and that if it could take over the other dogs and put on a convincing-enough dog-show for him, he would be stupid and devoted enough to them that he would defend them anyways.

In the end, the only thing that got in the way was MacReady getting up for a late-night drink. Remember, Clark never pulled the alarm or alerted anyone, it was MacReady who did that. It's possible, after the assimilation was complete, Clark would have convinced himself they're still dogs and protected their secret because he was so stupidly devoted to them... and if not, well, he's right there, all alone, and ready for assimilation as well.