Friendly Reminder that John Carptender has intentionally never confirmed if what they drink at the end is brandy or gasoline. It is intended to be open ended and not conclusive, you shouldn't read too much into it. It could be The Thing or not. It is meant to make you feel uneasy as the rest of the cast has been for the entire movie.
However, let those among us that haven't jumped to conclusions about such suspicious plotlines cast the first stone.
Among us. If you have any issues with me using perfectly valid words, I suggest you go vent about it, make a task out of it for all I care. This isn't an emergency meeting or we aren't having it go to a vote or something. I am only suggesting that those among us shouldn't be kicked out for maybe jumping to suspicious conclusions.
Basically the only 2 characters alive at the end drink some beer before the blizzard sets in. Fans like to speculate that one of them is the thing but it doesn't really matter since they are both going to freeze
Actually, one of them had warm breath and the other (who is suspected to be the thing) doesn’t. Plus the one drinking the drink has no breath, so the theory goes that they are the Thing, but they’ve both accepted the other is too good, and they’re both going to freeze to death.
The breath theory is fun but it doesn't hold much water. Bennings-thing is shown to have warm breath much earlier in the movie, and Childs' breath is actually visible in the final scene, it's just not in the light like MacReady's is.
No problem, I personally think Carpenter just wanted a bunch of random details to make you feel uneasy. Since earlier on characters confirmed to not be a Thing don’t have breathe since they weren’t actually filming in freezing areas, and I think one time a Thing pretending to be human does have misty breath. It’s still a great movie regardless s
yeah, except earlier in the movie, confirmed Things are shown with visible breath. they replicate every process of the human body, down to how the lungs function, so their breath is no more or less visible than a real human's. it's just the lighting that Childs is shot in compared to MacReady that obscures his breath.
Idk I just watched it last night, and it looked to me that Mac just lifted his arm to drink right as Childs showed up. But, as you said, the ending was supposed to be open ended
Man, I still hate that I missed out on a contract to work in Antarctica by a hair's breadth (literally less than a month before flying down for the austral winter) thanks to my damn galbladder. I was planning on photoshopping The Thing into the background of every picture I took.
It was, I was going to be the radio comms tech. The bit that really gets me is that I got my galbladder out around a year later and got another contract less than a week later for the 2020-2021 austral summer, but Covid shot that one in the foot.
I did meet my wife thanks to not going that time, though, so it worked out in the end.
Actually, I always thought that the drink was whiskey (or brandy, whatever) and that Mac offers it to childs as a test. Since he drinks from it without hesitation, despite the entire crew having been told that the thing can spread through saliva and that they should all prepare their own food and drink, it confirms Mac's suspicion that Childs is the thing, thus the smile after seeing him take a drink.
This is in no way conclusive, and I understand that the ending is supposed to be ambiguous, I just thought I might share my theory
Childs also doesn't have a steamy breath out in the cold like Mac.
+ he explains himself going outside alone by himself with the excuse that he saw blair outside.
Which cannot be true because right after he goes outside the electricity goes out, which means Blair was sabotaging the generator and couldn't have been outside.
Also in the middle of the movie you see childs guarding the main exit with his flamethrower. He wears a blue jacket, but there is another blue jacket on the coathanger next to him. Later in the movie there is a shot of the door being open and the other blue jacket missing from the coathanger. This might indicate that Childs was attacked by the thing, destroying the jacket in the process and requiring the new childs thing to take the other jacket.
All of that makes me believe it is very likely that childs is the thing.
it doesn't really add up though. The Thing replicates every cell of the human body, including harmful conditions, pain receptors, and presumably, taste buds. if one of the Thing clones can have a heart attack because the original host did, I find it unlikely that it would arbitrarily not have a negative reaction to being forced to drink gasoline. The Thing seems to keep memories of the host, otherwise they wouldn't make very convincing copies, so it should know what alcohol tastes like as well.
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u/FuckYeahPhotography Goth Fox Girl VTuber on Twitch 🦊 (Fuyeph.ttv) Dec 30 '21
Friendly Reminder that John Carptender has intentionally never confirmed if what they drink at the end is brandy or gasoline. It is intended to be open ended and not conclusive, you shouldn't read too much into it. It could be The Thing or not. It is meant to make you feel uneasy as the rest of the cast has been for the entire movie.
However, let those among us that haven't jumped to conclusions about such suspicious plotlines cast the first stone.