All_About_The_Thing

We normally assume that Blair is assimilated later in the film. Looking at the
computer screen he seems disturbed and burdened with a heavy responsibility. The
computer predicts there is a 75% probability that at least one camp member is already
infected and that if the Thing should reach civilisation it would need just three years to
take over the entire planet. There is no telling how accurate these figures are, we assume
Blair threw something together in a hurry.
However, if Blair has already been taken over his behaviour could be read very
differently. Ambitious, the Thing could be checking out how long it would take to
assimilate everyone and everything, using the 75% figure as the basis for that calculation.
The image of Blair with the watch now becomes a little disturbing. We may also
remember Blair looking at the Norwegian photographs and be reminded of Palmer,
probably a thing himself, looking at the empty hole in the ice where the Thing had slept
for 100,000 years.
Even with the benefit of hindsight we are never able to fully grasp the habits of
the Thing. Much of it remains a mystery, but we do know it doesn’t simply try and
assimilate everything in its path. It may well kill Fuchs and it does kill Garry.
Assimilations take time and energy and cause a lot of noise. If Blair is a thing at this
point, his decision to open the drawer and take out the gun makes perfect sense. If he
isn’t then the sense of human failing, of a terrible mistake being made is very strong and
emphasised by the music, which is sad and despairing.
In the same way that the Thing can assume different forms our own perceptions
are starting to make out different shapes in the behaviour we are witnessing. The film is
making a virtue of something which is often a limitation in movies, it can’t see inside the
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