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The movie was released only 4 years after the [[Roswell|Roswell Incident]], and coincided with [[McCarthyism]] and the "red scare", the [[Korean War]], and the beginning of the [[Cold War]]. It was released in the same year as another classic sci-fi movie, ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' but the two were polar opposites in how they dealt with Man's first contact with extraterrestrial life. Mark Bourne's retrospective (2003) analysis of the two movies summarizes: "In ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'', a Christ-like man from space, on a mission to save us from our "petty squabbling" and "strange, unreasoning attitudes," is besieged by trigger-happy, paranoid militarists before appealing to the superior minds of Earth's scientists, then flies away having given us food for thought. Meanwhile, all namby-pamby First Contact niceties were torched to the ground in ''The Thing from Another World'', where the worst way to deal with its flying saucer pilot is to let the eggheads trump our men in uniform in the name of some fatally wrongheaded "communication" and "understanding." This taut and entertaining thriller is to ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' what ''[[Alien]]'' is to ''[[Star Trek]]'', or the [[Rolling Stones]] to the [[Beatles]]."<ref name="bourne">Bourne, Mark [http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/t/thingfromanotherworld.shtml ''Review''] [http://www.dvdjournal.com dvdjournal.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref>

The movie was released only 4 years after the [[Roswell|Roswell Incident]], and coincided with [[McCarthyism]] and the "red scare", the [[Korean War]], and the beginning of the [[Cold War]]. It was released in the same year as another classic sci-fi movie, ''[[The Day the Earth Stood Still]]'' but the two were polar opposites in how they dealt with Man's first contact with extraterrestrial life. Mark Bourne's retrospective (2003) analysis of the two movies summarizes: "In ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'', a Christ-like man from space, on a mission to save us from our "petty squabbling" and "strange, unreasoning attitudes," is besieged by trigger-happy, paranoid militarists before appealing to the superior minds of Earth's scientists, then flies away having given us food for thought. Meanwhile, all namby-pamby First Contact niceties were torched to the ground in ''The Thing from Another World'', where the worst way to deal with its flying saucer pilot is to let the eggheads trump our men in uniform in the name of some fatally wrongheaded "communication" and "understanding." This taut and entertaining thriller is to ''The Day the Earth Stood Still'' what ''[[Alien]]'' is to ''[[Star Trek]]'', or the [[Rolling Stones]] to the [[Beatles]]."<ref name="bourne">Bourne, Mark [http://www.dvdjournal.com/reviews/t/thingfromanotherworld.shtml ''Review''] [http://www.dvdjournal.com dvdjournal.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref>

The clash between the military and the scientist has been a recurring theme in many films of this type, and ''The Thing...'' portrays "one of the rare occasions in sci-fi/horror film history where the military is actually the level headed side of this equation."<ref>[http://www.houseofhorrors.com/thingfromanotherworld.htm ''Review''] [http://www.houseofhorrors.com houseofhorrors.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref> The "brilliant yet blissfully naive Dr. Arthur Carrington... naturally, assumes 'the Thing' is only homicidal because he is misunderstood... [but] as the truly frightening potential of the creature reveals itself, it becomes a race against time to destroy it, before it kills everyone, leaves the base, and reproduces countless seedlings of itself to conquer the world."<ref name="burgraff">Burgraff, Ben [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/ ''Reviews''] [http://www.imdb.com imdb.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref> The movie portrays Dr. Carrington as "driven only by the 'quest for knowledge', his desire to protect the monster, even to the point of sacrificing his fellow humans, com[ing] off as murderously naive. When he says admiringly of the Thing, "Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors," we suspect that Carrington's was."<ref name="bourne" />

The clash between the military and the scientist has been a recurring theme in many films of this type, and ''The Thing...'' portrays "one of the rare occasions in sci-fi/horror film history where the military is actually the level headed side of this equation."<ref>[http://www.houseofhorrors.com/thingfromanotherworld.htm ''Review''] [http://www.houseofhorrors.com houseofhorrors.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref> The "brilliant yet blissfully naive Dr. Arthur Carrington... naturally, assumes 'the Thing' is only homicidal because he is misunderstood... [but] as the truly frightening potential of the creature reveals itself, it becomes a race against time to destroy it, before it kills everyone, leaves the base, and reproduces countless seedlings of itself to conquer the world."<ref name="burgraff">Burgraff, Ben [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0044121/ ''Reviews''] [https://www.imdb.com imdb.com] Retrieved 25 November 2008.</ref> The movie portrays Dr. Carrington as "driven only by the 'quest for knowledge', his desire to protect the monster, even to the point of sacrificing his fellow humans, com[ing] off as murderously naive. When he says admiringly of the Thing, "Its development was not handicapped by emotional or sexual factors," we suspect that Carrington's was."<ref name="bourne" />

[[Stephen King]] writes, in his authoritative study of horror fiction, ''"Danse Macabre"'': "''The Thing...'' is the first movie of the fifties to offer us the scientist in the role of the Appeaser, that creature who for reasons either craven or misguided, would open the gates to the Garden of Eden and let all the evils fly '''in''' (as opposed, let us say, to those Mad Labs proprietors of the thirties, who were more than willing to open [[Pandora's Box]] and let all the evils fly '''out''' - a major distinction, although the end results are the same). That scientists should be so constantly vilified in the techno-horror films of the fifties - a decade that was apparently dedicated to the idea of turning out a whole marching corps of men and women in white lab coats - is perhaps not so surprising when we remember that it was science which opened those same gates so that the [[atomic bomb]] could be brought into Eden - first by itself and then trundled on missile carriers. The average Jane or Joe on the street during those spooky eight or nine years that followed the surrender of [[Japan]] had extremely schizoid feelings about science and scientists - recognizing the need for them and at the same time loathing the things they had let in forever. On the one hand, there was their pal, that neat little all-round guy, [http://www.toonopedia.com/reddy_k.htm Reddy Kilowatt]; on the other hand, before getting into the first reel of ''The Thing...'' down at your local theater, you could watch newsreel footage as an Army mockup of "a town just like yours" was vaporized in a nuclear furnace."<ref name="king">King, Stephen "Danse Macabre" (Berkeley, 1987) ISBN 0-4251-0433-8</ref>

[[Stephen King]] writes, in his authoritative study of horror fiction, ''"Danse Macabre"'': "''The Thing...'' is the first movie of the fifties to offer us the scientist in the role of the Appeaser, that creature who for reasons either craven or misguided, would open the gates to the Garden of Eden and let all the evils fly '''in''' (as opposed, let us say, to those Mad Labs proprietors of the thirties, who were more than willing to open [[Pandora's Box]] and let all the evils fly '''out''' - a major distinction, although the end results are the same). That scientists should be so constantly vilified in the techno-horror films of the fifties - a decade that was apparently dedicated to the idea of turning out a whole marching corps of men and women in white lab coats - is perhaps not so surprising when we remember that it was science which opened those same gates so that the [[atomic bomb]] could be brought into Eden - first by itself and then trundled on missile carriers. The average Jane or Joe on the street during those spooky eight or nine years that followed the surrender of [[Japan]] had extremely schizoid feelings about science and scientists - recognizing the need for them and at the same time loathing the things they had let in forever. On the one hand, there was their pal, that neat little all-round guy, [http://www.toonopedia.com/reddy_k.htm Reddy Kilowatt]; on the other hand, before getting into the first reel of ''The Thing...'' down at your local theater, you could watch newsreel footage as an Army mockup of "a town just like yours" was vaporized in a nuclear furnace."<ref name="king">King, Stephen "Danse Macabre" (Berkeley, 1987) ISBN 0-4251-0433-8</ref>