Films

Course The Thing was already a remake

Catching up with this thread way late, because of things (not Things, obv). It's not a remake, it's another go at making a film from the original short story. I'm not saying you can never call a second attempt at dramatising a written story a remake, but if the word's going to be meaningful the later film should be at least partially based on the earlier one, not just on the source material.

You could argue the toss for ages about which film was truer to the not-amazing source; the first film was made when they didn't have the kind of special effects that could depict a person-absorbing shapeshifter, so they made the alien a sentient vegetable that plants its seeds in the bodies of its victims. The later film has the original story's shapeshifter and the way they identify thing-people by dipping hot prongs in their blood but takes it to a much darker place - the source material has the same humans-triumphing-over-evil spirit and happy ending that you see in the first film.

@J0nathan aye, the references to The Thing in Hateful Eight stand out and are deliberate - I mean, that's pretty much signature style for Tarantino.