R.J. MacReady

The dog and the helicopter come upon the United States Re, Science Research station, where the fellas are all waiting for the stor- first storm of winter to fall upon the camp.

R.J. MacReady pours himself a glass-

Mm

... of scotch and plays chess on the chess wizard computer.

It's basically a sombrero.

Now, he thinks he has the computer dead to rights, but she see through his gambit, catches him in the checkmate.

Then MacReady pours his drink into the machine out of frustration.

Hey, buddy, what if someone else wanted to play chess? It's gonna be a long winter, you dick.

Even if you don't really like these characters, he does...

MacReady's probably the most normal of the group.

To be honest, he's the most level-headed...

Even though he does get mad at the chess wizard thing, which I'll come back to and say.

And then I think the thing you were talking about with the themes of isolation and fear, sleep deprivation, like...

That's really good how they do the themes within the story because each character is unique in the story.

Like Childe is a great character because he's the complete opposite of MacReady.

So I definitely like the characters and how they're portrayed differently.

But the film's ambiguous ending leaves it quite uncertain whether the objective was achieved, with only time to tell if the creature prevailed or not.

Due to its ability to survive in the elements, most likely the human race is doomed within the next few years, no matter whether MacReady, played by Kurt Russell, or Childs, played by Keith David, or perhaps both, are actually infected at the end of the film.

A

specific situational archetype that stems from the underdog struggle is the rags-to-riches narrative.

And if we connect this to the bigger picture, the famous blood test scene is the masterclass in this mechanism.

Uh, MacReady, played by Kurt Russell, realizes that if the creature perfectly imitates a human, the only way to expose it is to threaten a piece of it on a cellular level.

Such a brilliant concept.

He ties the remaining men to couches, draws their blood into Petri dishes, and touches a red hot copper wire to each sample.

The tension is unbearable because the audience, just like MacReady, has no idea who is human and who is an imitation.

We are right there with him.

When Palmer's blood physically leaps out of the dish away from the hot wire, the subsequent transformation is chaotic, visceral, and horrifying.

And then somehow mutate and get stronger as your deck builds or something.

And then MacReady would be the other.

Okay.

Or MacReady and Childs, maybe?

I love Childs.

I was trying to figure out how to work those two into it together.

In the first part of the Grindhouse double, Death Proof, the part of Stuntman Mike was played by Kurt Russell.

As we know, that good sir played MacReady in The Thing, Snake Plissken in Escape From New York, Jack Burton in Big Trouble.

He even voiced Elvis in an uncredited role in Forrest Gump.

But there is a rumor that on his deathbed in 1966, the last words ever uttered from Walt Disney's mouth was, "Kurt Russell."

He's too self-aware.

Would he lean more toward Snake? Would he lean more toward MacReady? even McCready is too you know cool he knows what's he knows what he's doing the right thing he knows he's doing you know that he's better than than them kind of I don't know does that make sense He's too good of an actor to be able to play this naturally.

I don't know if he ever does anything where he plays naturally.

Or if he does, it wouldn't be for a John Carpenter movie.