Deliberate mistake: When the Norwegian starts shooting at the dog, Childs jumps into the snow and you can see the shape before he jumps in where he's had to do this before on different takes. (00:08:40)
The Thing (1982)
1 deliberate mistake - chronological order
Directed by: John Carpenter
Starring: Kurt Russell, Keith David, Wilford Brimley, David Clennon, T.K. Carter
Character mistake: When MacReady is giving the blood test, the scalpel they are using is not properly sterilized after each person cuts themselves (shown when Nauls cuts himself, then when Windows goes next: all he does is wipe the scalpel on his pants). Using the same scalpel seems like an extremely stupid thing to do as Fuchs told MacReady that even a small particle of the Thing could take over a person. (01:19:55)
Clark: I dunno what the hell's in there, but it's weird and pissed off, whatever it is.
Question: Was the huge monster McReady encounters, and subsequently blows up, the actual "default" form of the Thing? After all, the correspondent DVD chapter is titled "The Real Thing". Yes, they do say that the Thing could've imitated millions of different lifeforms, but it must've had a form to begin with.
Answer: In the book, it was vaguely humanoid with blue rubbery skin, a head of writhing tentacles, and 3 glowing red eyes. There is a picture of it in Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials by Wayne Barlowe.
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Answer: At the end, the large creature presented itself as an amalgam of beings it had absorbed-part Blair, part dog, and various other beings with tentacles, insect-like legs, and a worm-like body. I don't believe that we really ever see what its true form is, if it has one.
Erik M.