The Thing (Blood Test Scene)

[Roody]

John Carpenters "The Thing" is a masterpiece. I generally avoid horror movies and was under the impression that I didn't like them, but it turned out I just hadn't seen a good one. I could talk about the movie for hours but that's not the point of this post. 

I recently decided to get back into making Lego stopmotions. I used to make them when I was a kid with a camera. But now that I'm a college student with a camera and a paycheck, I'd like to return to this passion of mine with full dedication. (Meaning I'm willing to spend money on equipment and materials) I decided to remake the blood test scene because it has a good mix of action, 80s body horror, and tense dialogue. Now I'm faced with a bit of a challenge; finding the right minifigure parts for the six characters in the scene. If you haven't watched the movie, I've linked the scene in a spoiler. Just know before watching that if you haven't seen the movie it might spoil some of the fun, and it is a decently graphic scene. There also is a small amount of cursing. Nothing too bad (just typical 80s practical effects), but if you don't like seeing blood in movies I'd avoid the clip.

Spoiler

 

Well in my search for the perfect minifigure head and hair piece, I searched through every minifigure head on BL. I set aside the best matches I could find, but I was wondering if any of you could come up with some better matches, because they are by no means perfect.

Here's the first character/part combo, Palmer. Throughout the entire scene he keeps the same neutral expression. I think the head is a pretty spot on match, the expression Palmer makes before transforming into a nightmarish creature is so chilling and blank. The hair I chose for him isn't perfect but I feel like it gets the job done. 

MacReady, the main character of the film is your typical hero character. When I started looking for the head I tried finding out if Kurt Russel had been in any movies that had been made into Lego sets but sadly the only thing I could find was a figure of Ego, Starlords father from Guardians of the Galaxy 2. The Kurt Russel who played Ego is obviously much older, so that was no good. I did find a pretty good match for the head though, and the hair is pretty spot on too.

I got pretty lucky with Nauls. Finding matches for black people is really difficult, when you search by color, there are only 71 results on BL and a lot of those aren't even human faces. Nauls makes the same expression in most scenes (one of unease/fear) but he does scream in a scene or two so I decided to get two different heads to be able to cover that range of emotion. The hair I found is pretty good too, I plan on using a small blue rubber band for the headband.

I don't think I did a very good job with Gary's hair, but I couldn't find anything better. His hair isn't exactly gray, but Lego doesn't really have that weird yellowish gray color that his hair seems to be and it's probably just the lighting of the scene that makes his hair look like that anyways. The face is pretty good and I plan on using both sides (him yelling while strapped to the chair is a great way to break up the tension of the scene with a bit of comedy, without ruining the tone of the movie)

I got lucky again with Childs. This is the only Lego head of a black person with a mustache and no beard. Just my luck that Childs is such a serious character and never makes a worried face. I think the hair is spot on too.

Finally Windows. The head isn't perfect, but the expression is. I still can't believe they made a Lego head for Qui-Gon and gave him the "i just got stabbed" face. Funny because Windows makes that exact expression in his final moments. The only thing I think doesn't match perfectly is the beard/mustache, but it's pretty close and I don't think anything better exists. The hair is pretty good too.

Well that's every character, not including Copper and Clark who only appear in the background of a couple scenes as cadavers. If you guys can think of a better part for any of the characters I would really appreciate it, as well as any tips on building the room the scene takes place in. This is also my first post on the forums, so hello!

Edited January 23, 2020 by Roody
Removed some unnecessary hyperlinks that were pasted as a result of linking Flikr images.

[Retro]

1. Hello!

2. Never seen the film. Just know of it.

3. What about Krennic (from Rogue One)'s hair for Gary?

[Roody]

7 hours ago, Retro said:

1. Hello!

2. Never seen the film. Just know of it.

3. What about Krennic (from Rogue One)'s hair for Gary?

Wow yeah that's way better! Thanks, I totally missed that one!