Thing: The Musical aka Escape from the Shining Alien Thing from Beyond the Stars, The

Oh what joyous wonder to delve into the mind of Blueyoda!

Those that know me will be aware I started my editing journey making VHS music video mashups...and Blueyoda is the Jedi Master of mashups for sure....this however is a different beast AND YET, of a similar vein.

The challenge is how to review and not spoil this for it is in the viewing that the wonder resides.

Save to say that the Plot of The Thing remains largely intact. How we creep our way through it in the cold is a completely different journey. And OH what a journey this is.

It's not the creative insights that make this....
It's not the wild juxtapositions that make this....
It's not the great new visual effects that make this....
It's not the comedy moments that make this....
It's not the unexpected diversions that make this....
It's not the entirely newly re-arranged sequences that make this....
It's not the scoring enhancements that make this...
It's not the unexpected that make this....
It's not the trailers (which are mini edits and should be seperately submitted IMHO) that make this....

It's all of the above and so....SO much more....

No details from me for sure.

On a technical level, it has been noted that some music is a "tad" loud (yeah....I said tad)...and I do mean a TAD only, but no deductions for this since Blueyoda is aware; the self imposed deadline to get this out was an issue so let's cut some slack here on the slippage and I am certain there will be a version 2 (I hope). No deductions on some of the atrifacts noted, since this project culled many sources of varying quality and many sections were mini prodcuctions in themselves requiring huge amouts of work before dropping them into the edit.

The Audio modifications as music is heard seamlessly from one room to another are flawless and really do anchor this in the top league.

AV gets no deductions since I know the editor would have used the best sources available, and such a deduction would be churlish on my part, IMHO. It sould be said though, there are some clips used which by their age and nature are NOT of a pristine quality but this adds to the charm of the piece and anchors it in its era firmly.

We should all take note, especially for me the first 10 minutes, which show what a creative brush can do to establish an environment and mood so utterly compellingly....HECK, I may need to revisit my own THE THINGS and tweak it.

This is a glorious, uproaringly entertaining piece of creative genius littered with BONKERS and I would implore all to watch, laugh and above all learn...Learning has never been such fun.

Blueyoda is the Chocolatier of Fanediting (with sugar on top)!

STANDING OVATION

The kind of furiously inventive fanediting art that makes you a bit ashamed that've only managed to trim few scenes here and there in your own uninspired projects. Despite all the crazy ideas and source hopping fun, there is a rigorous fidelity to the new concept and story, that lessor editors (such as myself) might've missed. There was a moment with a POV shot over MacReady's shoulder as he pilots his helicopter over the ice, where I thought "Hey this looks exactly like the same shot from 'The Empire Strikes Back'. I wonder if Blueyoda will use that for a giggle", then I thought, no that would be inconsistent with his new story, it would just be a joke for jokes sake. Instead Blueyoda piles on diabetes joke, after diabetes joke, using sound, visuals and FX to make the idea live. The funniest joke in the edit was on the included subtitle track "Nauls respectfully turns off the music". It was almost a spit-take for me. Thanks Blueyoda for a real blast!

One word... diabeetus.

Oh me, oh my, oh me. How to leave a review for this without spoiling it? As, believe me, you want to go into it completely in the dark. There is a surprise awaiting you behind each corner.

Blueyoda has certainly given his all with this edit. It's a smorgasbord of pop culture and memes, it's a trippy art piece, and it's a monument to the creative possibilities of fanediting, its final act being the natural extension of Blueyoda's own already classic Dead Awake. And, above all, it's a side-splittingly hilarious comedy. I hadn't laughed this hard in a LONG time.

I've seen absolutely brilliant edits this year, from many extremely talented editors. But something absolutely exceptional has to be released before December 31 to dethrone this as the fanedit of the year in my book.

Ti stjerner. Which is "ten stars" in Norge or something.

A final recommendation: watch it with the subtitles on, regardless of whether you need them or not. You'll thank me.

I've been away from the forums for a bit and will be running away again after I drop this review. Life has demanded it. But I saw the release for this pop up as a browser notification and I couldn't resist grabbing it. I had a deadline to hit this evening, so this was my reward for meeting that before cracking on with other stuff I have to do. And what a treat! More specifics below.


QUALITY

There is some noticeable compression occasionally, but generally I think the visual quality is solid. There are a lot of different sources which vary, naturally, (sometimes for obvious reasons) but it works for the intended vibe.


VISUAL

There's a lot of impressive visual editing going on and I don't really have any complaints. Some of the most fun I had in this edit was from cleverly integrated visual gags. I'm not even sure how half this stuff is done. It's wonderful.

Another reviewer had an issue with the shift in aspect ratio partway through, and I have to disagree. It's a necessary shift - for it to match, you would either have to have the entire edit in 4:3 or you would have to crop the other footage to widescreen. The former would be a lot of work and a great shame, and the latter would look terrible. You would lose too much of the image and the already lo-res footage would be very fuzzy. The way I see it, the shift in aspect ratio occurs at a point where we are taken out of the edit and into another, older realm. It stays consistent during the shift and then it switches back. It never feels unnatural, IMO. Blue Yoda has a style that incorporates all sorts of wild ideas that play off of each other, to a point where it doesn't make sense to expect complete aesthetic consistency.


AUDIO

Generally good and I don't want to get nitpicky. A couple of things I think worth mentioning though is that the lack of foley during the Norwegian camp scene took me out of the edit a bit and the sound used for when Mac busts open the door felt really out of place. I also feel that generally the new scoring is nearly always much louder than it needs to be and at its worst is drowning out dialogue. Having said that, I never felt like I needed to keep turning my volume up and down, which is something I often find when some editors rescore. Some kick-ass music choices as well and some really great attention to detail (for example, the sonic shift during "Another One Bites the Dust" as we switch perspectives and distance from the source was really well done).


NARRATIVE

Honestly, all I've seen from Blue Yoda are some pretty nutty shorts and so for their first feature I kind of assumed it would literally be a feature-length assault on the senses. Turns out it's not that AT ALL. I'm not going into spoiler territory but, if you want some expectations set, this is actually a fairly restrained edit (relatively speaking). The original narrative is stuck to fairly closely, and occasionally we have some really wild stuff that gets incorporated; the new setup is excellent, and all the combination of footage towards the end is very well executed and thought out. I loved it to bits and I think BlueYoda did a good job of striking a balance between madness and coherence. Having said that, I would so be down to see the madness leaned into further. The deleted scenes were an absolute blast and I would love to see a version that incorporates these (where possible) and maybe even some of the unused stuff from the trailers.

As has been mentioned in another review, subtitles are recommended! I think for some scenes they are almost essential to the gag.

One minor comment I have is that at the very end of the final credits there's a brief bit of the ending scene of The Thing that then abruptly cuts off - was this an error? Seemed very odd, like maybe there was a scrap bit of footage that went unnoticed.


ENJOYMENT

Wonderful job. Great fun. I laughed a lot (and I needed to). I love the whole package that's been put together: 4 unique trailers, two beautifully put together posters and a deleted scenes/oddities compilation. All worth your while and something that just makes the experience more special. This is exactly the kind of thing I want to see more often in the fanediting community. Bold fan-mixes that take footage to places you never expect. Hopefully this isn't the last time we see BlueYoda try their hands at a feature-length.