There's been a lot of debate about the possible merits, or lack thereof, of the upcoming prequel to John Carpenter's classic The Thing (also titled, annoyingly, The Thing). Cruise the internets and you'll find people insisting that Carpenter's flick is damn near perfect and not in need of any -quels, either pre- or se-. Some will argue that it's just another example in Hollywood's current pernicious fascination with recycling past hits rather than trying to generate new ones. You'll even find folks arguing, without a trace of irony, that revisiting the concept of The Thing at all is sheer blasphemy.

Still, maybe Hollywood is just going about this all wrong. Making another Thing movie in the same vein as Carpenter's classic can't help but draw comparisons, and most likely suffer from them. So why not take the core concept and explore a different genre? Like, say, a swingin' big band musical? I think it would go...a little something like this...



That little bit of awesome is courtesy of Jon and Al (of the appropriately titled jonandal.com), the duo responsible for other bits of much-forwarded genius such as Conan the Barbarian: The Musical and Total Recall: The Musical. They've traded their spot-on Arnie impersonation for a pitch-perfect Sinatra, but you can't deny the magic of a musical version of The Thing as told from The Thing's point of view.

Well, now that I've mentioned it, I can't help but include this as well: