Flannel-shirt-wearing beardo sci-fi geeks are much more admiring of John Carpenter‘s The Thing (’82) than they are of Matthijs van Heijningen Jr.‘s 2011 version with Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Joel Edgerton and Ulrich Thomsen. They don’t even want to discuss the 1951 Howard Hawks-Christian Nyby version even though it’s the smartest and best-written version of the three. (Not to mention the most engagingly performed as well as the Thing flick that provides the most metaphorically reflective portrait of the culture from which it emerged.) But consider these two endings and tell me — honestly, no evasions — which one has the pizazz?