In the original 1982 The Thing this movie is a prequel too, the characters at the US base find the Norwegians' videotapes, on the tapes it shows the Norwegians planted thermite charges to blow up the top of the ice covering the spaceship. In this, it shows the ship still buried under the ice and the Norwegians built an ice tunnel to access it and that the top of ice covering the ship melts when the ship almost takes off at the end.
The dog in the final scene (intercut with closing credits) has inconsistent coloration because two different dogs were cast. The initial escape shots were filmed in 2011 and the subsequent aerial shots were taken from the John Carpenter film The Thing (1982).
(at around 1h 35 mins) At the end of the movie when the helicopter lands it has a door on the passenger side. When it takes off with Lars on board the door has vanished.
Jameson's skiing cap changes position on his head in many shots. Most noticeably when he enters the room where The Thing is initially kept.
(at around 1h 7 mins) When the four men are lined-up following the tooth filling checking scene, just after Jonas returns, Adam and Edvard swap positions.
(at around 5 mins) When Kate is introduced, she is examining a cave bear. She is doing so under normal room temperature conditions. Hence the corpse of the animal will thaw and rapidly decay. Specimens like frozen animals are kept frozen all the time to prevent the decay.
(at around 57 mins) When Lars is guarding the helicopter pilots, he yells at them a line in Norwegian which the subtitles mistranslate as, "Don't move, demons". An accurate translation of the line would be, "Take it fucking easy".
At the beginning, an onscreen caption states "Antarctica, 1982, Winter". There would be little or no sunlight in Antarctica in winter. This was done to create a continuity with the 1982 film which has the same caption and starts in the daylight, however duplicating the goof from the original film is still a goof.
When Adam is being assimilated and becomes the 2 headed life form, you can clearly see his arm defensively moving while it's attached to the host aliens strong arm. The issue is since Adam is being assimilated, the two heads should not have been in unison and reflecting the aliens reactions. Like Adam's arm, his face should reflect terror and fear as that's still him, while the other head would be the alien's reaction as that is the assimilation process to replicate Adam.
Dr. Sander Halvorson speaks fluent Danish without an accent to his fellow Norwegians. Actor Ulrich Thomsen is Danish. Danish and Norwegian people can, for the most part, understand each other. In some cases there might be a confusion, as the Danish language can be hard to follow, but this still doesn't qualify as a goof.
(at around 1h) When Kate Lloyd is inspecting the mouths of her colleagues for fillings she appears to be using an LED flashlight which did not exist in 1982. It was not an LED flashlight. It does look like the beam from the light is touched up with special effects to make it more apparent, but this is not a goof.
The Thule Air base is not Norwegian. It is located in Greenland and is a U.S. Air Force base. However, it is a fictional base in a fictional movie. Therefore not intended to be the real Norwegian camp in Antarctica.
At the end of the movie Carter tells Kate that "There's Russian base 50 miles from here."
Given the length of time the helicopter chased the alien dog during/after the credits, and the dog arriving at an AMERICAN base in the sequel, it would seem that in fact an American base was just over the hill.
Because they weren't at the Norwegian base, they were at the dig site of the spacecraft. Also in the 1982 film, they state that the Norwegian base is an hour flight from the American base.
Because they weren't at the Norwegian base, they were at the dig site of the spacecraft. Also in the 1982 film, they state that the Norwegian base is an hour flight from the American base.
It would be considerably more efficient for The Thing if it were to immediately attack anyone it was alone with instead of going through an elaborate revealing process.
The Thing needs to reveal itself in order to attack.
(at around 8 mins) Near the beginning, when flying to the Antarctic base, Dr. Kate Lloyd (Mary Elizabeth Winstead) is shown flying in a helicopter without hearing protection or headphones (one of the characters motions her to put them on so they can converse). Flying in a cargo helicopter is painfully loud (120db or higher) and there is no way that anybody could fly in one for hours without protecting their hearing. In fact, it's mandatory on the majority of flights.
(at around 5 mins) The very first time we see Kate, when she is examining the extracted specimen, she is listening to music on molded plastic headphones that were not available in 1982. Smaller headphones such as these, designed at the time for listening to Walkman-like portable equipment would have had a metal band going over the head, holding the earpieces in place.
(at around 22 mins) The ukulele played in the dance scene is a Fender. This model of ukulele was introduced in the 2000s, so it was not available in 1982.