Editing The Thing from Another World (section)

===Screenplay===
The film was loosely adapted by [[Charles Lederer]], with uncredited rewrites from [[Howard Hawks]] and [[Ben Hecht]], from the 1938 novella "[[Who Goes There?]]" by [[John W. Campbell]]. The story was first published in ''[[Analog Science Fiction and Fact|Astounding Science Fiction]]'' under Campbell's pseudonym, Don A. Stuart. (Campbell had just become ''Astounding''{{'}}s managing editor when his novella appeared in its pages.)<ref name="Warren" /> Science fiction author [[A. E. van Vogt]], who had been inspired to write from reading "Who Goes There?" and who had been a prolific contributor to ''Astounding'', had wanted to write the script.<ref name="Astounding" />

The screenplay changes the fundamental nature of the alien from Campbell's novella as a life form capable of assuming the physical and mental characteristics of any living thing it encounters (as realized in [[John Carpenter]]'s 1982 adaptation of the original source, ''[[The Thing (1982 film)|The Thing]]''.<ref name="Warren" />) into a humanoid life form whose cellular structure is closer to vegetation, although it must feed on blood to survive. The internal, plant-like structure of the creature makes it impervious to bullets, but not to other destructive forces such as fire and electricity.

Film critic [[Bill Warren (film historian and critic)|Bill Warren]] has argued that the film reflects a post-[[Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki|Hiroshima]] skepticism about science and prevailing negative views of scientists who meddle with things better left alone,<ref name="Warren" />. This suspicion of science, though, is also a larger theme in Arctic horror, including "[[Who Goes There?|Who Goes There]]" (1938) the source material for the film, and other notable works like H.P. Lovecraft's "[[At the Mountains of Madness]]" (1936), as well as older works of in horror and the Gothic, such as ''[[Frankenstein]]'' (1818) and ''[[The Island of Doctor Moreau]]'' (1896).