With the aforementioned evidence, there is no question that Norris was the first to be assimilated in the camp via infection, most likely from the Dog Thing licking his face, or Norris putting his fingers in his mouth or rubbing his eyes after petting the dog and/or the Dog Thing licking his fingers.
One possibility as to how this came about was when two dogs escaped the kennel once Clark opened the gate. It is likely they would have been infected once the Thing had emerged.
There are two possible explanations to his exposure to being a Thing; he was either fully assimilated by Palmer off-screen or he was gradually taken over due to being exposed to a one-cell infection, and did in fact feel strange and had a heart attack because he was being infected.
Assimilated. The Kennel-Thing, also known as the Dog-Thing, was a three-formed Thing which assumed the form of a Norwegian dog. The creature originally appeared in the 1982 film The Thing and its origins were further explored in the 2011 prequel of the same name.
Cundey suggested that throughout the film a specific light gleam can be seen in the eyes of whichever body is currently inhabiting the alien. A light gleam can be seen in Childs' eyes in the final scene, which would mean he's infected with the Thing under Cundey's theory.
The Exact Moment Each Person Became Assimilated In The Thing
Who was still human at the end of The Thing?
The Eye Light Theory And Carpenter's Claim
The eye light theory states that humans were marked with a light in their eyes by the film's director of photography, Dean Cundey. At the end of the film, Childs does not have the eye light, and MacReady does.
His character is one of the least seen in the movie but is conveniently one of the first to appear every time some major event happens. He's also hesitant when taking blood samples early on for the test and stays neutral for most arguments.
Due to their ignorance of the Thing's life cycle, the dog's remains were left alone by the crew and its whereabouts were largely unknown throughout the Thule crisis. It is only at the end of the film that the dog, now assimilated, is seen by Lars leaping out of a window and running away from the destroyed station.
Norwegian Passenger with Rifle : [in untranslated Norwegian] Get the hell away! That's not a dog, it's some sort of thing! It's imitating a dog, it isn't real! GET AWAY, YOU IDIOTS!
With no other choice, Childs sacrifices himself to destroy the creature by blowing himself up while MacReady escaped the sub in a capsule. However, it would be later revealed that Childs was assimilated by the creature, who would later reveal itself to MacReady in Argentina.
Why did The Thing reveal itself in the helicopter?
It is unknown why the Grigg-Thing revealed itself when it did. It is possible that it did this because it knew that there would be an unlikely chance of it ever escaping Thule Station because it knew a human was onto it and its more animalistic instincts took over.
By alternative interpretation, it is believed that, due to the distinct shape of their collar, the individual was in fact Norris, and Palmer was assimilated by the Norris-Thing at a later point, with the shredded clothes belonging to him.
Some people believe Blair was a Thing when he damaged the radio equipment. This is one of the things fans have been discussing since the 1980s. Some are of the opinion that he was infected when handling the dead dog-Thing or the Thing carcasses brought over from the Norwegian camp, and only gradually taken over.
During the encounter, Norris appears to suffer a heart attack. As Copper attempts to defibrillate Norris, his chest transforms into a large mouth and bites off Copper's arms, killing him. MacReady incinerates the Norris-Thing, but its head detaches and attempts to escape before also being burnt.
The blood supply would have had to be destroyed shortly before Blair was taken to the tool shed so it had to be when Blair was destroying the radio. Therefore Palmer was most likely The Thing that sabotaged the blood supply.
The most debated aspect of The Thing concerns its two survivors, MacReady and Childs. The events of the film see every other person in Antarctic Outpost 31 killed, and the horror movie's final survivors are left in the impossible — but practically inevitable — situation where neither man knows if the other is infected.
Originally Answered: What happened to the dogs in The Thing? Some dogs are killed by the creature or the humans. One appears to survive to the end and will end up freezing along with the 2 surviving humans. It is not known for sure if the dog or the humans are infected.
Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Kate Lloyd, an American vertebrate paleontologist graduate from Columbia University: In order to be different from Kurt Russell as the 1982 film's protagonist, R.J. MacReady, Kate Lloyd was written to have similar traits as the character Ellen Ripley from the Alien film series.
In the novelization the flamethrowers were needed to melt ice off of the helicopters and other equipment. Of course this may be impractical and even dangerous by real life standards. It's a fair explanation within the film's universe.
The rest of the ensemble cast consists of biologists Blair and Fuchs, cook Nauls, mechanics Palmer and Childs, physician Copper, geologist Norris, meteorologist George, dog handler Clark, commander Garry and radio operator Windows.
There are existing stills of an alternate death for Fuchs. Like in the film, exactly what happened would be ambiguous and open to interpretation, but rather than finding his corpse being found burned in the snow, he would have been found in a greenhouse impaled by a shovel. The scene has never been released.
The most terrifying aspect of the iconic horror creature The Thing is that nobody knows what it looks like or has seen its true form. The extraterrestrial's entire existence is based on assimilating and replicating the appearance of other organisms, so it's difficult to determine exactly what its original form is.
