Flash-cut to wide shot of a snowy landscape where a square little truck putters across the white terrain, next thing you know it's night, storming, you're outside of the original Norwegian base. An elderly voice, possibly the main scientist in charge of the mission, explains that they've made a discovery, and everyone is about to be a part of something groundbreaking. The trailer slowly swaps from the Norwegian team digging inside a snow cave, to close ups on each face finally stopping on a giant ice block, where The Thing is presumably trapped. Then they bring out the drill.
If the first half of the trailer is any indication as to what the pace of the actual film will be like — and director Matthijs van Heijningen Jr. stated that he cut this teaser himself — then all of the worries about the pacing matching up with the original Thing may not apply. The tension was there, and it was building — they even used the Norwegian folk-song scene (which Mary Elizabeth Winstead told us about during our set visit) to add a dash of eerie tension.
There were a few other shots where The Thing was either being lit on fire — by blow torch, naturally — or it briefly appeared as a giant gray blob, it was cut fast so it looked like a blob to me but I'm sure there was definition in there somewhere. We'll have to wait until the trailer is actually released, so we can break it down panel by panel. Perhaps this is The Thing's "original form."
Director Matthijs explains what we mean by the "original form" during the panel Q&A:
Yes you're going to see it in its pure form, but the question is: is that its pure form? We will see it in its original form, how they find it in the ice. It escapes from the ice and then starts attacking in its original form, then it transforms.
Overall, it was a pretty entertaining trailer, but it is just a trailer. Still, we're ready to see more, much more. Just hopefully not set in New York city.