Fiction vs. Fiction vs. Fiction: The Thing- Films vs. Short Story

 I love The Thing.  The 1982 one to be clear.

I'd never read the original Short Story that it is based on until I found it in a Short Story Hardback Collection from 1985.

How does it compare to the 1951 Film and Carpenter's Classic Film?

Let's find out...

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What's the Same?

Arctic Researchers accidentally run across a frozen alien and it thaws out.  It starts to kill everyone until they manage to take it out...but at what cost?

What's Different?

In the Short Story and 1951 Film, our group is the one that blasts open the ship and finds the creature.
Carpenter's Film has the creature infiltrate their base as a dog, having been found by a Swedish group.

In the Story, the creature is a strange, blue guy with head tendrils and three eyes.
In the 1951 Film, it is a big dude played by James Arness.
In the 1982 Film, we never *really* see its true form.

In Carpenter's Film, it kills the dogs directly, revealing itself to the group.
In the Story and 1951 Film, it attacks the dogs and is wounded by them. 
In the Story, the rest of the dogs die due to eating part of the creature during said attack.

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In the Story and Carpenter's Film, the creature can impersonate the Crew (after killing them) and grow freaky new tendrils/claws/blades.
In the 1951 Film, it is a big, old Vampire and never changes shape.

In the Story, they can burn it with an electric torch, last killing the final creature after it pretended to be Blair in isolation.
In the 1951 Film, it is electrocuted and turned into ash.
In the Carpenter Film, it is a flamethrower.

In the Story, McReady is described as a bronze giant, complete with red beard and giant frame.
I guess Jonas in the 2011 Prequel of the same name is the closest fit.
Weirdly, McReady is replaced with 'Patrick Hendry' in the 1951 Film.

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In the Story, they defeat the creature and learn that it was making a jetpack to escape with when they stopped it.
In the 1951 Film, the creature is defeated and they go all 'Watch the skies!'
In the Carpenter Film, they are famously ambiguous as to whether either survivor is truly human.

Thoughts

The original Story is a true classic, giving you a good balance of intrigue, creature feature and isolation.  The 1951 Film is still good, but definitely doesn't go as far as you'd hope for after reading the Story.

Carpenter's Film is great.  Duh.

Which is Better?

The Carpenter Film.

The original Story really holds up well.  You can tell that Carpenter and company wanted to honor the spirit of it and made some tweaks along the way.
Not 100% faithful in Story, but 1,000% faithful in spirit.