Ronald D. Moore, the man associated with the stunning Battlestar Galactica (which is going a little Lost on us in the latter half of the last series) has been talking about his next piece of work, writing the script for the much talked about prequel to John Carpenter's The Thing.

There's not much to be said, and I'd love to know the inclination and tone in his voice because it does sound like he's a little offhand about it, but then this is text. Read on for what he had to say.

Thankfully he reveals nothing about the plot or the story, neither confirming or denying what the rumours have been saying that they're planning to do with the prequel, however he does say:

“I did my last draft a few weeks ago and turned it in. They [Universal Pictures] seem happy. They have a director [Matthijs Van Heijningen] assigned, and we'll wait to see when and if they green-light it.”

Those are the comments through SciFi Wire and AITH that do sound rather matter of fact when you say them through in your head, of course they could have been said a totally different way in any number of circumstances, but reading that right now there doesn't seem to be a lot of excitement about the project.

However things do start turning around when they get to discussing the connections with John Carpenter's original The Thing, and Ronald D. Moore says:

“...the idea was to make a companion piece to Carpenter's...We wanted a piece that would link up to [the Carpenter film] and not supplant it. So we didn't try to sort of completely reinvent what it was. We wanted a movie that would sort of live alongside it.”

That's really good news for the original, but then we kind of new that it wasn't going to impact too heavily, well saying that the last few rumours we've heard have discussed the possibility that the film might stray further into the original territory than the dog at the start of The Thing.

“I started on the project with the feeling that Carpenter's version is just an amazing piece of work. It's a great film, and we really wanted to honor that version.”

Sounds like they don't want to touch The Thing though, and whatever they do they want to make sure that the original stays just that, original and untouched.

I'm glad about that, I really am, but at the same time I'm trying to wonder just how different this film will be from the original, after all they'll discover the creature, uncover it, and then start getting attacked by it, probably one by one. Throw in the suspicion and paranoia and that's the first film pretty much isn't it? What new territory can they come up with?