How did the Thing escape the ice block?
The script and book both describe the Thing’s former prison as being like “a frozen bathtub” with the center “thawed and scooped out.” The film faithfully portrays this on screen. So melting and scraping away of the ice are given as primary reasons why the Thing escaped. But the problem is, a “bathtub” is not the usual shape of an ice block after it has steadily thawed over time. We wouldn’t expect to see rims around it if the melting were due to natural room temperatures. This suggests we look for less than natural means for thawing the ice. So we are left with only two possibilities. Either the Thing had awakened and started melting the ice from the inside or the Norwegians themselves had begun the process of extricating their specimen. The latter seems more likely. Being the curious scientists that they were, the Norwegians couldn’t wait to get a good look at whatever was inside of the ice block. They began melting and scraping away the ice from the center outwards. In so doing, the
