Edvard Wolner is a major character in The Thing 2011.
History[]
Wolner is first seen at the crash site of the creature's UFO where he is introduced to Kate Lloyd, the person brought in by Dr. Sander Halvorson to extract the creature from the ice. After successfully excavating the creature Wolner, and the other team members watch as Halvorson demands a sample be taken from their discovery, despite being warned against it by Kate, in the process of taking the sample the ice begins to slowly crack and weaken, which goes unnoticed by everyone present.
Later, Wolner and his team celebrate their find with drinks and old Norwegian folk songs, until American Co-pilot Derek Jameson witnesses The Thing escape from it's icy prison. The team finally corners the creature under a small shack after it attacks and kills Norwegian team member Henrik Larsen, before it is burned to death by American helicopter pilot Sam Carter.
After The Thing's attack on the station, Kate and Adam Finch present the theory of the creature's ability to assimilate and replicate other living life forms which Wolner and Halvorson dismiss as paranoia and even accuse Kate of attempting to turn everyone on each other. However Kate's theory is proved right once a member of the team, Juliette, is revealed to be the Thing when she attacks Kate and kills Karl, partially assimilating him in the process before being destroyed. Kate then devises a test to see who is human and who is The Thing, seeing as the creature cannot assimilate inorganic material she checks everyone for fillings.
Death[]
Wolner along with Halvorsen and Finch are among the group without fillings and placed under guard by Kate. Later, a brief stand-off ensues between the Americans and the other team members, Wolner tries to convince his second in command Peder the Americans are their enemy which Peder agrees and attempts to burn them before being shot through the head by Jameson, which causes his flamethrower to explode. After the explosion, Wolner is knocked unconscious, and is brought to the rec room by the surviving team members for medical treatment where it is discovered that Wolner had already been assimilated by the creature.
Edvard Thing
Split-Face[]
The Edvard-Thing transforms, killing Jonas and Derek before incapacitating Adam with a stabbing blow from its whip-like tentacle. As the wounded American lies on the floor and screams for help, the Edvard-Thing pins him down and slowly merges its face with his to become the split-faced Thing. Kate attempts to incinerate the creature, but is unable to and watches as it drags away the now limp Adam to be fully assimilated elsewhere.
Once assimilation is complete, Split Face returns and starts to stalk the camp for other members of the team. It finds a terrified Dr. Sander Halvorson hiding under a desk and easily assimilates him into a separate Thing. It then looks for the remaining members, and comes across Sam Carter, who is cornered in a storage area by the creature. Sam arms himself with a kitchen knife and prepares for his fate. As Split Face comes around a corner to confront Sam, it starts to express rage upon its two fused faces, and then charges at him in an attempt to assimilate him as well. However at the last moment, a flamethrower being wielded by Kate Lloyd erupts through the room which sets the creature on fire. It charges through the wall of the camp and tries to douse the flames in the cold, damp snow but it is finally killed by a few more blasts of fire from Kate. The creature lets out one last howl as it perishes slowly in the snow.
It should be noted that Kate wanted to roast it further, but Carter told her to stop and she did. As the 1982 movie reveals, this was a mistake; there was still a significant amount of active cells, able to form tentacles and attack Bennings.
When the corpse of Split Face was seen in the 1982 movie, empty cans of kerosene were lying next to it, suggesting it had suffered similar fate to Bennings-Thing. However, according to the 2011 prequel, the kerosene had actually been used to burn the remains of Juliette-Thing and Karl earlier, and it would seem that Split Face simply ended up near the empty cans already lying there.
Near the end, Matias is seen back to the station from refueling his helicopter. Horrified by what he saw upon the remains of the Split Face, he yells out if anyone can hear him, but is confronted by Lars and is proven to be human by him, The two later chased after the assimilated dog in a chopper, which marks the beginning and the doom of Outpost 31.
The Split Face-Thing's partially burned remains were later discovered by R.J. MacReady and Dr. Copper during their investigation at the Norwegian Outpost only to find it destroyed, they also found a large chunk of ice and the records regarding the Norwegian crew's discovery of a UFO. MacReady and Copper brought the remains back to the U.S. Outpost 31 for further examination, the entire crew were in shock to see such a deformed creature, Garry ordered Dr. Blair to run an autopsy on the remains.
During the autopsy with Copper and Fuchs, Blair discovered that the creature possesses what seems to be a normal set of human organs such as Heart, Lungs, Kidneys, Liver, Intestine etc. which originally belonged to its hosts Adam Finch and Edvard Wolner. After the autopsy, the dog imitation that the crew adopted earlier revealed its true form and it began to assimilate the crew's sled dogs. The crew was able to kill it by incinerating it. Blair later conducted an autopsy on the creature and also discovered normal sets of canine internal organs just as similar to the Split Face-Thing, he concludes that they are dealing with an organism capable of perfectly assimilating other life forms.
Split-Face Death[]
Split Face's remains along with the Kennel-Thing remains were stored in the storage room by Bennings and Windows; however, parts of the Split Face-Thing were still alive and formed several tentacles, managing to assimilate Bennings. Windows saw what the remains did and ran off to find help. Windows was able to find MacReady and told him what happened, and they went to the storage room but found no signs of Bennings. However, they were able to spot him trying to escape outside; the entire crew surrounded the Bennings replica, and MacReady incinerated it.
Not taking any chances, it was decided that creature's remains had to be destroyed, so they piled up the remains of Split Face, the Kennel-Thing and the Bennings imitation, and completely incinerated them.
Victims[]
- Jonas - Partially assimilated by Edvard-Arm-Thing ("Kathy"), immolated by Kate Lloyd mercifully
- Derek Jameson - Impaled through chest w/ tentacle
- Adam Finch - Impaled through chest w/ tentacle, assimilated and later burned to death by Kate
- Dr. Sander Halvorson - Assimilated offscreen
Trivia[]
- It is more than likely that Edvard was the one responsible for sabotaging Kate's proposed blood test by burning the station's lab. As he was already assimilated by the Thing at this point and was the only member that the Thing was replicating at the time of the fire.
- It is widely debated as to how Edvard became assimilated prior to his exposure as an imitation. While it is never shown on screen, there are two possible theories. One is that once the original Thing broke free from the ice, it may have found him and assimilated him outside the camp before it took shelter underneath the shack. Another possibility is that Juliette, who was a Thing at the time it may have found him alone and assimilated him. It is highly unlikely however that he was assimilated by the original Thing, since he was celebrating in the rec-room when it broke out, and he was searching for it with Adam and Sander. As such, Edvard was most likely assimilated by the Juliette-Thing.
- Similarly as Garry in the original movie, Edvard loses the command of his station during the crisis. It should be noted that he lost it unwillingly contrary to Garry.
- The Edvard-Thing's exposure and the way it attacks Jonas is very similar to the Norris-Thing's exposure and murder of Copper in the infamous defibrillator scene.