system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[The Thing] How intelligent is the organism from 'The Thing'(1982)?

Is it just a parasite following extremely strong survival instincts with some basic reasoning or is it smarter than the humans? Would a smart survival strategy for the Thing be to actually communicate with the humans?
gpt
At the beginning of the film its spacecraft is seen crashing into Earth thousands of years ago. It's possible that the Thing was just a stowaway on the ship with no knowledge of how to fly it. But the fact that it goes about assembling a rudimentary craft to escape towards the end of the film would seem to undercut that notion. So it's smart enough to fly and build a vessel capable of intergalactic travel.

Furthermore, once it has assimilated a human it is able to convincingly mimic their prior behavior to the point that other actual humans cannot tell the difference. It knows our language, customs, abstract concepts, etc. That suggests it is quite capable of opening up a dialogue with humans if it so desired. However, its ultimate goal is the assimilation of all life on Earth, something no human being will be amenable to. So communicating with humans would be pretty pointless.