The first thing that struck me as looking wrong with the LD color timing is that the shot of the dog makes its eyes appear grey and colorless whereas you can see clearly in this shot that the dog's eyes are, in fact, brown as in the YouTube HD capture.
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/film2/DVDReviews41/the%20thing%20blu-ray/large/large%20the%20thing%20blu-rayx3.jpg