Maybe you’re asking yourself what that picture has to do with a blog post about the Predator novelization? Well the answer is I only have 10 days left and I am running out of topical Predator pictures, damnnit! You try finding 82 different, good Predator pictures! Ok, so this damn book. First off, to anyone questioning me during this summer adventure can kiss my ass, I have watched this movie 82 days in a row AND now I read the novel in between viewings. Now that that is out of the way, when I got done with the book it made me appreciate this movie more. I am not saying that to insult the Thomas brothers (the people that wrote the script) I am saying that to the author Paul Moentte. The topics I want to talk about would take far to long for one blog post so I will be spreading this out, let me cover the big ones first. One of the more unexpected things about this is that the Predator can mentally control animals around him and once he enters their mind he can take on the abilities and form. The only weapon he has is some odd sounding fork spear, that fires some sort of projectile. The Predator just used it a lot to stab people and hit them in the throat a lot, except for Mac, whose death I will cover later. Now this post could be super long and I could break down every single little difference between the book and movie but the one that is dominating my mind is an odd one. This author is obsessed with race. I know, that is not what you were expecting but neither was I. So, like I said yesterday, there are multiple times other guys on the team will call Poncho a “spic”, they seems to be doing it in a friendly jabbing sense but honestly they use it so much it is pretty much his nickname. Blaine and Mac are always referring to the Guerrillasas and Vietnamese people “browns” “nig-nugs” and “monkeys”. Always. But here is the kicker, and this topic will bleed into another entry later, but the dialogue is the same but with added lines and words. The worst, by far, is in the scene when Dillon is trying to radio in for immediate evac and is denied. Dutch takes advantage of it and uses Dillons’ own words against him. In the movie he says “We’re assets, Dillon. Expendable assets.” But in the book, and I swear this is not a joke, the line is “We’re assets, nigger.” Dutch flat out calls him the N word! Not in the “I think I am cool with this guy, I wonder if he will let me use this word as a term of endearment and call him niggA” but in the dumb hick kind of way with the ER at the end! I’m sorry but that floored me! I mean I literally can’t think of anything to say to stress how out of left field that is! Just take that in and release how the movie would have stopped right in it’s tracks at that point if they left it in! So moving on, while also sticking with Dillon, every time, and I mean that, every time Dillon is speaking or doing anything the author makes sure you know he is black. He does that by saying “the black man responded” but he rotates that out with “Black man/soldier/cia agent” but again he uses it so much it legitimately distracted me. I know this post probably sounds very PC, but anyone reading this that knows me knows that I am far from PC, but I am just saying that in a 200 page book I would be willing to bet at least every 3rd page had some sort of reference to race or ethnicity.