score; he re-recorded the music because the original masterings were lost. Other media A novelization of the film was published by Alan Dean Foster in 1982. It is based on an earlier draft of the script and features some differences from the finished film. A scene in which MacReady, Bennings, and Childs chase infected dogs out into the snow is included, and Nauls's disappearance is explained: Cornered by the Blair-Thing, he chooses suicide over assimilation. In 2000, McFarlane Toys released two "Movie Maniacs" figures: the Blair-Thing and the Norris-Thing, including its spider-legged, disembodied head. SOTA Toys released a set featuring a MacReady figure and the Dog-Thing based on the film's kennel scene, as well as a bust of the Norris-Thing's spider-head. In 2017, Mondo and the Project Raygun division of USAopoly released The Thing: Infection at Outpost 31, a board game. Players take on the role of characters from the film or the Thing, each aiming to defeat the other through subterfuge and sabotage. Thematic analysis The central theme of The Thing concerns paranoia and mistrust. Fundamentally, the film is about the erosion of trust in a small community, instigated by different forms of paranoia caused by the possibility of someone not being who they say they are, or that your best friend may be your enemy. It represents the distrust that humans always have for somebody else and the fear of betrayal by those we know and, ultimately, our bodies. The theme remains timely because the subject of paranoia adapts to the age. The Thing focuses on being unable to trust one's peers, but this can be interpreted as distrust of entire institutions. Developed in an era of cold-war tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, the film refers to the threat of nuclear annihilation by mutually assured destruction. Diaboliques Daniel Clarkson Fisher notes that MacReady destroys the chess computer after being checkmate, and similarly vows to destroy the Thing, even at the expense of the team. The Cold War-style isolationism hurts the group, while a lack of trust destroys it. Screen Rants Michael Edward Taylor draws allusions between The Thing and the accusatory Red Scares and McCarthyism, as the film conveys an anti-communist fear of infection of civilized areas that will lead to assimilation and imitation. Slant Magazines John Lingsan said the men display a level of post-Vietnam War (1955–1975) "fatigued counterculturalism"the rejection of conventional social