“As the flashlight beam hits it, MBWUN roars and looks up. Now we see it clearly for the first time. The monster is MASSIVE, putrid, rank. Slit reptilian green eyes are rimmed in red. A ridge of stiff black hair rises on the creature’s buffalo-like humped back. The withers are muscled and covered with plates. A forked TONGUE licks out as purple lips draw back exposing razor sharp teeth. The claws raise up to fend off the light.”
-Amy Holden Jones, Relic script draft, 1995

Initially, the monster in the film adaptation of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child’s Relic retained the original name — Mbwun, which means ‘He who walks on all fours’ — only to be successively renamed Kothoga, which in the novel is the name of the tribe that worships Mbwun. The reason for this change is currently unknown, but it is likely that ‘Kothoga’ was found to be more suggestive — or perhaps scary — as a name.

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