Retro Replay Retro Gaming History, Reviews & Emulation
Before Solid Snake was sneaking around Shadow Moses, Kurt Russell had already given the movies a Snake of their own. In 1981’s Escape from New York, Snake Plissken walks into a nightmare wearing an eyepatch and looking thoroughly unimpressed. Hideo Kojima was watching.
That influence eventually reached Metal Gear. And years later, John Carpenter said the people who shared ownership of his film wanted to go after Metal Gear Solid. He discouraged them because he liked Kojima. There’s a career tip they probably don’t teach at game-design school: be nice to your favourite director.
The Snake before Snake
Plissken is an ex-soldier sent into a Manhattan that has become a prison to rescue the president. He doesn’t trust the people giving him orders, and he’s hardly delighted to be doing their dirty work. Russell makes him feel dangerous before he has done much of anything.
In his “Hideo Kojima at the Movies” column, preserved here in Polish translation, Kojima described Plissken as a major influence on Solid Snake’s creation. The character’s refusal to simply serve an organisation or follow its idea of justice appealed to him.
You can feel the family resemblance when Solid Snake reluctantly gets pulled into another mission. He has work to do, but that doesn’t mean he owes his handlers a cheerful attitude. Still, Kojima’s Snake grew into his own character, with relationships and loyalties that go well beyond the movie.
There’s also a small wrinkle in the name. In his later explanation, Kojima said he chose “Snake” because the animal suggested hiding and moving quietly. The movie influence is real; treating the codename as nothing more than a borrowed movie name leaves out his explanation.
Carpenter waved it through
By Metal Gear Solid 2, the nod was wonderfully obvious: Snake introduced himself as Iroquois Pliskin. For players who knew Carpenter’s film, that alias wasn’t exactly deep cover. A new surname might have helped.
In a 2015 Hollywood Reporter interview, Carpenter said CanalPlus wanted to pursue Metal Gear Solid over its similarities to Escape from New York. He asked them to leave it alone, explaining that Kojima was “a nice guy, or at least he’s nice to me.”
That’s Carpenter’s account of a legal action he discouraged, rather than a lawsuit Kojima fought and won. But the line is a terrific ending to this particular movie tribute. Kojima admired Plissken; Carpenter apparently enjoyed having Kojima around. Snake got to keep sneaking.
Sources
- Hideo Kojima at the Movies: Escape from New York, a Polish translation of Kojima’s Official PlayStation 2 Magazine column, for his account of the film’s influence.
- The Hollywood Reporter: John Carpenter interview (2015), for his account of discouraging CanalPlus from pursuing Metal Gear Solid. The supplied shortlink resolves here.
- GameSpot: Kojima explains Solid Snake’s name (6 March 2014), reproducing his explanation of the stealth symbolism.
- Retro Replay: Metal Gear Solid and Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty, for the game images.
More #RetroReplayFYI
Stay with Snake for the “Shriveled Snake” recording-room near miss, or find another film influence with Indiana Jones and the beginnings of Zelda.
