Anyone who knows anything about Hideo Kojima knows that he lives, breathes, and eats movies. It is easy to understand when looking at the cinematic presentation of his games. Look deeper into the auteur designer’s legendary Metal Gear Solid franchise to see how film, television, and even music influenced almost every facet of the series.
Some are more subtle than others, with a few a of them being so overt we have to question their legality. Still, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but it is up to the creator of the original work to determine how flattering it really is.
10 Diamond Dogs
Metal Gear Solid 5: The Phantom Pain opens with a beautiful cover of David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold the World by Midge Ure. The David Bowie references do not stop there, however. The new army Venom Snake and Kaz form is called Diamond Dogs, sharing the name of the singer’s 1974 album. Kojima has previously professed his love for the legendary songwriter, and Major Zero’s first codename, Major Tom, can also be seen as a shoutout to the song Space Oddity, though in the game this is said to be an homage to The Great Escape.
9 Snake’s Bandana
Many say Solid Snake’s bandana is a reference to John Rambo. It is easy to understand why this misunderstanding occurs. Both series generally involve sneaking into enemy territory However, the real inspiration for the bandana comes from the 1978 Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter. The film is distinctly not an action movie, instead focusing on the toll war takes on the lives of those who survive and how it affects their relationships.
8 Hal
Otacon has been Solid Snake’s friend since they met in Metal Gear Solid when the protagonist saves him from Grey Fox. The scientist’s real name is Hal Emmerich, which is a direct homage to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The antagonistic artificial intelligence of the film’s middle section is named Hal 9000. This is not the last Stanley Kubrick homage in the series. Otacon’s mother, who is introduced in Peace Walker, is named Dr. Strangelove, the same name of the director’s black comedy about nuclear tensions between the USA and the Soviet Union.
7 1984
While first a book, 1984 has since become a film. The inspiration the story has had on the franchise is especially evident in The Phantom Pain. The thematic similarities do not start there, however.
Metal Gear Solid 2 introduces the Patriots and the plot revolves around censoring the flow of digital information, an idea which seems right at home with the world George Orwell created. Other books that influenced Metal Gear include Paul Auster’s New York Trilogy and Kōbō Abe’s Kangaroo Notebook.
6 Eyes Without A Face
This French 1960 horror movie about a doctor who tries to use his medical prowess to give his daughter a new face. What results is often considered one of the first examples of body horror, and the film is still effective to this day over sixty years later. Hideo Kojima has said the movie had a profound impact on him. It had an influence on some of the disfigured characters in the series. One can see this directly in the main antagonist from The Phantom Pain, Skull Face.
5 Terminator
Hideo Kojima has previously professed his love for the Terminator franchise, and the influence of James Cameron’s films shows up in several spots. The Bloody Brad enemies from 1987’s Metal Gear were influenced by Arnold Schwarzenegger, and were even named Arnold in the original release. The box art for the first Metal Gear is also almost an exact replica of a shot of Kyle Reese from the first Terminator film. Solid Snake’s jump onto the tanker in Metal Gear Solid 2 uses a similar effect as the time travel from the movie.
4 El Topo
In an interview with Jordan Vogt-Roberts, the director of the Metal Gear Solid movie currently in development, Hideo Kojima relays how Alejandro Jodorowsky’s El Topo influenced the boss fights. In the first part of the 1970 western, the protagonist travels the land on a quest to kill the three most legendary gunfighters. Each foe passing on a piece of wisdom to the main character influenced the boss fights and the cutscenes that play after each one is defeated in the series.
3 The Faces In Metal Gear 2
In the original Japanese release of Metal Gear 2, the faces representing the characters on the codec screen are all taken from famous actors. Big Boss is Sean Connery and Solid Snake is Mel Gibson, for example. Obviously, these were changed when the game was rereleased in 2005 as a part of Metal Gear Solid 3: Subsistence. Since the original Metal Gear 2 never received a release in the west, many fans never got to play the game with the original faces.
2 The Theme
This one was not a purposeful reference, and was not done by Hideo Kojima. The classic theme utilized for the first several 3D games in the franchise has a strikingly familiar melody to a piece called The Winter Road by Russian composer Georgy Sviridov.
There is a famous video of Hideo Kojima discovering this in real time. The theme is completely absent from Metal Gear Solid 4 and onward. Metal Gear is filled with iconic music, so one piece taken out does not significantly affect the overall sound of the series.
1 Solid Snake And Snake Pliskin
One of the films that had the heaviest, most noticeable influence on Metal Gear Solid was John Carpenter’s Escape From New York. Like Metal Gear, it is about somebody infiltrating a hostile environment, completing an objective, and then escaping. Additionally, Snake Pliskin, the film’s protagonist, shares many aesthetic similarities to both Solid Snake and Big Boss. According to John Carpenter, legal action against Hideo Kojima was avoided because the filmmaker considers the game designer “a nice guy”.
