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[ChoosableOne]

It's probably a topic that has been debated for years, but I only learned about it today and I am greatly disappointed. Everything was inspired by an action movie that Kojima watched when he was 18 years old. As of today, I will no longer expect original work from him.

 

[FunkMiller]

No-one has ever used another piece of fiction as inspiration before! What an absolute bastard!

 

[midnightAI]

Really? Wow, I never would have guessed /s

 

[KuraiShidosha]

"I-it's an homage!"
-kids who plagiarized in school

 

[consoul]

What did you expect?
70% of Kojima's body is made of movies.

 

[Blitzmangoman]

OP:

No one tell him about the MG Box art and the first Terminator.

 

[ChoosableOne]

No-one has ever used another piece of fiction as inspiration before! What an absolute bastard!

Inspiration from a character is normal, but how absurd is it to copy it exactly? The mission is based on stealth, the gadgets are based on stealth... Same eye patch, same name, com talk etc... I don't know, I'm very surprised. Are there any other examples like this? Maybe the Duke Nukem/Arnold similarity comes to mind, but even that isn't as obvious.

 

[Killjoy-NL]

Well, technically, in Metal Gear, they're all copies.

So, I mean, yeah...

 

[DerivedDataCache]

Are there any other examples like this? Maybe the Duke Nukem/Arnold similarity comes to mind, but even that isn't as obvious.

Uncharted ripped off Indiana Jones. All the action set pieces are taken from the movies. Rolling boulder, hanging on trucks etc.

 

[GamesDontSuck]

Kojima definitely did "borrow" rather than get inspired. But not only from Escape from New York / LA, but from a few other movies too.

 

[Eimran]

You serious?

He just liked the characted as he already stated in the 90's.

The entire Metal Gear franchise is filled with unique, crazy and original characters, designs.... that are a cocktail of his crazy mind.

If there's any creator to call unoriginal, it's definitely not him.

 

[bitbydeath]

Inspiration from a character is normal, but how absurd is it to copy it exactly? The mission is based on stealth, the gadgets are based on stealth... Same eye patch, same name, com talk etc... I don't know, I'm very surprised. Are there any other examples like this? Maybe the Duke Nukem/Arnold similarity comes to mind, but even that isn't as obvious.

A lot of what you said just comes down to it being a stealth game and Solid Snake didn’t have an eyepatch in MGS1, nor the Metal Gear games that came before.

 

[ChoosableOne]

A lot of what you said just comes down to it being a stealth game and Solid Snake didn’t have an eyepatch in MGS1, nor the Metal Gear games that came before.

Maybe when he saw that he didn't get any backlash for copying him, he added that patch too. Even the way the guy talks is the same. I can't say anything more if you don't want to see the similarities.

The entire Metal Gear franchise is filled with unique, crazy and original characters, designs.... that are a cocktail of his crazy mind.

I’ve started to doubt that too. He might have made a Smash Bros-like cocktail from old movie characters.

 

[RoboFu]

Op is going to explode when he learns about snatcher and policenaughts lol.

 

[baphomet]

He's always been a hack

 

[kanjobazooie]

.

 

[ReBurn]

Kojima explicitly said the name Snake came from Snake Plissken it in an interview in 2001. It's not a reach to believe the eyepatch was borrowed as well.

Gamers Today

GT: You came up with some pretty unique names for your characters in Metal Gear such as your hero, Solid Snake. Where'd you get these names?

HK: From Escape From New York.

GT: Oh, Snake Plisskin, the Kurt Russell character.

HK: That is how I got the snake part. I guess the slithering of the snake is definitely not a solid motion. It's smoother, more liquid. I also wanted to create a paradoxical name.

 

[Chiggs]

Kojima is the most derivative "creative" to probably ever exist.

 

[Evolved1]

it was a different time. you really don't understand or appreciate the context. it's understandable though, since you weren't alive.

 

[RoboFu]

it was a different time. you really don't understand or appreciate the context. it's understandable though, since you weren't alive.

Basically this. At a time where a lot of games were still one screen action puzzel and go right platformers Kojima was creating dramatic story driven thrillers. Even if they were fanfiction.

But what's funny is metal gear is the more obscure of his fanfic titles. Snatcher and policenaughts pulled characters and themes straight from blade runner and lethal weapon. Everyone knew and no one cared. They were great games.

 

[Scotty W]

He comes from an older creative tradition when people felt free to just take stuff. Most of the great writers recycled their plots. This is actually the natural order of things. We live in the exception.

Metroid is Aliens.
Contra is Predator.
Zelda is Robin Hood/Peter Pan.
Final Fantasy is Manley P Hall.

It was innocent theft.

 

[a multicultural team of v]

 

[AGRacing]

He's always been a hack

I personally felt the speech about strands by “President Strand” was genius.

/s for all you Kojima fans who don’t understand it as a concept.

 

[GHound]

Not even remotely uncommon and not the only industry to do it.

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Thats actually wrong. They're both Arnold

 

[MrRibeye]

In this interview with Variety, the famous film director Quentin Tarantino says:

“I steal from every single movie ever made,” Tarantino once told Empire magazine. “If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”
“Great artists steal; they don’t do homages.”

 

[amigastar]

Everyone copies works from the past and gets inspired from them. Picasso copied african art into cubism. The whole Sience Ficition genre was an evolution of different designs from the past.

 

[RagnarokIV]

Just the way things were back then.

I wish he’d go back to ripping stuff off instead of being up his ass post MGS3.

 

[SlimySnake]

Yh he copied a bunch of things but also came up with a lot of original shit.

Id say he copied 5% but 95% of the mgs series is more original than everything the game’s industry has produced combined. Death stranding is 99% original.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Nobody show OP Scarface and GTA Vice City

 

[8bitpill]

It's probably a topic that has been debated for years, but I only learned about it today and I am greatly disappointed. Everything was inspired by an action movie that Kojima watched when he was 18 years old. As of today, I will no longer expect original work from him.

Have fun sitting on that nerd hill of yours.

Kojima has set standards and trends within the video game industry that has brought video games to the place they’re today.

 

[hinch7]

This was a time when copyright wasn't a thing in the US until the late 80's. There were so many blatent near 1:1 copies of actors and movie art to video game covers in the 80-90's.

13 video games that nicked their covers off movies

Copyright schmopyright.

www.digitalspy.com

There's still some today, but a lot hide it better than others to avoid getting into litigation.

 

[Chiggs]

In this interview with Variety, the famous film director Quentin Tarantino says:

“I steal from every single movie ever made,” Tarantino once told Empire magazine. “If my work has anything, it’s that I’m taking this from this and that from that and mixing them together.”
“Great artists steal; they don’t do homages.”

He shouldn't have stolen from whoever he stole from when he made Kill Bill Volume 2 and Death Proof.

 

[Dick Jones]

If that's true, what movie did he rob to make Die Hard man? I'm stumped

 

[near]

Op is going to explode when he learns about snatcher and policenaughts lol.

Kojima

 

[MrRenegade]

To be honest, the original movie was terrible trash. Story and plot was all over the place, boring inserts etc etc. Didn't age well at all. So what HK did is steal a character and mold it to a new shape that was much better overall than the original. At least Kojima always told where he got his inspirations from. Like Vamp who was based on a spanish (?) dancer IIRC.

Tarantino did the same. He watched 1000s of movies and his brain cleaned up and organized the material and the output is some cool, memorable shit.

Matrix was also partially borrowed material, just like Terminator.

 

[March Climber]

OP you make a good point...

..So does that mean Death Stranding is a superior franchise?

 

[Trilobit]

Don't look up what movies George Lucas was inspired by when he made the first Star Wars movie, OP. You'll probably faint.

 

[midnightAI]

Don't look up what movies George Lucas was inspired by when he made the first Star Wars movie, OP. You'll probably faint.

 

[Gp1]

Congrats, it took you only 30 years to find out.

Wait until the OP find out that 007 No time to die is basically a unsung homage to Kojima's work....

 

[Badlucktroll]

kojima came up with cool names like Hot Coldman and Mads Max

 

[Three]

 

[a multicultural team of v]

And in case you had any remaining doubts about how much stuff is copied:

 

[ChoosableOne]

OP you make a good point...

..So does that mean Death Stranding is a superior franchise?

Hell no.

Don't look up what movies George Lucas was inspired by when he made the first Star Wars movie, OP. You'll probably faint.

I still remember the shock I felt while watching the movie Dune.

I'm not against inspirations, but it was disappointing to see that a character I loved was copied from elsewhere.

 

[GHound]

If that's true, what movie did he rob to make Die Hard man? I'm stumped

He wanted to get Bruce Willis for a character that wasn't fleshed out yet that he was calling Die Hard Man as a placeholder but couldn't. Die-Hardman was the evolution of that.
Obviously I'm lying.

 

[realcool]

he's influenced by others and he's influential to others. he takes and he gives. it's collaborative, in a sense. and i don't say that in defense of his work because i don't view his creativity to be thievery.
God bless that artsy fartsy bastard.

 

[Evil Calvin]

Escape From New York and Snake Plisskin are great!! It was filmed mainly in St. Louis in the early 80's when it had a lot of decaying history. The main set pieces in the movie have since been restored. The Fox Theater (cabaret scene), Union Station (wrestling scene), Chain of Rocks Bridge....which is now a walking bridge (was the final chase at the end). All now are thriving....but back then (I lived there) it was rough....The Cards World Series win in 1982 helped revitalize the area.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Wow. A Metal Gear exposé.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

Kurosawa!??? He's a fucking hack too! Burn him! Seven Samurai, one of the great achievements in cinema, is The Magnificent Seven.

 

[SHA]

OP:

No one tell him about the MG Box art and the first Terminator.