Well, because he was a nice guy. There’s an even more direct reference to the movie in Metal Gear Solid 2, wherein Snake uses the alias “Iroquois Plissken” for most of the game (Snake Plissken being the name of Kurt Russell’s character in Escape from New York, for the few people who don’t know/forgot).
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This follows the news last week that Carpenter and CanalPlus did indeed successfully sue director Luc Besson’s company EuropaCorp for plagiarising Escape from New York in the 2012 film Lockout. At least to Carpenter. Hideo Kojima has always been open about the influence American films have had on him along with how much of an influence Escape From New York has had on the Metal Gear Solid series. Furthermore, Naked Snake and Snake Plissken share a fairly uncommon visual characteristic, with both men sporting eye patches at various points in their careers.
Carpenter’s side won an €80,000 settlement (CanalPlus sought €3 million), €20,000 of which went to Carpenter. When asked about the more recent lawsuit against the film Lockout and its creator, Carpenter opened up about his knowledge of Metal Gear and his knowledge of its director. “I know the director of those games, and he’s a nice guy, or at least he’s nice to me”.
What gets me most about this story though is the revelation that Kojima and Carpenter are on friendly terms.
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There are certainly enough similarities that if you had heard that the people behind the original Escape movies had sued Hideo Kojima and Konami for its creation, you wouldn’t be entirely surprised. Then again, you cant really blame CanalPlus for wanting to go after someone when they felt their property was threatened; its just one of the facts of the business.
