MGS3 Media Influences, Round 1: Bond

Hideo Kojima is a huge film buff, and he's not shy about making it known. Every game he's ever directed bursts at the seams with references to his favorite movies. Some are subtle, while others leave me shaking my head in wonder at the fact that no one has sued him over them. If what they say about amateurs imitating and geniuses stealing is true, then Kojima is most definitely a genius.

The funny thing is, though, he always ends up doing his own thing with whatever elements he swipes from other sources. Snatcher may be a shameless ripoff of Bladerunner in terms of its visual aesthetic and basic premise (both are about a guy trying to track down robots that outwardly appear human), but they take the concept in very different directions. Kojima also always seems happy to openly admit it when he uses something from another source, and frequently pokes fun at himself in his own games--Solid Snake using "Iroquois Plisken" as a pseudonym in MGS2, for example.

Metal Gear Solid 3 is no exception to this. Since the events of the game are set in the early 1960s, Kojima decided to model certain elements of it after the early Bond movies (Dr. No came out in 1962, quickly followed by From Russia With Love in 1963). The game's most obviously Bond-ian elements are its theme song, "Snake Eater," and the stylized intro it plays over, which closely mirrors Bond movie opening credit sequences:

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

VS.

Goldfinger

There are plenty of other similarities between MGS3 and Bond. EVA, Snake Eater's biker-chick femme fatale with the perpetually unzipped jumpsuit, is cut from the same diaphanous cloth as many a Bond girl. I suspect her appearance was based on Tatiana Romanova in From Russia With Love (played by Daniella Bianchi), but her actual character is very different.

Similarly, Ocelot and Volgin function a lot like a typical pair of Bond villains--the menacing mastermind and the sidekick with a weird signature weapon or ability (Goldfinger and Oddjob, for example). Ocelot also shows up to take one last crack at Big Boss after the "main" villain, Volgin, has been dispatched; a common occurrence with Bond villain sidekicks. Volgin even has a line parodying the infamous "talking killer"phenomenon that the Bond movies have become known for--when Big Boss asks him about the Philosophers' Legacy near the end of the game, he says "Very well... I'll explain it before I kill you." (To his credit, he does personally try to tear Big Boss limb from limb right after that, rather than leave him tied up unsupervised in front of some slowly-advancing deathtrap.)

It's interesting to note, though, that all of these similarities are mostly superficial. I can't really think of any specific Bond girl who has EVA's combination of combat competence, deceptiveness, and teasing seductiveness. Unlike most "main" Bond villains, most of Volgin's menace comes from his physical strength and brutal sadism rather than any skill for making ingenious plans. And while Ocelot may seem like a typical over-eager lackey, at the end of the game it's made clear that he was playing everyone else around him for suckers, and he comes out of the situation with exactly what he wanted--not only was he using Volgin the whole time, he also knew exactly who EVA really was and who she was really working for! As I said earlier, Kojima almost always takes the elements he "borrows" from other sources in directions that are all his own.

Finally, MGS3 actually mentions the Bond movies at several points. There's a conversation where Para-medic asks Big Boss if he's seen From Russia With Love. Big Boss replies that he hates the Bond movies... much to Major Zero's chagrin. Be that as it may, Big Boss can clearly appreciate 007's fashion sense: like MGS1 & 2, MGS3 has a snazzy black tuxedo as an unlockable costume.