Metal Gear Solid: The Movie

I finally got around to playing all four games this summer (I'm a late arrival, I know). Playing all four in quick succession left me thinking about the idea of a movie a lot. I know every MGS fan out there has thought about it at least once. The movie's in Development Hell at the moment, but there's a pretty good chance that it might actually happen. Eventually...

So...if you were writing the script, how would you adapt the Metal Gear saga to film?

Any thoughts on changing the characters to make them work better for a new audience? Any Alternative Character Interpretations that you think could work in a movie? Any unanswered questions and/or previously unseen moments that you think it would be nice to finally see in a movie? Any thoughts on casting and/or director choices?

Anything here is fair game, really. No idea is too outlandish.

Strip out the gameplay. There, instant MGS movie.

Hardy har har...

In all seriousness, I kind of agree with the guy a few posts up. MGS as it is could work as a movie if you just had someone acting out the gameplay sequences that connect point X to point Y.

If I was forced to fit MGS into a 2-hour running time though, the main thing I would do is strip out a lot of the gameplay padding, make it so that the boss fights occur closer to each other, and cut down on some of the speeches. Try to keep as much as I could, of course, but otherwise...

Actually despite all the jokes about MGS being a movie I think that MGS wouldn't actually works as one, most of what makes it good or special is grounded in it being a game.

edited 14th Oct '11 12:35:00 PM by mahel042

I think it would be better off as a high budget miniseries; you would be able to fit in more details.

I agree with that. Most of MGS is definitely ideal for a movie because it's so story driven. But there are still a few extraneous things that I would cut out. As much as I love the boss battles, I think it would be hard to give as much focus to each boss and their respective backstories as the games did without distracting from the more important protagonist-antagonist relationships (i.e. Snake vs. Liquid, Raiden vs. Solidus, Snake vs. Ocelot, etc.)

For the first one, I'd keep Ocelot in (for obvious reasons), and possibly include a scene with Mantis, but kick Raven and Wolf down to cameo roles. Mantis could appear in a scene where he reads Snake's mind and gives the audience a look at some of the details of his backstory. And maybe include a bit more background about Liquid rescuing Mantis from confinement, which would help build Liquid up as an Anti-Villain.

Other than that...a lot of people might disagree with me on this, but here it is: I think the major characters should have real names in addition to their more common code-names (Snake is David, Big Boss is John, Ocelot is Major Adamska, etc.) in the same way that the screenwriters behind the X Men movies did it. It would ground the story in reality a bit more, and (YMMV on this) it might be easier for new audiences to sympathize with the protagonist if they know him both as "David" and as "Snake".

Maybe start it off by saying that Snake's old nemesis was "a terrorist leader named John Masterson, known to allies and enemies alike as 'The Big Boss'". When Snake becomes known as the legend "who took down the Big Boss" it bothers him because he actually met the man, and knows him both as 'John' and as 'Big Boss'. Just a thought.

Also, Masterson: "Master"=Boss, Boss + "Son" = Snake

That sounds pretty reasonable. Especially the bit about Psycho Mantis since I don't think his fight would come off well in film.

Umm, Big Boss' first name is Jack, not John.

I don't know how Psycho Mantis or the entirety of MGS 2 would work as a film. I guess MGS 2 could work if you stripped out all of the meta, video game analysis aspects but then a lot of what made MGS 2 so awesome would be lost as well.

Jack Masterson. Sorry. Been a while since I've played Snake Eater.

Also: in the novelization and the graphic novel adaptation, they do a different version of the Psycho Mantis fight that would probably work better on film. Instead of the whole memory card thing, Snake faces off with Mantis in a gun battle, then Master Miller jumps in at the last second and comes to Snake's rescue. Then Snake goes off with Master Miller into REX's hangar, and he gradually figures out that it's just an illusion created by Mantis.

The novelization had an extra part to it where Snake goes into a memory of the carnival that he hung out at as a child, and he encounters Big Boss in the funhouse mirror.

Considering the whole importance of Wolf shooting Meryl, that could be an issue.

Just make it so someone else shoots Meryl instead. Doesn't have to be Wolf.

There can still be a sniper there to shoot Meryl, it probably just wouldn't work that well to have an entire subplot about Otacon falling in love with her and wasting 10-15 minutes with her giving dramatic speeches and whatnot. In a two hour movie, there's only so much that you can fit in.

edited 14th Oct '11 5:09:56 PM by TheMightyHeptagon

Metal Gear -

Gonna start here, since its the simplest of the backstories. I won't add anything meta from later games that retconned parts of the original story just because it gets damned confusing. Story will be as the original: A mercenary company founded a military state in the middle of Africa and is threatening the world with nukes via Metal Gear and Big Boss (BTW, I too would also use real names along with their codenames, kudos to the originator of the idea above me) is its secret leader. If modernized to the present, I'd place Outer Heaven in one of the perennially failed African states rather than South Africa. If kept in the 80s, I'd outright just make the incident the doing of the Apartheid government entirely, with outer heaven just being the name of the research base that holds the MG prototype (thus the troops won't be mercenaries...yet). Either way, I'd play up the proliferation angle of MG's imminent mass production rather than its ability to launch nukes from anywhere. Would keep Big Boss's motivation as just wanting to see a world at war for soldiers like him to flourish rather than the cold war peace (or if set in modern times, to keep the world vigilant from terror by constantly attacking it). Nothing about the Patriots or Zero or anything.

The game is simple enough that incorporating or removing various gameplay elements wouldn't actually be too hard. Might even have to add stuff to it, but I dunno what.

Metal Gear 2 -

Since this has alot of elements from the previous game and adds alot of elements to the next game, I'd actually probably only keep this a flashback for Metal Gear Solid (including just the parts of Big Boss's death and his battle with Grey Fox along with a very broad idea of what the incident was).

Metal Gear Solid -

I agree with making this a mini-series. As for changes...

I'd ditch Natasha, number one. Mei Ling, not needing to be used for save purposes, would be a background character at best.

I'd do the codec communications 24-style, with seperate screens showing faces.

Weapons, I'd keep to the pistol, M4, sniper rifle, and Stinger (and not all at once, mind). Items, just Plot Coupons and cigs.

I'd keep the briefing and exposition of the situation. The beginning at the loading dock and elevator. I'd show the Hind and helipad convo sequence (sans Campbell telling Snake to choose which grate he's gonna sneak into). Show brief scene in the ventilation with the guards talking about an intruder. Few seconds of Snake sneaking through the tank hanger (being sure to show two tanks without drawing attention to it). Show Snake sneaking in the B1 hall and ventilation into the cell of the DARPA chief. Throughout all this time, so that its not just watching Snake do nothing, perhaps have him talk on Codec to the Colonel as he's sneaking to get a bit more of a lowdown on Meryl.

Have the full scene with the Darpa Chief play out, though the flashbacks would be of the older metal gears and not Rex.

I'd have the scenes before and after the firefight and the fight itself. Then I'd cut to Snake already on B2, no cement wall, instead following the echos of tortured wails to guide him to Baker instead. Not sure how to do the fight or if Grey Fox slicing Ocelot's hand would happen immediately. Probably the latter. Otherwise scene plays out as usual (either with a very shortened lecture on nuclear material proliferation or no speech at all).

After this, not sure where to go from here for MGS 1, on Meryl's intro or the tank battle (the latter could certainly be cut, but its such a nice action set-piece). Everything between that and the first sniper duel also boggles.

Not touching MGS 2 or 4. Will get to 3 at some point.

I apologize in advance for the Stream Of Consciousness of the post. I've been wondering about an MG movie for awhile.

Handling the backstory from the original Metal Gear is a big issue. I was working on a fan script a while ago. This is how I played it:

From the opening crawl at the beginning, we learn about Jack "Big Boss" Masterson founding Outer Heaven and about the nuclear threat it poses. Instead of being a lone infiltrator, Snake is the sole survivor of a special forces team that was sent in to covertly destroy Metal Gear and open up the way for a backup team to storm in and take down the Boss. The movie opens just as Snake and his team have destroyed Metal Gear. Snake radios for backup, and runs off to cap Big Boss before they get there.

He confronts Masterson in his fortified bunker and manages to subdue him, but suddenly stops when he notices something strange sitting on a table: a wooden box full of pictures — pictures of Snake himself, and of a mysterious man with long blond hair. Snake demands to know how Masterson got the pictures, but before he can reveal anything, backup kicks down the door and drags Masterson away.

At his debriefing, Snake's superiors tell him that Masterson was quietly executed (if we ever get to an MGS 4 movie, it might make the revelation that Big Boss is still alive a bit more plausible), but he stays quiet about the pictures he saw. When the time comes to pull him out of retirement for the Shadow Moses mission, he only accepts because he believes the head terrorist might know something about his connection to Masterson.

To keep it simple, I'd condense the Outer Heaven mission and the Zanzibarland mission into one backstory. I'm not sure how you'd introduce Frank "Grey Fox" Jaeger in the backstory, but I think it would be smart to include some foreshadowing at the beginning.

Seems reasonable if one doesn't make a movie of the first game. I likes it.

Amen.

edited 16th Oct '11 10:53:02 PM by FFShinra

I don't think MGS after 1 would work well in movie form. The Patriots' introduction is pretty strongly tied to the fact that it's a video game series.

But surely it's about adaptation, not direct translation. Why bother if you're just going to make a video-game with less playing? Just play the game again!

Adapting the Patriots to a television metaphor wouldn't be too hard. Seasonal Rot, Kudz Plots and Villain Decay are meaty enough tropes to work despite the medium.

That's true...I still feel like Raiden wouldn't be as satisfying a character without the implication that his issues only exist because you, the player, insist on getting in his head and controlling him.

edited 16th Oct '11 11:25:49 PM by INUH

One more thing: I think the bit about Liquid possessing Ocelot should be kept, but I don't think the bit about the "evil arm" would come off as very plausible (or very effective) on film. Honestly, I think it would seem more like a plot device from a bad B-Movie. I'm sure there are other fans out there who didn't like that plot point either.

Any ideas on how the possession thing could be reworked?

The arm will probably be explained the same way as in MGS 4 ocelot is faking it

I'd frankly not make it possession at all and instead have it be a sort of figment of Snake's imagination that acts as his devil on the shoulder. In terms of MGS 4, they could simply keep it as Ocelot...or if they want to show Snake losing it, have Snake project Liquid onto Ocelot...

Makes better sense than to add such serious paranormality into the story OR to retcon it as Ocelot faking, which I always saw as a silly plot point.

edited 18th Oct '11 1:16:24 PM by FFShinra

The best (or at least funnest) way to make a Metal Gear film would be to smoosh all the plot elements together. Start with a stripped down Metal Gear as the opening, then dive right into MGS1, skipping the briefing. Stuff happens, it flashes back to the briefing, boss fight. Up towards the next boss fight, Metal Gear 2 is flashed back to. The MGS1 portion including the flashbacks would be about 1 and a half hours, with Raiden being encountered halfway in. After the hour and a half is up, it seagues directly into the Mind Screw part of 2, with Liquid taking Solidus' place. Snake fights him instead of Raiden, and cuts down the flag and everything.

Then there'd need to be a second movie, switching from Zero to Solid Snake. Zero parts would tell some of the story behind MGS3, while Snake goes through MGS4.

On a side note, it looks like the movie might actually be confirmed now.

I heard Konami managed to get Avi Arad to sign on as producer.

Which means we're probably in for a few more years of Development Hell, but still...it could be promising.

edited 1st Sep '12 11:45:58 AM by TheMightyHeptagon