History YMMV / EscapeFromNewYork

** When Cabbie tells Snake that "you don't want to walk around down there, Snake" regarding the theatre basement, he means it. In the space of less than two minutes, Snake comes across three people passing around and stripping the clothes off an unconscious (or possibly dead) person with a gang rape scenario implied, a group of people who attempt to mug him, and a man being beaten the shit out of who has been fitted with the President's tracker.

** When Cabbie tells Snake that "you don't want to wander around down there, Snake" regarding the theatre basement, he means it. In the space of less than two minutes, Snake comes across three people passing around and stripping the clothes off an unconscious (or possibly dead) person with a gang rape scenario implied, a group of people who attempt to mug him, and a man being beaten the shit out of who has been fitted with the President's tracker.

* SeinfeldIsUnfunny: With Creator/KurtRussell's success in reinventing himself as a genuine badass action hero, it's hard to remember that at the time, casting a former Disney child star as a post-apocalyptic anti-hero was supposed to be something of a joke, and a sign that people shouldn't take the film very seriously.
* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The movie depicts a 1990s New York that was so overrun with crime, it was converted into one giant penal colony. In the early 80s, New York had only recently escaped a fiscal crisis, but it was still entrenched in urban decay and poverty, so this vision of the city seemed plausible. By the 1990s, crime rates dropped rapidly and the economy recovered, rendering a bleak depiction of the Big Apple obsolete.

** The fate of the girl in the Chock Full O'Nuts coffee shop - it's implied that the Crazies eat her after catching and dragging her down to her doom out of camera range. Snake quickly tries to grab her hand, but she's pulled under and disappears in a matter of ''seconds''.

** Snake is not really someone who you would call a KnightInShiningArmour. But let's take a look to his background: he gets betrayed by the same governments he believed in during the "Leningrad Ruse" (where he lost the use of his left eye) and then all his country is turned into a totalitarian police state[[spoiler:, with his parents being murdered by the police in the process]]. Wouldn't you be a bit sociopathic after that? He does, however, hold a loose code of honor and humanity and he can also occasionally step in the JerkWithAHeartOfGold territory.

** Snake is not really someone who you would call a KnightInSourArmor. But let's take a look to his background: he gets betrayed by the same governments he believed in during the "Leningrad Ruse" (where he lost the use of his left eye) and then all his country is turned into a totalitarian police state[[spoiler:, with his parents being murdered by the police in the process]]. Wouldn't you be a bit sociopathic after that? He does, however, hold a loose code of honor and humanity and he can also occasionally step in the JerkWithAHeartOfGold territory.

** JerkassWoobie: Snake is not really someone who you would call a KnightInSourArmor. But let's take a look to his background: he gets betrayed by the same governments he believed in during the "Leningrad Ruse" (where he lost the use of his left eye) and then all his country is turned into a totalitarian police state[[spoiler:, with his parents being murdered by the police in the process]]. Wouldn't you be a bit sociopathic after that? He does, however, hold a loose code of honor and humanity and he can also occasionally step in the JerkWithAHeartOfGold territory.

* QestionableCasting: Pretty much everyone's reaction when Creator/KurtRussell was cast as Snake, due to his prior work with Creator/{{Disney}}. [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct Fortunately, Russell managed to prove them all wrong]] - to the point that this kind of role came to be perceived as standard for him.

* EnsembleDarkHorse: Romero. He only has about five minutes of screen time but absolutely owns every scene he's in. [[spoiler:It’s even very disappointing when Brain kills him and he isn't in the final show down.]]

* WTHCastingAgency: Pretty much everyone's reaction when Creator/KurtRussell was cast as Snake, due to his prior work with Creator/{{Disney}}. [[SugarWiki/HeReallyCanAct Fortunately, Russell managed to prove them all wrong]] - to the point that this kind of role came to be perceived as standard for him.

* HilariousInHindsight: Snake's response to Hauk telling him they only have 24 hours to save the president is to snark back with "24 hours, huh?", predicting the infamous ParrotExposition in the ''Franchise/MetalGear'' series that took a ''lot'' of inspiration from this movie.

** The fate of the girl in the Chock Full O'Nuts coffee shop - it's implied that the Crazies eat her after catching and dragging her down to her doom out of camera range. And even more horrific when you realize that when she was pulled under, she grabbed Snake's gun to keep from being pulled under, and Snake pulled her hand off the gun to keep it from being dragged under with her.

* JerkassWoobie: The President. He's far from admirable, but it's hard not to feel bad for him when he's being tortured and brutalized by the Duke and his thugs, [[spoiler:and it's hard not to cheer for him when he finally gets his revenge on the Duke at the end.]]

* VindicatedByHistory: It made a respectable splash in the cult sense when it was first released in 1981, but wasn't considered a classic by any stretch of the imagination. It has gained much more recognition over the years, mainly due, no doubt, to its influence on other media, with ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'', ''WesternAnimation/ReBoot'', and ''WesternAnimation/TheGrimAdventuresOfBillyAndMandy'' being only a few examples.
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: The visual effects hold up, even though it's a 1981 film. It's hard not to get chills when a dark, nearly lightless Manhattan is revealed. (Even more impressive, the skyline shots of New York are all matte paintings done by Creator/JamesCameron). Particularly notable is the computer image of New York, which is actually a ''practical effect''. What you're seeing is a model of the city with a grid pattern of reflective tape.
** Even more awesome due to the documentary ''Sense of Scale'', which revealed that the model miniatures of the buildings in the city in the exterior shots as Snake's glider enters into New York were actually pieces of wood with enlarged photocopies of pictures taken of actual buildings that were then colored in color pencils and detailed with small model parts to give the illusion that the models were more detailed than they actually were.
* TheWoobie: Snake. Not as apparent in the movie, but very true the {{Novelization}}.
** JerkassWoobie: Even in the movie, Snake is not really someone who you would call a KnightInSourArmor. But let's take a look to his background: he gets betrayed by the same governments he believed in during the "Leningrad Ruse" (where he lost the use of his left eye) and then all his country is turned into a totalitarian police state[[spoiler:, with his parents being murdered by the police in the process]]. Wouldn't you be a bit sociopathic after that? He does, however, hold a loose code of honor and humanity and he can also occasionally step in the JerkWithAHeartOfGold territory.

* EnsembleDarkHorse: Romero. He only has about five minutes of screen time but absolutely owns every scene he’s in. [[spoiler:It’s even very disappointing when Brain kills him and he isn’t in the final show down.]]

* HarsherInHindsight: The plot is kicked off by terrorists hijacking a jet airliner and then suicidally crashing it into a New York skyscraper in order to protest U.S. foreign policies. Ouch. The part when the plane flies over the harbor and the guard watches it go by is eerily reminiscent of the only known video of Flight 11 hitting the North Tower.

%%* EnsembleDarkhorse: It's pretty hard not to love Romero.

** Even more awesome due to the documentary ''Sense of Scale'', which revealed that the model miniatures of the buildings in the city as Snake's glider enters into New York were actually pieces of wood with enlarged photocopies of pictures taken of actual buildings that were then colored in color pencils and detailed with small model parts to give the illusion that the models were more detailed.

* MemeticMutation: "You are the Duke of New York, you are A-number-1!"

* WTHCastingAgency: Pretty much everyone's reaction when Creator/KurtRussell was cast as Snake, due to his prior work with Creator/{{Disney}}. [[HeReallyCanAct Fortunately, Russell managed to prove them all wrong]].