Thanks to recent hits like Pokémon Detective Pikachu and Sonic the Hedgehog, gamers believe that the so-called Curse Of Video Game Movies has finally been broken. Looking to perpetuate this good streak is Kong: Skull Island director Jordan Vogt-Roberts, who’s currently at the helm of the long-gestating adaptation of Metal Gear Solid.
MGS – which tells the story of retired super-solider Solid Snake infiltrating the Shadow Moses military base to stop terrorists from hijacking a superweapon – is considered to be a rare flawless game that perfectly melds story and gameplay, meaning that parts of it will translate well in live-action while others won’t.
CAN ADAPT: Metal Gear REX
Thanks to today’s ever-improving digital special effects, the eponymous Metal Gear (i.e. Metal Gear REX) can be brought to life in amazing fashion. This bipedal nuclear platform isn’t just a cool robot boss, but an integral plot device and a symbol of nuclear powers’ dangers. Simply put, it’s important to get REX’s imposing presence perfectly.
Pacific Rim and the Transformers franchise are all the proof needed to show that Metal Gear REX can be brought to big screens in the near future. If MGS were adapted any time before now, REX would’ve looked terrible. At best, it would lumber around like RoboCop’s stop-motion ED-209 and at worse, it wouldn’t be misplaced with bargain bin versions of Robot Jox’s mechs.
COULDN’T ADAPT: Situational Items
Obviously, video game movies can’t adapt an inventory system because having a character shuffle through their bottomless pocket of guns and trinkets looks like a Looney Tunes gag. But what makes MGS’ inventory unique are the situational items in it.
Seemingly useless items like cigarettes or diazepam are vital for very specific moments, such as smoking out trip lasers and defeating Sniper Wolf, respectively. These were either explained through CODEC calls or players’ intuition, which can’t be replicated in film. Moments like players realizing how to use ketchup to fake Snake’s death will have to be remade into organic scenes that show off Snake’s quick-thinking and combat prowess.
CAN ADAPT: Revolver Ocelot’s Torture Chamber
While this interactive cutscene can only progress with the player relentlessly hammering the circle button, Revolver Ocelot’s electric torture is one of MGS’ moments that’s fairly easy to adapt in film.
Action movies with a scene where the hero is momentarily at the antagonist’s mercy are a dime a dozen, and it would be downright blasphemous for the MGS film to not revisit Snake’s most vulnerable moment. That being said, Revolver Ocelot literally telling Snake the instructions of this quick-time event have to be rewritten into something more believable and less fourth-wall leaning.
COULDN’T ADAPT: That Card Key Puzzle
One of MGS’ biggest twists involves the PAL card key puzzle, which Snake accomplishes under the belief that it will stop REX’s activation. Instead, he starts REX just as Liquid Snake wanted. The puzzle has players running around to switch the card key’s temperature thrice, giving them access to the nuclear launch’s three laptop servers. Also, if players waste enough time, a rat gets to the card first, leading to a wild rat chase.
This puzzle is standard video game fare and a good interactive plot twist at that, but would be time-consuming in live-action. Not unlike an escort mission or Snake Eater’s tediously ultra-realistic first aid mechanics, key puzzles can be challenging and engaging in-game, but would be padding in a film.
CAN ADAPT: Tactical Espionage Action
One reason why MGS became a watershed game is its popularizing of stealth action. Though it has action-packed fights like punching Snake’s clone brother on top of a burning mech, MGS’ emphasis on methodically taking down enemies was groundbreaking for a medium dominated by gung-ho first-person shooters like Doom or Quake.
This is something that can and should be adapted in film, since it wouldn’t just be game-accurate but would also give audiences a different kind of action movie. Stealth-based action films with spies and/or assassins aren’t uncommon, with Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy probably being the most well-known. The current crop can be improved with the cinematic outing of this influential sneaking game.
COULDN’T ADAPT: CODEC Calls
CODEC calls are MGS’ version of radio calls between field operatives and command, but their specific visual novel-styled execution became a beloved franchise staple. In fact, their absence in The Phantom Pain was greatly mourned by older fans.
CODEC calls were used for tutorial and exposition purposes, and they usually slowed the action to a grind. This was tolerable for a game where players can take their time but for a movie, intrusive CODEC calls would be an annoyance. The calls’ contents can and should be rewritten for traditional face-to-face and/or radio conversations, since adapting them as is would unnecessarily bog the film down.
CAN ADAPT: The Boss Fights
Video game movies usually have a problem translating their source material’s boss fights due to the differences between mediums. Luckily for MGS, it’s obviously inspired by action movies of its time. Compared to Street Fighter’s limited realization of Guile and M. Bison’s clash or Super Mario Bros.’ oddly conventional interpretation of the Mario Brothers’ fight with Bowser, MGS has its action set-pieces – which are mostly comprised of soldiers and military vehicles – cut out for it.
As crazy as the fights against Vulcan Raven (with or without his tank) or the Hind chopper are, they’re fairly grounded in reality and easier to recreate in live-action. That being said, one fight is the exception to this rule, and that boss is none other than…
COULDN’T ADAPT: Psycho Mantis Demolishes The Fourth Wall
Gamers who never played MGS still know of Psycho Mantis’ now-legendary boss fight. He seems like a regular telekinetic boss at first but then, he reads the player’s memory card, comments on their gaming habits, activates the PlayStation’s DualShock3 rumble system, predicts the players’ every move, and even kills the PlayStation-to-TV feed. The only way to defeat him is to switch the controller’s port, preventing him from reading Snake’s mind.
Adapting Psycho Mantis’ fight frame-for-frame is impossible because it was made specifically for the gaming medium. Mantis’ fourth-wall breaking is unique to consoles and can’t be replicated for cinema, unless it’s completely rewritten. For example, MGS’ comic adaptation had Psycho Mantis unleash nightmarish hallucinations instead of mocking Snake’s apparent love of Castlevania.
CAN ADAPT: The Story & Cutscenes
An enduring criticism of Metal Gear as a whole is its overabundance of cutscenes. Countless jokes have been made about how Metal Gear is a collection of 10-hour movies that begrudgingly give gamers a few minutes of game time before getting back to 30-minute discussions about The Patriots or whatever The Boss’ Will really was. This, however, gives MGS something that most video game movies lack: a story.
The likes of Mortal Kombat or Resident Evil struggled to tell a feature-length narrative that wasn’t a transparent excuse to string set-pieces together, since their basis’ stories were too barebones. Luckily, MGS’ deceptively simple action plot has lots of story and themes to spare. Some condensing and cutting will have to be made to fit the runtime, but MGS won’t be struggling to tell a coherent adventure. Making sense of the games’ notoriously convoluted lore is another matter.
COULDN’T ADAPT: Meryl’s Alternate Endings
One thing that makes video games a unique storytelling medium is the alternate ending. Unlike a movie’s cut ending, games’ alternate conclusions are triggered by the player’s own decisions, giving it the kind of replayability movies don’t have. MGS has one of these, but it’s been considered non-canon by the sequels. Basically, Meryl dies.
Canonically, Snake overcomes the torture and Meryl lives. But if the player submits to Ocelot’s torture and hits Select, the electroshock stops and Ocelot fulfills his promise. After fighting Liquid Snake, Snake finds Meryl’s corpse before Shadow Moses collapses. Whether or not the MGS film will kill someone as important to the franchise as Meryl is currently unknown, but the movie – by design – can only stick to one of these endings.