View Full Version : Parallels between games and other media
Dahne
10-03-2005, 04:56 AM
(Topic changed to reflect progression of discussion.)
Tonight's episode of American Dad featured the main character's father. He is an uber-spy. Having apparently lost his (left, however) eye in the past, he wears an eyepatch. His name is Jack. At one point, another character sarcastically refers to him as Snake Plisken. In the end, he turns out to have been decieving them all along, and his son is forced to fight him.
Anybody else seeing a pattern here?
I always notice things like this, (like when the overly-well-endowed teacher on Family Guy was named Mrs. Lockhart) and wonder if I'm just going nuts.
Saabmeister
10-03-2005, 06:08 AM
I didnt watch American Dad tonight, but I do remember Mrs. Lockhart, but I didn't think anything of it at the time.
Kroogah
10-03-2005, 07:16 AM
Well, Snake Plissken is the eyepatched main character of the movies Escape From New York and Escape From L.A., and I think the name "Lockhart" entered pop culture with June Lockhart, the actress that played "Lassie's mom".
What's all this mean? Everything's been done before, or pop culture is on the verge of becoming one massive inside joke. I dunno yet.
Or you're going nuts.
njiska
10-03-2005, 08:04 AM
Yeah sorry Dahne but that was definitely a reference to Escape from New York/LA. The eye patch is on the correct eye for Pliskin, but not our be loved Big Boss.
Although to be fair at first i was thinking the same thing.
MegaDrive20XX
10-03-2005, 08:49 AM
Wasn't he voiced by the same guy who played as the Head cheif in Team America? I love that voice of his.
"Everyone back to Headquarters for Cocktails!"
portnoyd
10-03-2005, 05:22 PM
SHE GONE CRAZY FOLKS
Dahne
10-03-2005, 07:22 PM
Yeah sorry Dahne but that was definitely a reference to Escape from New York/LA.
Yes - the point is, 'Iroquois Plisken' was also an Escape From New York reference. Thus, a reference to a reference.
Also, Albert Camus' The Stranger is totally about Chrono Trigger.
Kroogah
10-03-2005, 08:33 PM
Also, Albert Camus' The Stranger is totally about Chrono Trigger.
Beg pardon?
Dahne
10-03-2005, 10:22 PM
C'mon, the courtroom scenes are practically word for word.
Well, both Crono and Mersault are quiet yet violent individuals who allow their friends to talk them into huge crapstorms that wind up getting them jailed and killed. But Lucca is the only one with a gun...
retroman
10-03-2005, 11:21 PM
didnt see it...never even heard of it
Jive3D
10-03-2005, 11:36 PM
Well, both Crono and Mersault are quiet yet violent individuals who allow their friends to talk them into huge crapstorms that wind up getting them jailed and killed. But Lucca is the only one with a gun...
That's VERY interesting. I went through a mini Albert Camus phase during college. I'll have to give The Stranger another read through, actually, I guess I'll have to play through Chrono Trigger as well. I'll be back to this thread in about a year...
Can you find anything in the song Killing an Arab by the Cure that has anything to do with Chrono Trigger? The song was inspired by the book...
Dahne
10-03-2005, 11:58 PM
Well, Chrono is at one point both alive and dead. :)
The similarities are eerie, really. I read The Stranger for an English class, right after reading The Awakening, which forr some reason kept reminding me of Disgaea (there's three guys who are the motherfucking Prinny squad, I swear).
...You know, I'm really lucky that my English teacher never threw me out a window.
Kroogah
10-04-2005, 12:02 AM
Well, both Crono and Mersault are quiet yet violent individuals who allow their friends to talk them into huge crapstorms that wind up getting them jailed and killed. But Lucca is the only one with a gun...
Holy crap, that actually makes sense. Maybe if I had read The Stranger some time in the last 3 or 4 years I would have noticed that. LOL
This thread just got approx. 54 times more awesome. We should dedicate it to parallels between video games and other forms of media.
If you liked Snatcher, watch Blade Runner. I can't guarantee you'll like that movie, but Kojima "borrowed" a lot from that movie. And Terminator, obviously.
Dahne
10-06-2005, 03:50 AM
Another Stranger parallel:
The people who say Metal Gear Solid 2's Big Shell is all some sort of VR program are the same people who think the Arab stabbed Mersault.
Dahne
10-07-2005, 06:16 PM
If you liked Snatcher, watch Blade Runner. I can't guarantee you'll like that movie, but Kojima "borrowed" a lot from that movie.
Do Cyborg Ninja Dream of Electric Sheep?
Kroogah
10-07-2005, 07:11 PM
If you liked Snatcher, watch Blade Runner. I can't guarantee you'll like that movie, but Kojima "borrowed" a lot from that movie.
Do Cyborg Ninja Dream of Electric Sheep?
Well played.
evildead2099
10-07-2005, 07:45 PM
There are tons of parallels between the Splatterhouse games and horror movies (which makes sense, seeing as how Splatterhouse: Wanpaku Graffiti is ultimately a videogame in which you play an actor in a horror movie which spoofs other horror movies).
Contra III: The Alien Wars is an awful lot like the movie Independence Day.
FurinkanianFrood
10-07-2005, 09:59 PM
Also, Albert Camus' The Stranger is totally about Chrono Trigger.
Hmmmmm.
Given that time, plurality, causality, etc are illusionary in a universal sense and only exist locally relative to observers, Camus was really just taking something (all things exist and do not simultaneously you see) that we couldn't perceive and through writing allowed us to observe it within our tiny crappy reference frame(s).
Stories expressed in natural language are really just social constructs expressing preexisting abstract concepts which exist beacause they can be conceived and also fail to exist because they can fail to be conceived.
Though as far as the localized existence of deterministic phenomena relative to observers is concerned, I don't think that those two works are terribly similar, though there is a kind of fatalism that goes along with "time travel" stories.
lendelin
10-07-2005, 10:39 PM
Also, Albert Camus' The Stranger is totally about Chrono Trigger.
Hmmmmm.
Given that time, plurality, causality, etc are illusionary in a universal sense and only exist locally relative to observers, Camus was really just taking something (all things exist and do not simultaneously you see) that we couldn't perceive and through writing allowed us to observe it within our tiny crappy reference frame(s).
Stories expressed in natural language are really just social constructs expressing preexisting abstract concepts which exist beacause they can be conceived and also fail to exist because they can fail to be conceived.
Though as far as the localized existence of deterministic phenomena relative to observers is concerned, I don't think that those two works are terribly similar, though there is a kind of fatalism that goes along with "time travel" stories.
What does all of this mean? :)
Holy schmoly, is Chrono Trigger with its vibrant innocent colors actually an existential drama? No optimism there? Oh I know, there is only optimism in deeply rooted pessimism. Thanks Camus and Sartre! :)
(and I thought *I'm* at times too academic on this board. :) )
Nah, as a rule videogames reflect downplayed simplistic and commonly agreed stereotypes -- environmentalism, harmony between nature and civilization, betrayal, teenage probs of friendship and love, and bad aspects of religion, all presented in non-controversial and simple cliches (don't worry be happy, aren't we all in a symbiotioc relationship?, is the water and air clean? ...and other meaningless nonsense)
It changes slowly. Actually, we experience now that writers come in, the profession of game writers will develop and will become established so that simple balck and white presentations are overcome. The grey area is the interesting one, the princess and the hero will have some issues...or in other words (to keep up with the thread) the criminal is much more interesting than the hero because he negates existing societal conditions (Bert Brecht). :) Thanks Brecht and GTA!
FurinkanianFrood
10-07-2005, 11:29 PM
What does all of this mean? Smile
It was essentially a sarcastic response, though I do honestly believe that plurality, causality, etc. are not real in a universal sense, though we of course have to deal with them on a daily basis because they are real relative to us.
Of course, such ideas have been included in major philosophies and religions for millenia, and I just touched the tip of the iceberg.
I could rant about how it could be connected with other concepts to deal with antinomies and such, and my feeling that a single synthetic monist axiom can be expanded to do both that and survive Occam's razor.......
I'm not about to write a book on speculative metaphysics onto this thread, no matter how strange my sense of humour is.
[/quote]