Escape from New York | Canadian First Time Watching | Movie Reaction | Movie Review | Commentary

When George gave that slight look as Snake was introduced......yes, Solid Snake was based on Snake Pliskin and Kojima wanted Kurt Russel to voice him in MGS

Metal Gear Solid is indeed a massive homage to this film and Snake/Big Boss in particular, so you are bang in the money there. Hideo Kojima loves this film. Also, the voice of the woman in the opening credits narration is Jamie Lee Curtis in an uncredited voiceover role. She also does the voice of the Liberty Island Security Control announcer when Snake is entering the debarkation area.

A little fun fact: James Cameron who did the matte paintings for this movie. At the time he was a special-effects artist with Roger Corman's New World Pictures. Cameron was also one of the directors of photography on the film.

The girl in Chock Full O' Nuts was played by Season Hubley, who was Kurt Russell's wife at the time, and Maggie was played by Adrienne Barbeau, who was married to John Carpenter. The matte painting of New York from the opening scene was painted by a young James Cameron, who was on loan from Roger Corman. He said working on this movie is why it took him so long to make films in 2.35:1 Anamorphic, because lens distortion made compositing so difficult. That's why Aliens is the only movie in the series that's in 16:9. Funny that Kurt based his performance on Clint Eastwood, because his nemesis, Hauk, was played by Lee Van Cleef, who co-starred with Eastwood in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.

FINALLY. This is only one of the best dystopian future action movies ever. I’ve been watching this movie since I was a kid in the 80s. After watching a crappy VHS copy for years, DVD and hi-def were a blessing.

Prior to this movie, Kurt Russell was primarily known for being the fresh-faced bright-eyed small-town boy Dexter Riley in a slew of forgettable Disney movies. Seeing him as the one-eyed biker bandit Snake Plissken came as a shock to a lot of us 70's kids.

Cabbie was played by Ernest Borgnine a great character actor who had a long career in Hollywood. He won an Oscar for starring in the film Marty a classic movie about an underdog type guy. When I was a kid, he was on Airwolf and reruns of his 60's tv show McHale's Navy and to guys of your generation him and his McHale's Navy co-star Tim Conway were the original Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy on Sponge Bob. He died in 2012 at the age 95 when asked once when he was in his 90's how he stayed so active and alert he whispered in the tv host ear "I Masturbate a lot". Man was a Gem.

George: I have a vision of Mad Max Fury Road. The movie: The voice of Chef from South Park shows up.

I always loved Maggie's delivery when she knows Brain is dead, but still says his name with no emotion as though a part of herself died in that moment with him.

My heart leaps whenever I see the great Issac Hayes onscreen (The Duke) and then sinks when I realize none of young people have any idea who he is. He's a multi nominated and Grammy Award Winner - even Lifetime Achievement in music. The father of Hot Buttered Soul is probably best known as the voice of Chef from South Park.

If you play Metal Gear Solid 2, the Snake connection is pretty much spelt out when Solid Snake assumes the alias Plissken. But it's obvious even from MGS1. Not just because of his name, appearance and demeanor but also the story of a one man drop into enemy territory where the agent is being played by his own superiors.

This movie made Kurt a star. He was known mostly for Disney movies prior to this. His career skyrocketed from here.

John Carpenter and Kurt Russell have worked together five times, and you forgot to list one of the ones you've already seen. They first worked together on a movie you mentioned in the trivia section, Elvis, in which Russell plays Elvis. They then reteamed for this in 1981, before making their most famous collaboration, The Thing, in 1982. The one you forgot is their fourth film together, Big Trouble in Little China. Finally, as you learned, they reteamed for the Escape from New York sequel Escape From L.A. in 1996. Personally, while I think it would be fun to see Escape from L.A. on the channel, it should be noted in advance that it is definitely not as cool as this one. Carpenter and Russell had vague ideas about making a third and final film, Escape From Earth, but it never happened. Funny story about that: in 2001, Carpenter was developing his last big-budget theatrical film, Ghosts of Mars, which was panned by critics and unsuccessful at the box office. In it, a group of police officers arrive at a mining colony on Mars expecting to give testimony but find it deserted, and one of the only people they can turn to for answers is an escaped felon. In the finished movie, the role is played by Ice Cube, but there was a rumor that the character was initially going to be Snake, and the studio forced them to change it. Also, in 2012, the sci-fi action movie Lockout, starring Guy Pearce, featured a story very similar to this unmade third movie, which many people noted when the trailer dropped. Carpenter agreed, suing screenwriter Luc Besson and his production company for plagiarism, a case which he won in 2016. The current layout of IMDb is quite annoying. It prioritizes the department in which the person has the most recent credit. Since John Carpenter worked on the music for a streaming television show recently, it lists that first. It also only shows a few departments before hiding the rest, so when you go to his page, it says (Music Department) (Writer) (Composer) in ovals and then there is a grouped oval that says (Director | Actor | Producer | Editor...). You have to click on Director in that group bubble to open that, and then you still have to click at the bottom of that list of credits to "expand all." Anyway, Carpenter's first film was actually Dark Star in 1974 (a dry run for the concept that would become Alien in 1979, by the same writers), followed by Assault on Precinct 13 in 1976 before directing Halloween in 1979. Of his remaining major films (a list which includes Precinct 13), I agree with the Patrons that They Live, Prince of Darkness, and In the Mouth of Madness are the three most exciting possibilities. If you thought Escape From New York had a great concept, They Live has another winner (and, much like Snake Plissken inspired Solid Snake and the three guys from Big Trouble in Little China inspired character designs for Mortal Kombat, there's a line of dialogue that made it into another video game in They Live). I would also consider The Fog, Precinct 13, Christine, and Starman for the channel.

" The Duke" is Chef from South Park 😂

The woman Snake meets up with when the people were coming up from the sewers was Kurt Russel’s wife at the time.

The one of the greatest things about this movie is the fact that Kurt Russels stunt double was called Dick Warlock.

One thing to keep in mind when watching this movie is to remember how high the crime rate in America, and especially NY, had risen during the 70s up until when this movie was made, 1981, that turning NYC into a prison colony wasn't completely implausible (not very likely, but to most Americans Manhattan already seemed like a city full of murderers). To get an idea what NYC was like at that time (or the mood of that time), think JOKER, and watch TAXI DRIVER, DEATH WISH, MS. 45, or THE WARRIORS (but watch the theatrical version of THE WARRIORS, director cut sucks).

Directors Humor: The "Peter Pan" character named Romero. The man who gave snake the injection - Cronenberg.😅

I am just happy you watched this, even though it didn’t win the poll. Such a great John Carpenter film, and it shows that Kurt Russell loved it, it remains an iconic work.

Green lines... a lot of early mono CRT displays were green (and black) because green phosphor was cheap and showed better than white. Even on early colour monitors it often showed brighter than other colours. So it was used a lot in early wireframe graphics for games and other applications.