Board Thread:Metal Gear Solid V/@comment-25277765-20140831060343/@comment-64.33.250.214-20140904021552

Paranoid Donkey wrote: 64.33.250.214 wrote: Heck if I know. How come Big Boss is bald and looks like Sean Connery in the original MSX2 game? Where's the horn or facial scars seen in Phantom Pain? My guess is Kojima sort of "wings it" half the time. In the case of MGS for PS1, it was a whole new game for a whole new generation. I hadn't played or recalled playing the NES game by the time MGS came out. Kojima probably figured most people wouldn't notice or care. There hasn't been exactly a huge backlash over things like this. We've grown so accustomed to these things, Kojima and the term "retcon" are synonymous. Because Big Boss was literally modelled after Sean Connery. In the original releases of the Metal Gear games, the sprites (and even the covers) were based off famous movies/actors etc. Kojima is no stranger to blatantly appropriating things from popular culture. See: Jack and Rose (Titanic) as just one example.

We're definitely going to have an explanation as to why MG's Big Boss has no scars and horn, that's not a question that will remain unanswered. There's an incredibly large difference between Big Boss in 1984 and 1995, so it's not as though we're going to be expected to make something up, I can all but guarantee it. Something that bothers me is that people say "why does Master Miller's original MGS art have him with fully human arms and legs", as if the artwork for MGS was actually depicting Master Miller, but that's neither here nor there.

Basically the point I'm trying to make is, there are inconsistencies in the Metal Gear universe, because Kojima wasn't expecting to make more than Metal Gear. That's the reason for every inconsistency--every game is supposed to be the last, so on, so forth. I'm aware Kojima modeled the characters after actors, but that doesn't explain why he chose not to retain the look of those actors. Just like he chose to change the details of Solid's eye/hair color. It's true Kojima didn't have the clone story planned from the beginning, yet he could have made either Solid of Boss look similar to their MSX counterparts. Instead they look drastically different. Not counting on a sequel doesn't mean one can't remain faithful to the original material when a sequel does present itself.

There may very well be an explanation for the scars and horn. But as is the case with the original MSX models, there's no guarantee Kojima wont simply write off Boss's lack of scars as a product of graphical limitations.