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Bholder posted:Not sure what is oh so wrong with his perfomance here... he sounded perfect to me. Yeah, the way people are talking about it here ("he botched it so bad!"), you'd think he said it in Lemongrab's voice or something. Well, I'd actually play a MGS where Snake speaks like lemongrab the whole game.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:13
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As other's have said, he just sounds bored and really does nothing with the voice. During the intro the only reason I knew it was Snake talking was because it was Kiefer's voice and I knew Kiefer was playing Snake. I guess its good that he doesn't try to mimic Hayter's distinct intonations but at the same time its like who is this guy? Kiefer has quite a distinct voice himself, and he doesn't seem to be doing anything to mask it, so we're just getting Jack Bauer coming out of Snake's face and personally its a little distracting. Renoistic posted:I really enjoyed Sutherland's acting in the previous trailer so I was almost shocked when he botched this one so badly. I really hope they don't gently caress this up. And yeah this. In the first trailer the only problem was it wasn't Hayter. In this trailer the problem is it isn't Hayter and there is like no emphasis or personality put into it. I have hope that overall it'll be fine, but I don't think I'll ever get used to it.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:28
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I'm not saying I believe this or that it's fact but I have a feeling that some spoken dialogue is and has been used as a placeholder for trailers and demos, maybe alpha / beta builds just so their character would perform a line and the developers could move on. Once the game hits retail it would hopefully hold the better takes. I mean, remember when the first trailer of the two games came out? Go listen to that doctor talking about the coma. That poo poo seriously can't be in the final version, right? "Oh yeah Boss you've been in a coma for 7 years whatever". That's what I'm hoping, anyway. EDIT: VV That makes a lot more sense, people later in the series would talk up BB like some kind of super legend (well, technically he is but he wasn't quite Soldier Jesus like some made him out to be) when at the core he's a man. Probably a very broken man, but a man nonetheless. Green Puddin fucked around with this message at 22:21 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 21:32
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Bholder posted:Not sure what is oh so wrong with his perfomance here... he sounded perfect to me. My thought as well. My first reaction when Kiefer delivered the "Kept you waiting, huh?" line was that he said it exactly like a normal person would. I think what's throwing a lot of people off is that Hayter's approach to voicing the character has been progressively more emphatic with each successive game. Back in MGS1, he talked pretty much like a normal person, but with each iteration of the series he got gruntier and growlier, and would emphasize word endings harder and harder. As a result, people are calling Kiefer's approach boring and uninterested or phoned in, when he's really just taking a more subtle approach to the voicing. At least, that's way it seems to me. That being said, there is speculation around the internets(For what little that is worth) that the English dialogue in the latest trailer is from the facial mocapping sessions, and not actual final voice recordings. I don't really know how early in development voice acting tends to be finalized, and we still don't have an actual release window beyond April 2014-Q1 2015.
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Sep 26, 2013 21:56
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Strayer posted:That being said, there is speculation around the internets(For what little that is worth) that the English dialogue in the latest trailer is from the facial mocapping sessions, and not actual final voice recordings. How would that work, considering we don't, and were seemingly never intended to, see BB's face through most of his dialogue with Kaz? Could still be from an early/scrapped VO session, but it's not like they were pressed for time to release this trailer, it came completely out of the blue.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:17
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In Portal 2, they used a placeholder voice for Wheatley before they got Stephen Merchant to do it, so it's not unusual. I don't really mind the change, since I quite liked the more restrained Snake voice in MGS1, and Keifer sounds quite like that.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:40
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Strayer posted:As a result, people are calling Kiefer's approach boring and uninterested or phoned in, when he's really just taking a more subtle approach to the voicing. At least, that's way it seems to me. Maybe it's just the way the series is written and the fault lies more with the direction Kiefer was given, or perhaps they are placeholder takes. But if the trailer is indicative of the end-product, I think it's a pretty weak performance. I'm not sure if facial mocap will help or hurt the voice acting, either.
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Sep 26, 2013 22:49
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Bobby The Rookie posted:Kiefer is too 'subtle' even by subtle voice acting practices The problem is less about Kiefer's performance not actually being good, because it's fine by itself, it's that David Hayter Has Never Been Subtle, Ever. Normal people do not talk like Solid Snake or Big Boss (or even The Boss, for that matter). Some folks think of this as good acting (with The Boss being an exception there, god her voice was weird). Not every line needs to have 'weight'. Given that this game is supposed to lose some of the campy overtones of the series up to this point and transform everyone's beloved hero into the ultimate villain, it makes sense to me that Big Boss would be played as a much colder, flatter sounding, and ruthless sort of character. I don't think David Hayter is remotely capable of this, no offense to him. He's said as much that his voice was hosed up playing Old Snake, and I don't think his voice now fits the direction Kojima wants to take the story. At the same time, dude has a mostly naked sniper lady with skin camo so :kojima: fivegears4reverse fucked around with this message at 23:04 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 23:01
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fivegears4reverse posted:Normal people do not talk like Solid Snake or Big Boss (or even The Boss, for that matter). Some folks think of this as good acting (with The Boss being an exception there, god her voice was weird). Which is the problem. What the gently caress is a normal sounding person doing in a MGS game? That's why he sounds out of place.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:04
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voltron lion force posted:Which is the problem. What the gently caress is a normal sounding person doing in a MGS game? That's why he sounds out of place. I dunno, I think you're taking the "everyone is kerrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaazy" thing too far. In general, the actual acting in this snippet is pretty much better than the "acting" in every other MGS, because it's not played up for theatrics so far (this will definitely change by the end of the game I'm sure). It fits what I'm perceiving to be the intended mood. Snake is cynical, bitter and spiteful sounding. He doesn't need "rgerherghegrhergerghrrrrrrrrgrhgrhrr" added at the end of every other word in a sentence to convey this. Even Kaz is subdued. These are actually badguys planning bad things now, terrorists not heroes.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:10
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fivegears4reverse posted:I dunno, I think you're taking the "everyone is kerrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaazy" thing too far. In general, the actual acting in this snippet is pretty much better than the "acting" in every other MGS, because it's not played up for theatrics so far (this will definitely change by the end of the game I'm sure). It fits what I'm perceiving to be the intended mood. Snake is cynical, bitter and spiteful sounding. He doesn't need "rgerherghegrhergerghrrrrrrrrgrhgrhrr" added at the end of every other word in a sentence to convey this. Even Kaz is subdued. These are actually badguys planning bad things now, terrorists not heroes. Well I'd say by that some logic you're taking the whole "everyone is so daaaaaaark" thing too far. This is still an MGS game and quite frankly Snake does not sound cynical, bitter or spiteful. He doesn't sound like he's conveying any emotion at all which is, in my opinion, not strictly better than the hammier style of past games.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:15
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fivegears4reverse posted:I dunno, I think you're taking the "everyone is kerrrrrrrrrrrraaaaaaaaaaazy" thing too far. In general, the actual acting in this snippet is pretty much better than the "acting" in every other MGS, because it's not played up for theatrics so far (this will definitely change by the end of the game I'm sure). It fits what I'm perceiving to be the intended mood. Snake is cynical, bitter and spiteful sounding. He doesn't need "rgerherghegrhergerghrrrrrrrrgrhgrhrr" added at the end of every other word in a sentence to convey this. Even Kaz is subdued. These are actually badguys planning bad things now, terrorists not heroes.
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Sep 26, 2013 23:17
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Bobby The Rookie posted:Metal Gear Solid is a series steeped in theatrics. For better or worse, that's what the standard has been set at. So in addition to Kiefer playing the role minimally (and dully so), it's clashing with literally every other character who knows they're in a MGS game and are matching that standard. Even if this does mark a departure for the character, it's still an action video game after all, have a little fun with it, do something. Yeah, but fans aren't directing the games, Kojima is. Historically he doesn't really give a poo poo about what angry fans on the internet are saying about his latest directorial decisions, even if he is disappointed that they didn't 'take', he still keeps doing weird poo poo for the sake of doing weird poo poo, and for better or worse we keep eating it up. For all we know, this IS Kojima having fun, taking a beloved anime character and turning him into a ruthless villain (as he is ultimately supposed to be, regardless of whatever good he might have intended). For all the talk about how every MGS game after the first "destroyed" him, Kojima sure seems to keep making them. I take an issue with "every character knows they're in an MGS game" bit. As far as everyone in the MGS world is concerned, this is the way poo poo works, it's not fantasy. Harry S. Truman in MGS land knows there is a super soldier who saved the whole world at the end of WW2. Khrushchev was in on it, and was hoping ol' Truman could spare the second best soldier ever on a neat little hop across the border to save his political career from a bisexual burn victim with control over lightning. There's literally no reason why we still can't have insane poo poo happen in MGSV just because some voice acting on the opening mission (maybe?) of the game is subdued. fivegears4reverse fucked around with this message at 23:50 on Sep 26, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 23:45
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Bobby The Rookie posted:Kiefer is too 'subtle' even by subtle voice acting practices, at least in these takes, he sounds out-of-place from the other characters. Perhaps that's the point, but if that weren't particularly distracting on its own, his intonation of most of his lines, not even just "Kept you waiting, huh," are flat and misplayed. "She survived," "She knows their true nature," and "Fine, I like a little alone time now and then," are a few lines I can point to off the top of my head that are just played dully and without weight. Big Boss is pretty much at the top of his game when this mission arises, why does he already sound like he wants to kill himself? Why is he unsurprised that Paz survived? Here's the thing: it sounds the exact same as the Japanese version. Snake and Miller are having a casual conversation in both versions. At least here Kaz and Snake sound distinctly different, there was someone in this very thread who confused their voices in the Japanese trailer believing that Snake was speaking in lieu of Kaz. Voice acting is usually the first thing done. If you look closely you'll see that in the Japanese trailer Snake's lips are actually moving to English words. Forgive my Japanese if I butcher anything, but Snake's "Kept you waiting, huh" (which is delivered in the same deadpan tone as the Japanese actor, I don't know why this is singled out) is "Mattese, de na?" まってせでな. However, if you look at his lips he does not close his mouth to make an "m" sound, he purses his lips to make a noticeable "you" movement which goes directly into the "waiting" part. I can't really explain it but put the Japanese trailer on mute and say out loud "kept you waiting, huh" and it will match the lips much better than "mah tah say day nah." Or hell, try to sync up the videos and you'll notice it immediately. Side by side, the lip sync is actually subtly different in both trailers but I'm 100% positive that the Japanese trailer, which came out a year ago, is using English facial capture. This could mean a lot of things but Keifer Sutherland wasn't officially announced until June of this year. e: Have a youtube doubler. You'll notice some subtle differences here and there like clothing and lighting effects. Skullface's jacket is shorter for some reason. The lighting is definitely more pronounced in the English trailer and there are lights that don't exist in the Japanese one. The base is also subtly different, for example there's a radio tower in the distance that doesn't exist in the Japanese version. al-azad fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 26, 2013 23:51
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fivegears4reverse posted:Yeah, but fans aren't directing the games, Kojima is. Historically he doesn't really give a poo poo about what angry fans on the internet are saying about his latest directorial decisions, even if he is disappointed that they didn't 'take', he still keeps doing weird poo poo for the sake of doing weird poo poo, and for better or worse we keep eating it up. fivegears4reverse posted:I take an issue with "every character knows they're in an MGS game" bit. As far as everyone in the MGS world is concerned, this is the way poo poo works, it's not fantasy. Harry S. Truman in MGS land knows there is a super soldier who saved the whole world at the end of WW2. Khrushchev was in on it, and was hoping ol' Truman could spare the second best soldier ever on a neat little hop across the border to save his political career from a bisexual burn victim with control over lightning. al-azad posted:Here's the thing: it sounds the exact same as the Japanese version. Snake and Miller are having a casual conversation in both versions. At least here Kaz and Snake sound distinctly different, there was someone in this very thread who confused their voices in the Japanese trailer believing that Snake was speaking in lieu of Kaz.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:13
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Bobby The Rookie posted:My issue currently is with English performances, which I'm going to assume Kojima was not responsible for expressly directing. I can't comment on the bulk of the story or Kojima's direction of the game itself at this point, obviously. I dunno, Kojima has always been more interested in the American performances, going all the way back to Metal Gear Solid 2. All the lip-syncing in that game is done in English. Since the American actor is the one doing all the mo-capping I would imagine he is directing the gently caress out of them.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:17
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Bobby The Rookie posted:I'm not entirely sure what your point is. I'm not really qualified to comment on the distinctions between male voices in the Japanese trailer, but yes, Kaz and Snake do sound distinctly different from one another in the English trailer. And I guess the trailer was maybe made with the English voice acting in mind? Or the Japanese voices were dubbed onto an English trailer? How exactly does that pertain to Kiefer Sutherland's performance? My point is that the delivery is almost identical across both versions. It's even more noticeable when you watch both videos simultaneously. Take that as what you will, whether it means the voice acting is bad across the board or maybe the voice actors were actually directed to downplay their performance because they're having a casual conversation, but I don't know how some people can say "I prefer the Japanese voices." I guess it's the whole sub vs. dub thing. You can understand the English voices therefor it's less grating to hear it in another language even if the English voices aren't any worse.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:18
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Who is voicing Skull Face? He sounded really terrible to me.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:32
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SolidSnakesBandana posted:I dunno, Kojima has always been more interested in the American performances, going all the way back to Metal Gear Solid 2. All the lip-syncing in that game is done in English. Since the American actor is the one doing all the mo-capping I would imagine he is directing the gently caress out of them. al-azad posted:My point is that the delivery is almost identical across both versions. It's even more noticeable when you watch both videos simultaneously. Take that as what you will, whether it means the voice acting is bad across the board or maybe the voice actors were actually directed to downplay their performance because they're having a casual conversation, but I don't know how some people can say "I prefer the Japanese voices." I'm also in no way saying that I prefer the Japanese voices, I've never played a MGS game with the Japanese voices, if such a thing is even possible in American copies of those games. Nor would I really want to, because I've enjoyed the English performances up to this point, it's a big part of Metal Gear Solid games, which is why I put a lot of emphasis on Sutherland's performance as a lead playing an established character.
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Sep 27, 2013 00:34
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Bobby The Rookie posted:I'm saying voice actor performances are clearly motivated by the genre and medium, not that the characters literally know they're in a MGS game (although that's actually sometimes the case). I'm also not saying that the game won't feature theatrics because of this opening cinematic, I'm observing that the other characters with speaking roles in the trailers we've seen have given more emphatic performances because they are trained voice actors playing into their medium, whereas Kiefer is a film actor who is just coming into this role, and he sounds flat by comparison. "Flat" can also be acting. You don't have to overemphasize every word in every conversation ever, especially a casual bit of dialogue just before Big Boss sneaks into a place to "save" people who are leaking intel to his enemies. I see it as the calm before the storm, there's no reason for the characters to be going full retard just yet. Just because it's something MGS has done (and has been criticized for) doesn't mean there can't be change. Now if he sounds like this the whole game, there's a problem, but probably not with Kiefer. Rather, it'd likely be the direction at fault telling him to sound that way the whole time. I doubt this is going to happen, though. I don't think Kiefer Sutherland is a terrible actor when playing action roles (though again, that's all opinion), and it sounds like Kojima is serious about taking the game in a darker direction (while retaining his usual silliness. The Red Band trailer is Metal Gear As gently caress while also being rather disturbing with the portrayals of torture). I still see it as deliberate intent: MGS has been a melodrama and fans like to pretend that the games have tried to depict war as a cruel and terrible thing, but the tone of almost every single MGS prior to this one has really failed to exploit that (yes, war is so terrible its changed so much oh look how funny little Johnny is making GBS threads his pants in the middle of a firefight against buxom women wearing skin tight uniforms that incinerate them when they die, HEE HAWWWW  ). Kojima was saying that this game almost couldn't be made with what he had in mind, so the darker, flatter, almost clinical sounding "hero" feels like part of that thrust.I could be wrong though. Just my reading.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:01
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Which trailer is everyone dumping on? Anybody got a link? The last one in the OP is from E3. \/\/\/ thanks \/\/\/ Soul Glo fucked around with this message at 01:15 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 01:07
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The biggest issue I'm having with Sutherland's performance so far is that he doesn't sound as if he's part of Kaz's conversation, I'm not sure how to explain this but his individual lines just don't really connect with Kaz's VA's delivery.Soul Glo posted:Which trailer is everyone dumping on? Anybody got a link? The last one in the OP is from E3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=elMikUGFfqw John Luebke fucked around with this message at 01:12 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 01:10
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After that trailer I'm convinced they need to go get David Hayter to replace all of Keifer Sutherland's part in MGS5. And all of Keifer's parts in things that aren't MGS5. The Lost Boys staring David Hayter.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:31
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EvilTobaccoExec posted:After that trailer I'm convinced they need to go get David Hayter to replace all of Keifer Sutherland's part in MGS5. And all of Keifer's parts in things that aren't MGS5. Have Chewbacca voice every main character in Star Wars, while you're at it.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:37
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fivegears4reverse posted:Have Chewbacca voice every main character in Star Wars, while you're at it. Well maybe not all the main characters, but Luke and Leia for sure. I'd also feel a little bad if these Hayter edits end up taking away all of Keifer's royalty checks. So I guess we can throw him a bone and let him do the voice of RD-D2.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:44
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John Luebke posted:The biggest issue I'm having with Sutherland's performance so far is that he doesn't sound as if he's part of Kaz's conversation, I'm not sure how to explain this but his individual lines just don't really connect with Kaz's VA's delivery. After watching it again I think I agree. It sounds like he was just kind of prompted to read the lines without any real context. Ironically, "Kept you waiting, huh" actually sounded like he was talking to Kaz, for me, though that's kind of a problem. He's supposed to be saying it to the viewer, as a nod to MGS2, but instead he's saying it to someone else.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:46
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I still think Kiefer is perfect for Big Boss. He's gonna turn into a bad guy, and we're gonna enjoy it.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:48
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Still waiting for Love Deterrence feat. Kiefer Sutherland.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:53
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Fargin Icehole posted:I still think Kiefer is perfect for Big Boss. He's gonna turn into a bad guy, and we're gonna enjoy it. I think there's gonna be a lot of people who won't, which is actually kinda clever if intentional. Fanboys will say "There's no way he could do these things!" or "He had a good reason to do what he did, he was forced into this position!" Considering how badly Big Boss aped the Che Guevara image of being a "hero of the people" in Peace Walker, it kinda makes sense that we'll see Big Boss do horrible things to get results for a given cause.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:54
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They could have just asked Hayter to tone it down a notch - he's done quite a few darker moments as Snake and they've worked well. I remember reading that when Christopher Randolph was recording his dialgoue for Peace Walker, they got him to make his voice closer to his performance in MGS 1, rather than the later games - why not get hayter to do the same? Also, I hope the scenes between Huey and Snake work out - Randolph and Hayter have had great chemistry throughout the series. I guess it's just people don't want to see an iconic character changed. The fact that the evil version of FOX is called XOF is the most Metal Gear thing ever.
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Sep 27, 2013 01:55
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Everything was fine in that trailer other than KYWH? and the problem with that is that the line of dialogue is awkward as gently caress (it just happens to work when Hayter delivers it in his glorious, ham-fisted manner). Kiefer will do just fine... ...because Hayter has to be Snake later in the game 
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Sep 27, 2013 02:00
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fivegears4reverse posted:I think there's gonna be a lot of people who won't, which is actually kinda clever if intentional. Fanboys will say "There's no way he could do these things!" or "He had a good reason to do what he did, he was forced into this position!" It kinda fits given how BB just about idolized The Boss. Some fans now do kinda look up to BB so it makes sense for a betrayal.
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Sep 27, 2013 02:05
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motherbox posted:
I like to think Kiefer is gonna be Solid Snake with Donald Sutherland as Big Boss RESCUE MISSING OUR GREY FOX / 
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Sep 27, 2013 03:47
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fivegears4reverse posted:I think there's gonna be a lot of people who won't, which is actually kinda clever if intentional. Fanboys will say "There's no way he could do these things!" or "He had a good reason to do what he did, he was forced into this position!" It certainly worked that way for the MGS3 support crew. There is very much an undercurrent of The road to hell being paved with good intentions in the series that gets stronger with each passing game. Then again, the whole descent into villainy might be sucker bait. Ever since MGS2, the control of information has been an important theme, and it's been established in Peace Walker that Cypher/The Patriots see Big Boss as a substantial threat(Enough so that they try to directly destroy him and MSF in Peace Walker and Ground Zeroes). It's entirely possible that one of the themes in The Phantom Pain is playing up the dichotomy between the Legend and the Truth. Pretty much all of the Metal Gear games show us the legacy of Big Boss as the villain, until MGS3 where we begin to see Big Boss the person. The thing is, barring some statements in MG2 about fomenting wars to create orphans who want revenge so you can take them in to fight your own wars, we don't actually have any hard evidence of Big Boss the omnicidal monster. In MGS1, he's building Outer Heaven and Metal Gear on the sly while he runs FoxHound, until Grey Fox manages to get a report out about Metal Gear before being turned. Or possibly after; I can see Big Boss organizing the Metal Gear warning as a ploy to get Solid Snake into the field and dispose of him. Anyhow, that plan goes bust and Big Boss has to play dead while trying to put together the assets for another go at building a base of operations from which to fight Cypher/The Patriots. This time, he manages to build up a military nation with a Metal Gear with Zanzibar Land, then shows his hand when he snatches up a bunch of nuclear weapons so he can declare a nuclear state. Shortly afterward, he snatches Kio Marv and Oilix, which prevents the global energy crisis in the MG Universe from being solved. While all of this is sketchy as all hell, it's not actually an act of monstrous villainy so much as it is an attempt at making his borders secure. A nuclear armed Metal Gear means a strong chance of maintaining a second strike capability even if they flatten Zanzibar Land completely, and even if the Metal Gear is neutralized or Big Boss can't bring himself to launch a retaliatory nuclear strike, there is an added degree of security because obliterating Zanzibar Land means destroying Oilix and Doctor Marv and thereby continuing the oil crisis. He doesn't launch any nuclear strikes, and he doesn't actually make any demands. Without the context of his struggle against The Patriots, he looks like an old war hero who has gone mad, but if you look at it knowing about his struggle with The Patriots, he looks more like a man(A desperate one, even) trying to consolidate his power and build a safe haven from which to fight back against his enemy. To put it in shorter terms, throughout the Solid Snake games, we are told about how Big Boss was a monster, but we never directly see it. We see his actions in MG1 and 2 through the eyes of Snake, and they look monstrous there because Big Boss comes out looking like a Bond Villain. The thing is, Snake has no clue that the driving force behind Big Boss's actions is his struggle with the Patriots, so to him Big Boss looks like a monster. It's not until the very end of MGS4 when Snake finds out anything about Big Boss's struggle against the Patriots. Hell, up until MGS4, the only people who know about that struggle are the principal players; The Patriots and Big Boss and his people. Even the major headliners like Roy Campbell don't know the truth about that battle. Big Boss declares open conflict with The Patriots in MG1, and loses. History is written by the victor, and from then on The Patriots use their control of information to turn Big Boss into a monster in the eyes of the world, denying him support and sympathy. Consider the difference between "Big Boss has stolen nuclear warheads and the solution to the global energy crisis so we won't be able to obliterate Zanzibar Land without causing considerable problems for ourselves. He did this because he's fighting against a shadow organization that controls the US and NATO, which hopes to unite the world under its shadowy hand to bring about world peace through absolute control. We, who just so happen to be that shadow organization, want you, Solid Snake, who we cloned from Big Boss without his consent in an attempt to have more legendary heroes like him except completely under our control, to infiltrate Zanzibar Land to rescue Oilix and destroy Big Boss" versus "Big Boss just stole a lot of nuclear warheads and the solution to the global energy crisis. He's gone mad and he is holding the world hostage. Snake, we need you to infiltrate his base, rescue Dr Marv and retrieve Oilix, and stop Big Boss from destroying the world as we know it". The latter is still basically true, but sounds completely unjustifiable, whereas the former would at least give Solid Snake a momentary pause. To look at a particular, consider child soldiers. Big Boss is purported to have had child soldiers in MG2, and we see children in Zanzibar Land. We never see them fielded as soldiers. Solidus was big on child soldiers during his time as a warlord in Africa, presumably because he was imitating Big Boss. Now, we've been told that MGSV will have child soldiers as an element, and it looks like that part of the game will take place in part of Africa. So, it stands to reason that Big Boss will recruit and field child soldiers, which will be recorded in history, and that Solidus will pattern himself after Big Boss and will in turn recruit and field child soldiers of his own. However, a lot of the stigma that comes from fielding child soldiers comes from the context of forced recruitment and brainwashing. When we think of child soldiers, most of us think of organizations like the RUF in Sierra Leone or similar groups, who would raid villages, killing the adults and kidnapping the children. They would then indoctrinate those children and brainwash them through forced drug use and acts of brutal violence; truly vile things, for the sole purpose of breaking their young minds so they could rebuild them as ruthless, easily replaceable killers. Honestly, the entire process is so horrible that it makes me uncomfortable to even describe it in the context of theorizing about a video game storyline because it feels wrong to even possibly trivialize the reality of the thing. Anyhow, the kind of person who would do that kind of thing, there are no ends that can justify that sort of means. It is literally evil. But that is not the only way that child soldiers get fielded. There are a great many ways that people have recruited and trained child soldiers, ranging from religious or political extremist indoctrination(Taking kids who don't know any better and constantly telling them it is their duty in life to destroy the sworn enemy(ies) of their people), to acts of desperation(The Hitler Youth being fielded in the end stages of WW2). Solidus took the truly monstrous approach, possibly because he believed that that was how Big Boss did it. It might boil out that way(though I can't imagine it will. Even a greatly toned down representation of that process would be disturbingly brutal), or it might turn out that the only reason Solidus thought that that was how Big Boss did it because that's what he was told. If Big Boss stumbles upon a cage full of child slaves and frees them, only to discover that they're all orphans and their homes were obliterated along with their families, and decides to take them back to Mother Base with him, only for them to end up participating in the defense of the base later on, he will have ended up fielding child soldiers. If you erase all that context and boil it down to bare facts, you wind up with: Big Boss put together a mercenary company, built a base in Africa, and he employed child soldiers. Out of context, an act of mercy becomes monstrous. In too many words, I'm wondering if Kojima is expecting everyone to come into MGSV expecting to see Big Boss's descent into villainy, only to find out that he never actually became one.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:03
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This would be lame and a cop out. The whole premise that Big Boss is creating these thing is pretty drat bad despite the patriots being bad guys too. He also kidnaps innocent people to get what he wants. Big Boss is not a good guy. I mean look at this and tell me these aren't the rantings of someone who isn't a villain. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_ra83aZWyg blackguy32 fucked around with this message at 04:25 on Sep 27, 2013 |
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Sep 27, 2013 04:13
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Man for a guy that looks like a Skeletor the villain here isn't nearly hammy enough. Then again Peace Walker had a guy named Hot Coldman who somehow managed to be almost completely uninteresting rather than hilariously goofy.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:15
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blackguy32 posted:This would be lame and a cop out. The whole premise that Big Boss is creating these thing is pretty drat bad despite the patriots being bad guys too. He also kidnaps innocent people to get what he wants. Big Boss is not a good guy. Not saying he's a good guy, just not a baby-eating psychopath. Pretty much all of the good guys in MGS3 end up being destroyed morally by their quest to make the world a better place. I kind of dragged my argument beyond my intended conclusion, but basically what I was trying to say was that it wouldn't surprise me if the themes of information control and the dichotomy between Legend and the Truth resurfaced in MGSV.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:31
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Strayer posted:Not saying he's a good guy, just not a baby-eating psychopath. Pretty much all of the good guys in MGS3 end up being destroyed morally by their quest to make the world a better place. I kind of dragged my argument beyond my intended conclusion, but basically what I was trying to say was that it wouldn't surprise me if the themes of information control and the dichotomy between Legend and the Truth resurfaced in MGSV. He maybe isn't a baby eating psychopath, but he sure as hell is a psychopath who has no concerns for the world at large.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:34
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Strayer posted:The thing is, Snake has no clue that the driving force behind Big Boss's actions is his struggle with the Patriots, so to him Big Boss looks like a monster. It's not until the very end of MGS4 when Snake finds out anything about Big Boss's struggle against the Patriots. The Patriots represent (and are part of) the whole post-Cold War political world though. Technocratic global capitalism under a single superpower. It's established extremely clearly at the end of Peace Walker that MSF is gonna become a "rogue state," working outside of or even in opposition to that world order. Outer Heaven-era Big Boss is seen as a villain not because he picked a fight with these specific bad guys but because he's loving with American hegemony, exactly the same way Americans get freaked out in real life when we hear Iran or North Korea are building nukes.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:34
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blackguy32 posted:This would be lame and a cop out. The whole premise that Big Boss is creating these thing is pretty drat bad despite the patriots being bad guys too. He also kidnaps innocent people to get what he wants. Big Boss is not a good guy. I get why you would say that, but I feel like Big Boss's character has been retconned since MG2 was released. I don't think Kojima had this kind of character arc in mind when he originally designed Big Boss.
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Sep 27, 2013 04:39
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