While I was re-watching the movie "Blue Thunder" after a long period, one particular picture (frame) seemed very familiar to me. And my grey brain cells didn't fool with me:
I always thought that title screen was cool, now it doesn't seem so anymore. I am sure we all know about the boxart or Contra, Metal Gear, and Commando (Flash Gordon) stolen from movies.
I always though Thunder Blade was a more or less official game for the movie "Blue Thunder". They came out about the same time iirc, and the choppen in the game was exactly the same as in the film, even the same colour (blue)
The chopper (N77GH) shown in Thunder Blade as well the games title name, certainly is inspired by the movie Blue Thunder. But I wouldn't say that there are more relations than that, since the Movie came out in 1984, and the game 4 years later.
SEGA didn't have good lawyers back in the day. The original Outrun's Ferraris weren't licensed. They had to negotiate a license post-release of the title.
And it seems that they have lost the license again after 10+ years or so. The outrun version used in shen mue and the Yu's book is for nothing without a testarossa. The Sega Saturn Sega Age version was the last one, which had the original outrun testarossa.
they have actually renewed the license, as seen in the recent OutRun 2/2006/Online Arcade versions on consoles and/or arcades.
I always remembered the cover of Metal Gear for the NES was a stolen scene from Terminator 1 with Kyle Reese from when he's in the future. As A kid I never knew however. (^_^);
Not just backgrounds, 80s Sega loved to draw entire movies as inspirations for characters and environments - even sounds. Golden Axe was heavily influenced by the Conan movies (the creator even said this himself when they were interviewing him for that god awful beast rider game). Not only that, but the voice samples were ripped from popular action films - like Rambo (I think Die Hard as well, can't remember). But it's nice to see that it was a common trend during the 80s. Not only did games do these things, but anime as well (Project A-ko anyone?).
as far as Metal Gear goes... look at this Thread from the Gamespot forums: http://www.gamespot.com/pages/unions/forums/show_msgs.php?topic_id=25212213&union_id=11354
Does Revenge of Shinobi count with Spiderman and Batman clones as bosses (in the first release of the game anyway)? Laserdisc games used alot of stolen footage, like Astron Belt using Battle Beyond the Stars scenes.
