Where Nintendo Might Have Got the Mask Idea.

[Link 2 the past]

I was watching the 1994 movie "The Mask" with Jim Carrey today. I was thinking that it was interesting how similar the idea in the film of becoming someone eles by putting a mask on, is to that in MM. Then I thought about how this film came out a good five years before MM. Five years seems just long enough to develop the idea and insert it into the game.

Is it possible Nintendo got the basic idea for MM from a Jim Carrey movie?

 

[bellum]

no I don't think that "The Mask" had anything to do with the loz series.It does remind me of MM though.I think the idea is possible but not very likely, he would transform into a whole nother person, and it doesn't really seem to me that link will really change emotianally like the guy in the mask did, insted he was just regular link, but in a different costume.I have also never realized the resembalence from these two things.

 

[blackice_cc]

Oh gosh no. I highly doubt that. First of all, in The Mask, putting on the mask didn't transform you into someone else. All it did was grant your wishes (maybe your 'deepest and darkest' wishes, but wishes nonetheless). Second of all, this is an American movie and I somehow doubt the Nintendo staff would have watched it and thought "wow, it would be cool to make a Zelda game with masks like that one" Or anything. I think the Nintendo staff just brainstormed for a new idea for MM, and came up with the masks.

 

[Myungster]

Good idea but, like everyone else said, I dought Ninendo would get the mask idea from The Mask

 

[mamu mamu]

that makes sense, and it's definitly possible, but i don't think that nintendo would even be thinking of that movie when making MM

 

[Midna666]

I highly doubt that Nintendo got the mask idea from that movie.
I'm sure that the idea of mask's that transform there wearers is not a original idea in the world of fiction.

 

[Welbanks]

Sssssssssmmmmokiiin!
Sorry.
Anyways, ya I truly doubt they got it from there, really the only thing similar is the mask itself just transformed him into something else. Whereas in MM there was many masks that transformed you into many things.
Nintendo probably just wanted to expand on the mask idea from the side quest in OoT.

 

[Majora Mistress]

That would be funny. Jim Carrey is a god after all.
I don't think that's where it came from though.

 

[Amelie]

I always thought the Mask is where it came from. It makes perfect since to me. Especially when you put on the masks. Im surprised people did not make this topic sooner ^^

 

[Hachi]

Sadly I can't find the issue in which I read it, but in Nintendo power they did an interview with Shigeru Miyamoto after the release of Majora's Mask. He said that he would visit a temple near his home often and they sold masks. He said that he's gotten lots of ideas for his games from his childhood, including those masks he use to see. They even had a picture of a store (though I doubt it was the one he use to go to) with a mask for sale that looked exactly like the keaton mask.

As for Nintendo using The Mask for inspiration..I can kinda see the argument. Personally I think it was that both the movie and MM simply played around a little bit with the very nature of masks: to "transform" you into someone, or something else.

 

[SethOmega]

OH! I loved that movie! But, it couldn't be true. Link's head is already green....

 

[Kybyrian]

No way, I doubt it to a high extreme. The masks in the game are incredibly different, and it just seems incredibly unlikely that they would take something from a movie like that and then try to mold it into an idea for a video game.

 

[Amelie]

Why does it seems so unlikely? The scene that happens when he puts a mask on is just like it. How is it highly unlikely that they didn't watch that movie and get the idea to have masks change people? There appearance and even there personality? Its just like the Mask. Im not saying they didn't use some of there own ideas. But I dont see how its highly unlikely that they couldn't have originally got the idea from The Mask.

 

[DeletedUser9]

I doubt it. The idea of magic masks isn't uncommon.

There was even Goosebumps (you know, by R. L. Stein?) stories with evil masks that possessed people.

Just doesn't seem too likely to me. *Shrugs* It is possible though.

 

[Zeanith]

The symbolism of 'becoming something else' has been associated with masks forever.

As has lying, fear and evil.

I doubt Nintendo got the idea soley from a not-so-funny romp through a green faced psycho's life.

But, then again, I could be dreadfully wrong.