Snake Plissken is always relevant.
Because I am such a huge nerd for this movie, I’d like to discuss its novelization. Novelizations are typical merchandise when a film is released. On the surface they may seem like just an attempt to generate some more revenue for the film but they can be true collector’s items and they can sometimes expand on the film and its ideas more that screen time will allow.
The novelization of “Escape From New York” was written by Mike McQuay and most of it is from Carpenter and Castle’s original script but McQuay added some of his own elements along the way.
First off, the novel does a bit more world building than the film did. The reason for the 400% rise in crime in the US is due to the economy collapsing and people turning to crime out of survival. This is brought about because the US is bogged down in a seemingly perpetual three-way war with a still existing (the film was released in 1981 but set in 1997) Soviet Union and China. All three powers have agreed to ban the use of nuclear weapons by treaty to protect neutral countries (everyone declared their neutrality so chances are there is no more NATO or Warsaw Pact) and to keep themselves and the rest of the world from being annihilated. So the conflict is fought with conventional weapons and chemical weapons.
The island of Manhattan is chosen to be turned into a walled maximum security prison because the Soviets launched a successful fire bombing and gas attack that wiped out 90% New York City’s population. The few survivors took refuge in the subway tunnels and were driven insane by their exposure to the gas. These survivors were the first of the “crazies” that live in the sewers. And the novel confirms that the crazies are indeed cannibals, as are most the prisoners in New York. With the widespread use of chemical weapons there is massive environmental degradation and people are succumbing to a condition called “gas madness” that adds to the crime problem. Most of the US’s west coast has been completely depopulated because of gas.
Enter Snake Plissken. He was hot out of college when the war started and straight into Special Forces. America had some early success in the war and had invaded Siberia and occupied eastern and northern Europe to use as bases to strike at the Soviets. From a base in Finland, Plissken’s unit launched their fateful mission in Leningrad.
Plissken’s unit was 50 men strong when they attacked Leningrad in their gliders. Their mission was to rescue or kill a high ranking officer who had been captured by the Soviets and was being held in a building in Leningrad. This man had vital intelligence that could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands. As Plissken’s Unit “Black Light” made their attempt, Bob Hauk’s unit “Texas Thunder” was part of an air attack against the city’s industrial district to distract Soviet forces.
During this mission, one the lenses on Plissken’s gas mask had cracked and allowed some gas in damaging his eye. Unable to get the intelligence officer, Plissken and his men set charges and blew the building. But, as it tuned out, it was all a sham. The man the Soviets held was actually an enlisted man pretending to be an officer in order to feed the Soviets false information. But the Soviets were not buying it. So to make it seem more convincing the US high command launched a massive strike on the city. It was just for show and when all was said and done only Plissken and and his buddy Taylor ( who helped him rob the Federal Reserve in a scene deleted from the movie) were the only survivors of their unit. This, along with the USPF killing his parents disillusioned him and he became a master criminal.
Hauk’s performance at Leningrad helped get him his posting as warden or the prison. But he mostly took it because his son had been sentenced there and he hoped he could find him. Whenever they infiltrated the prison he would look for his son. When he sent Plissken on his mission he asked Plissken to bring his son out if he could. In the scene in the film where Plissken blasts the hand off a crazy with his submachine gun he looked down and saw the letters “HAUK” tattooed on the knuckles. The way he was supposed to identify Hauk’s son.
Another thing the book expands on is the contents of the tape recording. I believe that McQuay added this himself. In the DVD and Laserdisc commentary for “Escape From New York”, John Carpenter stated that the tape contained information on a new type of fusion reactor that would provide the world with unlimited energy and act as a peace offering to the Chinese and the Soviets. But, in the book it is instead plans for a fusion bomb that leaves behind less than a fraction of a percent of the radiation a regular nuclear weapon causes and this new bomb was going to be used to bully the Russian and Chinese into a peace that favored America. Personally I like Carpenter’s explanation for what is on that tape. It makes more sense that the President would present unlimited energy as a peace offering than to let the opposing forces know he had a new super weapon before deploying it so they could prepare their defenses or start work on a super bomb of their own.
There are also other little things like Plissken’s interaction with the guards of the prison and more on the backgrounds of some of the other inmates that Plissken meets.
