The Resident Evil Movie Reboot Is Making A Mistake Adapting Two Games At Once

The Resident Evil Movie Reboot Is Making A Mistake Adapting Two Games At Once

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Director Johannes Roberts’ upcoming Resident Evil movie reboot is finally adapting the games, but cramming two into one script might be a big mistake.

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The Resident Evil Movie Reboot Is Making A Mistake Adapting Two Games At Once

Director Johannes Roberts’ upcoming Resident Evil movie reboot is finally adapting the games, but cramming two into one script might be a big mistake. Debuting in 1996, while the Resident Evil video games didn’t create the survival horror genre, they certainly popularized it. Considering their massive success, it wasn’t a surprise when Hollywood eventually came calling in the early 2000s. The somewhat baffling part was how those behind the past Resident Evil movies chose to mostly avoid directly porting the characters and storylines of the source material onto the big screen.

That’s not to argue that the franchise starring Milla Jovovich and creatively guided by Paul W.S. Anderson doesn’t have merit, and it definitely has lots of fans, but the weirdest part of the prior movies not adapting the games directly is just how cinematic the games already are. For their era, the Resident Evil games were some of the most movie-esque out there, with fixed camera angles designed to highlight specific shots, complex plots full of twists, and lots of world-building.

Even all these years later, the first two Resident Evil games – whether one prefers the original PS1 versions or the more recent remakes – remain arguably the most beloved of the franchise. Both offer lots of material to power a movie adaptation, but the decision to adapt Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 into one script risks not satisfying fans of either.

The Movie Reboot Adapts The First Resident Evil Games

The Resident Evil Movie Reboot Is Making A Mistake Adapting Two Games At Once

Released in 1996, then later remade and expanded a bit in 2002, the first Resident Evil game featured playable characters Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, members of the Raccoon City Police Department’s elite STARS unit. While investigating an incident, Chris, Jill, and their boss Albert Wesker end up taking refuge in Spencer Mansion, which hides underneath itself a giant Umbrella Inc. bio-weapon laboratory. An experimental virus has escaped from the lab, along with a few man-made creatures, and the virus has infected all employees and animals from the area and turned them into monsters. To make a much longer story short, Wesker turns out to be a traitor, Chris and Jill survive, and blow up the mansion before escaping.

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Unfortunately, by a few months later in 1998’s Resident Evil 2, the T-Virus has gotten loose in Raccoon City proper, infecting most people and animals in the area, with other engineered bio-weapons also rooming loose. It’s up to rookie RCPD cop Leon Kennedy – on his literal first day at work – and Claire Redfield – concerned sister of Chris – to figure out how and why this happened, rescue any survivors they might find, and escape the city with their lives. Resident Evil 2 has a large cast of supporting characters, including fan-favorite Ada Wong, and even more plot twists and turns than the original. The sequel also received a remake in 2019 that was mostly faithful plot-wise, but drastically changed aspects of the gameplay. Despite that, it earned raves. Both Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 likely contain enough story and character moments to each comfortably fill their own feature-length movie.

The New Resident Evil Movie Risks Being Overstuffed

The Resident Evil Movie Reboot Is Making A Mistake Adapting Two Games At Once

While epic-length movies are getting more and more common, that’s more for big blockbusters like Marvel or Star Wars. It’s hard to imagine Sony releasing a Resident Evil movie longer than two hours, especially since of all the prior successful live-action RE movies, only one passed the 100-minute mark. Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 are both beloved games, and fans are going to go into Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City with high expectations, especially given it features characters and plots they want to see adapted. While the characters chosen to lead the film make sense – Chris, Jill, Leon, and Claire on the hero side, Wesker as the main villain – there are also notable supporting characters – such as Barry Burton and Rebecca Chambers – that look to be shut out of the new film entirely. That’s not even mentioning the cavalcade of amazing monsters from the first two games that are begging for screentime.

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There’s also a potential timeline issue, one which could be hard to solve without changing things up in a big way. Unless Welcome to Raccoon City’s story is going to take place over a period of months, which could lead to the movie lacking a sense of urgency, the distance between Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2’s stories will have to be heavily compressed. There’s also the fact that, canonically, Resident Evil 3 takes place both shortly before and shortly after the events of Resident Evil 2. That matters because Jill is the main character of 3, and certainly can’t be in two places at once. While a great screenwriter could certainly figure out a way around those problems, it’s a tightrope walk to get there successfully.

The Resident Evil Reboot Will Finally Deliver What Fans Want

The above concerns aside though, things definitely aren’t all doom and gloom for Resident Evil fans. Director Roberts is an avowed fan of the franchise, and even worked directly with game creators Capcom to get the characters and settings in line with what fans want and expect to see on the big screen. While there’s certainly a possibility Welcome to Raccoon City will stumble and fall on its journey to realizing diehard fans’ hopes for a proper adaptation, Roberts definitely seems to be approaching this project with the right mindset and intent, and if nothing else, it’s clear he’s putting lots of passion into the end result.

Even if Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City isn’t the blow-away adaptation many fans have been wishing for since Jovovich and Anderson decided to take the franchise in their own direction, it still might be pretty good, overstuffed plot aside. Yet, if Roberts plans to pull off a miracle and cram two of the greatest horror video games into one great Resident Evil movie while also sticking the landing, he and his cast and crew could earn a place in Resident Evil fans’ hearts for decades to come. They could also start their own franchise, because after all, someone really has to adapt Resident Evil 4 into a movie at some point.

Link Source : https://screenrant.com/resident-evil-movie-reboot-two-games-adaptation-mistake/

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