Netflix's Resident Evil

So, I finished season one just last night, and... it was okay, I felt.

It wasn't great, and I would still love to see a better adaptation of the franchise, but it was perfectly fine. Indeed, I would be happy for there to be a second season, and would be interested in watching it.

I will say that I did like all of the connections and references to the games: mentions of the death of Wesker in a volcano; a glimpse of Lisa, I believe; mention of Birkin; and so on.

Not to mention actually getting a brief scene with the original Wesker, and setting up the potential for the next season to have Ada Wong!

(I was a little surprised at that last—I was somewhat expecting the name given to be Jill Valentine, instead.)

And indeed, I was quite surprised at the degree to which this adaptation was indeed an adaptation of Resident Evil, and not In Name Only. It's just that it's an alternate sequel-series rather than a direct adaptation.

As someone who isn’t familiar with the RE IP but is interested in how fandoms react to derivative works, do you guys think the flak the show got was unnecessary?

I'm not sufficiently aware of the flak to give much comment on it, I fear, but I think that I can see where it might have been coming from.

In short, the explicit connections to the games seem to be things peppered throughout the series, and perhaps things unlikely to end up in trailers. As a result, it would be easy, especially from the trailers, to take it to be an "In Name Only" adaptation, merely plastering a few familiar names onto unrelated elements.

I will confess that I think that I'd prefer that it were more closely tied to the games, but speaking for myself I wasn't particularly unhappy with what I found in it.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jul 31st 2022 at 4:56:35 PM

No. It's a bad show and another bad live adaption of the property. The best thing going for Resi-flix is being So Bad, It's Good if you're really into Narm Charm, but the criticism from long-time fans is perfectly warranted. Sadly, you can also tell they're quite used to being let down by live action resident evils takes at this point.

Edited by VeryMelon on Jul 31st 2022 at 7:08:02 AM

Eh.

On the one hand it is a horrible show if you want an adaption of the source material I will admit that.

On the other hand I do think the drive-by criticisms of "wow this show is so unlike Resident Evil it doesn't capture the pathos and seriousness" really misses the reality of how goofy/campy Resident Evil is as a franchise.

(I mean its a franchise where a police officer betrays 2 different orgnanizations to become a superhuman bio weapon who catches RPG's and throws sunglasses at people.)

The aggressive, hyperbolic nature of the flak people give it is what I feel is unwarranted, not the flak itself. Given the history of poor Resident Evil adaptions its understandable why this adaption would incite some level of outrage.

Edited by FOFD on Aug 1st 2022 at 9:18:15 AM

It is an original story that isn't really connected to any of the video game plots, and with almost entirely original characters. So it doesn't really earn the title of "Resident Evil TV Series." Overall I thought it was a flawed but entertaining season, though based off the ending they were heavily leaning into it getting renewed given the amount of hooks got thrown in during the last episode.

Bad idea than.

Netflix after all....

Cowboy Bebop did that and uh you know the rest.

From all possible video game franchises, why is Sonic the Hedgehog the only adaptation mostly praised by fans of the original? Is it that hard to make adaptations from video games? We've been doing that with books for centuries.

I mean it's UMBRELLA CORPORATION: THE SERIES.

So I think it's close enough.

And WELCOME TO RACOON CITY was ridiculously full of the stuff from the games and fans hated it.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 1st 2022 at 1:00:05 AM

Don't you dare to forget the original Mortal Kombat film.

Their was also the Detective Pikachu film which was fun.

It's "Pointlessly Evil Corporation: The Series" The names are really the only thing connecting it to RE, you could swap out the names and you're like 95% of the way to having a completely independent series.

It is sad that the bar for video game movies is from 1995.

Uh it probably helps that Mortal Kombat itself was inspired by Enter the Dragon and /Big Trouble in Little China. So they could just mine from those films for their main film.

Mortal Kombat is probably the only example of a live action video game adaptation where an actor went on to reprise his role in the actual games and it just being the hypest shit.

Not to mention it creating a contender for most iconic theme song of a game IP ever.

Edited by uncertanSearcher on Aug 1st 2022 at 11:01:05 AM

It probably helps that Cary to a lot of people IS Shang Tsung.

While video game movies still have a long way to go, it seems good video game tv shows are becoming much more common.

Though it's looking like this show may not be part of that trend.

The Sonic franchise is actually three for three when it comes to well received adaptations. There's the movies by Paramount, the Sonic Satam cartoon and the Archie comics. Admittedly the latter's legacy is a bit more complicated but it did have some very good highs.

Are we talking about film adaptations, or just adaptations in general? Because the latter becomes way bigger, and there are some glaring exclusions from modern media like Arcane and Castlevania. Both series are interesting cases where they play fast and loose with established canon, but the execution seems to resonate with long-time and new fans.

So far, the best reviewed Video Game movie isn't even a well-known property: Werewolves Within.

I'm not sure that works with the corporation being pointlessly evil by manufacturing zombies.

That is a...very Resident evil thing.

It's kind of like doing a GI Joe series where the people in the town are Cobra. Its lacking something important but Cobra is pretty distinct.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 1st 2022 at 3:41:25 AM

Evil corporation that either directly produces some kind of monster, or makes a product that turns people into monsters is a pretty common thing in media. It's not just a Resident Evil thing.

My suspicion is that the powers that be... just generally don't care. It's mainly about name recognition.

Sure, you could just make an original series or movie about zombies etc - but if you get to call it Resident Evil, you can draw in some more people purely because of the name.

To my mind, that's a little overly reductive. The specific use of zombies, the presence of Resident Evil elements like Wesker, and the inclusion of predatory animals made giant (akin to Yawn, the spiders, and the alligator from the games) all make it quite connected to the franchise, I would say.

And that's before we get to the more-tenuous elements, like the past-plot Big Bad being a descendant of a character from the games, or various rather-specific callbacks to the games (such as a glimpse of Lisa Trevor and reference to the original Wesker dying in a volcano).

So I'm inclined to disagree: I would say that there's enough connecting it to Resident Evil that I wouldn't call it In Name Only.

Or put it this way: If they had just changed the names and put it out as its own IP, I suspect that I would have noted its resemblance to Resident Evil.

That's why I said changing the names would be 95% of the way to an independent series, there are a few things that tie it to the franchise, but they are generally brief and unimportant to the plot.

Edit: To me the show seems to straddle some weird line between being an official Resident Evil series and being a knockoff series at the same time. If that makes sense.

Edited by Hawkeye86 on Aug 2nd 2022 at 9:45:06 AM

I see what you're saying, but I'd put it at well below 95%, I think.

I also think that this may be a "agree to disagree" matter, however!

As I said, I think that if this had been an independent IP, I may well have noted its resemblance to Resident Evil; seen it as somewhat of a spiritual adaptation. To my mind, that impression indicates that—for me, at least—it's not In Name Only.

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Aug 2nd 2022 at 5:16:14 PM

Yea, 95% is a bit of an exaggeration on my part. To me the specific Resident Evil aspects are mostly perfunctory or unimportant to the overall plot is why I said its "In name only". But yes, agree to disagree lol.

I will say that the actresses that played older and younger Jade really sold that they were the same person at two different points in life. The two Billie actresses didn't as much.

I do agree with you on the actresses! ^_^

Jade really did feel like the same person in the past and present threads—and Billie not as much.

But then, it is explicitly part of the plot that Billie changed a lot during the intervening time, something that she in part ascribes to the effect of the T-Virus. So perhaps it's not entirely inappropriate that she seemed so different in character.

Conversely, she also looked somewhat different, to my eye. Jade looked pretty much the same, just younger and older. Billie actually looked to have a different face-shape.