Oh shit, upcoming Resident Evil movie actually looks good.

[Squall Leonhart]

I don't recall seeing a topic regarding this, so I thought I might as well.

Trailer (http://mx.youtube.com/watch?v=vBCIN5ld8BQ)
Wiki (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resident_Evil:_Degeneration)

Unlike the previous Resident Evil film trilogy, Degeneration is set within the same universe as the original video games. The teaser included with the Resident Evil: Extinction DVD and Blu-ray Disc confirmed the appearance of Leon S. Kennedy and Claire Redfield.

What else do we know?


It's set 7 years after Racoon City crisis, or, 1 year after Resident Evil 4.
To be released December 30 on DVD and likely Blu-ray Worldwide.
The DVD will include special features including character profiles, bloopers, English and French subtitles, trailers for the film, featurettes and a sneak preview of Resident Evil 5.


CAST

Paul Mercier - Leon S. Kennedy (returns from Resident Evil 4)
Alyson Court - Claire Redfield (returns from Resident Evil 2 and Code VERONICA)

Laura Bailey - Angela Miller
Steven Blum - Greg Glenn
Roger Craig Smith - Curtis Miller
Michelle Ruff - Rani Chawla
Crispin Freeman - Frederic Downing
Michael Sorich - Senator Ron Davis



So, what do you guys think?

[Donomni]

A few of the lip flaps seem off, but considering it's in the fucking game verse and doesn't star someone's girlfriend, I think we're in the good.

In other words, this'll probably kick ass.

[Mirai Gen]

No Milia Jovovich?

Because then I can get behind it. Because seriously, Resident Evil was just another movie in the long franchise of Jovovich Fighting Against Colored Backgrounds genre of film, it just happened to have the tagline of a video game featuring zombies too.

[Invisible Queen]

I love the Milla Jovovich Tearing Shit Up movies. I find it hilarious how many people I've talked to who used the exact words "The Resident Evil movies are bad movies because they're not like the games." Screw you, I don't like the games.

But I'm happy for those of you who like the games. Maybe you'll like a movie when it's more like the games. Maybe you'll like it even though it's crap as long as it's like the games and that's great for you. Or maybe you won't like it even though it's like the games and that's great for me. Either way someone wins. :)

[Hawk]

IQ, I think you're missing the point where the idea of basing a film on a popular videogame series actually requires, basing the film on the videogame series. The Resi films have the flimsiest of connections at best and deviate wildly from the series they're supposed to be based around, to the point where you could rename the series "Attack of The Zombie Hordes in Nevada" and make a whole new franchise from it, because it's not Resi.

It would be like taking Agent 47 and making him a holy crusader working for the vatican and falling in love with a women and blowing shit up a big dumb action movie... oh wait, that did happen. If you're going to turn a game into a movie, you should at least try to stick to the plot of the games, and as I recall, never in resi did the entire world become overrun by the T-virus and Las Vegas got swallowed by the desert and there was some superhuman mutant chick trying to save the world.

/rant.

As for this movie, well at least it's in the right universe for a start and it looks like it's canon, so as long as it doesn't suck I'm ok with it. I just hope Capcom don't return to making millions of offshoots and vaguely "might-be-might-not-be-canon" games and movies like they did after resi 3. The last thing we need is another Gun Survivor-esque period. *Shudder*

[Lumenskir]

Wait a second, you mean I get all the cutscenes without having to slog through all of that boring interactive stuff? Uhm, score!

[Invisible Queen]

The Resi films have the flimsiest of connections at best and deviate wildly from the series they're supposed to be based around, to the point where you could rename the series "Attack of The Zombie Hordes in Nevada" and make a whole new franchise from it, because it's not Resi. That's completely true, and irrelevant where the movies' quality are concerned. I'll even go so far as to call it utterly irrelevant to anyone who's not interested in the games. (Me.)

[Squall Leonhart]

I love the Milla Jovovich Tearing Shit Up movies. I find it hilarious how many people I've talked to who used the exact words "The Resident Evil movies are bad movies because they're not like the games." Screw you, I don't like the games.

But I'm happy for those of you who like the games. Maybe you'll like a movie when it's more like the games. Maybe you'll like it even though it's crap as long as it's like the games and that's great for you. Or maybe you won't like it even though it's like the games and that's great for me. Either way someone wins. :)

IQ, I think you're missing the point where the idea of basing a film on a popular videogame series actually requires, basing the film on the videogame series. The Resi films have the flimsiest of connections at best and deviate wildly from the series they're supposed to be based around, to the point where you could rename the series "Attack of The Zombie Hordes in Nevada" and make a whole new franchise from it, because it's not Resi.

It would be like taking Agent 47 and making him a holy crusader working for the vatican and falling in love with a women and blowing shit up a big dumb action movie... oh wait, that did happen. If you're going to turn a game into a movie, you should at least try to stick to the plot of the games, and as I recall, never in resi did the entire world become overrun by the T-virus and Las Vegas got swallowed by the desert and there was some superhuman mutant chick trying to save the world.

/rant.[...]

That's completely true, and irrelevant as far as the movies' quality goes. I'll even go so far as to call it utterly irrelevant to anyone who's not interested in the games. (Me.)
http://i11.photobucket.com/albums/a176/HBSquall/final_fantasy_the_spirits_within_ve.jpg

I'm confident we remember how this went, do we?

You see, I liked TSW, but the brand name had nothing to do with it. It was an enjoyable movie on it's own right that actually bombed because it was marketed as a Final Fantasy movie. The Resident Evil movies had a bit of a charm to them, but was not to the same tone of the game, overall, making the core demographic dislike them.

The point is, you don't go tell people you're going to show them a super Mario Bros. movie and show them a sureal movie about two plumbers from Manhattan. You don't promote a Final Fantasy movie and not have at least the main character have a sword. You don't say you're releasing a Resident Evil movie and show them a violence-actionpack-fest movie instead, when clearly, the game bare to none of that.

Now, if these movies (clearly, Mario Bros is excluded), were to be renamed, we might actually appreciate them as what they are and not constantly compare every frame with something that happened in the game or makes allusion to it in the least.

So... if you're gonna do a movie based on a game, do what Silent Hill did.

[TheWolf13]

I thought the first RE movie did pretty well at sticking to the video game series. The second movie was a lot more action-y but did okay until the very end. I mean do we really want a movie where the character hunts around for various cogs, pulleys, and cranks to open every door.

[Hawk]

I don't mean it needs to follow the same kind of gameplay mechanics, I mean it should star the 4 main characters, have Wesker as the villain and not have have superpowered Milla Jovovich engaging in hand to hand combat with the frikkin Nemesis. It should also have the Nemesis. And Hunters that don't turn into Lickers.

And no damn apocalypse!!

[Regulus Tera]

Okay, I admit it. It looks good, Leon.

The CGI could use some work. It's the one thing I have never seen Capcom master.

[NonCon]

If I were to follow the way they do Resi movies, and make a Mario movie based on it, here is how it would go. There would be goombas, but they would be robot/toy things. Like Firby! It would be about a group of high school italian gwangstas who set off to save one's girlfriend from the clutches of some powerful evil corporation. Bowser would only show up in the third movie and his role would be drastically changed so that he was some emo-looking bitchface with a flamethrower. The end.

It would sell like coldcakes, which sell even better than hotcakes. I would also be strung up by the fans and gutted in a profound display of killer instict and primal fury.

[Invisible Queen]

Okay, I admit things would be better if no one tried making adaptations of anything. We need more original ideas anyway.

But I have to disagree about Final Fantasy TSW. It followed what I think is the defining characteristics of FF games rather well, the epic-scaled struggle between good and evil, beautiful imagery and such. I was nearly embarrassed by how cheaply they ripped off FF7's "life force recycling through the planet" theme. I don't think the point of the games is that the main character has a sword.

And I don't think the movie failed because people didn't recognize it, but partly because it had a rather silly plot and mostly because the graphics went right down to the bottom of uncanny valley and dug a hole.

But anyway, I maintain that being badly adapted doesn't automatically make a thing bad in itself and the legions who've said so are all poopy heads.

[Bells]

Okay, I admit things would be better if no one tried making adaptations of anything. We need more original ideas anyway.

But I have to disagree about Final Fantasy TSW. It followed what I think is the defining characteristics of FF games rather well, the epic-scaled struggle between good and evil, beautiful imagery and such. I was nearly embarrassed by how cheaply they ripped off FF7's "life force recycling through the planet" theme. I don't think the point of the games is that the main character has a sword.

And I don't think the movie failed because people didn't recognize it, but partly because it had a rather silly plot and mostly because the graphics went right down to the bottom of uncanny valley and dug a hole.

But anyway, I maintain that being badly adapted doesn't automatically make a thing bad in itself and the legions who've said so are all poopy heads.

It failed because it was a Tech demo with a Plot. It was an 100 million dollars experiment that square did to see if their name could bring people to the theaters. Then, they did FF7 movie to see if their brands could bring people to the Theaters... and also to get better tools and experience for their Games and FMV ( Like FF13 being "Like a controllable Advent Children" )

Now, eventually, they will be able to bring other movies to Bluray, Direct-to-drive and even the silver screen, at a lower cost and better sales... because it sure as hell, if they made a "Dissidia" movie, a "Kingdon Hearts movie" or a "Vagrant" movie or even a "Last Remmant" movie... people would come!

The whole deal with the Resident evil movies is that people were expecting Resident evil. They got Zombie flick. People were expecting to go to the movies and get Resident Evil 4 on the screen, but they got "Dawn of the Dead" instead... the bad point is that it took the plotpoints for the game and crapped on then, if they had just followed the plot from Resident Evil 2 from Ada's point of view for instance it would be better.

Now... this? This is they trying to do what the movie studio couldnt do. THis is them making a resident evil movie, so it has to be CGI... not their best strenght, but it can work.

[Regulus Tera]

Watched the movie. Didn't suck. It was pretty entertaining in fact, though I have to say I didn't get a lot of the references due to myself not being a Resi fan. It captured the feeling of the games alright.

Low Point: lol the British guy is the villain how original!!
High Point: Angela's got a nice rack om nom nom.

[CelesJessa]

I watched it with my roommate the other night and I thought it was really good. I haven't played many resident evil games, but I thought the movie definately had a game feel to it (maybe it was the CG).

Regardless, I enjoyed it (I also enjoyed the first two of the live-action Resident Evil games too though, never saw the third).

[Demetrius]

Has the CG improved from that trailer?

[Squall Leonhart]

I watched it with my roommate the other night and I thought it was really good. I haven't played many resident evil games, but I thought the movie definately had a game feel to it (maybe it was the CG).[...]I just watched this yesterday with a few friends. Most of the time, I felt I was going to "regain" control of the characters and start playing in parts where they explain with a map or something.

It was a pretty good movie actually that (oh shit!), didn't suck!

[CelesJessa]

Has the CG improved from that trailer?

It looks pretty much the same as the movie did.


For anyone who is a stickler for those kind of things, Leon's voice actor from the movie is the same as Leon's voice from the game. I don't know if anyone cares, but I just thought I'd mention it.

[phil_]

Mike's watching it right now as I sorta try to go to sleep. It's a fun movie if you're familiar with the RE mythos.

[Magus]

I personally don't care for the RE games plot (not standing up for the movies as the plot was possibly even worse), so I was kind of wondering if this is superior to your average RE plot, even like RE4. Because RE4 had kind of like plot holes and not great voice acting and all of that. Which being a game were made up for by the awesome gameplay, but in a movie you don't have that.

So is this a good movie based on just the elements of a good movie? I'm sure it's a good adaptation, but does the plot stand up to at least surface examination?

As far as videogame movies have gone so far, I think FF7 was a better "adaptation" than FF: TSW, but it was a pretty weak movie as far as the plot went. The action scenes were stellar, but that's pretty much it, and could have been done with even less connection to FF7 in any case (I guess if you want gunblades AND motorcycles FF7 was the best FF universe to call upon, though). TSW on the other hand was a fairly decent movie but had only the lifestream connection with any Final Fantasy game.

[phil_]

Well, it isn't, like, a psychological thriller or anything. It's Resident Evil: overcomplicated machinations of faceless corporations and megalomaniacs who want to be God causing zombie outbreaks and general chaos. So, I guess it's a terrible movie if you want to have your life changed or bawl your eyes out.

But if you want to watch Leon be super bad ass, then go for it. There aren't any plot holes or characters who should be smart doing stupid things, and it doesn't pretend to be super deep or anything, so it's really good for "mindless" entertainment.

[EVILNess]

I just watched it and it was pretty good. Someone hit the nail on the head earlier in the thread... its a RE game's cutscenes without all the go here, fetch this, turn that crank, shoot that zombie stuff. BEST PART OF THE MOVIE: Claire defending herself from the zombie horde with a red and white umbrella.

The animation was good, but the human movements seemed kind of jerky and not really fluid sometimes.

Hell, if they made a game from its plot I would play that in a heartbeat.