On a totally unrelated note, Jerry Holkins of Penny Arcade made a little treatise on the nature of humanity yesterday. I hope to be so wise someday. The man does have about 14 years on me, though, so I figure I’ve got some time.
I watched Resident Evil: Extinction on Sunday. It’s the third movie in the Resident Evil movie series. Can you believe that? Three movies. And they’re not done, they’re going for a fourth. Most video game adaptations don’t make it to a sequel. Comic book movies have more luck with this. I don’t know which medium is more popular (the Wii notwithstanding) but it’s not hard to figure out the reason for this: comic books lend themselves to a movie format of storytelling more so than games do. With games you have to figure out what to do with all those big gaps of “gameplay” in between.
The oddest part of the Resident Evil movies’ success is that they’ve taken on a life of their own. This isn’t a comic book movie, where some things might be changed up to fit a movie format, but all the essentials are there. The RE movies star this character named Alice, who, to my knowledge, was never in the games, probably for good reason. Canonical Resident Evil characters are almost little more than cameos compared to her. The movies play out like a high-budget fanfiction, with Alice as an approximate to what is known in fanfiction as a Mary-Sue (see: warrior sue). It works, though, on some basic level (don’t confuse that with “it’s good“), possibly because of Resident Evil’s move toward action horror as a whole. The elements of conspiracy and corporate evil are still there as well. Action horror is a concept I can only buy into so far, so when Alice starts displaying her badassery, I just try to go along and enjoy the ride. A ride is the most you’ll get anyway.
To my fellow gamers,
