How the RE films get made...

[cyndercute]

Personally, I'm disturbed that he likes watching "kids" do stuff for hours on end.

......now thinking about it.....OMFG....

[Wrathborne]

Personally, I'm disturbed that he likes watching "kids" do stuff for hours on end.

Dammit...you just won the internet.

[Humor Tumor]

Dammit...you just won the internet.

I second this motion

[Rombie]

I was about to say what Scream did already (and we/I may have mentioned this back in one of the movie based podcasts). Romero had it taped for him as well.

Anderson claims on some of the extras and in interviews he has played _some_ of the games in the past (I'm certain there are quotes on the net in interviews with him talking about playing Code Veronica for example) but the guy is a busy man; writing, producing, exec producing, directing, and co-running his own production company.

I know I give the quality of his movies a lot of shit sometime, but I quite easily understand that he just would not have the time to devote to playing the games in full and would watch a condensed gameplay someone brings him with cutscenes and gameplay highlights. I mean that in itself should be clear from the RE5 additions in the last film.

The interesting thing is.... I really think this issue is part of the key as to why Video Game Movies just don't seem to work as well as adapting other source material. When you take a book you read it and you shift it into a screen formula, it's a fairly narrow path there with not as much room for change or adaption shifts (well most of the time anyway). The reason is their all narative in some form moving forwards.

Games on the other hand have a lot more lateral movement, because you go Point A to Point B to Point C with gameplay in between most of the time. It gives more ideas for people just to take the key highlights and build new events around it. To this day, and someone correct me if I'm wrong here, but I may still think that perhaps Anderson's Mortal Kombat is probably the only VG movie to have plots and character arcs that could have closest been the story in a game, everything else since takes characters and events and put them into a story created to put those in place because when people have looked at it they want to create something in the universe but not directly an adaption.

Take the Uncharted game/film for example. You could literally film the story in the first (or second) game as a movie if you wanted because the whole thing is a solid arc. But then you could take the characters and put them into a different story. Or you could take some elements and leave others. Or you could do what it seems is happening and just use the brand more or less and make something entirely new.

When it comes to turning a book into a movie, the first two are usually the higher choices on the list. But for videogames, usually the latter ones. When people start making a swing to the first two a bit more, maybe VG movies might start rating better in the public and reviews eyes more often.

But that's just my opinion.

[Vogue_Dirge]

Being a horrible way to do things aside, it is clearly bullshit.

*Resists urge to point out infinite plotholes*


I could maybe deal with the movies being in their own continuity if it wasn't for them just making no sense by their own standards.

Except that the video game series as its own fair share of plot holes. And the movies are in their own universe separate from the games.

The movies are a lot of fun. I love them. Good action, lots of gore and violence, and Milla always looks gorgeous, -and- some things are just unintentionally hilarious. I don't need much else.

[Dracarys]

Except that the video game series as its own fair share of plot holes. And the movies are in their own universe separate from the games.

The movies are a lot of fun. I love them. Good action, lots of gore and violence, and Milla always looks gorgeous, -and- some things are just unintentionally hilarious. I don't need much else.

To put into perspective, if the games plotholes and inconsistancies were a car crash, the movies are the universe ending.

[Darkmoon]

It also bears remembering, bar some fuck ups with the dates that are just dumb, most of the plot holes in the games come from mistranslations over to English and Capcom being too lazy to include little details like the story in the actual games...which I admit is bloody stupid, but the plot is there if you can be bothered to go buy a dozen additional books and translate them from Japanese...so Capcom, not so awesome either. Still, the plot isn't that bad in the end.

The plotholes in the movies just come from crappy writing and research...if the virus made super fast amphibious zombie cows eat all plant life then what's producing oxygen, Anderson? Is Alice so awesome that to keep the world alive O2 comes whistling out her arse!? And then you have the smaller ones, like why can a non powered Alice still perform super human feats? How did Umbrella manage to convince thousands of people you see leaving Raccoon City not to mention anything to the press so they could, for no reason whatsoever since the world ended, pretend there were no zombies? How did they build a huge metal wall around Raccoon City with thicker than Battleship armour playing in less than three days?

I swear, I might not have the same hatred for Anderson personally that some folks have, but I would slap him around the chops over and over again with a Basic Writing 101 book if I had the chance.

[Alexia_Ashford]

My biggest issue with the movie's story is how fucking dumb Umbrella is. I've never been able to get over the fact that they make an AI that they know is overseeing a virus which could destroy the world. They isolate this AI so they have no way of knowing what it is doing or why, otherwise they wouldn't have had to send them in to find out "what the hell went on". It does not cross their mind once that she killed everything which could possibly carry the virus outside of the Hive, they just want to "fry the homocidal bitch" which they knew would unleash the bio-weapons they've created. They do not think for one second that there might have been an outbreak.

And, after the team dies and Alice and Max escape, Max exposed to the T-Virus so they KNEW there was an outbreak, they open the Hive up again and let all the zombies out.

But this was before I learned to not think too much about the story and enjoy the action and lols.

[CrimsonElder]

Cant believe the people sticking up for him. Shocking!! He claims to be a huge fan and has said he has played ALL the games, He is a goddamn liar. I find it hard to understand how he can take hours to watch someone play the game but he cant find a few hours to play them himself. He is a lazy asshole who cant be bothered to research a game he is writing a movie about. No excuses most RE games take about 5 hours to complete tops. Im sorry but you cant find 5 hours to play through a game your supposed to be writing a script about? Then dont write it let someone who knows what they are doing write it.

As far as Romero goes yeah he never played the games but he also never claimed "I played all the games, Im such a huge fan! Pick me!" Fuck I hated Anderson before because he was a bad writer, now he is a slimey lying piece of shit on top of all that.

[Scream]

Paul Anderson is god dude, more so than Teddy Sheringham or Klinsman. You know why? He made Event Horizon, perhaps one of the greatest sci-fi horror movies ever made. Now he can do whatever the fuck he wants for all I care

[Darkmoon]

And if the RE movies were a fraction as good as Event Horizon, they'd be awesome. But Sam Neill and Lawrence Fishburne can only save him for so long...

If anything, Event Horizon shows he needs to stick to being a director. Someone needs to take the writing pen away from him and give it someone with actual talent for writing.

[Scream]

Event Horizon was definitely his early peak unfortunately. Though EH is similar at times to other movies like "the black hole", I believe it to be quite an original work of the writer and Anderson.

It's also very much a UK movie of course (other than the actors), I know quite a few designers who worked on this and I have the blueprints to the Event Horizon itself.. It's a movie that deserves a sequel, but only an epic sequel could do it justice.. I posted a lot of good theories on imdb, but I think they're long gone now..

[Wrathborne]

I always just saw Event Horizon as 'Hellraiser' in space for the most part.
It had some other elements to it which were cool and all, but I never saw it as being as epic as everyone else who saw it.

[Pikminister]

I always just saw Event Horizon as 'Hellraiser' in space for the most part.
It had some other elements to it which were cool and all, but I never saw it as being as epic as everyone else who saw it.

I agree. It was decent, but not epic in any sense of the word. Not even memorable... or something to inspire other films.

In fact, the first time that I saw EH I was actually reminded of other films that came before it... and that did IT BETTER.

However it was a good start for Anderson. But he went downhill from there...

[CrimsonElder]

Paul Anderson is god dude, more so than Teddy Sheringham or Klinsman. You know why? He made Event Horizon, perhaps one of the greatest sci-fi horror movies ever made. Now he can do whatever the fuck he wants for all I care

Ha yeah Im sure P Anderson is more of a legend than Sheringham and Klinsman. Why you bringing football into it? Are you an Arsenal fan? As far as Event Horizon being the best Sci-Fi Horror goes, I take it you have never seen Aliens or The Thing? How about Predator or Terminator? Lol Event Horizon yeah good choice.