Tag: resident evil

Netflix’s Resident Evil was terrible and I don’t know why I watched all of it

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

  1. Something that was surprisingly difficult to do for this post was finding a good image to use with it. Despite the fact that the show is about how the world is mostly overrun by zombies, they sure didn’t show a whole lot of zombies, and they ones that they did show really weren’t particularly impressive and for a Netflix production they sure weren’t much better than a low-budget HK zombie film.  The main cast were so often away from zombies or any of the traditional Resident Evil baddies, that a single solitary Cerberus dog image, wins by default.
  2. A long time ago, when I was in Las Vegas in my brother, we for some reason went to the ESPN Zone in New York, New York for dinner, instead of the numerous alternate places to go eat, like Ellis Island. I think there was a WWE pay-per-view on that night, and we thought that they would be showing it, which is what caused us to go in the first place.  There was no PPV and worse off we phoned it in and stayed for dinner, and it was so mediocrely unimpressive, it’s basically become a go-to analogy for us to describe anything at all that is as unimpressive, even to this day.

Speaking of my brother, it was while I was down in Texas visiting him, that we watched the first episode of Netflix’s Resident Evil rendition.  I remember when it was first announced, there was a lot of hullaballoo about how the show had the audacity to cast a black guy as Albert Wesker, and I theorized on whether who cared more about it between black people and white guilters.

But in spite of the general clunkers the Resident Evil franchise has had as far as live-action adaptations, Netflix still has a good track record of putting out hits, and I tend to favor television format over film, so that stories can breathe and have better pace, so I was optimistic that RE:Netflix couldn’t really be that bad.

Welp, I was fucking wrong.  I will admit that freely.  It was without question one of the worst things I’ve watched in recent memory, and I have nothing but regret in how much time I sunk into watching it, when I could’ve watched absolutely anything else in the seemingly endless queue of shit that I want to watch.  Mythical wife and my au pair, as well as everyone else I’ve ever brought up the series with all asked why the fuck I was continuing to watch it despite my complaining of how bad it was, and it really boils down to the fact that I’m a fan of the franchise and I was always holding on to hope that things would get better as the season progressed.

But it just didn’t.  It never even got any better as it went on.  It wasn’t like The Witcher S1, which started off slow as fuck but then started getting really interesting up until the end of the season.  It wasn’t like Moon Knight, which I thought also sucked, but did have a few moments here and there where I realized that I sort of cared of what was going on.  It just fucking sucked from start to finish.

None of the characters are really likeable.  Kid Jade and Billie are naïve obnoxious teens versus the world, and their adult counterparts aren’t much better.  As much as I was willing to give black Wesker a chance, since I didn’t think Lance Reddick was a bad actor, he clearly played down to his competition, and up until one of the plot twists, he was rigid, robotic and as putrid as the rest of the show.

Jade Wesker is about the stupidest character in television since like, Andrea from The Walking Dead in the sense that she just can’t stop fucking shit up, no matter how good intentioned she might be, there’s always some very critical and tragic collateral damage in the process.  There’s literally an episode where I’m resorting to yelling at the television to get the fuck out of here with this bullshit, because she’s written so recklessly stupid, that it’s just my natural instinct as a viewer with a brain to be that flabbergasted that someone be portrayed to being that goddamn stupid.

Aside from being about Albert Wesker and his kids, the show makes a few other references to core Resident Evil IP by having lickers, showed a Tyrant, a character named Barry, mentions of the Arklay mountains, and name dropping an actual RE character late in the season, but none of it really helps, nor does it really make you feel like you’re in the world of Resident Evil.  In fact, Netflix could really do Capcom a huge favor replace the names Wesker and Umbrella which are the two main things that anchor it to the RE franchise, and just call this show by a new name and chalk it up as a clunker, because the franchise already has a bad enough history of nobody seemingly being capable of turning such a successful video game franchise into a palatable live action series.

The funniest part of this series is that they clearly were banking on there being a second season, based on all the loose ends, unanswered questions, and plot ropes they set up at the end of the season.  They didn’t even really answer the question of how the world got to where it was in the present, although it doesn’t take a genius to make an easy assumption.  And the news of the show’s cancellation was something that I already knew going into it, which added to the amusement of how the show presented itself as something that was assuming was going to go beyond a first season.

All the same though, Netflix’s Resident Evil was basically like the ESPN Zone of television watching for me.  Completely mediocre and regrettable to have invested my precious time into, and I wish I had spent that time on so many other possible options instead.  It makes me sad that one of my favorite video game franchises just can’t ever get it right with a live-action adaptation, and at this point, I just want Hollywood to just stop trying, because they’re not doing the franchise any favors.

  1. One of the episodes I watched was on Plex, so I could watch it on a device that didn’t have Netflix. The version of the episode had audio narration for the visual impaired, and I couldn’t turn it off; but the funny thing?  It actually helped the viewing experience, because it filled in the gaps of character names that the show doesn’t really put much effort into trying to educate viewers on, and it really helped pinpoint the endless back-and-forth time skips between the past and the present.
  2. Netflix’s 1899 wasn’t a bad show. It was pretty intriguing up until the weird Matrix-like ending.  Resident Evil, however stunk from start to finish.  What do both have in common?  They’re both cancelled!

Who cares more: black people or white guilters?

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I heard that Netflix’s upcoming rendition of Resident Evil cast a black guy to play the role of historically white Albert Wesker, my knee-jerk reaction was that of eyes rolling.  I have nothing against Lance Reddick, and think he’s an otherwise fantastic actor, but this reminds me of when Michael Clarke Duncan was cast as the Kingpin in that one shitty Daredevil film with Ben Affleck.  It doesn’t matter how physically convincing or how good of actors guys like Reddick and Duncan should portray these characters, but there are just some intellectual properties that come with some visual expectations based on the historical lineage of said IPs.

But whereas Daredevil stunk, Netflix inherently has the ability to make palatable chicken salad of out of chicken shit, so perhaps they’ll be able to take a black Wesker and make everyone watching forget about the color of his skin in their rendition of Resident Evil.  Lance Reddick has played a ton of dirty cops in his career, and he’s otherwise a very good match in age, physical stature and behavioral charisma that I’d expect someone to portray as Albert Wesker, so I’m hopeful he’ll do well being the baddest bad in the series.

Afterward, I began to think about how the black community would digest this casting, of a black man being given the role of said baddest bad, and wondering if there were those that took objection to a black man being a villain, to a society where way too large segments of it are far too easily convinced that fiction is reality, and that it’s doing the community no favors.

I posed this hypothetical to one of those friends of mine that we sounding board our random thoughts off of each other, but getting this train of thought out of the station, I came to realize that no matter what negative opinions the black community could have about the casting of a black Wesker, they’ll probably pale (no pun intended) in comparison to the raging objection of a black Wesker, from the white-guilt white community.

Frankly when the day is over, black people are probably just relieved to see a black actor getting a shake at a popular franchise like Resident Evil, and as long as they’re not a token black guy that gets killed and devoured in the first 15 minutes, they probably won’t care if they’re a protagonist or antagonist, and most anyone who’s ever played a Resident Evil game knows that few are as sheerly unkillable than Albert Wesker.

But white guilters, my god, they must be up in arms at the perceived insult to the black community that a black man is being cast as the main villain of a series.  There’s probably at least 23 SurveyMonkeys out their collating data of racism and unfair prejudice towards the black community, from like-minded white people.  And if Wesker is inevitably going to be played by a black guy, that absolutely means that no white people can portray the protagonists of the series, and dare stand up to further oppress blacks like their forefathers once did.

If they do choose to implement characters like Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, they most certainly have to be portrayed by Henry Golding and Eiza Gonzalez.  Rebecca Chambers can be played by Zazie Beetz, and I would be over the fucking moon if Barry Burton were played by Erik King AKA Doakes.  That way, Wesker would only be opposed by other minorities, and it wouldn’t create the intolerable conflict of white heroes versus a black villain.

The bottom line is that the answer to the original question is that without any doubt, white people are going to have a way bigger cow over the casting of a black Wesker than any black people.  But wait until they realize that all currently cast roles also feature no white people at all; this might just set out to be the most successful series on Netflix in history, to white folks.

Not sure how to feel about RE:Netflix

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Back in 2002, I really, really enjoyed the first Resident Evil film, starring Milla Jovovich.  What I really liked about it was that it was almost an entirely independent story that took place inside the RE world, with unique characters, and only featured tertiary concepts and adversaries from the game itself.

And then with each successive sequel, the franchise began shoe-horning more and more actual RE characters into a storyline that wasn’t really intended to have them be a part of in the first place, and the series as a whole began to get really ridiculous, disjointed and have Swiss cheese sized plot holes, not to mention the casting of all the actual characters seemed so very inappropriately bad in most cases. 

Needless to say, my enthusiasm for the series dwindled with every sequel, and by the time The Final Chapter came about, I didn’t even see it in a theater, and watched a pirated copy of it on the internet for free, and still wanted my money back afterwards.  It was the movie-watching epitome of a mercy kill, and the only real good thing about it was the fact that I could have closure to the movie franchise, and wouldn’t have to watch this any later in the future.

That being said, when I found out about how Netflix wants to release a live-action Resident Evil series, my blood kind of goes cold, and I’m left with this crippling feeling of not knowing how to feel.

In one hand, I’m still scarred from just how poorly the movie franchise (de-)escalated into this abominable avalanche of bullshit, and I never want anyone in existence to ever try to act out the story of one of my favorite video game franchises in history.

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Content choice paralysis

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I highly doubt it, but I wonder if I’m the only person who goes through this: I sit down to watch some streaming television, and after I open Netflix/Plex/Hulu/WWE Network, I find myself browsing and searching through these gargantuan catalogues of content, and before I know it, 45 minutes have passed, and the time I earmarked to watch some television is mostly gone.  A 60+ minute episode/movie doesn’t really fit into the schedule, and nothing I want to watch is one of those 22 minute shorts.  Ultimately, I end up watching nothing, but have added ten new things to the watchlist that I’ll inevitably ignore in the future and repeat the process all over again.

To say that there’s a wealth of content out there is an understatement.  The catalogues of crap out there are never ending, and the fact that it’s all over the internet reinforces the notion that it can be cycled in and out of circulation at the drop of a hat at any given time of the day, week, month or year.

This is why shows have such short lifespans, because the pressure to immediately succeed is so high, and failing to get an 11 out of 10 often times means cancellation, or falling by the wayside by the next avalanche of programming that’s waiting in the wings at all time. 

Frankly, it’s mind-boggling just how much stuff is out there, and I’m having a really hard time of keeping track of what’s decent, what’s not worth investing time into, and I’m finding that my standards are kind of molding into modern standards, because I’m not giving shows enough time to mature and develop, because they themselves aren’t giving themselves enough time to do such, and begin to suck, and I’m already thinking of what I could be/could have been watching instead.

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The zombie apocalypse starts in Vietnam

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

This is how it starts: skin care center in Vietnam conveniently happens to be using the exact same logo as the Umbrella Corporation, the “fictional” company from the Resident Evil franchise responsible for “accidentally” creating the T-Virus which started the global zombie apocalypse

In other words, UMBRELLA IS REAL AND IS IN VIETNAM.  Start stocking up on ammunition, first aid spray and green and red herbs.  Engineer some convoluted locks and puzzles based on chess pieces, piano sonatas, and shattered crests of mythical creatures.  And start writing out your thoughts in diaries and start scattering pages around your homes, with discreet clues on how to solve your puzzles and unlock your locks so that Jill, Chris, Rebecca and Leon can find your shit after we all die and then reanimate.

This is pretty close to how the plot started in the movie franchise, with Umbrella’s public guise being one that started off with cosmetics and health wellness while privately dabbling in the world of viral pathogens and some sinister science to ultimately be weaponized and sold for ridiculous profits.  It’s a little too close to home that a clinic in Vietnam is all about the skin care, but happens to be using the verbatim exact same logo as the Umbrella Corporation.

I guess the Capcom conspiracy theorists who wrote out the plot to Resident Evil 6 were a little off in estimating that a zombie outbreak would be in China, but that’s still close enough to Vietnam to believe that maybe these hair-brained video game plots couldn’t be based on some sort of potentially lurking truth.

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This is the plot of Resident Evil 4

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Las Plagas came into play in a similar fashion: as the fable of climate change miraculously becomes reality, bacteria and viruses long-trapped in ice, are coming back to life as they are being melted free

Now I don’t want to get too political and be all like see, this is why climate change is a real thing, but this is pretty much the plot to Resident Evil 4, and all subsequent Resident Evil games that utilized Las Plagas.  But instead of evil Umbrella/whatever evil corporation actively digging and seeking out long-dormant bacteria and viruses, in this case it’s kind of scarier in the sense that it’s not being controlled by man, but are kind of unveiling themselves discreetly and unaccounted for on their own by virtue of being melted out of whatever frozen confinement that had been keeping them locked away for however long they’ve been out of play.

Sure, it’s starting with strains of anthrax, smallpox and the Spanish flu revealing themselves from melted graves, but at this rate, one of these days it’s only a matter of time when the real Las Plagas parasites melt their way out of rural Spain and begin infesting in modern humanity leading to the eventual downfall of mankind.  The difference is that Leon Kennedy, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine don’t actually exist, but there are very much crooked corporations like Umbrella out there that would gladly nefariously try to weaponize and control such terrible things.

I’m just saying, this is pretty much the backstory to the plot of Resident Evil 4, and if Ivanka goes missing while on a humanitarian appearance/fashion show out in Europe, then fiction will have a pretty scary time becoming an action-packed reality.  The real-life Leon Kennedy better start training up for his eventual mission of saving the world.

Can’t say I’m optimistic about this

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Long story short: Capcom has announced that they are (finally) remaking Resident Evil 2.

Did you know that Resident Evil 2 was the first time I had ever put down a deposit and reserved a game?  It was.  From an Electronics Boutique, before they were all gobbled up by GameStop, and after they had gobbled up Babbages.  It was in a mall that had two, before the mall itself died, and was more recently resurrected.

Back then, there were no pre-order specials, no artbooks, no collectibles, and no in-game content special for pre-orders.  It was solely to ensure that the store wouldn’t possibly run out of copies before I could get my hands on one, because when I was in the tenth grade, surely the game would be such a hot commodity that I would have to reserve one to guarantee that I got mine as soon as I could get to the mall.

Continue reading “Can’t say I’m optimistic about this” →