It seems that the references to COVID, Elon Musk and other real world things did not work in the world of Resident Evil.
This July 14 Resident Evil premiered on the Netflix streaming platformwhich will continue one of the most popular zombie stories in the video game industry.
Resident Evil already has a history with the cameras
To understand better, It is not the first time that Resident Evil has made an effort to position itself as a live-action adaptation.. Previously there was a progressive closure of the films starring one of the most important characters for the series, Mila Jovovich, and had a Netflix reboot, called “Welcome to Raccoon city”. Although this last feature film was relatively well received, it did not have a great impact among the community either. However, it may be the latter that motivated Netflix to promote a live-action project of the horror video game.
Under a title of the same name, the series sought to rescue all the elements of the franchise without fully understanding the concept that worked in its universe. But here we have a problem. Mainly, it makes a live-action that follows exactly what happens in the video game would conflict with the narrative of another format; In addition, the tension that Resident Evil gave to its deliveries is lost when a logic is forced to make sense of all the events. So the impact he seeks to have on his audience addressed more questions than the horror itself.
The story of the new live-action
So that, the story in 2022 is centered on New Raccoon City -which refers to the fact that there was a first city-, but now things have changed. In New Raccoon city there is a corporate and industrialized environment designed from the Umbrella Corporation, while all the inhabitants depend on the company. The main character in this story is Wesker, along with his twin daughters named Billie and Jade (created in vitro and therefore from different mothers).
The events of 2022 take away from the ravages caused by the release of the T virus, which sounds pretty familiar, right? In this timeline there were some significant changes in relation to treatment and answers to many questions. However, there is another side story that takes place in London, in 2036, which sticks to zombie post-apocalypse sequences and overuses this resource and does not finish addressing the solution to the viral problem.
Criticism of Resident Evil
The above story has brought many real world events to your audience. Unfortunately, the premiere did not get the criticism it was looking for by taking advantage of the range of issues that we have experienced in recent years. On the one hand, although the Resident Evil games are set in a fictional universe -which involves the narrative and conceptual creation of a society-, they would hardly be linked to the current situation. There could have been lines of inspiration, of course. Thanks to the fact that the series has very peculiar characters that do not fall into the realistic category, such as zombie dogs or actions impossible for a human, the very nature of the video game prevents this from being carried out with dyes more attached to reality. But it seems that Resident Evil ignored all of the above.
To begin with, many social media users expressed deep disappointment and references to COVID and other real companies were directly mocked…like PornHub. In this way, Resident Evil has made it clear that the games are canon to the TV series and, because of this, events that relate to real life were important to the series. For example, Umbrella is compared to companies like Google and Apple, while, as we said before, the T virus was created, a clear reference to COVID. However, this was not to the liking of those who have enjoyed the video game, because the themes were introduced in a very forced and abrupt way.
For this reason, the comments on this new narrative confirm that the series has many weak points in terms of its structure. Although it is starting and there are too many jokes about it, it should be mentioned that the series has had the highest score on Rotten Tomatoes in years. Although it is not the best rating, it could be that the creators finally consider these harsh criticisms to improve future seasons of Resident Evil. You may have already thought of some of these comments, but here are some of the most hilarious: