The only thing that ruined Wesker in the films.

[Total Biscuit]

Claire-Claire is one of the four main characters of Resident Evil, the others being Jill, Chris, and Leon...Ali Larter FUKED her character up beyond recognition, and I HONESTLY didn't even realize who she was playing when I saw it in the theaters, but when I bought the DVD and could rewind it when the dude called her Claire. I think she should've researched her role better, and been more loving than angry and bitchy all the time...She can leave that to Jill (In a good way)...She can still be a badass, and hell, she can LOOK a bit more like Claire, but it's like she tried to do what Oded had done, and exploit her character as different...Only failing miserably...

I honestly could not have a more diametrically opposed opinion to this.

Apart from Claire being one of the big four, yeah, since she was one of the protaganists in Resi 2.

But game Claire is easily one of the weakest characters in the entire franchise. Her entire characterisation and motivation consists of trying to find Chris, and chasing the worlds dumbest children.

Ali Larter however made the character what she's actually supposed to be; a decisive, tough as nails biker chick who was taught to fight by her special forces trained soldier big brother, whose maternal instincts translate into an alpha female protectiveness of the entire little community of survivors she has taken charge of.

Her game counterparts perfect skin, immaculate hair, complete lack of muscle, lilting voice and general girlish attitude and stereotypically 'woman as seen in the eyes of a misogynist' like behaviour is completely out of whack with the foundations her character is supposed to be based on.

In her two appearances in the games, Claire is only shown to have the motivations of finding Chris, or rescuing a little girl. In code Veronica, as soon as Chris turns up, he's the main protagonist, and Claire gets shunted to the side lines to moon after a boy. In Degeneration, she is once again given the 'woman's' job of looking after a small girl, and plays second fiddle throughout to Leon.

Movie Claire does a far better job of being a realistic version of what Claire was meant to be than the game version does, not least of all because I very much doubt the writers at Capcom have ever had any real interaction with the kind of women Claire is supposed to be like.

Chris- Miller. Was. Awful...Miller is an awful actor in general, and since he is British, his American accent sounds like a bad Batman impression...Despite what you say about game Chris being cold and unfeeling I disagree...And I can do so without judgement, because Chris is my least favorite character besides Sheva...That doesn't mean he deserves to have his character butchered, because he, like Claire, is a main character to the gaming series. Chris cares a lot, as you can see when Jill "Dies." You also know how much he cares for his sister, cause he took the time to train her in the ways of the S.T.A.R.S. so she could protect herself. Chris isn't cold, but he is a soldier, and every good soldier knows that emotion on the battlefield clouds the mind and is a weakness. Miller, however, DID play Chris cold and unfeeling, and arrogant even. For those of you who don't know, Miller was also on the drama Prison Break, and his character was virtually no different...

Game Chris isn't cold and unfeeling. He's just really, REALLY dull, and simple. Not stupid mind you, he does figure things out eventually, he's just not a complex character.

And always appalling badly acted, from the original, through the Remake and to Revelations, he's just a shallow, oblivious, gun toting muscle man. He isn't not showing emotion because he's the kind of guy that bottles things up, he's doing it because he's staying consistent to a really bad actors inability to emote, which is all that passes for his characterisation.

I mean he'll go on about his motivations, he's feelings on Wesker, on why he's fighting, and a host of other minor details, but he never expresses any depth. Even the supposed romance between him and Jill is entirely fanon, and has no basis in any actual displays of romantic affection in game.

Hell, I'd believe he had a relationship with Wesker before I'd believe he wanted one with Jill. Dealing with Wesker is about the only time Chris ever displays any real emotion, and seemed to be far more deeply effected by his betrayal and death and resurrection than he was Jills.

Wentworth Miller on the other hand, actually put feelings into his portrayal. Sure, it was cynical, arrogant, smirkingly sarcastic and slightly deranged, but that's still twice the emotional range of his game counterpart. And let's not forget, having lived through the end of the world, he's got a way better excuse for having deadened emotional responses than being the only guy that thinks it's necessary to survive, unlike every single other character in the game series, including his own sister.

But, at the end of the day, the universe of the movies is set in a completely different universe than the games...Much like in comics how Spectacular Spider-Man is in a completely different universe than Amazing Spider-Man...So really, both can be compared and contrasted, but at the end of the day, the cannons are completely different and therefore cannot be "Wrong"

Indeed, this I agree fully with.

 

[Total Biscuit]

To Bruno:

I get that the game franchise is evolving, I just don't think that it's evolving in the right way. There's far too much emphasis on doing something that's new each time, even if it's only for the sake of it or new in name only. Meanwhile Capcom keep throwing the baby out with the bath water, and seem to have no idea what people actually liked about their games and what they didn't. Resi 6, though brilliant looking, seems to be the ultimate expression of them going 'Sod it' and just throwing everything at us, in the hopes we'll all be happy with something.

One thing the Movies got right was to keep things simple, the T-Virus causes zombies and Monsters, and Umbrella are the iconic bad guys.

The games use a different plot device that does near identical things every time, with a different name, and with a style shift that's led us to quickly run out of good creature designs, with ill defined lumps of flesh and leach monsters becoming the norm, and looking horribly out of place when they bring back classic monsters like the Lickers and Hunters, that had visually distinct and clear designs that make them game icons to this day.

And the decision to get rid of Umbrella was frankly retarded, and led to them having to make poor clones of them to fill the void. The mysteriously well equipped labs of the Spanish countryside, Tricell, FBC, they're all stand ins for the iconic bad guys everyone knows from resident evil, whose logo is instantly recognisable even amongst people who have never played the games. The movies decision to have Umbrella just buy and lie it's way out of trouble isn't just vastly more realistic, it was a hugely more intelligetn move that keeps the focus of the series clear and consistent.

And Leon, yeah, he's become a government agent rather than a cop. But I do not see that as a good enough excuse for him to have completely lost his humanity, and everything that made Leon LEON from Resi 2. I mean he acts more like the Chris than himself in 4, except he also adds in a dash of Dantes smirking and some awfully cheesey flirting.

4 is a great game, but it never felt like a Resident Evil to me, and it changed Leon from being my favourite character to one of my least.

The films however feel more and more like the old games. It captures the mood of them, and remembers that zombies are damned vital, Umbrella are one of the most well known and memorable evil corporation in fiction for bloody good reasons, and that a virus that reanimates the dead getting loose, turning them into cannibals and monsters, would really Really **** up the planet, and wouldn't simply be hand waved away and kept in check through the creation of an organisation that consisted of small groups of people who just shoot at them with guns.

 

[bruno]

Actually, I don't like the end-of-world/post-apocalyptical perspective of the films. It's not realistic at all, even for the t-virus.

One thing I like in the games is the complexity of the tory, how they always use different viruses, different creatures, different corporations, etc. I agree that some of the creatures show some lack of imagination from the designers, but I think every virus in the series has a couple of iconical BOW's.

One more thing -- Claire was never supposed to be a though characters. She's actually emotionally weak, but she wants to prove herself that she can handle things, and she cares for others' lifes too much to just leave Sherry/Steve behind, knowing they could be alive.

 

[Total Biscuit]

Actually, I don't like the end-of-world/post-apocalyptical perspective of the films. It's not realistic at all, even for the t-virus.

One thing I like in the games is the complexity of the tory, how they always use different viruses, different creatures, different corporations, etc. I agree that some of the creatures show some lack of imagination from the designers, but I think every virus in the series has a couple of iconical BOW's.

One more thing -- Claire was never supposed to be a though characters. She's actually emotionally weak, but she wants to prove herself that she can handle things, and she cares for others' lifes too much to just leave Sherry/Steve behind, knowing they could be alive.

The T-Virus re-animates the dead, is almost 100% infectious, can infect everything from mammals to plants, and has a tendency to mutate creatures into almost indestructible killing machines. Considering a normal zombie outbreak would spread like wildfire and most likely cause an apocalypse just by infecting humans, the fact that T-Virus got loose in a huge forest full of living things to infect even before it hit Racoon City makes the very idea it could even be containable ludicrous. Simply dropping a nuke on the City, when we see from Resi 2 that anyone can just drive in or out of it at will after everyone died there would do squat. The Movies only bad move on that front was not showing us the apocalypse, because it would have been awesome for so many potential stories.

And all those different virus, parasites and leeches, all do the same thing: whatever the hell the plot calls for. The T, G, T-Veronica, T-Abyss etc had no real dicernable differences, or need to exist other than to 'OMG this new Virus is even worse in some ill defined manner!'. The Leeches, Plagus and Uroboros virus all made the other half of the more modern unimaginative lumps and pile of tentacle creatures.. And the pig bat, and giant Cockroaches, which are so out of keeping with everything else in 5 I often wonder if they're not just some weird natural species that just happens to live in the Resi universes africa.

And Claire was obviously meant to be the tough biker chick archetype. It's the way she's a drifter riding a dirty great bike, knows how to handle any weapon she lays her hands on, was taught to fight by her armed forces veteran brother, and carries a damned knife at all times that should give you a clue there. Somewhere along the line from conception to the finished game she either got girlyfied to make her more appealing to teenage boys, or that's genuinely what Capcom think female bikers are like. Frankly her bike leathers are more like something you'd get in Ann Summers fetish range than something anyone would actual wear for riding a motorcycle.

Either way, the characteristics you're saying are her defining traits are really out of place in a survival horror environment. And I always hated Claire for the fact that she would repeatedly do incredibly dumb things that should have got her killed time and time again because she was chasing after some idiot that deserved to get themselves eaten. Emotionally weak people die when the dead rise and devour the living. In any other zombie fiction she'd be the idiot teenage girl that either gets killed or gets others killed, the fact that she strolls through everything without a scratch, and acts like a self absorbed holier than thou now it all parent in most of her cut scenes infuriates me.

I think it's just that Capcom isn't any good at creating strong female characters. Jill is about the only character I can think of they managed to make a decent strong female protagonist out of, and even she isn't as often used as Chris, who also was the only one to feature on the box art of the first game. Sheva comes close, but even she is the second stringer to Chris, needs rescuing on several occasions, and her alternate outfits consist entirely of fetish gear. And she's still far better off than Rebecca, Excella, Jessica and Ashley.

 

[bruno]

We'll never agree on this, but the t-virus doesn't spread like you said, and neither would it destroy humanity in 4 or 5 years. And all the viruses do very different things, but let's not argue about this.

As for Claire, she is not the kind of stereotype you mentioned... that's what they made of her in the films, and maybe what they were going to do with Elisa, but they changed her personality and appearence completely (like they did to Ada). The games' claire is very different, not the "biker girl", in my opinion, but more a college girl.

 

[Total Biscuit]

We'll never agree on this, but the t-virus doesn't spread like you said, and neither would it destroy humanity in 4 or 5 years. And all the viruses do very different things, but let's not argue about this.

No, let's, because it is exactly what I'm describing. The T-virus is shown to make Zombie humans, dogs, monkeys, plants, bees, Spiders, sharks, worms, elephants etc, etc, It's described in game as being uniquely infectious and mutagenic. It was 100% loose in the forests of the Arkley mountains as seen in both Resi 1 and 0.

Now, clearly you don't get how fracking terrifying a disease that jumps species is. Because it's what most pandemics are. It's why we freak the hell out about swine flu and bird flu. It's what killed more people in the years after the first world war than the actual war. A disease that can jump not just to one species, but to any species, and that makes it's victims get up and wander around spreading it further once it's killed them, would be unimaginably disastrous. Now we saw how quickly the T-virus spread through Raccoon City. The same thing would be happening in the surrounding forests as those zombie dogs and escaped hunters tore through any living things they encountered, and any infected blood they spilt would soak into the soil, infecting very bug it touched, and any plant that's roots absorbed it.

The Movies were quite right to depict this as something that would be unstoppable, and the games simply handwaving this away is sloppy writing and shows a clear lack of planning and consistency.

And no, the Virus's really don't ever have much in the way of any real differences between one another. We get told there's a difference, but we're never shown one, and the only effects we ever see are pretty much in keeping with what ever we'd been shown the other ones did already.

Even the Plagus could have just been changed to a new strain of T-Virus, and it wouldn't have made a damned bit of difference to Resi 4 or 5.

As for Claire, she is not the kind of stereotype you mentioned... that's what they made of her in the films, and maybe what they were going to do with Elisa, but they changed her personality and appearence completely (like they did to Ada). The games' claire is very different, not the "biker girl", in my opinion, but more a college girl.

A college girl riding a dirty great bike across country (something that's horribly uncomfortable if you don't do it all the time.) with an intimate knowledge of weaponry and who carries a knife in plain view on her at all times. Her background and description is that of the kind of person who would be you're typical hard arsed biker chick. It's just her voice actress and behaviour don't match up, to it, unlike with her movie counterpart as you say.

Which is again, because Capcom suck at making strong female characters. I mean the fact that the tough independent biker chick actually makes sense to be the kind of person to be able to survive Raccoon city more easily than a college attending, emotionally insecure, suicidally maternal teenage girl should be pretty obvious here.

Movie Clare is a vast improvement over the game version, because she actually makes sense.

 

[bruno]

About the t-virus... 10% of humans are completely immune, and 30% or something of humans die instead of mutating.
You need a high dose of the virus to show some effects, the virus had been leacked into Raccoon for over 2 months by the time of RE2/3. The virus was manufactured into adapting to humans, so let's assume the rate of infection in plants and animals is even lower.
The hunters, infected dogs or zombies in the forest probably roamed around until they died, some maybe entering Raccoon City, the closest civilization -- but this, in comparison to other factors, would be almost meaningless comparing to the main infection sources -- and it wasn't enough to even alert the police or the population about them.
No plants in Arklay were infected (except for the ones inside the facilities). The plants infected in Raccoon City wouldn't reach the forest.
The t-virus contamination itself would be self-containable to a civilization, like a city or an island.
And the viruses do have different effects on their hosts, if you think otherwise then you need to pay more attention to that. At least, I DO see a difference between a G infectant or a t infectant, for example.
I do not intend to go on with these arguements because we're clearly viewing all of these subjects from very different poits of view. Let's keep our own opinions and move on.

 

[KennedyKiller]

No, let's, because it is exactly what I'm describing. The T-virus is shown to make Zombie humans, dogs, monkeys, plants, bees, Spiders, sharks, worms, elephants etc, etc, It's described in game as being uniquely infectious and mutagenic. It was 100% loose in the forests of the Arkley mountains as seen in both Resi 1 and 0.

Now, clearly you don't get how fracking terrifying a disease that jumps species is. Because it's what most pandemics are. It's why we freak the hell out about swine flu and bird flu. It's what killed more people in the years after the first world war than the actual war. A disease that can jump not just to one species, but to any species, and that makes it's victims get up and wander around spreading it further once it's killed them, would be unimaginably disastrous. Now we saw how quickly the T-virus spread through Raccoon City. The same thing would be happening in the surrounding forests as those zombie dogs and escaped hunters tore through any living things they encountered, and any infected blood they spilt would soak into the soil, infecting very bug it touched, and any plant that's roots absorbed it.

The Movies were quite right to depict this as something that would be unstoppable, and the games simply handwaving this away is sloppy writing and shows a clear lack of planning and consistency.

And no, the Virus's really don't ever have much in the way of any real differences between one another. We get told there's a difference, but we're never shown one, and the only effects we ever see are pretty much in keeping with what ever we'd been shown the other ones did already.

Even the Plagus could have just been changed to a new strain of T-Virus, and it wouldn't have made a damned bit of difference to Resi 4 or 5.



A college girl riding a dirty great bike across country (something that's horribly uncomfortable if you don't do it all the time.) with an intimate knowledge of weaponry and who carries a knife in plain view on her at all times. Her background and description is that of the kind of person who would be you're typical hard arsed biker chick. It's just her voice actress and behaviour don't match up, to it, unlike with her movie counterpart as you say.

Which is again, because Capcom suck at making strong female characters. I mean the fact that the tough independent biker chick actually makes sense to be the kind of person to be able to survive Raccoon city more easily than a college attending, emotionally insecure, suicidally maternal teenage girl should be pretty obvious here.

Movie Clare is a vast improvement over the game version, because she actually makes sense.

Can you please, and I don't mean any disrespect, cause this is a friendly site (usually), no argue with Bruno...You're kinda new, so you don't know this...But he's the number one go to guy on this site when it comes to questions and theories...He's been asked questions by the administrators themselves, and when he says let's not argue, could you please be kind enough to show him respect and not do so...Thank you...

P.S. Bruno, you probably didn't need that, but I'm sure all of us on the site that know you and read this feel this way, so...

 

[Springhosen]

And always appalling badly acted, from the original, through the Remake and to Revelations, he's just a shallow, oblivious, gun toting muscle man.

I don't think that's bad acting per se, I think that falls more into the "badly written" category. (Especially since I love Roger Craig Smith, who I believe has done some pretty darned good voice work; Curtis Miller - RE: Degeneration, Eddy Gordo - Tekken 6, Deidara - Naruto Shippuden, Ezio - Assassin's Creed, etc.) I do agree with the rest of your assessment of Chris, though and of Claire; what she was obviously meant to be versus what she turned out to be.

 

[Lizzy]

I'm honestly not trying to argue here but I was wondering about the T virus spread for I thought it would be a worldwide problem? In the 'real world', when we had the swine flu outbreak it spread so quickly for authorities just don't know how to react and I thought that would be exacerbated if the T Virus was involved?

Also, I don't like the arguments either. However, as it's the movie section I came here thinking it would be a place to celebrate the movies, not slag them off at every twist and turn and seeing a how I love the films so much I just want to get my points across to counter the hatred!

 

[bruno]

Can you please, and I don't mean any disrespect, cause this is a friendly site (usually), no argue with Bruno...You're kinda new, so you don't know this...But he's the number one go to guy on this site when it comes to questions and theories...He's been asked questions by the administrators themselves, and when he says let's not argue, could you please be kind enough to show him respect and not do so...Thank you...

P.S. Bruno, you probably didn't need that, but I'm sure all of us on the site that know you and read this feel this way, so...

Thank you for your consideration, but I don't think anyone is "right" or "wrong" on this subject, this is all based in opinions/speculation and everyone has the right to have their own opinions ...
However, I was trying to get out of this discussion before it turned into a big endless arguement.

 

[KennedyKiller]

Thank you for your consideration, but I don't think anyone is "right" or "wrong" on this subject, this is all based in opinions/speculation and everyone has the right to have their own opinions ...
However, I was trying to get out of this discussion before it turned into a big endless arguement.

Alright, my apologies...