Romero Vs Paul Anderson: Resident Evil

So me, Kyo, Oxido, Pest and Pengy were in the chat talking about zombie movies when the
conversation inevitably found it's way to Resident Evil. While people can argue whether the
movies are good or bad, or where the suck began, there's one thing we can agree on; The
films, whether we love em or hate em, Paul Anderson dropped the ball somewhere along
the way.

God, I remember being so excited seeing the contest insert in my RE2 instruction booklet,
announcing that Resident Evil would soon appear on the silver screen itself. I was but a
naive boy then, and it would be another 4 years before the first film came out.

With the fourth film coming out September 22'nd later this year, it looks to be the grand crescendo
to the whole thing. But will it really end there? no one can say for sure at this point. But, what
if Paul Anderson hadn't produced the first film? Well, there was in fact someone else who was
approached to do the film before Paul was, George A. Romero.

Kyo, like many others may not know this (or that is until I told Kyo directly), George A Romero
was originally intended to produce the first Resident Evil film and had gotten as far as the
screenplay, but for some reason he either backed out or was removed from the project in favor
of Paul Anderson. Some how or another, Romero's screenplay ended up on the internet, where I
found it many many years ago.

Thankfully, it can still be found here: http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/resident_evil_romero.html

Now, I'll save my opinions on this a little later, but you'll find that Romero's film was intended to
be a little more directly connected with the games than Paul's version, but that isn't to say that
Romero's film would have been better. Well, I'll let you guys read and we'll see how this convo
goes :p

I read a little bit of it, and it is typical Romero. Trained eagles? No way.

Ok, I didn't read all of it, but from the look of it, with the correct actors, this could have been way better than the first movie.

They should shoot this.

aw fuck thats alot of reading. No fucking way i could be a script writer/producer. FUCK THAT! Write a book, hope it becomes a movie. Thats my strategy

i tried hard for 15 min but i lost focus, jumped around, read someting, liked it, read more, jumped, read, disliked, Etc.

First thing, i hate the lovey dovey stuff between chris and jill. They're special unit partners not college kids on a frat party weekend.

Second thing, intro kinda sucks too compared to Paul Andersons. Paul should have had Wesker release the virus not that gay fag Alice is pretend married to, then Paul wouldbe better.

Third thing, It really does pick up at some point and seems to run like the games.
---------------------------------
DEK's conclusion - This movie would prolly fail in comparison to Paul Anderson's version. But that's only for the "1st" movie. Compared to Paul's version Romero's would DEFINITLY hold much, much, MUCH better sequels.

Unlike Paul, Romero adds realism to the movie and connects the movie's character like CAPCOM did in the games, making for way better plot development over a longer period of time then a single film.

Romero was prolly taken off because cause the producer wanted something origional and Romeros style may fit perfectly, they still needed to add a twist to a popular game. So they took Paul's origional story and adopted the "Alice Story" which did it's job. The first movie was a hit but left the ending blank...

Unlike Romero's version Paul's left nothing to work with. No ties to other cast, or set track to work off of. All he simply did was kill off everybody, make one of the two survivors infected and put into the Nemesis Program and the other a Guinea Pig.

Now when the 2nd movie came out holy shit theres a brand new field to play on. Typically a good thing but not in the resident evil world. Basically no fuck nuts mcgee a.k.a Paul Anderson is tapped out of ideas!! He used them up on the first movie, where George A. Romero built the first movie for an extended series. Now PA has to find a way to make the movie stick with the series, and holy shit out of no where actual resient evil characters show up. Jill, Carlos, Blackman (forget who that is ) we have no idea who the fuck they are people who never played/heard of RE1 & 3 are a total complete fucking loss, and all the hardcore fans are pissed.

Two of the greatest characters in prolly the most recognized game in the whole RE series are... side roles, characters used to waste space in a movie reel. But what of Alice, our new main hero? Rather then a set team of heros who battle corporate evil like how Romero would have wanted PA based the whole movie off a single Heroine. We'll shit how to you one up Jill Valentine and origional character from the series and Carlos Oliviera our first taste of Umbrella true corporate might? ...You give her superpower...

now this is where shit hits the fan in a huge way. In the RE series superpowers is a right reserved for mutants creations, tyrants, and supervillian scientists. Resident Evil is all about ordinary humans surviving and beating the unimaginable using wits, cunning, and will to survive. When you give a hero superpowers... what your looking at is a movie Marvel Comics could have came up with.

basic format of superpowers in movies. Hero gets superpowers, villian gets superpowers, or vice versa. And in the end the hero ALWAYS wins.

So now you have a horribly predictable story no one who loves RE want to watch. In George's version you would have had no fucking clue how the hell your two average soldier and possibly leon and clair we're gonna stop Nemesis and/or G-Virus Birkin in the 2nd movie. But alice has powers and it all plays out...

Now PA knows this and needs to find a way to lead into a 3rd movie without making her awesomely powerful in the 2nd. How's he do it gives "Nemesis" fucking NEMESIS emotions!!

now if that doesnt kill the 2nd movie for you nothing will and George would have had Nemesis tearing through walls gutting S.t.a.r.s. like piglets at a southern BBQ.

ima end my huge ass rant at that, i dont even know how i got so caught up in this
No use explaining the 3rd movie and why George would have had the series going for about 5 movies by now. All i have to say is Alice blows up a Satelite with her mind and then theres an army of her...

Okay, I've read that a long while before. But I didn't read most of the 2nd half of DEK's rant.

Anyways, Paul Anderson, the first one? Was good. I really, really liked that one. Kind of like a normal RE game, slowly built it's way up to the fast action, add in a few betrayals, TA-DA~

George Romero's version looked awesome as well. I don't think that a few of the small changes to the characters (Barry's black!?) and their personalities should've occurred, and also that relationship between Jill and Chris was... odd. Ingame, they seemed MUCH closer to Brother-Sister than Boyfriend-Girlfriend. Close mates. Also, I don't know if it was just how I interpreted the screenplay, but it seemed almost as if the Mansion had a WAY different layout than the game. It did seem pretty cool though, anyways.

As brought up by DEK, the sequels would've probably been better with Romero (if there were any). 2nd RE, would've been a good movie had they not made her suddenly able to do Matrix style shit. It was like they merged 7 stunt artists, 2 masters of every Martial Arts, 19 sharpshooters, Neo, and vagina, into one person. Then gave her a fuckton of zombies and guns to fuck around with. I loved the portrayal of everyone else (except for Carlos' bad accent, I liked his character), even Nicholai's sudden change of heart. I loved everything not revolving around Alice, pretty much. Same with the third one. Super zombies + Alice = FAIL. Everything else = Winsawce.

Also, I think George A. Romero's version was dropped due to budget/personal interest. I can't remember quite right.

Honestly, take away Alice, then continue with number 4. I can't wait to see the rest of their portrayal of Wesker, as he's been my favourite villain since... ever. Spencer may be a much more mysterious villain, but Wesker's just kickass all around, and still just as intriguing and enigmatic.

I think the Alice Clones might ruin number 4 for me though.

/endrant.

Jarki wrote:

As brought up by DEK, the sequels would've probably been better with Romero (if there were any). 2nd RE, would've been a good movie had they not made her suddenly able to do Matrix style shit. It was like they merged 7 stunt artists, 2 masters of every Martial Arts, 19 sharpshooters, Neo, and vagina, into one person. Then gave her a fuckton of zombies and guns to fuck around with. I loved the portrayal of everyone else (except for Carlos' bad accent, I liked his character), even Nicholai's sudden change of heart. I loved everything not revolving around Alice, pretty much. Same with the third one. Super zombies + Alice = FAIL. Everything else = Winsawce.

yup. dont forget she can blow up satelites with her mind if they piss her off.

really though they made jill the origional heroine in RE and Carlos into side roles used to waste reel time. Im gonna hate to see how badly Paul Anderson butchers Wesker, RE's origional Good guy/evil mastermind in the libe action films...

I know. I hope he intends to keep the general badassery of it.

Though I love in the trailer, how it almost looks as if they just cut and pasted parts from the games or something. Whattacopycat.

All the characters of RE2 could easily have been S.T.A.R.S. members.....

they all were wernt they? Jill and Barry from STARS, and Carlos from UBCS. then in RE3 extinction they brough claire in instead of Jill

Demon Eyes Kyo wrote:

they all were wernt they? Jill and Barry from STARS, and Carlos from UBCS. then in RE3 extinction they brough claire in instead of Jill

Barry?

they made barry black in the 2nd one didnt they?
*cough* affirmitive action *cough* *cough*

That black guy wasn't Barry!

The black guy was the random incidental character they threw in to survive the second movie for no reason, but die early in the third.

No, he meant Tyler Perry or whatever his name was. The STARS member who got bit and then killed by Nemesis.

He wasn't Barry.

oh i was wrong then

kinda hard to remember side characters when you hear nemesis say "al..lice" then attacks umbrella

but didnt they make the black dude a STARS member or was he a basic RPD cop?

the black guy's probably an RPD with an uninteresting personality


after I've read the ridiculously long blocks of text
George Romero's version is better than Paul's
etc etc am too lazy to explain why..

I just hope that in the near future
they will remake the Resident Evil movie with George Romero
I want to see how George Romero can pull this off


and
Resident Evil: Alice Clone Wars
fucking hell...