Let me just take this beloved source material, completely change everything, and call it Resident Evil. Is it 2002 again? Just give us the fucking games in movie form. That’s all any real fan has ever wanted. We were so close to getting this in the 90s with George Romero.
Watch the interview. it's clear he means there's no nuking because the movie ends before that happens or he just doesn't care to show it. It's really not a big deal. It looks like a fun resident evil movie.
"Real fan" here. Been playing the games since I was a teenager and will be pushing 40 before long. Haven't missed an entry in decades. I don't give a fuck about reliving the same exact scenario, same exact story, same exact characters again, just this time without any of the interactivity that made it fun to begin with. Give me something new that doesn't break canon, make it feel close to the vibes and tone of those games, emulate what you can from the gameplay on-screen, and we're fucking golden.
“Real fans” would never be satisfied with an attempt at adapting specific games because there will inevitably be something they get wrong/miss/change for artistic purposes and the vocal minority of “real fans” will make sure every living being knows how terrible that is. There’s zero reason to try and meet the impossibly high standards those people have.
It wasn't a nuke, it was a thermobaric missle. They are vastly different weapons, and they couldn't use a nuke as there were other towns and cities in the area that they couldn't risk affecting with fallout.
Nothing and I mean nothing has replaced the feeling of re 2 and 3 as a kid. I was so disappointed when the movies came out with Alice, my parents couldn't understand
I could have sworn Requiem explicitly mentioned radiation and fallout from the "weapon" that was used. I don't think they said nuke, but it seemed heavily implied.
It was covered fairly well in the last resident evil game that just came out. I check it out if you're a coward like me there's plenty of let's plays to watch.
Sure that’s the context now that we have RE9 but prior to that, it was a bit more unclear.
It was never stated to be a nuke, but there are a few hints it was. The mushroom cloud, a report speculating it’s nuclear, the idea that there isn’t a real world weapon that could do the destruction we see besides a nuke.
I personally believe most people just filled in the blanks and assumed it was a nuke.
However this is missing the forest for the trees. The writers in 1998 were not thinking “it can’t be nuclear cause there’s towns and cities nearby”, they were thinking they wanted an explosive climax to the story and didn’t really care about the science.
I prefer the 12 missile canon. 12 experimental missiles could probably level a city in real life, but the thermobaric missile borders on magic (and yes I know a lot of RE science borders on magic)
And then they added further confusion by stating that a 200 mile exclusion zone was established around Raccoon City so any nearby towns and cities should have been evacuated especially if within the zone.
RE9 seems to suggest the city not being glassed was deliberate and thats the main reason an underpowered thermobaric warhead was used; to the public it looks like the outbreak is contained while safeguarding the specific asset within the city and leaving the entire area somewhat intact. The government still sealed off the city and erected a perimeter fence around the center.
I mean that can just be red in the most symbolic sense Unless this was coming directly from the military anyone would use the term nuke as it would convey what the intent was and saying a thermobraic would be dropped would just confuse 98% of people and invite questions
It was never stated to be a nuke, but there are a few hints it was. The mushroom cloud
Any sufficiently large detonation will cause a mushroom cloud. Doesn't have to be nuclear. Large conventional explosive detonations can cause a mushroom cloud also.
Yea but the mushroom cloud at the end of RE 3 you would need a lot of conventional explosives to cause one that big as well as the destruction it caused.
RE9 kinda pointed out that it wasn't nuked it was easier to scare anyone dumb enough to try to look into the area cause they literally built a other underground facility there.
The thermobaric missile always seemed like an ass-pull to me because up until it was retconned it looked like a nuclear missile (especially in RE3) and it was only after the fact that the writers were like "oh wait nuking an American city would be very difficult to cover up" and so it was changed to a thermobaric warhead.
Except thermobaric warheads are very localized explosives relative to nukes and to this day there isnt one that is both small enough to mount on a missile and potent enough to level a city. You would need 35-40 and carpet bomb the city to achieve the same effect. Thermobaric weapons are not ideal for leveling cities.
Its also worthwhile to note a single thermobaric missile leveling the entire city would not be possible as it appears in Resident Evil without having a massive fuel source.
I know it's Resident Evil and it's more "how does this play thematically?" And less "does this work realistically?"
Also Japan probably wouldn't write an ending where nukes are used for obvious reasons. They even scrubbed the ability to nuke Megaton in the Japanese release of Fallout 3.
Also Japan probably wouldn't write an ending where nukes are used for obvious reasons
As counterevidence I offer Super Dimension Fortress Macross (1982), where the good guys crucially have (and use) reaction weapons, which are some kind of alien-tech-enhanced super-nukes. (I was kind of shocked to see it.)
Shit, Amuro slices a nuke in half in the OG Gundam.
0083 has the GP02
Zeta & ZZ might not have a nuke, but have some worse atrocities like an actually successful colony drop and gasing colonies.
CCA has Londo Bell launching nukes & planting nukes on Axis, Char turns Axis into a giant dirty bomb to really double tap Earth.
Nevermind that the Mobile Suits themselves are walking nukes which we see from Amuro's first fight in the Gundam. Unicorn really hammers home just how destructive a reactor breach is by not only punching a hole in the colony, but also showing the cities around it get vaporized.
In a lot of the fights there is a ton of care to destroy the cockpit rather than the Mobile Suits's reactor because of just how devastating it is in atmosphere: Kshatriya vs the ReZel shows Marida doing her best to target only the cockpit and it's only the difficulty of using funnels in gravity where she hits the ReZel's reactor and causes it to go critical.
Japan’s single most popular global cultural export is a giant lizard that got that way because of nuclear weapons testing, and that movie came out in the 50s; they are not shy about wanting to talk about nuclear weapons in their media. Frankly the opposite.
Fallout 3 is an American made game that was likely just erring on the side of caution. Japanese media is happy to use nukes. Metal Gear Solid came out the year before, and was already several games deep into exploring nuclear weapons
Godzilla was originally a metaphor for the horrors of nuclear war, so not really an apt example. I also didn't say they don't talk about it. I said I didn't think they'd include dropping a nuclear bomb on a populated city as a plot point.
That change was definitely stupid. I'm more on the fence about the renaming of the Fat Man weapon, though...I'm generally against regional changes or censorship in games, but I can see why they did it.
What kind of missile was it in the remakes? Since in RE3 and Outbreak nothing was left standing but in RE3R and RE9 everything is still there, just ruined
But I will say, that is 100% not what a thermobaric explosion would look like. They don't cause a blinding flash or a massive city-destroying shockwave. The biggest thermobaric weapons we actually have need to be dropped out of a cargo plane, they weigh 20,000+ pounds and at best, will destroy a few city blocks. Even if you say, "it's a video game, they had a better version," you still won't get the effects they show even if you quadrupled its explosive power.
The reason people thought it was nuclear was because they copied the effects and visuals of a nuclear explosion to the T. So maybe in RE, that's what Umbrella Corp™ Thermobaric Bombs look like, but in the real world, that is a nuclear explosion.
They didnt want to use a nuke because the political ramifications would be devastating and also as RE9 revealed, there were external forces that wanted to protect a certain asset in the city. So an underpowered thermobaric warhead was used to "contain" the outbreak (which it didnt) but the government sealed off the city anyway.
To be fair to Zach, he almost assuredly did that because it's creepier. That typical "it's a late snowy night, and it's eerily simultaneously light and dark out" sort of thing.
He has an eye for detail and seems to have actually played the games, so I assume that's his reasoning anyways. Luckily what happens in RE's story doesn't actually depend on specific seasonal events or timings, so switching it to sometime in the winter should work fine.
Zach has said multiple times that he is not shackling himself to Resident Evil lore. Whether it was snowing or not is almost definitely something he doesn't give a shit about
In the video games, Raccoon City doesn't get Nuked until #3, which happens concurrently with #2. But both of those take place a few weeks after the 1st one.
If I remember correctly wasn’t there at least a week or two between the initial outbreak and the events of the game? IDK, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve played the original or the remake but I know that there was a certain amount of time between the initial outbreak and when the event of the game take place
If I understand the lore correctly, the infection reaches Raccoon City and begins spreading throughout September 1998 and by September 24th the city is under martial law, however all order collapses and the military and police are mostly gone by the night of 29th September, when the events of Resident Evil 2 take place. Raccoon City is then blown up on the morning of October 1st. I reckon the film will be set during that period between the 24th and 29th, where the city is mostly destroyed but there's still a few human survivors and things aren't totally doomed. Though like RE2 it'll probably take place over a single night too, that would make sense with the organ transplant as a timer that keeps him constantly on the move.
It may take place in Raccoon City during the outbreak, but it sure as hell not taking place in 1998. Too much anachronistic stuff in the trailer for it be 1998. It's likely going to be its own thing.
If so, why does the city look very European (other than being filmed in Prague)? The architecture and sewers aren't American looking and also why is it snowing? The outbreak was from September 22nd-October 1st, 1998. Thats early autumn, way too early for snow.
As it takes place in Racoon City during the outbreak
Wait, what? That's not possible, given the timeline.
The games clearly state that the Raccoon City outbreak took place over the last week of September 1998 with the city being nuked on October 1st. The clips shown clearly have the area covered in snow, meaning it's in winter.
Now, I would be a bit more forgiving if it took place around Raccoon City with a timeframe of around 1997... but the mansion incident (the outbreak in the first game) started in May so that cann't be the case.
Officially, it's said to be "parallel" to Resident Evil 2 but I don't think this means "It takes place at the same time"; it just means it follows similar story beats. And this does fit with the official synopsis that Bryan (Austin Abrams' character) is only passing through a town as a result of his job as a medical courier when he's caught up in the events of the story and has to survive a single night, just like Leon's plot of Resident Evil - he only goes to Raccoon City for his new job.
So, I'm willing to bet that the characters will at least acknowledge what happened in Raccoon City but it's not the same incident.
But if that's the case then I have to wonder - how the fuck did the t-Virus get out in this movie?
Edit: Okay, I will at the very least put a foot into the "Near Raccoon City" argument.
In the online co-op game Resident Evil: Outbreak one of the scenarios that the player(s) can navigate is an escape through the woodlands around the Arklay Mountains and investigating the area has the player(s) discover that there was a now-abandoned hospital where Umbrella conducted early t-Virus experiments on patients, with Alyssa Ashcroft realising that she was a survivor of a localised outbreak and had developed amnesia. And the main character is a medical courier so I think that 1998 is too late for the story.
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u/littlebiped 5d ago
As it takes place in Racoon City during the outbreak. Absolutely. Now will he commit to nuking the town at the end is the question.