This paper explores the
responses of players of the video game series Resident
Evil to its adaptation in film. Initial research of
gamers on the internet movie database’s (Imdb) Resident
Evil message board revealed significant disagreement. At
the same time, however, the gamers seemed to have agreed on
what they should be disagreeing about. The research uses
discourse analysis to identify discourses which connect with
wider discourses already established in the social world.
But a new discourse may be emerging from the world of the
gamer that is being brought to bear on film in the light of
the game to film adaptation. It centres on experiential
differences between games and films. Film makers, of course,
have always relied heavily on adapted products. But this
paper seeks to show how games and films offer very different
experiences. Can game to film adaptations ever really cross
this experiential divide? Indeed, should they seek to cross
it at all?
Keywords: video games,
film adaptation, discourse, Resident Evil, ergodic
pleasures
Introduction
In January 2005 I finally
watched the first film adaptation of the popular game
franchise, Resident Evil. I was not sure what to
expect, or what I should be expecting. The divide between
watching a film and playing the game seemed like a void and
I had no idea how to cross it. After viewing I still had no
idea and turned to the Imdb Resident Evil message
board to see what others had made of it. And I found similar
confusion, but also significant disagreement. I also found,
however, that the respondents seemed to have agreed on what
they should be disagreeing about. I found this fascinating
and so this research project was born.
This paper is concerned with how
those who had played Resident Evil – from here
described as gamers – and who had written about the film had
responded to it. However, to provide a fuller analysis, it
seemed necessary to contextualise what they were saying with
the film maker’s intentions and within the context of the
Resident Evil franchise. As a consequence, this paper
asks: how did gamers respond to the adaptation of
Resident Evil in film? In addressing this question, the
paper raises further questions: how far did the film’s
makers seek to adapt elements of the game and did the film
maker’s adaptations meet the expectations of the gamers?
What does it mean to post on the Imdb Resident
Evil message board? What discourses can be identified in
the gamers’ writing and how do they connect with the wider
social world?
The paper is presented in five
parts. Part one seeks to understand the similarities and
differences between games and films. Part two introduces the
reader to the Resident Evil universe and
acknowledges, importantly, that this universe is also a
highly successful franchise and a valuable intellectual
property. Part three outlines the methodology used and
situates the work within the critical frames of discourse
analysis. Part four presents the findings of the research.
Part five discusses the findings in relation to the
discourses identified. A concluding section draws together
some of the key arguments and ideas, raises what I hope are
some interesting questions for scholars and issues a plea
for further work in this area.
Part One Films and Games:
drawing (and crossing) the line
I am a fan/player of the
Resident Evil games and I have an interest in the
emergent field of games studies and the distinctions between
disciplines. While a growing body of work on gamers and the
pleasures and practices of game play can be evidenced (see,
for example Wright, Boria and Breidenbach (2002), Schott and
Burns (2004) and Taylor (2006)), little work to date has
been done on gamers’ responses to game to film adaptations.
This is the focus of this study. It is not my intention to
appropriate games into film studies. I acknowledge the line
between the two disciplines. But it is my duty to cross it.
More than ever audiences are engaging with multiple media
forms on a daily basis, and as a film studies scholar I want
to understand where audience experiences of film intersect
with other media forms. The following section ‘crosses the
line’ between films and games unapologetically.
1.1 Similarities
A review of the literature
reveals a number of suggested similarities between games and
films. The similarities identified include the use of genre,
structure, narrative, character types, camera-work and
editing. Such studies suggest that these elements in games
tend to be drawn from cinematic expression. Thus for Rehak
(2003), videogames ‘remediate’ cinema: ‘…they demonstrate
the propensity of emerging media forms to pattern themselves
on the characteristic behaviours and tendencies of their
predecessors’ (2003: 104).
Videogames often draw on
existing genres and use the codes and conventions associated
with specific genres. In their introduction to Screenplay
– Cinema/Videogames/Interfaces, King and Krzywinska
(2002) argue that there are clear generic parallels in terms
of the kinds of games produced. Drawing on Poole (2000) they
suggest that certain genres are more appropriate for use in
the game world. They state:
The appeal of such environments
is partly their cinematic association but also, as Poole
(2000) suggests, the more prosaic fact that stylised
landscapes, such as those of tech-noir, science fiction and
horror, lend themselves to the limited and particular
representational capacities of games (2002: 11).
The horror genre has been
particularly successful in the cross-over from novel, to
screen to console. Krzywinska (2002) points to several
features of the horror genre that have enabled it to cross
successfully into the game world. She states:
The horror genre has made the
transition to videogames for a number of reasons. Horror
offers death as spectacle and actively promises
transgression; it has the power to promote physical
sensation, and the genre appeals to the youth market that is
central to the games industry (2002: 207).
In addition and by way of
extension of this last point, genre provides a
long-established short hand to the kinds of experiences one
hopes to gain from a specific genre product. It is hardly
surprising that the ready-made associations of genre should
be exploited by the games industry. If there are ready-made
audience expectations then there is a ready-made market.
For
Perron (2005) horror games and films provide similar
pleasures and experiences to audiences which might at least
partially explain why horror films and games lend themselves
so well to adaptation. Perron argues: ‘What horror video
games — labelled survival or not — actually offer is similar
to what the mainstream contemporary horror cinema proffers.
To refer to the well-known expression of Isabel Pinedo, it’s
a ‘bounded experience of fear’ (1996: 25 and 2004: 106 in
Perron 2005).
In
the survival horror game, the player experiences these
feelings and physical sensations more intensely, since the
‘survival’ of the game avatar is literally in their hands.
Thus, in terms of use, function and the experience of genre
– particularly the horror genre – videogames and films,
then, are broadly similar but not exactly the same.
Lindley (2002) suggests that
structurally films and games are similar in that they tend
to have a three part structure: beginning, middle and end.
However, as Lindley (2002: 206, in King and Krzywinska
(2002: 25)) notes, the middle or second act is hugely
extended as this is the site of the ‘core game play’. It is
also worth noting that in many instances, the gamer may also
have to wait for any resolution since mastery of the
controls and the game may require several attempts to
complete.
In narrative terms, Eskelinen
(2001: 16) sees narrative as subordinate in games. Eskelinen
takes film and literary theorists to task for focussing on
the dramatic and narrative elements of games in their
discussions. He argues that the gaming situation operates in
a completely different way and identifies its component
parts as: ‘…the manipulation or the configuration of
temporal, spatial, causal and functional relations and
properties in different registers (2001: 1).
While narrative may at times be
subordinate in games and the game-play situation quite
different to the spectatorial one, the narrative frameworks
derived from generic conventions are central in
understanding the appeal of such games franchises as
Resident Evil, Tomb Raider, and Silent Hill.
As King and Krzywinska argue:
Resonances such as those derived
from narrative frameworks – from cinema or other sources,
from particular films, genres or broader cultural archetypes
can play into the game context, and this is likely to be one
of the appeals of games (2002: 25).
After all, could one conceive of
Resident Evil and Silent Hill in the same way
without George A Romero’s zombie horror films, or Lara Croft
without Indiana Jones? Cultural referents that are shared by
the intended audience are as important in the framing and
realisation of games as they are to any other media form.
Another significant link to film
can be found in what are termed ‘cut scenes’. Cut scenes are
short film sequences that ‘cut in’ to the game play. If a
cut scene is running there can be no interaction with the
avatar. Some cut scenes can be over-ridden with a press of a
button, but not all. This can be a source of frustration for
the game-player who continually fails a challenge set up by
a cut scene and is doomed to view the cut scene repeatedly
until they acquire the skills necessary to progress (see
also Perron 2005: ibid).
Howells (2002) explains the uses
of the cut scene in video games succinctly. He states:
The intro movie introduces the
characters and scenario (the game world) and establishes the
game’s fundamental conflict, while subsequent cut scenes
continue causal lines, introduce new plot elements, show
character interaction and continually delineate explicit
goals. Once the goals have been stated, the player moves to
an action sequence… (2002: 113).
According to King and Krzywinska,
cut scenes: ‘...frequently employ the same expository
devices as cinema, using a combination of long shots, mid
shots and close ups to provide orientation for the
player…’(2002: 12). These scenes are used, then, to set up
the story in the beginning, to provide information to
players at various intervals throughout the game and also
provide rewards for progress made. They interrupt the flow
of game-play and render the player and the avatar inactive
as the scene plays out.
Point-of-view is used in largely
the same way in survival horror games as are used in film.
As King and Krzywinska state: ‘Predetermined framing of this
kind acts like that of a film, to some extent, directing the
attention of the player and creating visual diversity
through shifts of perspective, although at the expense of
player freedom’ (2002: 13).
Hand also notes this
appropriation of cinematic point of view in the Resident
Evil games. He notes:
Aside from the first-person
shooter point of view in Resident Evil: survivor, the
games incorporate distinctly cinematic points of view, which
construct fixed mise en scene shots. These take on a montage
effect when the player moves the avatar through the
environment… (2004: 128).
To sum up the similarities
between films and games generally discussed in the
literature, it is possible to determine similarities in the
use of genre and generic conventions, particularly in
relation to narrative frameworks like those of the horror
genre. Videogames have also adapted other formal features of
classical Hollywood cinema, including concentration on a
single protagonist, camera angles, editing and point of
view. That said, in my view, the differences far out-number
these similarities but would the gamers’ responses
articulate this?
1.2 Differences
Eskelinen (2001) might well
berate film theorists for their insistence on ‘reading’
games from the standpoint of their narrative and dramatic
elements, but as already stated, the success of many games,
including Resident Evil, is in part due to the
resonances they carry over and remediate from cinema. But
he is right to stress the significant differences between
games and films.
The temporal and spatial
relations in film and games constitute major differences.
For Krzywinska (2002) videogames are dependent on a sense of
the traversal of space, even as the player sits with the
joypad. The whole game world is there to be explored and is
indeed a prerequisite for progress to be made.
In films, space and time are
organised around narrative. But in most games, due to the
extended mid section of game play, narrative is subordinated
to action. Thus the strong tethering of progress to
narrative action in films is not found in games. Although as
Krzywinska points out, the goal of the player is to achieve
a near-seamless session of game-play that is more film-like
in its continuity (2002: 215).
The traversal of space
privileges curiosity. The essential curiosity of game-play
is worked into the game structure and narrative. Curiosity
is the driving force of games and is rewarded with progress.
But Krzywinska notes how in films, curiosity is often
punished (2002: 217).
Aarseth (1997) explains why the
difference between games and films is so important for the
spectator. He states: ‘A key difference between games and
films…is that games ‘raise the stakes of interpretation to
those of intervention’ (1997: 4 in King and Krzywinska 2002:
23).
But interactivity alone is not
the crucial conception in this formulation. It is the
interactivity of the player through the figure of the avatar
that holds the key here and gives credence to their claims
(see also Carr 2001). As Rehak (2003) observes, here is the
impossibility of cinema that Metz described: ‘…everything
may come to be projected, there is one thing and one thing
only that is never reflected in it: the spectator’s own
body’ (Metz 1982: 45 in Rehak 2003: 103).
While the avatar does not
exactly reflect the player-spectator’s own body, the
player-spectator accepts that she is making the avatar move.
The psychological and emotional attachments to the figure of
the avatar in games are felt by the game-player. It is the
player’s interactions directly with the game through the
figure of the avatar that alters what it means to spectate
and participate. As Rehak states: ‘The video game avatar,
presented as a human player’s double, merges spectatorship
and participation in ways that fundamentally transform both
activities’ (2003: 103).
For Rehak, one such
transformation occurs in the effects of suture. He argues:
‘The disavowal necessary to game play is like the ‘yes that
is what I see’ of successful cinematic suture, but goes
further: it is ‘yes, that is what I do’(2003: 121). Suture
is the effect that draws and anchors the spectator to the
action. Suture creates the ‘me-shaped-hole’ in films and
games (Huber 2004: 1). In games, suture operates in a
different way to films. As Huber states:
It is not only the gaze of the
actor or the camera, or the patterns of anxiety in the
filmic plane that create the positions in reception, but
also the goals and interactive regime of the game, even the
joystick’s tactile feedback, the direct address and
call-to-action of the game (Huber 2004: 2).
Other theorists have sought to
understand the nature of the game/player relationship and
have found them to be different to those relationships
between users of other media forms. For Juul (2001), the
reader/story, player/game relations are different. Juul
argues that: ‘…the player inhabits a twilight zone where
he/she is both an empirical subject outside the game and
undertakes a role inside the game’ (2001: 17 in King and
Krzywinska 2002: 23). Film does not reject the spectator but
a video game can reject the game player as it is possible to
fail the game and never reach a resolution. The avatar can
‘die’ and be re-started until the specific skills required
to ‘stay alive’ have been learnt by the game player. And in
this sense, it is clear that different skills are required
to traverse the game world and succeed in it (King and
Krzywinska 2002: 23).
For some theorists, games are
seen to be asking something different of their users. Games
require different ‘work’ from players than the work of
cinematic spectatorship. Aarseth (1997) usefully describes
work of this kind as ergodic. The term, appropriated
from the world of physics, is derived from the Greek words
for work (ergon) and path (hodos) (Aarseth 1997: 1). I
suggest that this is a useful way of conceiving of the
differences between game play and cinematic spectatorship
since it places emphasis on the work the player must perform
to progress in the game. This idea of a work path
also connects to Krzywinska’s observations on the unique
spatial and temporal features of games.
The Resident Evil gamer
utilises many skills in game play. As Rouse (2001) suggests:
…films present a consistent
media experience for the audience. Games, on the other hand,
still mix media in seemingly unnatural ways, forcing users
who may just want to play a game to have to read a bit of a
book, watch a movie, and then only actually get to play
(2001: 223-4 in King and Krzywinska 2002: 24).
In the Resident Evil
games maps, books, and diaries must be read and the
information must be processed by the game player and then
acted upon. Cut scenes must be watched for orientation and
progress. These activities are interspersed throughout the
game play, which itself requires the gaining of experience
with and control, of the joypad. The Resident Evil
game player is a highly active and interactive player. Thus,
this study sets out to explore the pleasures a film
adaptation of the game might offer to gamers already
familiar with the Resident Evil universe.
This part of the paper has
sought to underline some of the key similarities and
differences between games and films identified in literature
drawn from games studies and films studies. As noted
earlier, the film-makers also sought to play with the
differences and similarities between the game and film
versions of Resident Evil and the game-like aspects
were picked up on by a number of critics. But how did gamers
respond to the adaptation? Can issues relating to the
differences between game-play and film viewing be found in
the gamers’ responses? In broader terms, this paper seeks to
contribute to an understanding of how contemporary users of
media products negotiate their inter-medial experiences.
Part Two ‘Welcome to the World
of Survival Horror’
Having explored the perceived
similarities and differences between games and films the
paper turns its attention to the world of Resident Evil.
I begin this section by first placing the franchise in
context. I then outline the world of the games, emphasising
the elements of the game that were considered to be
ground-breaking and that offered gamers something new and
different in 1996. I then go on to explore the making of the
film and discuss the ways in which Anderson and his crew
sought to ‘bring the game to life’.
2.1 Resident Evil: The Franchise
The Japanese games manufacturer
Capcom released the first Resident Evil game in 1996.
Since that time the corporation has turned it into a $600
million dollar worldwide franchise (Lai 22 August 2001). The
first game received critical praise for its atmospheric
presentation of a new genre that became known as ‘survival
horror’ although it was criticised in some quarters for its
perceived violent and gory game-play. Since the original
game launch, the franchise has extended the repertoire to
six games with a seventh and eighth game currently in
production. The franchise includes novellas, comic books,
films, action figures and other merchandise like t-shirts,
mugs and mouse-mats.
According to ign.com, many of
the games have exceeded a million copies in sales. They
state:
Combined sales of the original
Resident Evil and the Director’s Cut for
PlayStation 1 total almost 2 million units in the US alone.
The follow-up, Resident Evil 2, sold 1.7 million
copies in America. Even Resident Evil 3: Nemesis sold
more than 1 million copies on the system….by this point the
PlayStation’s installed base had skyrocketed to massive
numbers and the franchise had a nearly-unequalled audience
of adult players (IGN 16 January 2004).
More recent figures quoted on
Totalvideogames.com are taken from Capcom’s own
financial report. According to Leyton (2006) the Resident
Evil games franchise has sold 30 million units. This
marks something of a swell in profits from the franchise
which was seemingly flagging in the wake of newer games. But
Resident Evil 4 alone sold 3 million units. The two
films, Resident Evil (2002) and Resident Evil:
Apocalypse (2004) have grossed over $200 million dollars
at the box office worldwide (Capcom 1March 2007). The series
is to be completed by the release of the final episode in
the trilogy, Resident Evil – Extinction scheduled for
September 2007.
2.2 Resident Evil: The Game
The Resident Evil
franchise began with the game, Resident Evil produced
by Capcom in 1996 played on the Playstation platform. It was
originally released in Japan as Biohazard. The game
was designed by Shinji Mikami who was inspired by the
Japanese game Sweet Home (1989) developed by Famicom
and produced by Capcom (Gamespot UK accessed 20 September
2007). The game achieved significant critical acclaim for
its atmospheric game-world and was played by a high
proportion of adult gamers in spite of its 15 rating. Rather
than the by then standard first person shooter game,
Resident Evil achieved a cinematic sensibility through
its use of a third person perspective where characters were
seen from fixed angle perspectives. This cinematic
sensibility is carried through in the graphical
representation and well-worn tropes of zombie horror films.
Indeed, it is often claimed by critics and fans alike that
the Resident Evil universe was inspired by George A
Romero’s Zombie trilogy, Night of the Living Dead
(1968), Dawn of the Dead (1978) and Day of the
Dead (1985).
At the start of the game, the
game player selects from two identities: the male Chris
Redfield and female Jill Valentine. The game is set in the
fictitious Racoon County in 1998 where a number of strange
murders had taken place. The victims had been partially
eaten. The Special Tactics and Rescue Squad (S.T.A.R.S)
Bravo Team are sent in to investigate but they disappear. A
second unit – Alpha Team – are sent to find out what has
happened. The cut scenes see Alpha Squad (Chris, Jill, Barry
and team leader Wesker) chased by attack dogs forcing them
to seek refuge inside a creepy mansion. The Team splits up,
agreeing to look for clues as to what has happened to Bravo
Team. And this is where the game action begins. Gradually,
through extended game-play, a dark and twisted tale of
corporate conspiracy is woven as the mighty Umbrella Corp.
are revealed to be involved in a series of sinister
bio-weapons developments. Alpha Team members are exposed as
double agents for Umbrella and Chris or Jill must face
monsters and zombies, puzzles and challenges alone and with
limited weaponry. This is the essence of ‘survival horror’.
And what started as a mission of discovery ends in a frantic
fight to escape the mansion and its many deadly secrets.
The Resident Evil series
now includes
Resident Evil
1996 on
PlayStation,
Resident Evil 2
1998 on
PlayStation,
Resident Evil 3: Nemesis
1999 on
PlayStation,
Resident Evil Code: Veronica
2000 on
Dreamcast,
Resident Evil Zero
2002 on
GameCube and the hugely successful
Resident Evil 4 on GameCube. Resident Evil 5 is
already generating interest in spite of its unconfirmed
release date of 2008.
2.3
Resident Evil: The Film
Inside a top secret research
facility – known as the Hive - owned by the mysterious
Umbrella Corporation a virus has escaped, killing the
research staff and re-animating them. The Red Queen – a
computer controlling the facility - shuts down the base to
prevent the virus spreading beyond the confines of the
laboratories and out into Racoon City. Umbrella Corp. sends
in a crack team of soldiers to regain control. But upon
their arrival, the team meet Alice, who is suffering from
amnesia, an after-effect of the gas the computer released
into the Hive as a control measure. As the story progresses,
Alice’s memory slowly returns and she realises that she has
played an important role in what has occurred in the Hive.
The soldiers’ orders are to shut down the Red Queen. But she
is not going to go without a fight. Alice survives but after
managing to escape The Hive, she emerges into the city and
realises that the worst has happened: the virus has escaped.
The first foray into cinematic
adaptation of the franchise came with Resident Evil
(2002) directed by Paul W Anderson. Anderson it seems was
considered a safe pair of hands after George A Romero left
the project. Paul W Anderson had already handled a
game-to-film adaptation competently with Mortal Kombat
(1995) and had achieved some critical acclaim for Event
Horizon (1997). Anderson has long claimed to be a fan of
the series and describes himself as a fanboy and his
love of the games the reason for his agreeing to take on the
project. In an online interview with Sci Fi Weekly he
stated:
[And] I literally lost like two
months of my life playing Resident Evil. I became
totally addicted to it. And I played the first three games
back to back. And by the time I kind of emerged from my
house, completely unshaven and tired-looking after two
months, I was like, we’ve got to make this into a movie.
(Anderson cited in Lee 18 March 2002)
The director was acutely aware
of the power of the fans and their expectations. This
dictated his approach to the making of the film. Anderson
stated: ‘… if you’re adapting a very popular game like this,
what you have to realize is that there is an incredibly huge
and committed fan base, and they know absolutely everything
about the world of Resident Evil’ (ibid). For
Anderson – as for the fans – Resident Evil is not so
much a franchise as a fictional universe. Part of the
challenge for Anderson was incorporating his film within the
existing universe of Resident Evil. He states:
It’s a complicated universe. And
as the writer/director, you have to be aware of that
universe, because you have to deliver a movie that exists
within that universe. If you break the rules of that
universe, the fans won’t forgive you for it. And I think
it’s one of the things that we really learned on Mortal
Kombat. You have to deliver to the fans, first and
foremost (ibid).
Given the pre-existence of this
universe, Anderson’s approach was to make this first
Resident Evil film a prequel. The action takes place a
month before the first game and seeks to provide a history
for the franchise. The problem for Anderson was to satisfy
fans by incorporating enough from the game world but
providing something fresh for fans and non-gamer film
audiences. In this respect, the film has come under intense
criticism for its deviation from the parameters of the
orginary game. However, Anderson defended his decision by
explaining that the film seeks to also bridge a gap between
the film and the first and second games. As Anderson argues:
…it totally feeds into the game
in that those characters are moving through locations and
situations that are very familiar to the game’s players. And
the movie kind of eventually segues straight into ... [and]
actually meets the world of the video games at the end of
the movie (ibid).
So, if Anderson deviated from
the original game in terms of narrative and character, what
elements of the game’s universe did Anderson seek to retain?
What, for Anderson were the essential components that were
required to make this part of the universe? For the
director, weapons, monsters and game sets were important.
Anderson states:
Although the characters are new,
per se, they’re very much archetypes from the game. We kept
the signature creatures, absolutely. I talked to a lot of
fans before I started on the script and also on the movie.
It became obvious that some of the creatures, like the
zombie dogs, were like everyone’s favourite. You can’t make
Resident Evil without the zombie dogs. And you can’t
make Resident Evil without the Licker. So you find
like everyone’s favourite creatures from the games are in
the movie. (ibid)
Anderson also sought to bring
the sets from the game to life by building replicas: ‘...
you’ll recognize pieces of hardware and sets from the game.
We rebuilt some of the sets from the game. Like in
Resident Evil 2, there’s a big train. We built that
train’ (ibid). In addition, Anderson ensured that plot
elements from the games were included in the film and
various characters from the games were referenced. As
Anderson states: ‘There are story points and references to
characters. It really operates within the world of the video
game’ (ibid). The film departed from the game world in a bid
to bring what Anderson described as ‘added value’ for fans.
For example, while having favourite monsters from the game
world in the film, the director added a new monster. He
states:
But it also has one special one
that we’ve designed just for the movie. Because the idea is,
for the games’ players, it’s like added value. You see
things in the movie that you don’t see in the games. You
know, you see reflection of the games, but you also see
something bigger and better. ..(ibid).
In addition to these game-like
features, the film also sought to emulate the investigative
mode of the game. This is done through the use of
labyrinths. As set designer, Richard Bridgland explained:
‘When you play the game you never know what is going to be
around that corridor’ (Bridgland 2002). One of the stars,
Michelle Rodriguez reiterates this. Her take on the
narrative flow of the film mirrors that of the game. She
says: ‘You have to solve things at every turn you take’
(Rodriguez 2002). Bridgland makes clear the intentions of
the film makers in tackling the adaptation. He states:
We wanted to create something
new, people want to see something new. You know, they’ve
played the games, they want to go to a different place now.
It’s almost like doing a live action version of a new
version of the game’ (Bridgland 2002).
For producer Bernd Eichinger,
some scenes in the film are ‘very close to shots in the
game’ (Eichinger 2002), although Capcom executive and head
of production, Yoshiki Okamoto sees the relationship
between the game and the film in a different way. For
Okamoto the cinematic elements of the game make it an
exciting possibility for adaptation into film. He states:
‘We’ve been told that the game contains movie elements and
we hoped that the game would become a movie as soon as
possible’ (Okamoto 2002). The camerawork has been
interpreted by critics as resembling some of the angles in
the game. Heilman (2002) for example, states in his review
of the film:
Sometimes, [Anderson] uses a
long shot, usually from above, that shows protagonist and
audience surrogate Milla Jovovich walking across the screen,
and the impression it leaves deliberately recalls the
exploration sequences of a videogame. The audience will
probably be reaching for their control pad during these
scenes since the camera angles and shot durations, as well
as the placement of scare scenes, have been ripped directly
from the Resident Evil game. This feeling that the
film more closely resembles an interactive game than a
non-interactive film (Heilman 09.04.02 MovieMartyr.com).
Indeed, this was a deliberate
strategy in the adaptation. As Bridgland states: ‘The spaces
and the angles are designed to be very disorientating and
that was one of the big things we wanted to take from the
game’ (Bridgland 2002).
But how did the games’ players
respond to this prequel and its game-like features? Were
the game-like features enough to overcome any sense of loss
or lack of interactivity, or did they, as Heiland suggests,
respond to the film as an interactive game rather than a
non-interactive film? And if the latter is the case, what
would such a response look like? This paper seeks to
explore if there was a palpable sense of a divide between
game and film. The following section outlines the
methodology utilised in the research.
Part Three Methodology
This research seeks to
understand how gamers responded to the film adaptation of
the video game Resident Evil. How do fans of a
franchise established in one media form relate to the
franchise and this new product when adapted into a different
media form? Given the differences discussed in the previous
section, what could fans expect in exchanging their
interactive role for that of the spectatorial one?
3.1 Research Approach: VIPS and
SPACES and Resident Evil
This research draws on the work
of Barker and Brooks (1998) and their research on viewers of
the film Judge Dredd (1995). Barker and Brooks
themselves draw on the work of art historian Michael
Baxandall ([1972]1988) who argues that paintings cannot be
understood fully unless three aspects are taken into
consideration. According to Barker and Brooks these are: the
principles governing the making and placing in public spaces
of the paintings, the patterning of elements within the
paintings, and the ways in which these provided specific
kinds of opportunities for use and response (Barker and
Brooks 1998: 138).
In their application of
Baxandall’s approach, Barker and Brooks focus their
inquiries on Judge Dredd across three sites:
audiences, production and publicity, the film. This research
acknowledges the value in this multi-site approach and as a
consequence, I also seek to understand the film adaptation
of Resident Evil within the context of the game’s
universe, but also within the context of Resident Evil
as a franchise. The aim here then is to contextualise the
gamers’ responses to the adaptation in terms of the
film-makers aims and within the ongoing metamorphosis and
extension of the Resident Evil universe (for fans),
or franchise (for Capcom).
Barker and Brooks’ approach to
audiences is of central importance to my research approach.
Barker and Brooks interviewed viewers of Judge Dredd
in order to identify the ways in which they talked about the
film. These patterns of talk constituted what they term
Vocabularies of Involvement and Pleasure (Barker and Brooks
1998: 139). Drawing from a long list of sixteen proposed
Vocabularies of Involvement and Pleasure, the authors
identified six patterns of talk, ‘…each organised around a
different set of key concepts’ (ibid: 145). These were:
the joys of being done to, the pleasures of spectacle,
Dredd’s deserts, Sylvester’s measure, the magic of cinema,
the pleasures of talk and the dangers of sad. These
VIPs provide an invaluable starting point and framework for
my research.
I will now briefly detail each
VIP and elaborate on the implications of each and the
questions and issues they raise in the case of my sample.
However, it is noted that Sylvester’s Measure does
not really apply in the case of Resident Evil since
the film-makers did not cast actors with established canons
of work and consequently, the film was not marketed in terms
of its ‘all-star cast’. Also, the magic of cinema has been
omitted from the framework since the reviews of the gamers
do not always include where films were viewed or in what
format. Barker and Brooks were also interested in the
experience of cinema, and whilst this would have been an
interesting addition to the research, it is beyond the
parameters of the project and the data do not provide
sufficient evidence for analysis. Therefore, further
consideration of these two VIPs is not included below.
3.1.1 The Joys of Being Done
To…and the Pleasures of Doing To
Barker and Brooks observed in
their sample a pattern of talk that focused on the ways in
which some viewers wanted to experience cinema in a
‘physical’ sense (ibid 146). This VIP was characterised by
phrases that emphasised this, such as ‘being knocked out of
my seat’, ‘making me jump’ and ‘hitting me between the eyes’
(ibid). Did the gamers I sampled express themselves in
similar ways? Furthermore, since these gamers are used to
being done to, to the extent where their avatar’s (and
their own) progress can be thwarted by being done to,
did they feel they were done to in similar ways to
the game? In addition, the gamers sampled are also used to
doing to objects, monsters, puzzles and so forth. Did
they express any sense of loss in their ability to
interact?
3.1.2 Spectacle and the
Frustrated Gamer/Spectator
Barker and Brooks’ VIP of the
pleasures of the spectacle observed a pattern of talk that
emphasised ‘the scale of a film, its ‘spectacular
qualities’. Special effects formed part of this language and
there was an emphasis on the visual quality of the film
(ibid). What interests me here in relation to my own sample
is how far spectacle is readily exchanged and accepted for
the ergodic pleasures of game-play. After all, the arrival
of some nasty beastie in the game world may first be
presaged in a cut scene where the gamer is unable to act.
But after this spectacle comes action. Indeed, spectacle is
often a sign of or call to action. Can a sense of
frustration that this call cannot be answered, be determined
in the gamers’ responses to the adaptation in film?
3.1.3 True Adaptation, Justice
and Likeness: Dredd’s Deserts and Resident Evil
A large number of Barker and
Brooks’ respondents were fans of Judge Dredd and readers of
2000AD. In their VIP entitled “Dredd’s Deserts”, the
viewers’ patterns of talk revolved around the discussion of
‘what Judge Dredd was really like, and what he deserves’
(ibid). This VIP articulated ‘a language of insiders’
knowing appreciation’ (ibid). I anticipate patterns similar
to this will emerge from my research. Resident Evil Fans,
like Dredd fans are in a sense stake holders, and
curators of knowledge. How would they respond to the film
makers’ attempts to assign the film as a prequel? Will they
accept this new history of the Resident Evil
universe? And if they are concerned with the film being
‘like the game’, what does that actually mean, since games
and film offer similar but also different pleasures?
3.1.4 The Other Side of ‘Sad’?
Barker and Brooks’ VIP, “the
pleasures of talk and the dangers of ‘sad’” is very
interesting in relation to my research because many of the
gamers sampled would perhaps qualify as ‘sad’. They state:
The emphasis here is on the
manner of participation. You go, and you watch, as a
group-member – never as an intense loner. The point is to
have no point. It is participation as its own purpose,
leading nowhere except the pub. To do otherwise is to be
obsessive, a fanboy, ‘sad’ (ibid: 148).
The gamers posting on Imdb’s
Resident Evil message board had a point in posting: to
varying degrees they are all recording and publishing their
views on the film for themselves and others they anticipate
are like-minded. There is no reply facility so gamers do not
talk to each other about the film. Are they as solitary and
‘sad’ as the fanboy tag suggests? Do they show awareness of
talking to others, as gamers, as fans of Resident Evil
and/or film reviewers or are they locked in their own
private, obsessive worlds? What, ultimately, does their
participation on this site mean?
3.2 Method
Given that both my and Barker
and Brooks’ research are interested in adaptations in film
of a non-filmic product, I was curious to see where our work
might intersect and where it might differ, and the reasons
for any differences or intersections. How far did the
Vocabularies of Involvement and Pleasure observed in the
case of Judge Dredd reflect the patterns of views and
opinions of the gamers sampled through the course of my
research? Of course, my goals and intentions differ from
those of Barker and Brooks in two important ways.
Firstly, my sample is drawn from
viewers who have stated that they have played Resident
Evil. They all expressed this in their posts. Barker and
Brooks’ sample are not made up of Dredd fans alone as
they are interested in more diverse and broader patterns of
audience cultural responses, experiences and involvements.
In short, the gamers in my sample had an investment already
in the Resident Evil universe prior to viewing the
film. In Barker and Brooks’ study it was not a necessary
prerequisite to know the Judge Dredd universe.
Secondly, Barker and Brooks’ research differs in their data
gathering methods. The authors used interviews and focus
groups. My research centres on the writing of audiences. And
if, as they state, little had been written on audiences and
the languages of pleasure (ibid: 143), then even less has
been done on their writing.
For Barker and Brooks, each
pattern of VIP represents a culturally-generated space or
‘SPACE - Site for the Production of Active Cinematic
Experiences’ (ibid: 154). Each space is a model of a
possible orientation to a film, constituted by reasons for
going, expectations, preparations, choice of cinema (or
video), company, ways of participating in the film,
pleasures and dislikes, surprises and disappointments,
judgements, wind-down and aftermath (Ibid).
Instead of spaces – which is in
Barker and Brooks’ work applied to Judge Dredd and
the film viewing experience – my ‘spaces’ are critical
positions: the positions taken up by gamers who watched the
film and commented. During the pilot study, while looking
for these positions it became clear that the gamers’
positions derived from their media preferences. In spite of
intimating that they had played the Resident Evil
game, the gamers could be further broken down by exploring
where they were coming from, critically. From this pilot
study, I proposed five critical positions: Resident Evil
Fans, Film Critics, Horror Film Fans, Zombie Film Fans,
Video Game Players. It is important to draw a distinction
between Resident Evil Fans and Video Game Players
because although it was evident from the posts sampled that
all had played Resident Evil, the Video Game Players
were not necessarily fans of the game itself, but rather
were fans of videogames as a distinct media form.
Another question I sought to
explore was whether critical positions were combined with
others or were singular critical positions taken up? Barker
and Brooks argued that spaces of Judge Dredd viewers
were often combined. Would I find a tendency for one
critical position to dominate whilst others are presented as
secondary?
Barker and Brooks adopt
discourse analysis in their study. For the authors,
discourse analysis allowed them to study the responses of
film viewers to Judge Dredd in the context that
‘discourse analysis starts from a belief that all acts of
human communication are complex structural processes’ (ibid
109). However the central issue for research using discourse
analysis is, in Barker and Brooks’ view, ensuring that the
discourses identified through research are indeed
microcosmic examples of wider discourses circulating in
culture and society. To this end they argue that one proviso
must be met when making claims as regards the presence and
identification of discourses – that only provisional claims
are made (ibid 117). For Bertrand and Hughes (2005),
discourse analysis in media and communications is a
specialised form of textual analysis that: ‘…sets out to
analyse how audiences understand messages, that is, they are
interested in the processes of making meaning, rather than
just the meaning itself’ (Bertrand and Hughes 2005: 174).
Furthermore, for them, and helpfully for my research, they
argue that discourses are ‘constructions of a particular
telling from a vastly larger potential story’ (ibid 213).
This is the approach on discourse I take in this paper.
The research draws on 118
reviews (6) of the film Resident Evil posted on the
internet movie database’s Resident Evil message board
between the film’s release in 2002 to the beginning of this
research project in February 2005. These posts have been
selected from an original sample of 250 posts because they
all state they have played the Resident Evil games
and have watched and are reviewing the film. Analysis was
used to identify specific critical positions from the
gamers’ posts. This was done by drawing up categories, based
on observations from the pilot study. The categories sought
to identify dominant and secondary critical positions by
first, looking at how the gamer described themselves.
Because not all gamers were explicit on this, those posts
were subjected to further analysis to determine the
categories of criticism that they privileged. The findings
are presented in Table 1.
I then sought to identify the
various patterns of critical ideas for each critical
position. I follow the rationale of Barker and Brooks in
that I attempt to understand how people’s responses to films
[like Dredd] can be studied as social phenomena’
(Barker and Brooks 1998: 115). It is my contention that the
adaptation of Resident Evil in film and gamers’
responses to it can tell us something about the nature of
contemporary adaptation, the expectations and experiences
different media forms offer, the ways in which audiences
compartmentalise distinct pleasures. As Barker and Brooks
state: ‘A film is a body of social meanings. So is going to
see it. So are people’s responses. We need to listen to
their talk’ (ibid).
Discourse analysis was carefully
conducted by analysing the posts against categories drawn up
via a pilot study of twenty posts. The gamers’ posts were
analysed in accordance with their dominant critical
positions. I was able to determine several key discourses.
This approach differs to Barker and Brooks in that in their
study, the authors present their patterns of talk first
before assigning these patterns to certain spaces/SPACES. My
research does the reverse. It looks for the critical
positions first and then examines the gamers’ posts for
discourses that help to articulate their position. The
reason for doing things in this order acknowledges the fact
that these gamers elected to post their views and in so
doing had framed their critical positions prior to writing.
I suggest that writing a review is not as spontaneous as
having a conversation with a purpose (Mason 1996: 43) as in
the case of qualitative interviewing. It became clear from
the pilot study that the critical angle frames the pitch,
and not vice versa.
Part Four Findings
In this part of the paper, I
present the research findings. The central research
question: how did gamers respond to the adaptation in film
of the video game Resident Evil needs to re-assessed
in the light of the findings. The research showed that while
all posts sampled were written by individuals who stated
they had played the game, there were many different critical
positions taken up by the gamers in their posts. This is
explored in the first part of this section. Analysis of
their reviews revealed a number of common discourses and
this is the concern of second part of this section.
4.1 Critical Positions
It was clear from the analysis
that the gamers took up a number of different positions in
their critical appraisals of the film. By critical position,
I mean the specific critical angle the posts were coming
from. Were they more concerned with how the film
compared to the game, or did their critical reviews centre
on reviewing the film itself? Furthermore, the gamers
typically adopted more than one critical position. However,
in the vast majority of these had a preferred or dominant
position that could be determined from the analysis of their
critical views. The critical positions identified in the
research were: Resident Evil Fans, Film Critics, Horror
Film Fans, Zombie Film Fans and Videogames Fans. It is
important to note that a distinction has been drawn between
Resident Evil Fans and Videogame Fans because not all
of the Videogames Fans were also fans of the game. They
were, primarily, fans of the form (videogames) rather than
the content (the game) or in some cases, other types of
content (other videogames) and those articulating from this
critical position made this clear in their posts. Table 1
below shows the different types of critical positions
observed in the analysis.
Table 1 Critical Positions
|
Critical positions: dominant
and secondary |
Number of gamers adopting
specific critical positions |
|
Resident Evil Fans |
15 |
|
Film Critics |
7 |
|
Horror Film Fans |
1 |
|
Resident Evil Fans (dom) Film
Critics (sec) |
31 |
|
Resident Evil Fans (dom)
Videogame Fans (sec) |
14 |
|
Film Critics (dom) Resident Evil
Fans (sec) |
10 |
|
Resident Evil Fans (dom) Horror
Film Fans (sec) |
6 |
|
Resident Evil Fans (dom) Zombie
Film Fans (sec) |
5 |
|
Film Critics (dom) Videogame Fans
(sec) |
4 |
|
Videogame Fans (dom) Resident
Evil Fans (sec) |
4 |
|
Videogame Fans (dom) Film Critics
(sec) |
4 |
|
Horror Film Fans (dom) Film
Critics (sec) |
4 |
Table 1 demonstrates how the
majority of gamers adopted more than one critical position
in their critical reviews of the film. By far the most
prevalent dominant position is the Resident Evil Fan
position – seventy one of the 118 gamers. Across the whole
sample, being a Resident Evil Fan is clearly an
important critical position for fans to emphasise. If the
118 posts, eighty five gamers expressed the Resident Evil
Fan critical position when dominant and secondary
positions are combined.
But while love of the game is
clearly important to the majority of gamers analysed, it is
important also to remember that they are reviewing a film on
a film-site message board (Imdb). In this context, the
second most prevalent critical position taken up by the
gamers analysed in the sample is the film critic position.
Of the 118 posts sampled, twenty one gamers expressed their
dominant critical views from the film critic position. When
combined with those taking up this position in a secondary
capacity, some sixty gamers occupy a film critic position.
Given that the subject of their reviews is a film adaptation
of a game and the platform for their views the Imdb, it is
no surprise that the most prevalent type of critical
position is the combination of Resident Evil Fans and
Film Critics (thirty one posts).
Having established that the
gamers did not approach their reviews from one critical
perspective, I now turn attention to the patterns and
rhythms of their reviews. The different critical positions
taken up by the gamers meant that their responses were
oriented in different ways and a number of discourses were
identified. The three most prevalent critical positions (Resident
Evil Fans, Film Critics and Horror Film Fans) and the
discourses identified in their posts are discussed in the
following section. However, the video game fans were added
to the analysis in the section on game play versus
spectatorship as they had some very specific contributions
to make.
4.2 Critical discourses
The critical positions
identified did orient the reviews in different ways. The
research found that each dominant critical position had
separate sets of critical concerns. For example, for
Resident Evil Fans, being like the game, the quality of
game to film adaptations, and the choice of director for the
film were the key critical discourses. The Film Critics were
especially concerned with generic identification, the choice
of director, the quality of game to film adaptation, and
undertaking what I have termed holistic film criticism.
The Horror Film Fans main critical discourse centred on the
‘scariness’ of the film. These findings are now presented in
more detail.
4.2.1 Resident Evil
Fans as
Dominant Position
These gamers’ discussions
focussed most closely on the game/film comparison but they
were weighted heavily in favour of the originary text and
tended to end with an overall verdict on the worthiness of
the adaptation. A number of key discourses emerged. These
were a concern with how far the film was like or not like
the game, how far an adaptation of the game in film should
reflect the game, the perceived poor quality of previous
films adapted from games and in relation to this last point,
the instatement of Anderson as the director rather than
Romero.
4.2.1.1 Being like the game
Of all the discourses of their
reviews, the discussions surrounding how far the film was
like or not like the game were the most prevalent. This is a
complex issue since when being like or not like the game is
unpacked, it is made up of four quite distinct components:
game iconography, story and plot, characters, and feel.
Game Iconography
As already discussed Anderson
and his crew attempted to translate some of the games’
features into the film. At the same time they attempted to
construct a prequel to the games. To recap, the features
that were for the film’s makers essential to include in the
film were character archetypes drawn from the games, various
monsters (zombies, dogs and the licker) and villains
(Umbrella Corporation), some of the game settings (the
mansion, Racoon City), key story elements (the T-virus,
S.T.A.R.S, the escaped virus), and the exploratory narrative
(Alice’s amnesia, labyrinthine corridors). On the whole,
these gamers were content to see familiar iconographic
features of the game. Thus Anderson had correctly identified
these all important features. However, the film differed
from the games in that none of the characters from the games
were present, the story – being a prequel – did not match or
follow any of the existing games’ storyline but rather
sought to insert itself into the Resident Evil
universe at a point prior to the original game at the start
of the film to the start of the second game by the film’s
climax.
It is clear from the posts that
measuring the likeness to the game was a consistent
preoccupation for those assessing the film from the dominant
position of the Resident Evil Fan. In the main,
Anderson seems to have correctly identified the monsters
that the fans would like to see brought to life. But
the main areas of contention for these gamers centred on the
non-adherence to the Resident Evil story, the lack of
characters from the game, and interestingly, the concept of
feel.
Storyline and plot
The fans did not express a
consistent view of the adaptation’s storyline. Responses on
this issue tended to be divided between two positions:
Resident Evil purists who rejected the film’s attempt to
historicise and contextualise the Resident Evil story
and who resisted, ignored or misread the film’s prequel
intentions, and those Resident Evil Fans who believed
that a game replica in film would not work. In terms of the
former, gamers 60, 6 and 41 comments are typical. The
language used to describe the story included words like
‘warped’, ‘twisted’, and ‘distorted’. Gamer 60 disliked the
film’s story and suggested that the reason for their
negative view of the story relates to their expectations
drawn from the game. Gamer 60 states:
…if they had followed the story
of the game this could have been one of the best horror
films ever made. If it wasn’t based on a videogame I think I
may have enjoyed it but because I was comparing it to what I
expected I was very disappointed (Gamer 60 12 April 2004).
Gamer 6 expresses concern about
the new material added to the Resident Evil story by
Anderson and in so doing expresses a tacit sense of being a
stake-holder in the game. They lament: ‘Why was this movie
anticipated so much? Because people thought it would be
based on their favourite videogame, they were terribly
wrong…The script from the game was horribly twisted in that
most of the material was new’ (Gamer 6 10 December 2002).
For Gamer 41 the story had been
twisted to make the film into a more marketable commodity: ‘Resident
Evil (the game) had a very interesting and atmospheric
story…with an exciting plot. The Movie however, distorted
EVERYTHING into a cheap sci-fi movie’ (Gamer 41 14 May
2003).
In spite of these kinds of
criticisms, the other take on the story and its adaptation
took on board the differences between games and films and
the difficulties in adapting games into films as can be seen
in the posts of Gamers 13, 71 and 113. Gamer 13, for
example, states:
Having played all the games, I
watched the movie with anticipation. No, it doesn’t follow
the same script, but that’s a good thing else it would have
been a bit dull knowing what was about to happen…if you want
a true to script game to movie go and watch Tomb Raider
and when you realise just how crap that is, you will
understand why this was changed (Gamer 13 18 December 2002).
Gamer 71 took other fans to task
for expecting a game-like replica:
I am a die hard fan of
Resident Evil videogames…Many fans of the game complain
about the plot. They don’t like the fact that it isn’t based
on any of the games’ scenarios 100 per cent…But I think it’s
a good thing. It just wouldn’t be fun. Everyone would know
what is going to happen and how it is going to end (Gamer 71
15 October 2004).
Gamer 113 altered their view of
the film after a second viewing. This gamer paid some
considerable attention to the question of game to film
adaptation:
To be honest the first time I
saw this I didn’t care for it. It did not follow the
storyline of the game and that made me very unhappy with
this endeavour. Upon realisation that a video game is
‘dumbed down’ for the players to be able to concentrate,
however, I opted for a second viewing (Gamer 113 13 January
2005).
Characters
Those reading the film from a
dominant position of the Resident Evil Fan were more
unified, if not wholly so, in their disappointment in the
lack of characters from the games. Gamer 23 is fairly
balanced in their review of the film but notes that the film
does have its ‘downfall’ in the lack of characters from the
game. Gamer 60 expressed disappointment at the lack of
characters from the games and a sense of bafflement as to
why such fundamental game features were missing from the
adaptation. They state:
I was beyond disappointment when
I saw the movie. Why would anyone base a movie on a
videogame and not even use characters from the game. It made
no sense to me…the characters are pretty dull and boring in
my opinion. (Gamer 60 12 April 2004).
Gamer 67 echoes this sentiment.
They state:
For starters, there is no-one in
the film who is actually from the game…Milla Jovovich ruins
it too. The entire film focussed around her and what
involvement she has with Umbrella. I can tell you that –
NONE! She is the main character and yet is not in any of the
games’ (Gamer 67 22 November 2004).
Gamer 95 still found the lack of
characters disappointing despite multiple viewings of the
film. Gamer 95 states: ‘I would liked to have seen some of
the characters from Resident Evil 1 in this movie.
Not the second movie’ (Gamer 95 21 January 2003). And Gamer
108 is equally disappointed by the lack of characters from
the game series. They state: ‘…not even the real characters
from the game are here: Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield,
etc. Not a damn one’ (Gamer 108 7 June 2003).
A small number were quite
positive, like Gamer 50, who thought that the film was less
predictable without the characters from the games. They
state: ‘…the characters from the game not being in this
helped the movie because guessing who is going to live and
who is not is a bit hard’ (Gamer 50 1 November 2003). Gamer
74 was hostile to the lack of characters from the games
during their first viewing of the film. But after a second
viewing they revised their opinion and provided guidance to
other Resident Evil Fans on how to manage and
renegotiate their expectations:
I love the game and have played
all but one and when I first saw the movie I was
disappointed that not one of the main characters were in the
movie. But it was ok. But the more that I sit and watch it
the more that I find I like it. It is a good movie, but be
prepared if you are an avid Resident Evil gamer. You
might be disappointed but give it a chance (Gamer 74 19
March 2004).
Gamer 61 thought the characters
were ‘strong and effective’ (Gamer 61 8 April 2004). Gamer
73 showed appreciation for the characters and the
difficulties Anderson faced as a consequence of the
interactivity of gamers. They argue: ‘…try and favour
Anderson’s adaptation of the game’s horror devices into
movie ones. It can’t be easy because we don’t get to control
the characters’ (Gamer 73 17 January 2004).
Other gamers were critical of
the characters in the film for a different reason: the lack
of empathy they felt for them. Gamer 6 blamed the actors for
poor performances: ‘Resident Evil is horribly cast,
the acting is from a B movie, none of the characters are
interesting and none show any emotion or feelings (Gamer 6
10 December 2002). Gamer 54 links the lack of scares with
the lack of interest they had in the characters. They state:
‘There was not one genuine scare in the movie because you
don’t care about any of the characters – they are all badly
written clichés’ (Gamer 54 3 January 2004). Gamer 83
expressed strong negative feelings towards the adaptation
and singling out the characters for particular criticism:
I have seen the film twice (to
my disgust!) and STILL I don’t know character names, only
one, and I even looked them up on imdb.com before watching
it for the second time! I STILL don’t feel any empathy for
the characters and basically I didn’t care if they made it
out or not! (Gamer 83 26 May 2002)
Feel, Ambience, Atmosphere
Perhaps the most interesting
issue contained within the critical discourse of being like
the game relates to the notion of feel and for many
who assessed the film from the Resident Evil Fan
position the film did not deliver. It is my contention that
feel is particularly important to survival horror
gamers because, as Krzywinska suggests, game-play amplifies
the horror effect well-known to viewers of horror films. The
feel of Resident Evil’s survival horror is
created by the interaction between the game-world and the
player. Survival horror, as already discussed, sets a lone
character on a horrific journey of discovery that becomes a
fight for survival, with deliberately limited weaponry and
resources.
Feel
is enhanced from the interaction with the game-world and
from the increased sense of immersion and telepresence
offered by the videogame play. Murray defines immersion as:
‘…a metaphorical term derived from the physical experience
of being submerged in water. We seek the same
psychologically immersive experience that we do from a
plunge in the ocean or swimming pool: the sensation of being
surrounded by a completely other reality’ (Murray 1997:
98-99 cited in McMahan 2003: 68). The immersion of game-play
in Resident Evil contributes to the “creepy feel” of
the game and amplifies the horror.
The horror is further
intensified by the sense of telepresence involved in
game-play. Telepresence, according to Steuer (1992): ‘… is
the extent to which an individual feels present in a
mediated environment’ (Steuer 1992: 73-93 cited in McMahan
1997: 72). Telepresence is attained when: ‘…perception is
mediated by a communication technology’ which in turn forces
the individual ‘to perceive two separate environments
simultaneously: the physical environment in which one is
actually present, and the environment presented via the
medium’ (ibid). It is argued here that there are higher
degrees of immersion and telepresence involved in game-play
than there are in cinematic spectatorship. Since
telepresence and immersion amplify feel it is perhaps
easier to understand its importance to the gamers sampled.
Gamer 7 found the experience of
watching the film similar to that of playing the game as a
consequence of the feel the game created: ‘…a few
scenes creeped me out, just like the game does, while
playing it alone, in a dark room with the volume turned way
up’ (Gamer 7 9 December 2002). Gamer 10 also implies in
their review that feel is connected to the ‘rules’ of game
play: ‘The movie follows the same basic rules of Resident
Evil (eg creepy atmosphere, wonder, zombies, zombie dogs
and eerie areas)’ (Gamer 10 27 December 2002). Gamer 51 was
equally enthusiastic about the film’s recreation of the
game:
Just beautiful to see the
underground labs, the Umbrella squad working, the zombies,
and most important, the feeling that the games gave me while
playing them, just giving in to the movie and letting you
think you are in Resident Evil world, just like the
games did. Of course, you can only feel this way about the
movie when you’ve played the games (Gamer 51 1 November
2003).
For this gamer, then, only by
playing the games previously can you re-experience this play
through the film. Feel in this respect adds a new
dimension to the sensation of ‘losing oneself in a film’.
Feel is a more tactile proposition in games than in
films.
Not all thought that the feel
had been successfully recreated in the film. Gamer 46
attempted to speak for disappointed Resident Evil
Fans and lamented the elements missing in the film that made
the game so unique and special. They state: ‘We wanted to
endless scares, suspense, a creepy environment. We deeply
wished to see the dark atmosphere present in the game, but
we get nothing of this’ (Gamer 46 27 July 2003).
Gamer 104 argued in their post
that the defining characteristic of the game was the feel
invoked by the ‘disturbingly claustrophobic corridors and
it’s ever present nightmarish atmosphere’ and laments that
director Anderson does not ‘cash in’ on these key features
(Gamer 104 20 July 2003). The use of the term ‘ever present’
here reflects the gaming situation as the game only
progresses if the gamer is present. Thus the term again, in
my view, provides further evidence that for many Resident
Evil Fans, feel is more than milieu or filmic
ambience. Is feel – its presence or lack - an
articulation of an experiential gap between game play and
film spectatorship?
4.2.1.2 Game to film adaptations
Many of those gamers who adopted
the dominant Resident Evil Fan position in their
posts admitted that they had low expectation of the film
because of previous game to film adaptations. This critical
position was the most often taken up dominant position.
However, the Resident Evil Fans were perhaps the most
divided on the success of the film and this can be seen in
analysis of their expectations. To clarify this point, I
have compiled a table of expectations (see table 2 below).
Table 2 Expectations of gamers
occupying Resident Evil Fans critical positions
|
Categories of expectation |
High expectations |
Low expectations |
|
Adaptations |
0 |
1 |
|
Director |
1 |
4 |
|
Film style |
1 |
0 |
|
Game |
23 |
10 |
|
Game to film genre |
3 |
11 |
|
Industry/finance |
0 |
1 |
|
Zombies |
1 |
0 |
Gamer 7’s post demonstrated that
they had rather low expectations for the film because of
this, although perhaps part of the reason for their
anticipation could be attributed to the two previous
examples of game to film adaptations that were satisfactory
:
First of all I must admit that I
am an avid Resident Evil player and was sceptical of
this film at first, yet still anticipated its release. After
walking out of the theatre I was astonished. I remembered
the days when video games first came onto the big screen. I
remembered the disappointment following such flops as
Super Mario Bros, and Street Fighter. But then
there was the satisfaction of Mortal Kombat (not the
sequel which sucked hard core) and Final Fantasy: the
spirit within (Gamer 7 9 December 2002).
Gamer 15 took a gamble on the
film in spite of being disappointed by game to film
adaptations in the past: ‘Only got it because of the
videogame series. I knew I was taking a chance because
usually video games made into movies really suck’ (Gamer 15
25 February 2003). Gamer 49 also decided to give the film a
try because they had played the games but had low
expectations because of previous game to film adaptations.
They write:
Does everyone like this film????
I mean, I enjoyed the game and decided to give this movie a
try even though most remakes of computer games to date have
left me pretty bored, and this is definitely no exception
(Gamer 49 6 November 2003).
Gamer 50 sought to place the
film within the canon of game to film adaptations by
claiming it to be ‘one of the better’ video game to film
adaptations. But it is clear this gamer does not expect
much. They write: This movie is no great movie but it is a
worthy video game movie’ (Gamer 50 1 November 2003). Gamer
72 articulates the same opinion: ‘Ok, video games to films?
Not very good admitted. Super Mario Bros attests to
that’ (Gamer 72 27 January 2004). For Gamer 76, the problem
with game to film adaptations is the ratings system which
they suggest is responsible for turning R rated games into
PG13 films for children. In a lengthy discussion of this
topic, Gamer 76 argues:
…I was sceptical on seeing
another translation from videogame to movie, as most have
been awful…The failures of other games into movies were to
rate them PG or PG 13 just to get kids in the seats, good
plan, but not always the way to do it. The best example
being Mortal Kombat and its even worse sequel. When
the MK games debuted, they were extraordinarily popular and
notorious as being the most violent games ever made. SO
turning it into a hammy PG 13 movie really destroyed its
hopes of relying on its history and turned off hardened fans
of the games’ series (Gamer 76 25 February 2004).
For some gamers, Paul Anderson
and game to film adaptation go hand in hand. For Gamer 88
the fact that Paul Anderson, director of the Mortal
Kombat game to film adaptation, had been given the
go-ahead as the director of Resident Evil almost
reduced them to tears. This gamer states:
…when I heard of this film I
thought, ‘I hope it’s someone good directing’. But when I
heard Paul who has directed Mortal Kombat I almost began
crying…The next thought was: has there ever been a good game
to film movie? Super Mario Bros, Tomb Raider, Street
Fighter, Mortal Kombat – all of those are really crap!!!
(Gamer 88 22 September 2004).