When it comes to the live action Resident Evil adaptations, ask any fan of the series and they'll tell you that they have never gotten it right. Ask a fan who was there since they first tried to adapt Resident Evil to the big screen and they will tell you they have not gotten right since 2002. Think about that, for the last twenty years Capcom and whatever studio that they gave the rights to have not done the Resident Evil franchise any justice when it comes to live action cinematic outings. To be fair, the first two live action Resident Evil films were not that good but they were at least enjoyable in that the new story they told was at least something you could see in a Resident Evil game and Resident Evil Apocalypse did cover the Raccoon City outbreak with a pretty faithful and practically designed Nemesis with legacy characters like Jill Valentine and Carlos Oliveira. Of course afterwords was the 3D action guilty pleasure nonsense that stuck with the films until the very end with Resident Evil: The Final Chapter and at the end of it, fans were probably relieved that they didn't have to worry about yet another live-action Resident Evil sequel.
Fast forward to 2021 and yet again they tried to adapt Resident Evil, this time with the first two games in mind and an attempt to be more faithful to the story of both games respectfully.
It didn't work,
The problem this time around with Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City was that it bit off more than it could chew by trying to tell the story of two games in one movie, with dialogue that was mostly full of references to the games such as "What do you think would be worse? Getting eaten by a giant snake or a giant shark?" Clear nods to Neptune and Yawn. The characters were almost re-written from the games not resembling their video game counterparts at all. Leon in WRC was no longer an altruistic character with a determination to try and save everyone he could to the best of his abilities but was instead a bumbling idiot that didn't know what to do or what was going on throughout the entire film. I could go on but you get the idea of how the characters were written. The set pieces were good attempts to represent the original games but the poor acting combined with the reference heavy writing and horrible CGI would be the downfall as to what would be considered the worst attempt at adapting Resident Evil ....until Netflix threw their hat in the ring.
If you haven't noticed by now, Netflix's Resident Evil has been getting panned by critics and audiences alike, both often citing the ridiculous writing and disjointed story telling by trying to tell the story of how the outbreak occurred in the modern day setting and a post-apocalyptic T-Virus riddled world. Another thing that people are citing is also the characters are just not very likeable, except Albert Wesker played by Lance Reddick.
To start, Jade and Billie are really just spoiled teenagers with no respect for anything their father does, especially Jade. Jade is by far the worse as she comes off as an arrogant teenager down right mocking her father at every turn and point she can for just doing his job at one of the largest pharmaceutical companies the world's ever seen. She insults everyone around her and does things only to benefit her regardless of the consequences of her actions. Future Jade is the same, getting people killed in the process of her getting things she wants no matter the cost. The perfect example of this is when she sneaks a zombie on board a ship full of survivors in order to conduct an experiment, restraining the zombie with simple nylon straps, doing all of this in front of her own daughter, even though she saw a zombie the other day break out from being handcuffed to a steel pipe by tearing away from it's own hand. The zombie of course breaks out and ends up killing Jade's best friend not only in front of most of the crew but also in front of the best friend's husband AND the best friend was also two months pregnant. So not only did she put herself, the crew and her own daughter in danger by her short sighted and selfish desire to get what she wanted but in doing so she turned a husband into a widower and got a soon to be mother killed as well. Was there a backup plan should the zombie get out? Any weapon on stand by should the worst happen? Nope, she risked her life, the life of everyone on board the ship and her own daughter for her goal of completing this experiment.
So why exactly are we supposed to root for this character?
It's not like the storytelling is any better either,
Netflix's Resident Evil has two stories in two timelines and it is painfully clear that they're both clearly meant for two different audiences. The 2022 story line is clearly more meant for young adult fans or audiences that like teen melodramas and the 2036 story line was meant for zombie apocalypse action fans with guns and gore. In which case both audiences would be dismayed by the opposing timeline taking up screen time. Young adult fans would hate the 2036 story line and the gore crowd would hate the 2022 teen melodrama story line. In this instance, I think the writers and producers tried to have their cake and eat it too in trying to present the show like this and it ultimately backfires on them. Ultimately, neither story line is meant for any actual Resident Evil fans cause neither story looks, sounds or feels like a Resident Evil story.There's nothing in either story except maybe some monsters from the games that are treated more like easter-eggs as opposed to meaningful inclusions to the show.
Almost as if the producers just said "Throw the Lickers in this part, that'll make the Resident Evil fans happy".
At the end of the day the Resident Evil Netflix show is terrible. It's terrible because it doesn't work as a show nor does it work as a Resident Evil show. It doesn't work as a show because the majority cast of characters are not likeable in any sense or stretch of the imagination. They're either arrogant, disrespectful, stupid, spineless or ultimately serve no purpose in the story other than to be zombie fodder. Trying to tell the story in two timelines doesn't work due to the fact that they were clearly meant to appeal to two different groups of people and instead of the two timelines complimenting each other, they end up working against each other creating a jumbled mess of a story that doesn't resolve many plot points or questions any viewer would have about the story of the show from the end of the first episode and onward. It doesn't work as a Resident Evil show because this has nothing to do with any of the games that this show was never intended to actually be based on. It's another case of a studio with a writing team who didn't actually research the material that the show was supposed to be based on and instead filled the gaps in the story with their own characters and tell their own story, which I'm not against really but when you're trying to adapt something, especially something as beloved as the Resident Evil franchise, you should make sure to respect the original material or at least do something that respects it.
Making changes here and there from the source material is fine when it's minor or slight to get the show working but changing it to the point no fan of the material can recognize what the adaptation is doing will get you in hot water with said fans really quick.
There's been much speculation whether the show will get a second season and honestly I do not think this show deserves it. Giving the show a second season is just giving the show-runners and writers another chance to show how little they know about the Resident Evil games as well as a chance to re-write any legacy characters they might decide to include and make them completely unrecognizable from the source material and change everything to suit their own goals of story telling as opposed to making a show for the fans of a franchise that have been around since 1996.
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