Ah, the film novelization. As soon as a mainstay of the cinematic tie-in panorama, after the daybreak of dwelling media its operate as a de facto take-home model of a film was all however over. But the novelization persevered, notably when it got here to style movies. Studios, producers, authors and the like have been properly conscious of the accumulating habits of geeks, and knew that to them, proudly owning a novelization of a film was a enjoyable pastime, particularly when a novelization would take inventive liberties with the story and characters. What was an unlucky byproduct of authors receiving early drafts of a movie’s script and having to make due with what they needed to meet their deadline grew to become, in impact, bonus content material for followers who relished things like spending extra time of their favourite characters’ heads and studying scenes that have been both deleted from the movie or by no means shot in any respect.
In most cases, these gildings and additions have been clearly seen as non-canon. Nonetheless, within the case of the “Resident Evil” movie collection starring Milla Jovovich as Alice, “canon” was at all times a very unfastened time period. The six motion pictures comprising the Alice saga, starting with 2002’s “Resident Evil,” got here to a surprisingly conclusive installment with 2016’s “Resident Evil: The Closing Chapter.” Simply because the movie put a button on the story of Alice doesn’t suggest that the collection is especially succinct, although. Fairly the opposite, as every movie units up a cliffhanger in addition to teases for the following story which the next motion pictures hardly ever contact upon. Slightly than a franchise constructed round tight continuity, the attraction of the “Resident Evil” movies directed (and/or produced and written by) Paul W.S. Anderson is that something might occur.
Writer Tim Waggoner apparently took that precept to coronary heart when he wrote the novelization for “Resident Evil: The Closing Chapter,” because the novel bears a laundry listing of various plot parts from the completed movie. Whereas it is doable that a few of these got here from an earlier draft of the script, or got here from scenes shot however deleted from the film, the novel’s far stranger ending was greater than seemingly by no means destined for theaters.
Resident Evil and the unstoppable Albert Wesker
“The Closing Chapter” has not less than 5 prior motion pictures’ value of characters and storylines to try to wrap up, and that is not even counting the wealth of parts that the movies might have introduced over from the long-running online game collection. To say the ensuing movie is a bit messy and does not satisfactorily bring to an end all that had been launched within the prior installments is an understatement, particularly contemplating that the large cliffhanger ending of the previous movie, “Resident Evil: Retribution,” closely implied {that a} huge finale was within the works. There could also be all kinds of causes for this fumble, starting from delays in getting the movie off the bottom to script adjustments to the aforementioned unfastened continuity between sequels that had already grow to be established anyway. Suffice to say that Anderson does a reasonably spectacular tap-dancing act with regards to making the movie really feel like an honest conclusion regardless of its not truly fulfilling that promise.
Anderson’s answer was to focus in on the movies’ most important character of Alice and permit her arc to really feel full and fulfilled, a call that left many of the different characters in a confused state. The “huge unhealthy” of the movies was initially assumed to be Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who popped up more and more within the motion pictures starting with 2007’s “Resident Evil: Extinction.” Primarily based on the character from the video games, Wesker was established within the movies as the pinnacle of the evil Umbrella company, and with every look was revealed to have some new superpower or means due to his physique being contaminated with a model of the T-virus (the virus which has turned the world right into a zombie apocalypse, naturally). In essence, he is a counterpoint to Alice, who can be superpowered due to the T-virus in her system. But, in “The Closing Chapter,” Wesker (who had seemingly switched sides to hero in “Retribution”) is relegated to a henchman for the movie’s most outstanding villain, Dr. Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen), final seen in “Extinction.”
Maybe because of this Waggoner determined to offer Wesker the promise of a return on the finish of the novelization of “The Closing Chapter,” as his ending within the movie is all about enjoying second fiddle to Isaacs. Within the film, Wesker is initially revealed to have betrayed Alice following the ending of the prior movie, however is then primarily a glorified henchman till he units off a deadman’s swap bomb as soon as he is been fired from Umbrella and satisfied to destroy the corporate’s final haven, the Hive facility (and himself with it) whereas Alice releases an antivirus into the world. It is actually a finale for the character, albeit a confused and messy one, particularly since this seemingly unstoppable drive decides to only quit totally.
Was The Closing Chapter all that ultimate, anyway?
Within the novelization of “The Closing Chapter,” Waggoner reveals that Wesker is not fairly lifeless but regardless of appearances, nodding to his unkillable and mercurial nature with this ominous passage:
“Miles beneath the ruins of the Hive, squeezed into virtually microscopic fissures within the rock, the cells that had as soon as been Wesker’s blood waited. This far down, they have been protected from the consequences of the antivirus, and right here they’d slumber in stasis for months, years—even centuries, if vital—till the floor world was as soon as extra protected for them. They’d sense this when it occurred, and when it did-at it should, sooner or later-they would start making their method upward. After which… then the enjoyable would actually start.”
At first look, this looks as if it is likely to be Waggoner taking pictures his shot at a continuation of the collection, not less than in e book kind. It additionally would possibly appear to be the creator paying homage to the cliffhangers the movies at all times ended on, or the trope of a horror film ending with the potential for the monster to re-emerge sooner or later sooner or later. But, regardless of the passage seeming unusual initially, it is truly Waggoner remaining true to the spirit (if not the letter) of the movie he is adapting. Within the film, a newly human and disinfected Alice is seen heading off to a brand new journey, as she acknowledges that the antivirus will take years to unfold all through the world, necessitating that she proceed the battle towards the lethal creations of the T-virus.
That is proper: “Resident Evil: The Closing Chapter” is a kind of “ultimate chapters” in identify solely, with the finale leaving a large berth for potential future installments. In a method, that is the collection paying its personal type of homage to horror film custom, as quite a few sequels dubbed “The Closing __” have turned out to be nothing of the type (“Mission: Not possible,” we will see should you proceed this pattern or not). Whereas the chance that one other Alice-led “Resident Evil” film might occur is fairly low for the time being, by no means say by no means. And hey — who’s to say slightly Wesker blood hasn’t survived, as Waggoner promised?
