Resident Evil (© Jonathan Margetts)
Page 1 A
novelization by Jonathan
Margetts Based
upon the Screen Story by George
A. Romero & Peter
Grunwald And
based upon the computer game by Capcom
Authors
Note Right now, some of you are probably
wondering what George A Romero’s Resident Evil is; well allow me to explain. In
1998 legendary film maker and creator of the whole zombie apocalypse franchise
as we know it was asked by Capcom to create a trailer for their up and coming
video game Resident Evil 2. Mr. Romero obliged and created two short commercials
in much the same vein as he had done with his own horror masterpieces; The
Living Dead Trilogy. Capcom where so impressed with the finished product (check
it out online and see for yourself) that they asked Romero to write a script
for a feature length Resident Evil Movie based upon the first game in that
series. The first draft was completed on October 7,
1998 and submitted to Capcom. We are probably all familiar with the
Resident Evil film franchise, currently a fifth film is nearing completion, and
as you are probably aware George A Romero isn’t anywhere near the production.
Why? What happened to Romero’s proposal? Capcom in response to this replied
that Mr. Romero’s script ‘wasn’t very good…’ Well I and many others agree that the
current garbage masquerading as a Resident Evil Film series is utter trash and
an insult to an outstanding video game, having absolutely nothing to do with
the original idea, indeed it seems the only reason these films are being made
is so the writer and occasional director can find new ways for his wife to get
her clothes off. George Romero was shot down before he ever
took flight. However his original script found its way
onto the internet and has developed a cult following all of its own, much like
the first draft of Alien III another fantastic film; forever buried under a
mediocre finished product. As you will no doubt discover Mr. Romero’s
story itself deviates somewhat from the original concept, however, all of the
original ingredients are still there, indeed some new ones are also added and
in my opinion it would have made a far better film and done more justice to the
source material than the awful films that are constantly being churned out. In Romero’s story we get to see old friends
thrown into completely new encounters, interact with each other in completely
new and interesting ways, characters are explored in a whole new light. So why are you holding a novelization of a
film that doesn’t exist? Well that’s simple. I, as a fan of the game franchise,
was so utterly disgusted with the garbage we have been fed as a movie adaption
and as a George A Romero fan, bitter at his removal from the project, that I
decided it was high time we got the film we deserved. That being near
impossible, I did two things. Firstly I wrote a screenplay of my own,
which is available to read online at FanFiction.net, the idea being to create a
TRUE film adaption of the first video game. And Second I wrote this; a novelization to
flesh out the movie that George Romero wrote, but we could never see, in the
hopes that given enough readership we can create some awareness of the
dissatisfaction many of us true fans have with the films that are being made. In writing this I have changed a number of
Georges ideas (I’ll let you work out what they are), cleaned up a lot of the
dialogue and expanded greatly on a lot of the characters motivations,
backgrounds, portrayals and relationships. I have in no way altered the
sequence of events; they are here verbatim as in the script, I have not removed
any scenes, any characters, and any plot elements. I made the changes I made to keep the story
slightly more in keeping with the whole concept of the source material, I don’t
think this in any way detracts from the narrative, merely changes a few minor details
and allows for more meaningful character interaction, in the framework I have
created. [ Continue to page 2 ] |