Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City will hit theaters next month, and it just recently received its first trailer. The Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City trailer confirmed that the film is going to be much more faithful to the source material than the previous attempts at a Resident Evil film, though it will still be taking liberties itself and making some changes. Perhaps the biggest change is that Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City is adapting the stories of the first two Resident Evil games and seemingly making it so they take place at the same time.
This change has proven to be somewhat controversial. One doesn't have to look far online to find forum posts and comments from people who think that trying to adapt the first two games in one movie is a mistake. They seem to be concerned that a single film won't be able to properly adapt the Resident Evil story, but they shouldn't be too worried. In reality, there isn't really enough story in either of the first two Resident Evil games to fill up an entire feature length film, unless the filmmakers decided to stretch things out.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City adapting the first two games in one film should help the pacing. The film should have plenty of time to deliver all the big, important moments from the first two games, and that could result in a movie that doesn't have much in the way of wasted time. Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City could still have plenty of other problems that keep it from being that notable of a film, but its choice to adapt the first two Resident Evil games at once doesn't seem like it will be all that big of a deal.
Resident Evil 1 Story Length
The Resident Evil video games are notoriously short, with the game themselves challenging players to beat them in as little as three hours. It's possible to beat the Resident Evil games extremely fast without using any speedrunning exploits. As long as players know where to find the items they need to progress and remember how to solve the puzles, they should be able to blow through most games in the Resident Evil series in no time at all.
Much of the Resident Evil gameplay consists of finding items, solving puzzles, managing one's inventory, and shooting monsters. All of this is going to be represented in Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City, with Claire Redfield getting the Heart Key in the movie like she does in Resident Evil 2, for example. However, seeing all of this literally translated to the big screen wouldn't necessarily make for an entertaining movie-going experience, so it's understandable that the film seems to be focusing on the bigger story beats.
The Resident Evil 1 remake consists of roughly 80 minutes of cut-scenes when combining everything seen in the Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine campaigns. There are even less cut-scenes when focused on just one character over the other and discounting overlap, and the original Resident Evil game has even less cut-scenes. Most feature length films released in theaters are at least 90 minutes long, so there's really not all that much content to adapt from the first Resident Evil game for the big screen.
Resident Evil 2 Story Length
Admittedly, there's a lot more to adapt when it comes to Resident Evil 2, but only when one looks at the Resident Evil 2 remake instead of the original RE2. The original Resident Evil 2 game that released on the PlayStation 1 has about 40ish minutes of cut-scenes per character, just like the first game. The Resident Evil 2 remake story changes and additions balloon its cut-scenes to taking up about an hour and 20 minutes or so.
The Resident Evil 2 remake is a little more complicated, as there are different scenes with minute changes depending on which character players decide to play through the game with first. Regardless, the main story beats play out relatively the same, and so while it seems like it would be easier to make a full-length movie out of the events of Resident Evil 2, it still seems like combining the two stories isn't all that bad of an idea. This way, the filmmakers can trim out some of the fat from the Resident Evil 2 story and present something leaner that focuses on the best aspects of the game's plot while getting rid of the needless complications and unnecessary characters.
It does seem like, based on the Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City trailer, that the film is focusing mostly on Resident Evil 2, which makes sense as it has more story content to adapt than the original Resident Evil. Whether or not it all pays off remains to be seen, but Resident Evil fans will find out once the film hits theaters next month.
Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City premieres November 24.