Hey guys, it’s Kernook here, and you know I just had to bring this up. As a huge Resident Evil fan, myself, I couldn’t keep quiet about this for long. Absolutely not…

Netflix has always been full to bursting with original content, and it’s really no surprise that they would try to garner attention from Resident Evil fans. We are a rather hungry group of people when it comes to our games, movies, books and other media. Cashing in on the franchise at this point is just flat out common sense.

They’ve been promoting the series fairly hard for a while now, using posters that make nods to the less than scrupulous pharmaceutical company that fans know as Umbrella. Yellow posters are splattered with blood, pills, and the unsettling promise that we’re certainly going to enter the nightmare on this one…

It isn’t all blood and gore though. In a clear attempt to promote its forthcoming Resident Evil series, they’ve also released posters back in June featuring long-time villain and franchise mainstay Albert Wesker and other members of the family.

The actor to play Wesker in this iteration will be played by Lance Reddick, and honestly, I’m pretty excited for that. Yeah, he’s not the image of Wesker that we’re all used to. That being said, he’s going to be the first person of color to play Resident Evil‘s long time big baddie. He also has an impressive acting career. This guy is no amateur.

I stand firm on the concept that representation in media is important, and since this series isn’t a direct 1-to-1 replicate of the games, it isn’t a problem for me. As long as he can play the part, and do it well, that’s all I care about.

I have high hopes… but I also have a few worries.

The Netflix series will be the first live action one to be heavily based on Capcom’s games, so it has a lot to live up to… we’ll have to just wait until its released on July 14 to see how it goes.

So, what do we know about the story?

Well, the 8-episode series is supposed to be set in 2036. That’s about 14 years after their deadly virus caused a global apocalypse… and this is where my concern rests. As we can clearly see, they’re already playing fast and loose with the plot-line already.

Jade Wesker, Albert’s daughter, fights for survival in a world completely overrun by Umbrella’s twisted experiments. Jade is haunted by her past in New Raccoon City, by her father’s previous connections to the Umbrella Corporation, and something having to do with her sister.

Honestly, this is the thing I am least excited for.

I think it may be a little disingenuous for the series to claim it follows the Capcom plot-lines, without any respect paid to the original game franchise at all. I don’t care if the race of actors playing the characters change. I’m completely fine with that, but I don’t want to see a new character taking the spotlight either.

I’m withholding judgement, but I’d rather see a true and proper retelling of the game series, not yet another spin-off that literally goes off the rails. I have no idea why this disconnect is so predominant with filmmakers, but it is an issue with games turned into film.

Constantly, we get a story-retelling that somehow doesn’t follow the actual story. How that happens repetitiously, when you have the actual games, and remasters of the actual games as a blueprint, I have no idea. At this point though, it is a pet peeve… and it drives me up the wall.

I’m going to withhold my judgement until I see the series, it might be wonderful…. and I hope it is.

As a fan of Resident Evil, though?

Well, I do feel at least a little cheated that we aren’t getting a series mainstay as a main character… failing that, at this point the series has a robust side cast to utilize. We do not need more random characters, what we need is a spotlight put on the ones we don’t have enough of.

I hope at the very least, Netflix has taken that into consideration. Beyond that, I hope we get plenty of compelling narratives for characters that we preexisting fans already know about and have a sentimental tie with.

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