across the great divide ( film )
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spread across two separate parts, the divide is a hugely engaging and constantly surprising story of a society that segregates – but is still recognisable .
unrealistic, but fun, treck across the canadian rockies, with its dangers .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
the divide is an extraordinary new work by one of the uk’s greatest storytellers, alan ayckbourn. unfolding over two parts, the divide is a tale for our own turbulent times that unflinchingly examines a dystopian society of brutal repression, forbidden love and seething insurrection .
brokeback mountain is far more than a gay western. it' s a great american love story, writes rick moody
the renowned chinese pianist, who brings his emotional, dramatic style to audiences across the globe, returns home. seth doane reports .
and i loved that game growing up. i just watched this movie for the first time since the early 90' s. across the great divide is proof that you don' t need huge budgets or big stars in order for a movie to be good. the movie starts off with 2 children who need to cross the wilderness to claim their land inheritance meet a gambler on the run. together they face natures obstacles in order to reach their destination. granted, there were a few parts that were pretty predictable as to what was going to happen next. but all in all, it was a great little film to watch whether its in a family setting, or just by yourself .
no wonder he' s sympathetic even to tech - sceptics; schreier is part of the last generation to have been raised offline. would he be a different sort of person had he grown up with the internet? he creases his brow, stares amiably at the fake sheep .
i don' t know. i have lunch with people five years younger than me. we get along all right, we' re able to talk across the great divide. to cope .
the divide receives its premiere in a co - production between the old vic, london, edinburgh international festival and karl sydow, directed by annabel bolton, an associate director of the old vic .
so, not only were these fans concerned with labelling the film by genre, there was significant disagreement about in which genre the film belonged .
a sense of frustration was evident in relation to the film’s flouting of the rules of resident evil’s game - play. analysis of the gamers’ posts reveals that there were two aspects to this. however, one aspect of this was formulated from a discourse of frustrated ergodic pleasure articulating an experiential divide between game and film, while the other aspect was not .
for barker and brooks, triangulating their findings across three distinct areas allowed them to make observations on what electing to watch a film like judge dredd means in a social and cultural context. this paper now seeks to triangulate its findings on the gamers’ posts, with the research in part two on the status of the franchise and the film makers .
gamer 113 altered their view of the film after a second viewing. this gamer paid some considerable attention to the question of game to film adaptation :
the critical positions identified did orient the reviews in different ways. the research found that each dominant critical position had separate sets of critical concerns. for example, for resident evil fans, being like the game, the quality of game to film adaptations, and the choice of director for the film were the key critical discourses. the film critics were especially concerned with generic identification, the choice of director, the quality of game to film adaptation, and undertaking what i have termed holistic film criticism. the horror film fans main critical discourse centred on the ‘scariness’ of the film. these findings are now presented in more detail .
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which must make denver the center of everythingness. )
despite a brief moment of unity across party lines this week, after the mass shooting in which a republican congressman was critically wounded, the media wars surrounding coverage of president donald trump have been getting louder by the day .
director marc levin highlights the recent effects of hyper - gentrification in new york city? s west chelsea, focusing on an intersection where an elite private school sits directly across the street from public housing projects. read more
heading in from burning back some weeds, i heard the cry of a rabbit in distress. where i live in colorado, i can be sure it' s not the quiver rabbit i' m hearing across the arroyo .
for gamer 51 the immersion of the game was achieved through the film viewing. this gamer explained that :
to sum up this section, then, the differences between game - play and film spectatorship were articulated in a number of ways across the sample. these differences centred on several issues: the frustration of ergodic pleasures, the lack of involvement and empathy with the characters in the film compared to those in the games, spatial - temporal features found in the game but not present – or indeed possible – in the film adaptation, and the breaking and bending of game rules. the discourses surrounding the frustration of ergodic pleasures are now discussed in more detail .
but how were these ergodic expressions articulated? what were they saying about watching the film and playing the game and the divide that might exist between the two experiences? their responses indicated four areas in which their talk was concentrated: 1. investigation of the landscape and narrative progress, 2. character apathy, 3. game rules, 4. physical pleasures .
like the gamers who posted from the dominant resident evil fan position, the film critics also had a concern with game to film adaptations. gamer 4 was sceptical about the quality of the film prior to seeing it because ‘i expected another videogame adapted to the big screen to score what money it could and the end result would be crap’ (gamer 4 25 november 2002). gamer 31 was concerned about the game to film genre and had been monitoring the development of the production prior to the film’s release :
but how did the games’ players respond to this prequel and its game - like features? were the game - like features enough to overcome any sense of loss or lack of interactivity, or did they, as heiland suggests, respond to the film as an interactive game rather than a non - interactive film? and if the latter is the case, what would such a response look like? this paper seeks to explore if there was a palpable sense of a divide between game and film. the following section outlines the methodology utilised in the research .
the thematic analysis of the gamers’ posts also revealed that they were also expressing their views about things beyond the text. i think one of the most important points that barker and brooks seek to make is that watching a film is about much more than the film itself. it is about expectation, preparation, and what comes after the viewing experience, how the film viewer makes sense of what they have seen within wider social and cultural contexts. the gamers in my research demonstrated this, too. two of the most consistent discourses across the sample were a concern with the ‘nascent genre’ of game - to - film adaptation, and the ‘debate’ about the choice of directors for the project. both discourses required the gamers to go beyond the film, in their critical assessments .
thematically these gamers were most concerned with ‘scares’ and the techniques for achieving them. they showed little interest in the game to film discourse so prevalent in the posts of the resident evil fans and the film critics .
the biggest issue for those taking up a dominant horror fan position was whether the film provided enough scares. here the horror film fans drew on dual expectations: the scares they had experienced through playing the games and the scares they anticipated from a product they perceived to be a horror film. interestingly, these gamers did not express the same degree of generic confusion expressed by the film critics. these gamers fully anticipated resident evil to be a scary horror film, just as the games were scary survival horror games .
in the games, zombies, you learn, are best killed with a couple of shots to the head. however, gamer 54 took great exception to the bending of the rules in the film: ‘the action was boring and stupid there was on real battle with the zombies and in it they just kept shooting them in the chest magazine after magazine in the chest…’ (gamer 54 3 january 2004) .
gamer 43’s review was interesting. this gamer was surprised by the film because as a game to film adaptation, it was an average film rather than the bad film they were expecting. the film was deemed to be above average for a game to film adaptation. but this gamer and film critic was most interested in replay value: ‘overall, resident evil is way above average as far as video game to silver screen goes, however the movie itself only provides enough entertainment to cover you watching it maybe 2 or 3 times, after that the movie becomes kinda boring’. this replay value was observed time and again in the sample and we shall return to this at the end of this study .
the post screening q & a included director marc levin, as well as some of the kids featured in the film .
as observed by rehak, videogames remediate cinema in that they draw on the tendencies and characteristics of their predecessors. in this regard resident evil the game is no different. but it seems that the film did not remediate the videogame effectively for the gamers. many misidentified the film’s genre as action rather than horror. furthermore for the horror film fans, the film failed as horror because of the lack of scares expected in a horror film. but it did not only fail as horror in this respect because the film also failed as a remediation of the survival horror videogame. this failure, as we have seen, can be found in the lack of empathy for the film’s characters, the lack of the pleasures of ergodic activity associated with game - play, and with the lack of the videogame’s distinctive feel .
gamer 96 also blames the lack of romero’s input on the film. they state: ‘god, there is no way to convey the terribleness of paul anderson’s crimes…rent a romero film instead. to think romero could have directed this film brings a tear to my eye’ (gamer 96 19 january 2003) .
in their application of baxandall’s approach, barker and brooks focus their inquiries on judge dredd across three sites: audiences, production and publicity, the film. this research acknowledges the value in this multi - site approach and as a consequence, i also seek to understand the film adaptation of resident evil within the context of the game’s universe, but also within the context of resident evil as a franchise. the aim here then is to contextualise the gamers’ responses to the adaptation in terms of the film - makers aims and within the ongoing metamorphosis and extension of the resident evil universe (for fans), or franchise (for capcom) .
pinedo, isabelle, ‘recreational terror: postmodern elements of the contemporary horror film’, in the journal of film and video, vol. 44, no 1 - 2, 1996, pp. 17 - 31 .
film maker and friend mike hazard has a short taken from his documentary mr. positive, called
but while love of the game is clearly important to the majority of gamers analysed, it is important also to remember that they are reviewing a film on a film - site message board (imdb). in this context, the second most prevalent critical position taken up by the gamers analysed in the sample is the film critic position. of the 118 posts sampled, twenty one gamers expressed their dominant critical views from the film critic position. when combined with those taking up this position in a secondary capacity, some sixty gamers occupy a film critic position. given that the subject of their reviews is a film adaptation of a game and the platform for their views the imdb, it is no surprise that the most prevalent type of critical position is the combination of resident evil fans and film critics (thirty one posts) .
the findings demonstrated that almost a quarter (27 gamers) of the sample expressed either ergodic pleasures or ergodic frustrations in viewing the film. of these, 18 gamers had occupied the dominant critical position of the resident evil fans, whereas five were primarily film critics, two were videogame fans, and the horror and zombie film fans each had one gamer, respectively .
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that sort of really began in earnest in november of 1969 when nixon, after he gave his famous great' silent majority' speech, was attacked by the networks immediately .
gamer 15 took a gamble on the film in spite of being disappointed by game to film adaptations in the past: ‘only got it because of the videogame series. i knew i was taking a chance because usually video games made into movies really suck’ (gamer 15 25 february 2003). gamer 49 also decided to give the film a try because they had played the games but had low expectations because of previous game to film adaptations. they write :
table 1 demonstrates how the majority of gamers adopted more than one critical position in their critical reviews of the film. by far the most prevalent dominant position is the resident evil fan position – seventy one of the 118 gamers. across the whole sample, being a resident evil fan is clearly an important critical position for fans to emphasise. if the 118 posts, eighty five gamers expressed the resident evil fan critical position when dominant and secondary positions are combined .
given the pre - existence of this universe, anderson’s approach was to make this first resident evil film a prequel. the action takes place a month before the first game and seeks to provide a history for the franchise. the problem for anderson was to satisfy fans by incorporating enough from the game world but providing something fresh for fans and non - gamer film audiences. in this respect, the film has come under intense criticism for its deviation from the parameters of the orginary game. however, anderson defended his decision by explaining that the film seeks to also bridge a gap between the film and the first and second games. as anderson argues :
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sometimes, [ anderson ] uses a long shot, usually from above, that shows protagonist and audience surrogate milla jovovich walking across the screen, and the impression it leaves deliberately recalls the exploration sequences of a videogame. the audience will probably be reaching for their control pad during these scenes since the camera angles and shot durations, as well as the placement of scare scenes, have been ripped directly from the resident evil game. this feeling that the film more closely resembles an interactive game than a non - interactive film (heilman 09. 04. 02 urltoken) .
gamer 50 sought to place the film within the canon of game to film adaptations by claiming it to be ‘one of the better’ video game to film adaptations. but it is clear this gamer does not expect much. they write: this movie is no great movie but it is a worthy video game movie’ (gamer 50 1 november 2003). gamer 72 articulates the same opinion: ‘ok, video games to films? not very good admitted. super mario bros attests to that’ (gamer 72 27 january 2004). for gamer 76, the problem with game to film adaptations is the ratings system which they suggest is responsible for turning r rated games into pg13 films for children. in a lengthy discussion of this topic, gamer 76 argues :
some gamers viewed it as a science fiction film, like gamer 68 who opens their review by labelling the film for the potential reader: anyone who likes sci - fi thrillers that at the end make you want to stop crime the kick ass way, this is a movie for you’ (gamer 68 5 november 2004). another gamer claims the film is ‘billed as action / thriller / science fiction / horror film and proceeds to detail the portions of the film where the perceived different genres dominate (gamer 101 21 august 2004). this generic confusion can also be seen in gamer 115’s post. they argue :
the tomatometer score — based on the opinions of hundreds of film and television critics — is a trusted measurement of critical recommendation for millions of fans. it represents the percentage of professional critic reviews that are positive for a given film or television show .
games’ visual devices used in the film were noted by one gamer. gamer 93 likened the camera work to shots from the game. they state :
simon isaacs is leading the charge to the playground. with his website fatherly, he wants to change how fathers across the country approach parenting. and he' s not alone: the largest group of new dads in this country are now millennials. tony dokoupil reports on the changing role of fatherhood and how modern dads differ from fathers of previous generations .
the final discourse of frustrated ergodic pleasure identified in this research was the discourse of physical pleasures. barker and brooks noted that physical pleasures – being done to by a film - formed a prominent vocabulary of involvement and pleasure for their interviewees. these physical aspects were observed in my sample. the horror film fans, for example, were primarily concerned with the generation and quality of ‘scares’ in the film .
decades later, brother and sister elihu and soween are growing up learning the ways of their new, tightly controlled society. as they begin to glimpse the cracks in the system, elihu falls for the daughter of two radical mothers, risking fatal disease and threatening to ignite a bloody revolution. the divide is a searing vision of a future defined by brutal repression, forbidden love and seething insurrection .
gamer 20 articulated clearly and concisely the activity required of the resident evil game - player and found that the film attempted to work for the spectator in the same way. they state :
aside of this visual continuity, another ergodic aspect involves the differences between the way the film and the games established the rules of combat. for example, the viewer only has to see the bullet - time and slow motion kung fu of the matrix (1999) once to establish that these seemingly fantastical manoeuvres are within the rules of the film that the audience are tutored to accept .
i cannot believe powderfinger never got huge in the us. i am a middle age (47) classic rock fan... and powderfinger is, in my estimation, on par or better than u2, pearl jam... any of the all time great bands... . silverchair is pretty good too .
the discourse concerning anderson’s game fan / player credentials can be encapsulated in this statement: the film is so unlike the game that anderson could not have played the game and is masquerading as a fan in order to convince resident evil’s fan community to accept his prequel and to watch his film .
those reading the film from a dominant position of the resident evil fan were more unified, if not wholly so, in their disappointment in the lack of characters from the games. gamer 23 is fairly balanced in their review of the film but notes that the film does have its ‘downfall’ in the lack of characters from the game. gamer 60 expressed disappointment at the lack of characters from the games and a sense of bafflement as to why such fundamental game features were missing from the adaptation. they state :
for this gamer, then, only by playing the games previously can you re - experience this play through the film. feel in this respect adds a new dimension to the sensation of ‘losing oneself in a film’. feel is a more tactile proposition in games than in films .
in january 2005 i finally watched the first film adaptation of the popular game franchise, resident evil. i was not sure what to expect, or what i should be expecting. the divide between watching a film and playing the game seemed like a void and i had no idea how to cross it. after viewing i still had no idea and turned to the imdb resident evil message board to see what others had made of it. and i found similar confusion, but also significant disagreement. i also found, however, that the respondents seemed to have agreed on what they should be disagreeing about. i found this fascinating and so this research project was born .
gamer 105 cut right to the chase: ‘the problem with resident evil is that it is basically an action movie masquerading as a horror movie’ (gamer 105 7 july 2003). a belief that horror has been sacrificed for action was observed several times in the sampled posts and was a constant discourse – mostly for film critics, but it was observed across all dominant positions. i suggest that expectations drawn from playing resident evil – a survival horror game – fuelled these criticisms .
the film itself isn’t particularly faithful to the game, but i don’t think it could be really. the game involved you exploring a mansion alone, fighting off beasties and solving puzzles. good idea for a game. bad idea for a film’ (gamer 28 14 april 2003) .
for producer bernd eichinger, some scenes in the film are ‘very close to shots in the game’ (eichinger 2002), although capcom executive and head of production, yoshiki okamoto sees the relationship between the game and the film in a different way. for okamoto the cinematic elements of the game make it an exciting possibility for adaptation into film. he states: ‘we’ve been told that the game contains movie elements and we hoped that the game would become a movie as soon as possible’ (okamoto 2002). the camerawork has been interpreted by critics as resembling some of the angles in the game. heilman (2002) for example, states in his review of the film :
this paper is concerned with how those who had played resident evil – from here described as gamers – and who had written about the film had responded to it. however, to provide a fuller analysis, it seemed necessary to contextualise what they were saying with the film maker’s intentions and within the context of the resident evil franchise. as a consequence, this paper asks: how did gamers respond to the adaptation of resident evil in film? in addressing this question, the paper raises further questions: how far did the film’s makers seek to adapt elements of the game and did the film maker’s adaptations meet the expectations of the gamers? what does it mean to post on the imdb resident evil message board? what discourses can be identified in the gamers’ writing and how do they connect with the wider social world ?
a century from now england is hit by a deadly contagion. society is decimated as contact between men and women becomes fatal. under the dictates of an elusive preacher, an unthinkable solution is enforced. separated by the divide, the adult survivors are segregated by gender with men wearing white as a mark of their purity and women – still infected – clothed in black as a sign of their sin .
the range of responses to the choice of director for the project stem not from anderson’s skills in the direction of the film. rather, the discourses articulated demonstrate the knowledge fans brought with them to their viewing of resident evil .
for some gamers, paul anderson and game to film adaptation go hand in hand. for gamer 88 the fact that paul anderson, director of the mortal kombat game to film adaptation, had been given the go - ahead as the director of resident evil almost reduced them to tears. this gamer states :
three issues around the choice of director emerged from the analysis of the posts by dominant resident evil fans. the first discourse around direction centres on anderson as a director of previously poor films and his work on mortal kombat was especially panned by this group of gamers. anderson is seen as a game to film specialist and as we have seen in the previous section, that is not something that would impress most resident evil fans. gamer 81 is something of a rarity in that anderson’s game to film work is appreciated: ‘paul w s anderson has made another great video game movie…the best videogame based movie since the original mortal kombat ’ (gamer 81 4 september 2003) .
many of those gamers who adopted the dominant resident evil fan position in their posts admitted that they had low expectation of the film because of previous game to film adaptations. this critical position was the most often taken up dominant position. however, the resident evil fans were perhaps the most divided on the success of the film and this can be seen in analysis of their expectations. to clarify this point, i have compiled a table of expectations (see table 2 below) .
for gamer 116 a sense of generic confusion did undermine the film’s success: ‘to think of this film as being a horror movie is a gross miscarriage of justice. this is more an action - adventure movie than anything and has nothing to do with horror at all’ (gamer 116). this gamer made every effort to feel scared by the film, but failed: i tried to feel scared throughout the movie, but there was nothing to make me feel scared’ (ibid). gamer 25 expressed the same frustrations in relation to genre expectations and scares: ‘you call this a horror film more like action film there was little gore not even scary…’ (gamer 25 3 march 2003) .
these gamers’ discussions focussed most closely on the game / film comparison but they were weighted heavily in favour of the originary text and tended to end with an overall verdict on the worthiness of the adaptation. a number of key discourses emerged. these were a concern with how far the film was like or not like the game, how far an adaptation of the game in film should reflect the game, the perceived poor quality of previous films adapted from games and in relation to this last point, the instatement of anderson as the director rather than romero .
the fans did not express a consistent view of the adaptation’s storyline. responses on this issue tended to be divided between two positions: resident evil purists who rejected the film’s attempt to historicise and contextualise the resident evil story and who resisted, ignored or misread the film’s prequel intentions, and those resident evil fans who believed that a game replica in film would not work. in terms of the former, gamers 60, 6 and 41 comments are typical. the language used to describe the story included words like ‘warped’, ‘twisted’, and ‘distorted’. gamer 60 disliked the film’s story and suggested that the reason for their negative view of the story relates to their expectations drawn from the game. gamer 60 states :
as we have seen, game - to - film adaptations do not offer instant pleasures for these gamers because of the connection the films have to their favourite games. they have to negotiate and overcome expectations of yet another poor game - to - film adaptation. so, it is perhaps unsurprising that some of the gamers responded to anderson as the director of choice in this way. anderson directed mortal kombat, one of the first game - to - film adaptations and in a sense he represents a kind of poster - child for the nascent genre. this status carries with it all the associations and (low) expectations of game - to - film adaptation. in this way, this discourse places anderson on the most hated lists of many a gamer as a representative of all that is bad with game - to - film adaptations. this means that this discourse is actually an extension of the game - to - film discourse discussed above .
for starters, there is no - one in the film who is actually from the game…milla jovovich ruins it too. the entire film focussed around her and what involvement she has with umbrella. i can tell you that – none! she is the main character and yet is not in any of the games’ (gamer 67 22 november 2004) .
two of the horror film fans linked the choice of director to the scares they anticipated. gamer 42 argued: ‘i feel this movie would have been more horrific if mr romero had written the screenplay and directed the film’ (gamer 42 8 may 2003). gamer 69 on the other hand liked the scares anderson achieved in the adaptation of mortal kombat and was satisfied with the scares in resident evil: ‘just like with mortal kombat from the computer game, paul anderson has once again succeeded in creating an amazingly horrifying yet interesting film’ (gamer 69 31 october 2004) .
in the first part of this paper, i established a set of similarities and differences between games and films. this was done for two reasons. firstly, i wanted to understand more fully the differences between games and films. and secondly, i wanted to begin to map any potential experiential divide i might encounter in the gamers’ posts. it was revealed in the findings that almost a quarter of gamers commented on the game - play experience and the differences between game - play and spectatorship .
the’ manson score’ is then commended and then gamer 2 ponders the relation between the ending and the resident evil games, pointing out that they could probably do with ‘a trivia site’ to help them fill in the gaps in their knowledge of the resident evil universe. gamer 2 ends in characteristic film critic style, by pondering also whether they would recommend this film to others :
as suggested, this physical dimension also alludes to what the game is doing to them. mostly, the game brings shocks, scares, and jumps, and the film was measured by gamer 7 in this respect: ‘both the game and the movie are edge of the seat fright fests that will definitely get your heart racing’ (gamer 7 9 december 2002). similarly gamer 27 measures the film’s success through ‘jumps’ but found it wanting: ‘i was expecting a spooky mansion with plenty of jumps and chilling special effects. whilst playing the videogame i jumped hundreds of times and i jumped no times during this film’ (gamer 27 23 april 2003). for gamer 58 the film and the game physically captured them in different ways. for them the film ‘…doesn’t make you jump from your chair, instead it glues you to it’ (gamer 58 13 november 2003) .
the discourse surrounding the romero / anderson story is also interesting in the context of barker and brooks’ findings. the authors argue that conflicts and stresses surround films and these can have an impact on audience expectations and indeed, on their decisions as to whether to view the film or not (ibid: 232). i think this argument is borne out very well in the case of my research and the gamers’ views on the sacking of romero from the film and his replacement with anderson. this decision was rarely viewed as anything other than a mistake by the gamers sampled. for them, the promise of realising the intertextual relations between the game, the film and romero’s status as author of the living dead films was hard to resist and the disappointment expressed by these gamers when they learned that he had been fired was palpable. the discourse articulated here, then, is best described in this statement: the film partly failed as film and as adaptation because romero was the natural choice of director and he was fired .
it was clear from the analysis that the gamers took up a number of different positions in their critical appraisals of the film. by critical position, i mean the specific critical angle the posts were coming from. were they more concerned with how the film compared to the game, or did their critical reviews centre on reviewing the film itself? furthermore, the gamers typically adopted more than one critical position. however, in the vast majority of these had a preferred or dominant position that could be determined from the analysis of their critical views. the critical positions identified in the research were: resident evil fans, film critics, horror film fans, zombie film fans and videogames fans. it is important to note that a distinction has been drawn between resident evil fans and videogame fans because not all of the videogames fans were also fans of the game. they were, primarily, fans of the form (videogames) rather than the content (the game) or in some cases, other types of content (other videogames) and those articulating from this critical position made this clear in their posts. table 1 below shows the different types of critical positions observed in the analysis .
the often overlooked fact that as a re gamer, you usually have at least in part a lot of information in the world around you. you know things you couldn’t otherwise know. for example, how things work, maps, where things are, etc. this movie does a great job of keeping the viewer informed in this manner, without going so far as to ruin the surprises’ (gamer 20 10 february 2003) .
in addition to these game - like features, the film also sought to emulate the investigative mode of the game. this is done through the use of labyrinths. as set designer, richard bridgland explained: ‘when you play the game you never know what is going to be around that corridor’ (bridgland 2002). one of the stars, michelle rodriguez reiterates this. her take on the narrative flow of the film mirrors that of the game. she says: ‘you have to solve things at every turn you take’ (rodriguez 2002). bridgland makes clear the intentions of the film makers in tackling the adaptation. he states :
this study has attempted to understand gamers’ responses to the film adaptation of resident evil in great detail, getting close to their reviews. critical positions were identified as were key discourses in their posts. but this is not enough to ensure the utility and validity of this pursuit. the findings must now be connected to social and cultural spheres. here i reiterate that my intentions are similar to barker and brooks, who state that they ‘want to be able to understand…how people’s responses to films like dredd can be studied as social phenomena’ (barker and brooks 1998: 115) .
this film had two possible directions. it could have been a gore fest zombie film, or a psychological deep thriller…unfortunately, paul w s anderson seemingly has trouble with this concept and opted to follow both. he ends up with one of the messiest films i’ve ever witnessed (gamer 115 4 january 2005) .
point - of - view is used in largely the same way in survival horror games as are used in film. as king and krzywinska state: ‘predetermined framing of this kind acts like that of a film, to some extent, directing the attention of the player and creating visual diversity through shifts of perspective, although at the expense of player freedom’ (2002: 13) .
in a sense, this discourse teaches gamers to expect to be disappointed when they view a videogame adaptation in film, but keeps them interested – and viewing – with a promise that the adaptations will eventually improve. for gamers, this offers a kind of promise of deferred pleasure. for the film and games industries, this means a steady supply of hopeful punters. the veracity of this statement can be seen perhaps in my sample. a quick count reveals that 26 of the 118 gamers sampled were looking out for the sequel – 11 of whom disliked the first adaptation. only two gamers said that the film was so bad they would avoid the sequel at all costs. around a quarter of the gamers had also seen the film more than twice – some of these to their “disgust” and “surprise” .
to sum up here then, i have argued that several discourses have been identified through the course of this research that in my view provide interesting insights into the ways gamers responded to the film adaptation of resident evil. some of these discourses relate to the filmic plain (game to film adaptations, choice of director), some to industrial and cultural practices (game to film adaptations, low brow games, and some to the specific pleasures of the game (being like the game) and game - play (frustrated ergodic pleasures). in my conclusion, i attempt to draw the research together – audience, film and franchise – in order to assess how far an understanding of all three facilitates a better understanding of the social and cultural significance of media adaptations and their audiences .
not all thought that the feel had been successfully recreated in the film. gamer 46 attempted to speak for disappointed resident evil fans and lamented the elements missing in the film that made the game so unique and special. they state: ‘we wanted to endless scares, suspense, a creepy environment. we deeply wished to see the dark atmosphere present in the game, but we get nothing of this’ (gamer 46 27 july 2003) .
few of these gamers had anything positive to say about game to film adaptations. it was noted, however, that some of the gamers thought that anderson’s resident evil was the best attempt yet .
littlerock is actually about families, born into and stumbled across in the middle of nowhere. it begins with the quintessential american disconnect — an automotive breakdown in the midst of a road trip. japanese tourists — brother and sister — on a genealogical pilgrimage to the manzanar world war ii japanese - american internment camp find themselves stranded in a motel full of hopped - up trailer trash. shit ensues: bike rides, shotgun beers, drug deals and one of the most exquisitely etched love triangles ever not written .
as krzywinska noted, investigation and exploration are rewarded in game - play. some spoke of this in their reviews. for example, gamer 12 attempted to explain why the film disappointed them. for this gamer, the film did not reflect the game’s premise of ‘…a lone character in a genuinely spooky mansion never knowing what unspeakable horror was round the next corner…’ (gamer 12 21 december 2002) .
for the gamers who articulated this discourse, clearly, anderson had failed. game avatars do not require in - depth characterisation as players bring themselves to the avatar. film characters do require more depth of characterisation, their motivations need to be established and they need to be situated in relation to other characters. the archetypes in the film adaptation were neither fish nor fowl and for some this rendered them useless .
this part of the paper has sought to underline some of the key similarities and differences between games and films identified in literature drawn from games studies and films studies. as noted earlier, the film - makers also sought to play with the differences and similarities between the game and film versions of resident evil and the game - like aspects were picked up on by a number of critics. but how did gamers respond to the adaptation? can issues relating to the differences between game - play and film viewing be found in the gamers’ responses? in broader terms, this paper seeks to contribute to an understanding of how contemporary users of media products negotiate their inter - medial experiences .
my own exposure to the small form collective came through artist and filmmaker lee lynch, whose work i have followed (disclosure: and occasionally collaborated on, in a celebrity cameo capacity) for a few years. while he was still a student at calarts, lynch gave me a copy of his student feature transposition of the great vessels (a fictionalized account of the auteur' s literal conception — greeeat !), which i shelved alongside other student videos i' d accumulated over the years; pretty low in the rotation .
a large number of barker and brooks’ respondents were fans of judge dredd and readers of 2000ad. in their vip entitled “dredd’s deserts”, the viewers’ patterns of talk revolved around the discussion of ‘what judge dredd was really like, and what he deserves’ (ibid). this vip articulated ‘a language of insiders’ knowing appreciation’ (ibid). i anticipate patterns similar to this will emerge from my research. resident evil fans, like dredd fans are in a sense stake holders, and curators of knowledge. how would they respond to the film makers’ attempts to assign the film as a prequel? will they accept this new history of the resident evil universe? and if they are concerned with the film being ‘like the game’, what does that actually mean, since games and film offer similar but also different pleasures ?
the discourses surrounding the choice of director are complex and also reveal how work is done by viewers prior to the viewing of a film. as we saw in the findings, criticisms relating to the choice of director were found with some regularity and consistency in the posts of the those expressing the dominant critical position of the resident evil fans, but they were also evidenced in other critical positions with less frequency. the three specific discourses relating to the choice of director revolved around anderson as specialist in the already denigrated game to film ‘genre’, anderson’s credentials as a fan / player of the games, and the romero sacking .
the videogame fans were not the only ones for whom the differences between game - play and film spectatorship mattered. in this section, the sample is taken as a whole i. e. irrespective of critical position in order to examine the ergodic aspects they felt did or not deliver a game - like experience. did gamers articulate a sense of loss or lack from game to film? were viewers / gamers of resident evil frustrated spectators ?
coyotes lope across our land all the time. two days ago three does trotted single file along a ridge about 60 yards from the house, as i turned to watch them, i saw a single coyote in pursuit, followed by a straggling pup. the survival parade dipped down into the wash, then back up the other side of a trail that connects to one of our regular mountain bike and hiking trails. a minute later, the deer had switched back my way and were headed around my sister' s house, the coyote still about 20 yards back, the pup nowhere to be seen .
it is clear from the posts that measuring the likeness to the game was a consistent preoccupation for those assessing the film from the dominant position of the resident evil fan. in the main, anderson seems to have correctly identified the monsters that the fans would like to see brought to life. but the main areas of contention for these gamers centred on the non - adherence to the resident evil story, the lack of characters from the game, and interestingly, the concept of feel .
anderson also sought to bring the sets from the game to life by building replicas: ‘... you’ll recognize pieces of hardware and sets from the game. we rebuilt some of the sets from the game. like in resident evil 2, there’s a big train. we built that train’ (ibid). in addition, anderson ensured that plot elements from the games were included in the film and various characters from the games were referenced. as anderson states: ‘there are story points and references to characters. it really operates within the world of the video game’ (ibid). the film departed from the game world in a bid to bring what anderson described as ‘added value’ for fans. for example, while having favourite monsters from the game world in the film, the director added a new monster. he states :
the gamers posting on imdb’s resident evil message board had a point in posting: to varying degrees they are all recording and publishing their views on the film for themselves and others they anticipate are like - minded. there is no reply facility so gamers do not talk to each other about the film. are they as solitary and ‘sad’ as the fanboy tag suggests? do they show awareness of talking to others, as gamers, as fans of resident evil and / or film reviewers or are they locked in their own private, obsessive worlds? what, ultimately, does their participation on this site mean?
across the great divide is a 1976 film that stars robert logan , heather rattray , and george buck flower . the film was shot on location in utah and canada . 
across the great divide is a 1976 film that stars robert logan, heather rattray, and george buck flower. the film was shot on location in utah and canada.
across the great divide is a 1976 film that stars robert logan, heather rattray, and george buck flower. the film was shot on location in utah and canada.