OmegaX I agree with all your points. These Resident Evil movies are an abomination and do a great disservice to the video games.

I can't comment on this series in particular, but Japan gets a lot of western movies shown in their theaters. Its my understanding that pretty much all the major stuff gets released there too. I remember seeing on the news that Spiderman 3 was even released there a couple of days before it was shown in America.

So what if it does as disservice to the video games? I don't like those movies myself, but Im totally with GameRager on this one. The movie is a stand alone product, so don't judge it by the game. It doesn't even have the same plot. Its like saying the Stalker game sucks, because its nothing like the novel its based on. No one makes that argument, because no one read that book.

Some of my favorite scenes for emphasis why I liked the films: The laser corridor scene in the first and second(or was it third) film.....the kid-like AI scenes from the first film......the multiple alices trying to overcome the tests in one of the later films.....the scene where alice breaks out of the lab in the 2nd film.

Well, the first of the movies was decent. I enjoyed it. I don't want to pass judgement on the later ones, 'cause I haven't seen them, but just looking at them, from 3 on (I heard 2 was pretty good, actually), they just look awful.

Although, the best part of seeing The Last Airbender in theater with my cousins was that they apparently didn't have enough PG and G rated 3D trailers to show, so they showed a trailer for 4.

Also, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. was at least in the same tone as Roadside Picnic (and yes, I have read it, and I loved it, and I spent two years trying to find a decent priced copy because of the game). I'm also not quite certain what no one having read the book has to do with your argument.

In the book, the Zone was weird. Its not weird in the game. Its just a place with monsters in it. Its not so dead either. there are people everywhere. In the book the Zone was an alien landing sight. It had nothing to do with Chernobyl. The games Zone was more like Fallout or something. It didn't have the otherworldly feel that the novels version has. It was creepy, but not in the same way. These are the sort of things that people always use to dis things based on other things.

I thought it was rather otherwordly myself. The people in the game are the outsiders. And most of the things you list are the superficial elements, not the feel and tone. I generally dislike using 'it wasn't close enough to the source material so it sucks' reasoning. Hell, The Last Airbender was close to the source material and was awful. When it comes to Resident Evil, I can say, it was a bad Resident Evil movie, but it was a fun movie. Comparing Roadside Picnic and S.T.A.L.K.E.R., I can say they both share the same tone, and feel, if not the same exact elements.

Out of curiosity, how was the Stalker movie? I've been meaning to watch it.

I was just attempting to point out what happens when you judge something on its own merit, and not by the source material. Stalker was the only example I could think of right now. Hardly anyone who plays that game have read the book. Their opinions are not influenced by it because of that. The majority of people who have played the game and read the book read it after they played the game, so it also didn't influence there opinion. It is an amazing game, so Im not trying to say insult it or anything. Im trying to illustrate a point with it. It makes sense in my head, but im bad at words. I think I'mh aving a lot of trouble expressing my point in a way that's easy to understand.

As for the movie, I have only seen the first half. Its really slow, and kind of boring. Its also pretty interesting, and relaxing to watch. I always mean to buy it, so I can watch the second half. I just never think of it when I have the money and am in the mood for it though.

I don't think either of us are making much sense to be honest.

I think the movie is on Netflix, for streaming.

So is The Last Airbender. You might want to avoid that one.

And those anomalies. Sure, some of them are just otherwordly corroding agents and unusual flames, but then there are graviatational vortices and whatnot.

I like it, but I'm not entirely sure why. Let's just say that it's quite unusual from what you're probably used to. Basically, it begins and ends close to a railroad and not a lot happens in between. There's a lot of philosophising, peculiarly long scenes and an artistic-ish three-minute transition from the outside world to the Zone.

If you have a generally negative attitude(bias) towards things that stray from their source material then how can you say you can accurately gauge how good things are that stray from their source material apart from said source material?

I just did a search, and all I got was Kolchak: The Night Stalker (which is awesome by the way). And don't worry, I already heard that The Last Airbender was really bad. Im sure I will watch the movie anyway eventually. Curiosity and all that. I love the cartoon. I have all three seasons sitting there on my shelf in front of me right now.

Because I'm awesome.

Kolchak, fuck yeah! I think I actually have an episode or two left to watch. Part of the problem with Last Airbender is that they tried to stick too close to the show. They had to try to hack the story down to its essential parts, poorly. I think the worst part is near the end when they actually have a voiceover saying what happened, and how these characters are feeling towards each other.

In the book you dont really know what happened in the zone plus as far as I remember in the game you could see strange things happening. The area in game looked like abandoned poligon and forests in eastern Europe and for me it had the same vibe as story.
For me the game was trying to show the movie version.

Plus if the game was like novel it would be laying on the ground simulator.

For the Resident Evil movies crap take it as far away from games as possible. Storyline there is utter crap and Alice would be like 2nd worst RE character ever.