Resident Evil/Fridge

The Games

Fridge Brilliance

• In Resident Evil Code Veronica, Alexia Ashford's boss themes are all complemented by soprano vocals, which, understandably had no lyrics in the original Dreamcast release, as all the music was produced with sampled MIDIs. However, in the Darkside Chronicles, which remixes the song, replacing MIDI samples with a real soprano, the song still has no lyrics. This is actually a reference to Alexia herself: the vocals are seemingly human, beautiful, and refined, but on further inspection are inhuman, speaking but not really saying anything - Alexia's human shell covering the monster within.
  • I came to a realization that the franchise is not just a horror game series, it's progressed similarly to horror movies that have turned into action flicks, think about it, the first game was like a B-Movie, it had a sequel that introduced darker elements and a coherent story, later had more emphasis on action, as well as remaking the first game to introduce more continuity to be consistent with the sequels, it's like how Evil Dead progressed, in a way.
  • Another take on Alexia's soprano theme could referencing to the nature of dramatic coloratura soprano in classic operas as well. Most character who is written as dramatic coloratura soprano is either tragic, mad, or evil. The fact that she and Alfred was "created", leads to a tragic fate of both of the twins and their father, as both of the twins succumb into madness. This leads Alexia obsessed to become a mighty queen, a queen who is mad and evil. This is actually a good reference.
• The original Resident Evil. Forest of the BRAVO team has been pecked to death by crows. If you're playing as Jill he has a grenade launcher lying next to his corpse. This makes perfect sense (and not just because the crows in this game are vicious, overpowered bastards): have you ever tried to hit a crow with a grenade launcher? Assuming Forest even bothered to try shooting them, he would have just missed time and time again. Of course, if you're playing as Chris he has a clip of handgun ammo next to him instead, but let's just ignore that little incongruity...
  • On reflection, it's actually just as interesting from Chris's perspective as it was from Jill's. Forest has a clip full of handgun ammo - but no handgun. He was trying to attack these fast, agile enemies with his fists or his weak knife. Even if he managed to hit each crow repeatedly, it wouldn't have done him any good...
• It always bugged me how inefficient the First Aid spray is. Even the smallest cut or graze requires just as much as a huge gaping wound. Then I remembered how Umbrella originally started life as a legitimate Pharmaceutical company and it hit me - the First Aid spray is the greatest instance of commercialism in the Resident Evil universe and responsible for nearly everything bad that has ever happened. Umbrella had the secret to producing an aerosol capable of regenerating almost any injury, but deliberately designed it so it was both horribly inefficient and horribly expensive; explaining why there are so few cans outside of government and Umbrella facilities - they're the only ones that can buy such an expensive but revolutionary product in bulk. This made them obscenely rich and capable of affording their seemingly endless supply of research facilities and equipment. After Umbrella went bankrupt, the formula to the First Aid spray was bought out by a rival company who kept the inefficiencies but lowered the price enough to give the product mass-market appeal. By Resident Evil 4, the still limited supplies required the Merchant to put on a cap of one spray per customer. By Resident Evil 5 however, the First Aid Spray is cheap and mass-produced on the scale that allows Chris to buy as much of the stuff as he could possibly need.
• As a whole, the series has moved away from Survival Horror and become more Actionized because as time goes on the characters are better prepared.
  • RE 0 and 1: The playable characters have their first encounters with Zombies.
  • RE 2: Both Leon and Claire are entering Raccoon City for reasons that are unrelated to any zombie fighting. They have also never faced zombies before, but are caught in a local zombie apocalypse.
  • RE 3: Jill is caught in the middle of RC's local Zombie Apocalypse. She knows about the zombies, but is under equipped.
  • RE CV: When you gain control of Claire, she has just been released from a prison cell armed with a lighter, and the outbreak is well under way.
  • RE 4: Leon is sent in to rescue the president's daughter, and is understandably a little paranoid after the events of RE 2. After this, Leon reports back describing exactly what he found out in Spain.
  • RE Revelations: The playable characters belong to organizations meant to fight all manner of BOWs and the like. Hunters were used in a terrorist attack merely a year before the main events of the game.
  • RE 5: A black market weapons deal is going on in Kijuju, and the player characters are sent in as backup to stop it. Though initially poorly armed, there is definitely some support infrastructure which is in place to help them out, so they can go to town.

The Films

Fridge Brilliance

• People say that the movies are not faithful to the games, as the virus spread through the whole world in Resident Evil Extinction instead of being stopped at raccoon City as shown in Resident Evil 4, However, this makes sense when you find out that the story of the films was written before that game came out, and while Extinction came out years after Resident Evil 4, the story was already written by the time RE 4 came out, (realikzed while listening to the commentary for RE:Extinction}