The Resident Evil Movies Had A Way Weirder Ending That Didn't Make It To Theaters

Ah, the movie novelization. Once a mainstay of the cinematic tie-in landscape, after the dawn of home media its function as a de facto take-home version of a movie was all but over. Yet the novelization persisted, particularly when it came to genre films. Studios, producers, authors and the like were well aware of the collecting habits of geeks, and knew that to them, owning a novelization of a movie was a fun pastime, especially when a novelization would take creative liberties with the story and characters. What used to be an unfortunate byproduct of authors receiving early drafts of a film's script and having to make due with what they had to meet their deadline became, in effect, bonus content for fans who relished such things as spending more time in their favorite characters' heads and reading scenes that were either deleted from the film or never shot at all.

In most instances, these embellishments and additions were clearly seen as non-canon. However, in the case of the "Resident Evil" film series starring Milla Jovovich as Alice, "canon" was always a particularly loose term. The six movies comprising the Alice saga, beginning with 2002's "Resident Evil," came to a surprisingly conclusive installment with 2016's "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter." Just because the film put a button on the story of Alice doesn't mean that the series is particularly succinct, though. Quite the contrary, as each film sets up a cliffhanger as well as teases for the next story which the following movies rarely touch upon. Rather than a franchise built around tight continuity, the appeal of the "Resident Evil" films directed (and/or produced and written by) Paul W.S. Anderson is that anything could happen.

Author Tim Waggoner apparently took that principle to heart when he wrote the novelization for "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter," as the novel bears a laundry list of different plot elements from the finished film. While it's possible that some of these came from an earlier draft of the script, or came from scenes shot but deleted from the movie, the novel's far stranger ending was more than likely never destined for theaters.

"The Final Chapter" has at least five prior movies' worth of characters and storylines to try and wrap up, and that's not even counting the wealth of elements that the films could have brought over from the long-running video game series. To say the resulting film is a bit messy and doesn't satisfactorily bring to a close all that had been introduced in the prior installments is an understatement, especially considering that the big cliffhanger ending of the preceding film, "Resident Evil: Retribution," heavily implied that a massive finale was in the works. There may be all sorts of reasons for this fumble, ranging from delays in getting the film off the ground to script changes to the aforementioned loose continuity between sequels that had already become established anyway. Suffice to say that Anderson does a fairly impressive tap-dancing act when it comes to making the film feel like a decent conclusion despite its not actually fulfilling that promise.

Anderson's solution was to focus in on the films' main character of Alice and allow her arc to feel complete and fulfilled, a decision that left most of the other characters in a confused state. The "big bad" of the films was initially assumed to be Albert Wesker (Shawn Roberts), who popped up increasingly in the movies beginning with 2007's "Resident Evil: Extinction." Based on the character from the games, Wesker was established in the films as the head of the evil Umbrella corporation, and with each appearance was revealed to have some new superpower or ability thanks to his body being infected with a version of the T-virus (the virus which has turned the world into a zombie apocalypse, naturally). In essence, he's a counterpoint to Alice, who is also superpowered thanks to the T-virus in her system. Yet, in "The Final Chapter," Wesker (who had seemingly switched sides to hero in "Retribution") is relegated to a henchman for the film's most prominent villain, Dr. Alexander Isaacs (Iain Glen), last seen in "Extinction."

Perhaps this is why Waggoner decided to give Wesker the promise of a return at the end of the novelization of "The Final Chapter," as his ending in the film is all about playing second fiddle to Isaacs. In the movie, Wesker is initially revealed to have betrayed Alice following the ending of the prior film, but is then essentially a glorified henchman until he sets off a deadman's switch bomb once he's been fired from Umbrella and convinced to destroy the company's last haven, the Hive facility (and himself with it) while Alice releases an antivirus into the world. It's certainly a finale for the character, albeit a confused and messy one, especially since this seemingly unstoppable force decides to just give up entirely.

In the novelization of "The Final Chapter," Waggoner reveals that Wesker isn't quite dead yet despite appearances, nodding to his unkillable and mercurial nature with this ominous passage:

"Miles beneath the ruins of the Hive, squeezed into almost microscopic fissures in the rock, the cells that had once been Wesker's blood waited. This far down, they were safe from the effects of the antivirus, and here they would slumber in stasis for months, years—even centuries, if necessary—until the surface world was once more safe for them. They'd sense this when it occurred, and when it did-at it must, sooner or later-they would begin making their way upward. And then... then the fun would really begin."

At first glance, this seems like it might be Waggoner shooting his shot at a continuation of the series, at least in book form. It also might seem to be the author paying homage to the cliffhangers the films always ended on, or the trope of a horror movie ending with the potential for the monster to re-emerge at some point in the future. Yet, despite the passage seeming strange initially, it's actually Waggoner remaining true to the spirit (if not the letter) of the film he's adapting. In the movie, a newly human and disinfected Alice is seen heading off to a new adventure, as she acknowledges that the antivirus will take years to spread throughout the world, necessitating that she continue the fight against the deadly creations of the T-virus.

That's right: "Resident Evil: The Final Chapter" is one of those "final chapters" in name only, with the finale leaving a wide berth for potential future installments. In a way, this is the series paying its own sort of homage to horror movie tradition, as numerous sequels dubbed "The Final __" have turned out to be nothing of the sort ("Mission: Impossible," we shall see if you continue this trend or not). While the likelihood that another Alice-led "Resident Evil" movie could happen is pretty low at the moment, never say never. And hey — who's to say a little Wesker blood hasn't survived, as Waggoner promised?