My post was an invitation not a dig to anyone who wanted to discuss this novel and the new information that comes with it. I see you choose not to discuss the events of the novel what so ever, I am quite surprised by your knowledge on these novels considering our past conversations.
Your final paragraph suggests otherwise, otherwise there would be no need to put that in. A thousand apologies for getting the competition winners mixed up too for a fan fiction competition from 16 years ago. I hope you can forgive me one day…
My knowledge is indeed very limited on these novels, but many years back we began to translate them because we wondered if the C-Virus being developed for RE6 would somehow tie into previous events from To the Liberty. Then we researched them further and discovered they were just fan-written books for a competition and not relevant to the primary lore. That made us stop and move onto other projects.
What does its publication have to do with it being canon? Capcom don’t publish the Kaitai Guides either they are published by Enterbrain Inc. All that matters is that it was an official product which was copyrighted by them and is a part of Capcom’s product line. You cannot use the Biohazard/Resident Evil name without gaining their permission. Which they agreed upon that “The concept of the competition was to allow Resident Evil fans to enter their own pieces of literature into the franchise.” “Into the franchise” being keywords.
I know it doesn’t have anything to do with canon, but you stated otherwise yourself in your opening post with your
‘canon criteria’. The fact it is an official product doesn’t matter either. And
‘allow Resident Even fans to enter their own pieces of literature’ is the key phrase here because it’s a fan fiction competition.
The fact that a second draft was asked of them means that any information that they don’t like or perhaps contradicted could have been requested to be changed. I am glad Capcom were not the only judges, don’t know why this is a factor Capcom are not novel editors they would need professional opinions on the novel’s grammar, spelling, vocabulary and story continuity. Capcom were merely there to judge it as a Biohazard novel.
A second draft was made because it was part of the rules of the competition. No novels ever go to print without multiple drafts being made. It’s about editing and streamlining the manuscript and checking for grammatical, spelling and structural errors. It’s not about changing contradictions in the storyline because that is not the criteria. Capcom being not the only judges is a major factor because this was just a special off-shoot of a competition that has been running for 24 years and still runs now. The fact it is a Biohazard story is only a small part of what is important here. The competition is won based on the creation of a good story, with good characters, good prose, good sentence structure, good punctuation, spelling and grammar etc. It’s a writing competition first and foremost and that is why Capcom were only on the fringes of the judging panel. And Shinji Mikami himself did not like the story because it didn’t feel like Biohazard to him, but was still overruled by other judges not even from Capcom. Again, that is because it is primarily about being able to demonstrate writing ability and crafting a good story – not necessarily just because it fits into the world of biohazard.
These authors are aspiring young writer’s means nothing to me regarding its canonicity. Unless you are suggesting that an author needs to have a couple novels under his belt before he can write a canon based one I don’t really see what this matters. They were authors who were pursuing the career as a profession. So of the greatest movies ever made were shot by first time directors. See “Evil Dead”.
I am going to ignore the “fan fiction” accusation because it is completely unwarranted. We have established that they are aspiring authors, they entered a “Novel completion” and it just so happens that this “competition” is a pretty big deal in Japan. If it was to be called “fan fiction” then the name would be attached to the product. It’s not, that’s a term that has been attached to it by fans.
If it means nothing to you that this is a fan competition then you are seriously misjudged on what you believe to be ‘canon’ and it is no wonder you are confused. It’s not about having a few novels published before you can write anything canon or directing an original film either. That’s not the point at all here.
This is a
‘novel competition’ entered by
‘authors who were pursuing the career as a profession’ – and you are going to ignore fan fiction because it isn’t literally spelled out for you in the title? I’m sorry but that is just plain denial.
Love the sound of that Crow novel and the one with the UBCS platoon. Shinji Mikami is more than entitled to his opinion but that really has nothing to do with the canonicity. He has been known to dislike several things about Resident Evil. Suddenly a developer not liking the product makes it non canon? Or even non official which is what you seem to be focusing on here. I was hoping we could be discussing the events of the novel not if the novel is official or not because it clearly is. It has the licence, it has the backing, it has Capcom staff officially selecting what got published. I guess we can discuss To the Liberty and how there can only be one C-Virus when we get a translation of it but until then this is about Rose Blank.
He’s been vocal about what he doesn’t like after he left Capcom many times, but at the time of this competition he was very much still the creative mind behind the series, deep in development with remake and then the original versions of Bio4. He was also on the judging panel of this very competition and he stated he did not like Rose Blank – so yeah that kind of has a major bearing on the canonicity of this story. Unless you are saying people not even associated with Capcom who chose this book to finish runner-up has more of a sway on its canonicity than Capcom? And again, you are confusing ‘official’ with ‘canon’. They are two separate things. Fire and Ice is an official comic, but it is not canon.
20th Century Fox are currently running a competition for aspiring film makers to make a short film set in the Alien universe. The winners will get to have their film made, financed and produced by 20th Century Fox. That is a pretty extraordinary competition for fans and it will be official and endorsed by Fox – but the winning film won’t be canon to the mainstream series.
Thanks appreciate it but I don’t feel like it is self-explanatory in fact I feel the exact opposite to you. I have spoken to three people who have read the novel so far and they all see no reason it should be dismissed. Well I am hoping for further debates. It is not a fair chance if you are already dismissing it as canon based on your initial impressions of the novel. Out of curiosity have you read the novel? I would like to hear your thoughts.
Depends if these three people know the actual development history behind these books I might add which I assume they are not. I haven’t read it yet no. But I probably will at some point and will offer my thoughts. It could be the best biohazard story ever with no contradictions at all – but that would still make it sadly irrelevant in terms of its canonicity.
It’s not about being fair. I am dismissing the story, I am dismissing it as a piece of primary universe canonicity because it is fan fiction, with no real difference to the billions of other fan stories you can find on the internet with the exception it was well-written enough to win a publishing competition. That does not make it canon.
First of all I didn’t promote it as main stream Biohazard I am suggesting now we have a translation that we have a proper discussion about it because now we have all the facts that we need, I don’t see what is wrong with that? Secondly it is not really your place to tell people what to and not to promote. First of all I don’t even agree with your points, much like you don’t agree with mine. So you are entitled to your opinion as am I. Like I said there are people out there who believe this could be canon I am not alone here. I think of the canon as a debate amongst the fans and the majority rules not one vs one especially over such trivial circumstances as the publication of a novel. What you seem to be suggesting here is that I do not try to enter things into the canon, in which case… I don't quite know how to respond to that request.
Again, your are not being honest here because I’ve been directed to the thread CHE by others and see it has been advertised there as
‘CHE proudly presenting more canon, Resident Evil source material’ in the form of this book. No doubt the same is written on all your social media outlets too. That statement is simply inaccurate so I can only assume GT isn’t fully aware of the circs behind its origins. It strikes me that it is pretty obvious you’ve worked hard on this and are simply desperate for it to have some relevancy, which I can totally understand, but falsely promoting it as canonical is not the right way to go about it.
My issue is simply that. That you should simply label it as non-canon, expanded universe and be honest about the origins of what it is. There is absolutely no reason why people can’t still enjoy it, analyse it and debate it. No one can stop you making it part of your own personal universe if you want to. But you can’t justify hours of work by saying it is canon when it simply isn’t. You are promoting false and inaccurate information which people work extremely hard to eradicate in this community.
My intent isn’t to derail your thread, but you wanted a canonicity debate and now you have one. By falsely labeling this as canon you are undermining the work of other websites like Project Umbrella and RE Wikia who strive to make a clear distinction about what is part of the core universe and what isn’t. But that doesn’t mean every single piece of material cannot be equally enjoyed.
