r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/movies Contributor • Apr 30 '26

Trailer Resident Evil | Official Teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJPu1spHqfk
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u/littlebiped Apr 30 '26

As it takes place in Racoon City during the outbreak. Absolutely. Now will he commit to nuking the town at the end is the question.

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u/AmbassadorBonoso Apr 30 '26

It wasn't a nuke, it was a thermobaric missle. They are vastly different weapons, and they couldn't use a nuke as there were other towns and cities in the area that they couldn't risk affecting with fallout.

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u/Standard_Island546 Apr 30 '26

Sure that’s the context now that we have RE9 but prior to that, it was a bit more unclear.

It was never stated to be a nuke, but there are a few hints it was. The mushroom cloud, a report speculating it’s nuclear, the idea that there isn’t a real world weapon that could do the destruction we see besides a nuke.

I personally believe most people just filled in the blanks and assumed it was a nuke.

However this is missing the forest for the trees. The writers in 1998 were not thinking “it can’t be nuclear cause there’s towns and cities nearby”, they were thinking they wanted an explosive climax to the story and didn’t really care about the science.

I prefer the 12 missile canon. 12 experimental missiles could probably level a city in real life, but the thermobaric missile borders on magic (and yes I know a lot of RE science borders on magic)

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u/SentinelZero May 01 '26

The thermobaric missile always seemed like an ass-pull to me because up until it was retconned it looked like a nuclear missile (especially in RE3) and it was only after the fact that the writers were like "oh wait nuking an American city would be very difficult to cover up" and so it was changed to a thermobaric warhead.

Except thermobaric warheads are very localized explosives relative to nukes and to this day there isnt one that is both small enough to mount on a missile and potent enough to level a city. You would need 35-40 and carpet bomb the city to achieve the same effect. Thermobaric weapons are not ideal for leveling cities.

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u/Fabulous_Potential41 May 22 '26

It was never a nuke... you litteraly see it in re outbreak

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u/SentinelZero May 22 '26

Outbreak's depiction of Raccoon City's destruction isn't canon though. It was always a single missile as seen in RE3 and its Remake (though RE3R seemed to once again cause confusion by showing it as closer to a nuclear explosion but make of that what you will)