Wesker - Forced by Capcom, and Accepted by the Masses, as a Major Player?

People lose the point... Just because he may have been forced into his position at  a later date, it doesn't take away the fact he was intregal and was the main player!... How many strange baddies, with bizarre reasons can you come up with? Without Wesker there was no cohesion just random events and that would of been worse.  After Raccoon City was destroyed nothing could of linked the series so that's when they had to come up with it all, and people can rightly say where can they go from here now...without Wesker what are you left with now?  I have faith though but I've always condsidered the biohazard as the main enemy though but these players behind the scenes have made it so facsinating.

In no way directed at you but a lot of people who don't like Wesker are big Leon fans and have started with RE4 and went backwards and it can sound a bit fanboy to me.

I'm with the King of the Zombies on this one - Wesker is immense, but ONLY within a portion of the timeline, and certainly not integral at all to the whole series ~ RE2 & 3 exist without his influence as serious main contenders. People over emphasise his overall significance. George Trevor should get some of his limelight!

The whole series was held together by Umbrella before Wesker was forced into the storyline, but even after the revelation that Wesker is alive?

Code Veronica focuses entirely upon Umbrella, and Dead Aim focuses on the collapse of Umbrella.

The cohesion of the series is Umbrella, a giant multi-national corporation that deals with BOWs. After Umbrella were destroyed, the series could very easily have moved on to TriCell, or the remenants of Umbrella.

Funnily enough, most of RE5 DID focus on both TriCell and the remenants of Umbrella. You could have taken Wesker out of RE5's plotline, and it would have been almost exactly the same.

Wesker's inclusion in the series doesn't offer cohesion...

Also, I started with RE2.

Wesker's revival was in the works since at least 1998, so his reappearance can't be that random.

His reappearance may not have been random, but his importance? His importance feels like it was shoehorned into the series.

Especially since the fans got obssessed with him, making him more powerful than even the games state.

Some people claim that the events of previous games were part of his working, that Wesker was hoping his enemies would kill eachother for his own gain...

There was no single main antagonist.  Wesker had his goals, but even he was ultimately manipulated by Spencer.  Alexia, Marcus, Morpheus, and Saddler were in it for themselves, and did not care about the wishes of Wesker or Spencer.  Birkin was largely a victim in RE2, just trying to keep control of his life's work.  Vincent Goldman wanted a way into the Umbrella board of directors, but he wasn't part of Spencer's larger plan.

Basically, Umbrella was founded by a bunch of megalomaniacs and narcissists, and they hired a bunch of megalomaniacs and narcissists, and they all tried to do their own thing, and lots of people died.

Exactly. Wesker was 1 player amongst hundreds. The storyline of the series as a whole was not held up by his shoulders alone.

Wesker was imortant, undeniably, but nowehere near as important as people have started to make him out to be.

The core point behind the entire series is bad people using Biological Weapons.

The removal of Wesker from the series will not end this, as there are still crazy and powerful people out there (in that Universe) trying to gain more power by using Biological Weapons, whether they be a part of a large company (Umbrella, TriCell, etc), or just a person out on their own (Saddler, Marcus, Wesker, the bad guys from Degeneration).

I had a similar rant in another topic about this. I agree that Wesker was shoehorned in to the series' "behind-the-scenes" moments thus making him out to be essential to everything (and nullyfing the heroes' defeat of at least two bosses). I have no problems with the character, and some of his in-the-shadows moments are pretty cool, but Capcom just seemed to cum buckets for Wesker after his revival, especially when UC came out.

I agree with what you gentlemen have stated before. Furthermore, your points of view also make me relfect on my own. I see what you guys are saying. What I think happened was, that Wesker's position as main baddie, is only due to the fact that he was introduced to the series in the first game. What I mean is, all the other bad guys are more or less focused on just one game, with a few exceptions. RE1 & REmake's iconic status has boosted Wesker's role in the series, regardless of how much involvement or ACTUAL ingame participation he has done in subsequent titles. And that's where some of the praise comes from I think. But in my opinion, they could've just as easily established Birkin as a behind the scenes plotter.

I do think there was never just ONE main antagonist. Some just had bigger agendas than the others. Every bad guy has done their respective power play, and RE5 was Wesker's. However, I dont think we can deny that his agenda did sorta make him more menacing than the other baddies.

I also think, that he reached such high status with fans, because he's just had more screen time than any other antagonist. We dont really know much about the Organization, or any of the other rivals of Umbrella. So Wesker kinda of represented that role. I think his inclusion did help the mystery and conspiracy aspect of the games, which I think we all appreciate. It was cool to know that there was something to focus on other than Umbrella. It made it more interesting how Wesker and Umbrella would play off in the end.

I also agree with the fact that you can only have so many random biohazards occur, before it becomes a cop out. You have to HAVE something or someone to tie in all the games. I understand  Umbrella was to take on that role, but after so many games, it just isnt enough. You need something to refresh the older titles and give them a different spin. His inclusion in RECV kinda begs the quesion of what he was doing during RE2 and 3. It's more like a cause - effect thing. Once revealed in Code Veronica, u HAVE to address the previous years. Plus there's the simply practical reasons for having him, of tying loose ends and reconciling certain events.

Can the series continue without Wesker? Absolutely. There are plenty of venues that havent been explored yet. I mean Wesker CANT be involved in every single thing, I mean come on. His agenda may have spawned through several games, but that by no means indicates that the ENTIRE series needs him. It doesnt. Every title has had their own main baddie, and RE6 shouldnt be any different. Some fans just need to relax.

Where do you get these high quality concept arts? I've got that image in my Archives book but it's like 2 inches tall and there's no writing on it. I want some good concept art!!

On topic:

Yeah. Fans have made him out to be more important to the series than he is.

To be fair, alot of those who make him out to be the end-all-be-all are the fangirls. Myself included.

What can I say? We like the assholes.

You have no place in this discussion...

He is pictured in the S.T.A.R.S. photo and you can examine his desk.

"He is pictured in the S.T.A.R.S. photo and you can examine his desk."

In the Dreamcast version, maybe. In Complete Wesker plays a larger role and is the main villain in Chris' scenario.

Possibly earlier than that...

In short, Spencer "manufactured" a Frankenstein monster.

Not to be rude, but it seems this is the main reason for the negating Wesker's role in everything. All because fans like a certain character doesn't make him/her suddenly something to be despised or batted aside. In LOTR, everyone complained that Legolas (played by Orlando Bloom) suddenly became popular because of the actor. Yes, that was a factor, but hardly a mature reason to dislike a character or downplay their role in the movie.

It's a fascinating argument, but I find it strange when people say he is in Resident Evil too much. 2,3, Survivor, Dead Aim and Degeneration all do perfectly fine without him and even his appearances in 0, Darkside, and the original 4 are nothing more than cameos. 90% of Wesker's presence throughout the series is from files and behind the scenes stuff, if you look at the big picture, his visual screen time across the series is quite short.

But for me, I think he is the main antagonist and the series is more about him than it ever was Umbrella. He may have been 'shoehorned back into the story' but that was pretty early on in the series, pre-0, CVX, 4, and 5 not to mention UC. Even if he had originally survived the first RE and we all knew he did, there's no reason to suggest that RE2 or 3 would be any different.

Only thing that took me a while to get used to was that he was a chief researcher at the age of 18 and such like. But as we all know, Resi loves it's child geniuses veteran 22-year old special forces members!

This is a prime example for me.  RE5 would not have happened without Wesker.  Tricell would not have an up to date bio-weapons programme or digging around Africa if it was not for Wesker. They wouldn't even have Las Plagas.

I agree Batman couldn't put it better myself.