Now that I've actually seen Zack Snyder's new Netflix movie, Army of the Dead - cos covering it without putting my peepers on it sure was a pain - I can confidently report that, yep, that's a Zack Snyder movie, alright. Some good ideas, some great sequences, and plenty of graphic violence smooshed into an overlong whole that so frequently chooses to spend 15 minutes doing something that could have been achieved in five that, come the credits, I was exhausted. Whatever I think of it, though, Army of the Dead is a hit - it's already in the top 10 most-streamed movies of all time on Netflix.
It's also a movie that's sent viewer theories sprouting like crazy across the internet. Just what are those robot zombies all about? Are the zombies actually zombies, or aliens, or what, exactly? And when the character Vanderohe, played by Omari Hardwick, starts talking about, or possibly joking about, the heist-happy crew being stuck in some kind of perpetual time-loop, just how series is he... and in turn, how serious is this movie's writer and director, Snyder?
Spoilers follow after the video below - which is a trailer for Army of the Dead, obviously.
Snyder has now talked about Vanderohe's remarks, which he makes after spotting some similarly clothed corpses in the run-up to the safe the Vegas-exploring team is trying to break into. (This Vegas being overrun with zombies, obviously.) Are they the same characters, the viewer is asked to wonder. Is this some sort of time-loop situation, and Dave Bautista and company have tried this mission before - and failed? How very Edge of Tomorrow, right?
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As Screenrant reports, Snyder addressed the time-loop theory during Netflix's Geeked Week - which is set to give us our first glimpse of The Witcher season two, real soon - and seems to agree that, yep, there's plenty of reasons to believe that Vanderohe is on the right track.
"So in the movie, there's a sequence where one of the characters talks about the fact that maybe this whole adventure that they're on, they're caught in some infinite loop of fighting and dying and fighting and dying," the director says. "And, um, it might be true. Who knows? There's a lot of clues in the movie that would support that theory."
He continues: "For instance, you see in that sequence, you see that there's some skeletons. In the vault,there's like a shot of each of them, and you see a shot of one of our characters, and they happen to be wearing like the same necklace or the same - it's them. When they actually get in the casino there's a set of plans, and Scott says Tanaka had other teams in here before us. If you notice, the dead guys around that table are them again. So if you wanna play that game, it's there to play."
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So it's not just the dead safe-crackers underneath the hotel-casino who are the cast, but, beforehand - but also these ones around a table, upstairs? Okay, maybe I'll have to watch this thing again and keep my eyes out for more instances of expired heroes from a previous timeline, because it might be that this changes everything... Or, then again, perhaps Snyder is pulling our legs here. As the movie ends, again with Vanderohe, there's the suggestion that this situation, this zombie outbreak, just won't quit, and humanity is doomed to go through it all again - but maybe that's for the sequel, and shouldn't be considered a hint for anything that's in Army of the Dead itself.
Featured Image Credit: Netflix