 Originally Posted by SRP76
Blades appears in both Dawn and Land. SAME CHARACTER. In two different movies. What did he do, find a Stargate? They're connected.
Same deal with the same tv broadcast being in both Night and Diary. Same exact news brief. Obviously, the people in both movies are watching the same channel. They weren't watching the Interdimensional News Network.
Ah, good point about the Night/Diary connection. I have not yet seen Diary, or heard much specific info about it, so I would not be able to use it in my discussions. I hope top see it soon.
Originally Posted by MinionZombie
And yet GAR has explicitly stated they're not connected... 
An off-the-cuff, for-the-fans side-joke doesn't link them. They all have the common theme of zombies, but they're not connected at all.
GAR - the chap who created these movies - says as such.
Many people use the "GAR stated they are not connected" comment to try to make a claim that the movies are not connected in any way whatsoever. This is a faulty argument. There are many reasons why my statement here makes sense.
1) Firstly, GAR did not put the time and effort into thinking about the logic/timeline/connection/etc. that we fans do. He is simply a guy that was making movies, with limited resources, and did an excellent job, which I think we can all agree on. He did not create a "canon" to refer to as he continued with his various projects. He did not emerse himself in small details; he did not attempt to create an impenetrable storyline where nothing was in doubt, and every single solitary thing would make perfect logical sense in a grand discussion about his works. Other films makers have in fact tried this, and even then, there are details that hardcare fan discussions later reveal to be inconsistent, illogical, etc. It would be extremely difficult to create a film, much less several films, that was perfect in every way, even when you were purposely trying to. Without purposely trying to, it would be that much more unlikely that perfection could be achieved.
2) As you watch various interviews that GAR has given over the years, you can see that he is a very friendly person who is speaking off the cuff. He is not coming across as a pompous blowhard, thinking that his films are the greatest of all time, and extolling the virtue of his own excellence. He is not referring to notes. He is not worried about if his every word is making sense to the thousands of fans who disect his films ad nauseum. Any of us that have listened to his commentaries where other people are on the commentary also have notices how sometimes he gets details wrong and the other person corrects him. This is not slight on GAR, how much do you remember about details of something you did 25 years ago? Sure, you have general recolection, but you do not remember every single thing. If you mispeak (and not a Hillary Clinton mispeak, but a real mispeak), and your friend points out your error, and you admit yes you are correct, that does not mean you are an idiot, just that you did not remember that particular small detail and they did. When he says that the Fran helicopter scene was never shot, and Savini says it was, then pictures surface showing what appears to be that scene in action, what is the real truth? Was it shot, lost, and GAR forgot? Was it just set up to be shot, tested, but never shot, and Savini mispoke, remembering it set up and assuming it was shot? No way to know for sure, we were not there, and no one was filming all the actions of the film making process for posterity, so we only have what we have. The point being, that anyone one of us speaking off the cuff in bound to make comments that are inaccurate, downright wrong, etc.
3) So what does he mean when he says they are not connected? I myself have heard those words come from his mouth in an interview. I have seen and heard many GAR interviews, and do not remember which one, or ones, I have heard him say this in. Without context, it is hard to know exactly what any quote from anyone may mean. To my recollection, I took it that he was referring to the fact that they were not direct sequels, that the characters from one movie did not occur in the next, as is many times the case in a sequel. That is part of the appeal of a sequel to begin with, seeing Arnold as the Terminator again, seeing Marty and Doc traveling to the future/past again, etc. But with GARs dead films, the characters continuing is not what is important, but the outbreak continuing is what is important. In fact, since most all of the main players end up dead anyway, which makes logical sense due to the nature of the outbreak, most characters couldnt continue anyway, except as a zombie themselves (as the Blades character did in fact do). When GAR was addressing the issues on connectivity, he was usually answering a direct question, many times by a media type that is obviously not a GAR fan the way we are, asking typical media questions. So GAR was answering the questions in that context, not giving deep insight to long time fans, but explaining simple concepts to an uneducated interviewer. GAR understands how media works...when someone asks him "so is this project a sequel to your last one" it is not even intended as a deep thought provoking question, just a typical media question to get the star of the interview to say something. They are not looking for an hour long discussion addressing issues we discuss here, they want a quick soundbite to play on TV, radio, etc. Rather than giving a long answer (such as I am in the middle of typing) he simply says they are not connected, as in the characters from Dawn are not in Day.
4) And I also say that the films are in fact obviously connected in many ways. First GAR wrote all of them. Connection. Savini in involved in many of them. Connection. Nicotero is involved with some of them. Connection. Cletus and his wife did the set design in some of them. Connection. They are deal with a universe where the dead are rising and want to attack the living. Connection. Head shots kill the living dead. Connection. So obviously, they are connected. Less obviously, using a logical argument that people would usually not even think to voice, it that they must be connected in the grand scheme of movie story-telling. What I mean is that at the least they are connected in the same way as the Bridges of Madison County and Aikelah and the Bee are connected. Well, how the hell are those 2 movies conneceted? Two old people finding love, and a girl from Crenshaw entering a spelling bee? Both of those movies exist in a universe that we all already know about without any explanation, our own. The characters do not interact, the stories have no bearing on each other, yet they are connected in the same way that all life on earth is connected. When watching those movies, you have to assume that gravity exists, there is a President of the United States, cars run on gas, etc. There is no need to tell the auidence any of these facts because we already know this, and it is not crucial to those particular stories. They exist in "the real universe", whereas GARs dead films exist in the "GAR dead universe". They must be connected in this way.
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