Twilight of the Dead (George A Romero)

[JDP]

Watched Land of the Dead last night and was shocked to see that no, Land actually takes place 3 months into the ZA ... ... ... ... oh, wait, no it doesn't. "Three years" is specifically referenced twice in the film - once by the garage owner, and once by Cholo (who has been working for Kaufman for three years). So, arguably, three years is the minium amount of time passed. It could be a little longer, but considering that you have two clear references to "three years", then that's what Romero's telling the audience quite clearly. Also - good video pull - Romero had always talked about Land being the living 'coming back' from the brink as well as the evolution of the zombies' abilities and awareness (building upon what began in Day). Bub, from Day, would be a considerable regression from Big Daddy & Co ... and considering that Bub's story in Day isn't about a smart zombie becoming dumb, but a dumb zombie becoming smart, well, there you go - the narrative direction is clear as an azure sky... https://youtu.be/OsrvURzZmDM?t=185 Hardly so. There is no clear reference to the zombies anywhere in respect to those "3 years". For all we know, these are totally unconnected events. Or even if they are connected, how do we know that the wino not driving a car in three years is also not directly connected with Kaufman and his "business"??? For all we know, he was another of Kaufman's goons, who was fired and no longer has access to vehicles, that's why he has not driven a car in years. You can come up with virtually any explanation since the movie itself is totally VAGUE when it comes to such time references. Now you try to do that with the "3 weeks" reference in Dawn. Good luck! There is no way of doing that since it is very clearly connected to the zombies. There are no "ifs" or "buts" there. The only time reference in Land that is very clearly connected to the appearance of the zombies is a very VAGUE "sometime later" during the opening sequence. There is hardly any difference between "Bub" and "Big Daddy". Both of them are somewhat smarter than the average zombie, that's about it. And "Bub" was chosen by Logan as a research specimen precisely because he already showed better responses than the other captured zombies. He was already "smarter" than the other ones. Land really introduces nothing "new" here. As for the claim that Land shows "humanity coming back": the movie totally fails in showing that humanity is "coming back" from anything, but rather in fact the opposite: a humanity desperately trying to cling to how society was before the zombies arose. Those outposts are CLEARLY said to have been established during the early stages of the zombie crisis, not "years" after. Then we see what happens in one of these outposts "sometime later", and what we are shown is just the local "boss", Kaufman, trying to maintain the illusion that nothing has happened for a select clientele that can afford his prices. This is just pure continuity here, there is no real "disruption" of anything.

[nycbsn]

The problem with that, though, would be a lack of 'age continuity'. For example, the Dawn and Day cast members would be much too old for the amount of time that will have passed within the depicted zombie apocalypse. The furthest we got was 3 years, as referenced in Land, meanwhile decades have passed in real-time since Dawn and Day. Oh yeah, can't argue with that. The actors returning in their roles definitely wouldn't work, even if this film takes place 10 years after Night, still not enough time to justify the amount of aging they have undergone. But I just feel like some form of connective tissue/continuity/references would work favorably for this "concluding" chapter. For example (and I really hate to use this example because I like to think that Peter and Fran survived Dawn) maybe the characters in this one happen to drive by the charred wreckage of the chopper from Dawn. There was actually an opportunity for something like this in Land (the part when they head out in the jeep to take back the Dead Reckoning) but they totally missed it. It could be something as simple as that or maybe it can be stretched out a bit. Not sure how they would pull this off for the Day survivors (due to their location). Just give us something. Enough with the teasing and blue balls, it's been going on since helicopter left the shopping mall. Speaking of location... where do you think they might set it this time? We've had a farm house, shopping mall, underground bunker, and a walled-off city. I would love to see one take place on the road, sort of like a cross-country, different locations. Diary was sort of like that, but it sucked so I don't count that. TWD has a lot of that element though.

[EvilNed]

As I said, Land is really about that guy's failing car dealership.

[JDP]

Going by that logic, Land must also be about car theft in Samoa, since there is a specific time reference connected to that activity in the movie as well. Just because a movie is about zombies it does not mean that every time reference in it must somehow have a connection to them, unless it is very contextualized, like in the above example of car theft in Samoa. There is no way of interpreting that time reference in any other way except car theft in Samoa. Nothing to do with the zombies.

[EvilNed]

Going by that logic, Land must also be about car theft in Samoa, since there is a specific time reference connected to that activity in the movie as well. Just because a movie is about zombies it does not mean that every time reference in it must somehow have a connection to them, unless it is very contextualized, like in the above example of car theft in Samoa. There is no way of interpreting that time reference in any other way except car theft in Samoa. Nothing to do with the zombies. Exactly, and what other possible event could the characters be consistently referring to if not the very exact day when this poor man's car dealership went south? A tragic turn of events that Cholo certainly had a hand in.

[JDP]

Exactly, and what other possible event could the characters be consistently referring to if not the very exact day when this poor man's car dealership went south? A tragic turn of events that Cholo certainly had a hand in. We don't even know if that guy owns the garage. He appears to just be a bum/wino who crashes there. Why can we easily suspect this? Well, context, again. When Riley asks about his car, he has no idea what Riley is talking about and says that there was no car there in the morning. Context is key. And since they were discussing his car and what in blazes happened to it, the "3 years" reference is within that specific context, not the zombies. This fellow, whoever he is, just happens to have not been able to drive a car in that many years. That's his alibi against Riley's accusations. But why hasn't he driven a car for that long? Unfortunately, it is never clarified. Maybe it has to do with the zombies, but then again, maybe it has to do with the fact that he seems to be an irresponsible and unreliable wino, so the city authorities have prohibited this guy from having access to vehicles 3 years ago. Who knows!

[EvilNed]

Agree, context is key. And clearly the context is his garage. I mean, what other context could there possibly be? None. There's no other context worth mentioning in this film. 100% with you JDP.

[Furiousbunny]

I am not the type of person that's going to flip out if fans/authors want to stitch together continuities as long as it's not going to require changing the movies. I am sure he had some timeline in his head, but as a fan I always felt like it was a common circumstance contained in the decades they were made.

[MinionZombie]

I am not the type of person that's going to flip out if fans/authors want to stitch together continuities as long as it's not going to require changing the movies. I am sure he had some timeline in his head, but as a fan I always felt like it was a common circumstance contained in the decades they were made. Originally I felt it was, essentially, each movie taking place further and further into a zombie apocalypse, rather than the same ZA, mainly because the films are all shot in different decades and therefore have different feels and tech etc. However, over the years I've ended up thinking of Night through Land being all part of one ZA and leaving the decade differences just down to that being when the films were made instead.

[EvilNed]

Originally I felt it was, essentially, each movie taking place further and further into a zombie apocalypse, rather than the same ZA, mainly because the films are all shot in different decades and therefore have different feels and tech etc. However, over the years I've ended up thinking of Night through Land being all part of one ZA and leaving the decade differences just down to that being when the films were made instead. That could possibly explain the fashion and such things, but Land of the Dead is obviously taking place in a world where technology is so much more advanced than Night for example.

[JDP]

That could possibly explain the fashion and such things, but Land of the Dead is obviously taking place in a world where technology is so much more advanced than Night for example. Even in Dawn you can already notice a difference in that regard. The 10 years between both movies shows.

[Furiousbunny]

Maybe it will be zombie remake of smokey and the bandit with bub driving a trans am and big daddy in the truck hauling a load of those beef treats from Day.

[nycbsn]

The decade differences (fashion, tech, etc) are supposed to be ignored, it's the same ZA throughout. There's no connection between the years they were made vs story timeline. It's just like with the Alien films. In real time, Alien and Aliens were released 7 years apart but in the alien universe time, there is a gap of 57 years. I know theres other film series where this is a common circumstance, but too tired to think of them right now and this is the first one off the top of my head. Point being there are some film series that take place in real time and acknowledge the gap between them (Die Hard is one) and then there are others where real time is ignored and the story sticks to whatever time gap is decided on in its universe.

[EvilNed]

https://deadline.com/2023/08/george-...or-1235453024/ This project is still alive! Before the current strike we're being told they had started casting calls for a later 2023 shoot. Could that mean a 2024 release? The screenwriters are working from a treatment written by Romero.It'd be interesting to get a hold of that treatment, usually they can be pretty detailed in terms of plot. It says that: The script is now finished, having been taken on by Joe Knetter, Robert Lucas, and Paolo Zelati, who also worked on the treatment with Romero. The writer Paolo Zelati doesn't have much to his name. He did produce a documentary on Lucio Fulci's "The Beyond" (a favorite of mine - the film itself, that is) so one could hope he's got good taste. Joe Knetter seems to have mostly written low-budget trash. Can't find any credits for Robert Lucas.