So which Night film is canon to George's series, original or remake?

[JDP]

I agree. With this part. And I think Romero did a good job of portraying the films in the order in which he inteded. Night, Dawn, Day and Land. The first three zombie movies fully make sense in progression, there are no contradictions between them, but Land is a different case. Even the issue of what the zombie bites do to people is contradicted by this movie. My impression is that Romero simply did not spend enough time ironing out the details for Land, or, as some people have pointed out, Romero's memory seems to have gotten worse with time, so maybe he just did not remember very well details from the previous movies and did not notice that some of his ideas for Land clashed with things he had established or implied in the previous films. - - - Updated - - - I think Romero got his ideas across just fine with Night/Dawn/Day/Land. The only thing with Day is that the budget had to be much smaller, so he had to adapt, but he still got his points across, and some of the points he was making with Land were clearly ideas that only make sense as a progression going forwards from Day of the Dead. I am still puzzled why you want to see no plot problems in Land with respect to the previous films, specially with Day. I plainly see quite a number of them: paper money retaining its value when the government that backed it up is gone, a main character ignoring something that no one far into a zombie apocalypse would ignore, huge numbers of people living fairly well on the surface that went wholly unaccounted for in the previous two films (where are all these survivors in Day or even in Dawn that no one mysteriously notices their existence, even though the survivors in these movies are very interested in the subject of information about other survivors? Were they hiding in a huge cave???), the establishment of the outposts early on during the zombie crisis, which is even reported by the media (yet, once again, no one mysteriously knows anything about them in the previous two movies), land travel outside of the outposts is still relatively safe and can be undertaken even by single individuals (whereas even in Dawn travelling on land is already quite dangerous and can only be pulled off by large well-armed groups, like the biker gang, who can defy the increasing hordes of zombies freely roaming the land), etc. There's plenty of problems between Land and the previous two movies.

[EvilNed]

I think Romero did a good Job at depicting Land taking place After Day.

[MinionZombie]

I think Romero did a good Job at depicting Land taking place After Day. Yup. And JDP - I addressed all those points quite clearly in one or two of my previous posts.

[JDP]

I think Romero did a good Job at depicting Land taking place After Day. I beg to differ. It has a good deal of problems to be able to fulfill that scenario. One of the things that makes it the weakling in the series. And Minion - I responded to your answers quite clearly in several posts. The same problems are still there. I have yet to hear satisfactory "explanations" for all the discrepancies and contradictions that Land introduced into the series if one wants to see it as happening after Day. But most of such problems do go away if the order is reversed.

[MinionZombie]

I could make the most beautifully written, air tight post supporting my side of the argument, and you'd still not be satisfied, JDP.

[EvilNed]

I beg to differ. As is your perogative. As for Land being a weaker entry into the series - I agree with that part.

[MinionZombie]

As for Land being a weaker entry into the series - I agree with that part. Weaker compared to three absolute giants of the horror genre. On that scale anything coming along 20 years later was gonna suffer. There's some flaws here and there, but I think Land of the Dead is bedding in nicely into the history of Romero's zombie films.

[ElectricFire169]

Maybe we should put it to the vote to settle this once and for all? Majority rules.

[EvilNed]

Maybe we should put it to the vote to settle this once and for all? Majority rules. You know, I'm pretty sure we did that once but for the life of me I can't find it now!

[Philly_SWAT]

As far as I know, I was the originator of the idea that the events in Land occur before the events in Day. When I first suggested it, most (if not all) of the members here scoffed at the idea, but eventually a few came around. To my memory, EvilNed was one of the main people against the concept, in many threads that contained many, many posts. I do not remember if JDP was involved in those discussions back then, but whether he was or wasnt, it is good to see how in-depth he goes to illustrate the obviousness of the proposition. Rather than restate things JDP has already pointed out in this thread, I will make just two comments, and then address the original posters question. 1) When it comes to discussion of things like technology, hairstyles, clothing, etc. of different eras, that it not a prudent way to determine "when" a film takes place in regards to other films, when the producers/directors simply chose to use whatever was prevalent at the time of filming. A good example of this is the Star Trek TV series. No one disputes than they are all related to each other, existing in the same story telling universe. The show called "Enterprise" was specifically the "first" in the timeline of the Star Trek Universe, it was the first warp capable ship that humans were using to explore outer space. The events in Enterprise were mid 22nd century, the events in the original series were mid 23rd century. This is not in dispute by anyone who knows Star Trek. But judging by the looks of the ship and the computers....the original series looks like some cheap cardboard boxes with random flashing lights on them (because basically, thats what they were) and the Enterprise ship and computer looks way, WAY better than the original series (much bigger budget). Should we assume something screwy with the timeline due to an earlier ship looking FAR superior in every way to a later ship? Of course not, we understand that the reasons for that is time had passed in real like, and the producers used what was available at the time. Taking this into account, Night and Diary can both be stories within the same story telling universe, both at the start of the zombie outbreak, despite Diary having cell phones and Night having old fashioned landlines. Another quick Star Trek point...on the original series, all the females wore short little mini-skirts...are we to assume that a society that had learned how to travel faster then the speed of light didnt grasp the concept of covering your legs with materials when visiting a new planet, where poison-ivy type vegetation could easily cause a severe rash or worse? Or should we assume that is was just 1960's life in America when the show was made,and many women then wore short little mini-skirts, and most roles for women on tv only existed in a sexist way to serve the men? I should think that the latter is obvious. 2) Even if you want to accept the premise that the events as depicted in Land were three years after the start of the outbreak (which I dont), there is no explicit statement of this in the movie, only an implied statement by a couple of characters to 'three years', which could easily be referring to pre-outbreak times. Cholo worked for Kaufman for three years....impossible and far fetched that he worked for Kaufman BEFORE the outbreak? Rileys car was in the garage for three years...impossible and far fetched that the car was there BEFORE the outbreak? Or are both possible? That is for each to decide for themselves, but even if you dont agree that Cholo worked for Kaufman prior to the outbreak, it seems one would have to admit that it is possible, and not some crazy no-way-you-are-grasping-at-straws kind of thing, but a reasonable possibility. I say all that to say this...in the original script for Day, it specifically says it is five years into the outbreak, so five years is obviously more than three years. If you want to argue, 'well that may have been in the original script but it wasnt explicitly said in the movie' then fine, but then you would have to admit that it doesnt EXPLICITLY say three years 'into the outbreak' in Land either. But as JDP has said, and I said years ago, it seems clear for a multitude of reasons that the world in which Day exists is a decrepit, bleak, hopeless world, and the world in which Land exists is one where there are hot dog vendors in the streets, and people want money to move somewhere else. No way society would completely collapse as shown in Day, and then come back to close to normal so soon after that collapse as shown in Land. As to the original poster, he asked... Like, which version did George consider to be the definitive version, and which one did he consider to be in the same continuity as all the other films? EDIT: Just in case it wasn't made clear, I am of course referring to the original 1968 Night of the Living Dead and its 1990 remake. The 1990 remake wasnt a Romero film, it was a Savini film. So as far as addressing which is in Romero 'cannon', well the only one of the two that he made would have to be Romero cannon. But as i was discussing above, Savini made a movie within the same story telling universe, a remake if you will, and that story takes place in the same time period as the original. But "when" do these movies take place? Many get hung up on "when" the movies were made and seem to confuse that as to when they are set. To suggest that Night 68 is set in 1968 makes no sense. As a human being, we know there was no nationwide/worldwide zombie outbreak in 1968, so why would that be scary to think about? The movie was set in the "real world", so no need for elaborate costumes or hairstyles, just whatever everyone looked like when it was made. Same as Dawn...yes the movie was made 10 years later, and the clothing and hairstyles that existed in the real world at the time were used, but not as a timestamp, but simply due to the lack of necessity to do it any differently. My thoughts as to "when" these movies take place, "when" are they set, is as follows... 1. Night - set tomorrow, or anytime in the near future 2. Dawn - three weeks after that 3. Land - hard to pin down an exact time, but more than three weeks later for sure 4. Day - again hard to have an exact time in relation to the outbreak, but definitely some time after the events in Land (EDIT: actually after I typed this and looked at it, I wanted to say that one could easily say that the events in Dawn STARTED three weeks after the events in Night, but several months passed in Dawn, and taking that into account, arguments could be made that the events in Dawn and Land actually overlap. The same could not be said of Dawn and Day, nor Land and Day.) I havent typed this much in years. Lots more to say, but will end it here.

[EvilNed]

I think Night takes place after Day. After all, there is nothing that explicitly states that it doesn't.

[JDP]

I think Night takes place after Day. After all, there is nothing that explicitly states that it doesn't. No, that is not possible, and for very obvious reasons. In the world of Night the zombies are a total novelty, nobody has the slightest clue of what is going on when they first appear (only some scientists who have been looking into the new phenomenon start to figure out what is happening and then informing the public through the media), while in the world of Day they are very much a reality of daily life and everyone is more than well aware of what they are and what they do. The chronological order given by Philly_SWAT is the most obvious and logical one when everything these 4 movies show is carefully considered.

[beat_truck]

No, that is not possible, and for very obvious reasons. In the world of Night the zombies are a total novelty, nobody has the slightest clue of what is going on when they first appear (only some scientists who have been looking into the new phenomenon start to figure out what is happening and then informing the public through the media), while in the world of Day they are very much a reality of daily life and everyone is more than well aware of what they are and what they do. The chronological order given by Philly_SWAT is the most obvious and logical one when everything these 4 movies show is carefully considered. EvilNed was being sarcastic there. Day taking place after Land is obvious and logical to what, two people now? A while back, I read through the old multi page threads on the subject. They just went around in circles, and that opinion was in the minority then, too. That's why seemed appropriate when I used it earlier. I also think a Poll on the subject would be a great idea.

[Philly_SWAT]

I also think a Poll on the subject would be a great idea. I think as EvilNed said, there was a poll back in the day, and most people said that they thought Day was before Land. However, back in the year 1491 A.D. if you had polled the entire population of the planet and asked them if the earth was round or flat, almost every single person in the world would have said they thought the earth was flat. Polling is not an absolute indicator of the truth...sometimes polls can be vastly different than what is actually true.

[JDP]

EvilNed was being sarcastic there. Unfortunately, that "sarcasm" falls flat on its face, since it is not a comparable situation with what Philly_SWAT was explaining. Day taking place after Land is obvious and logical to what, two people now? A while back, I read through the old multi page threads on the subject. They just went around in circles, and that opinion was in the minority then, too. That's why seemed appropriate when I used it earlier. I also think a Poll on the subject would be a great idea. We don't expect the majority of viewers to understand or accept why viewing Land as happening after Day does not make much sense, as most people are not critical enough to plainly see such details. The fact that the average viewer keeps on so casually trying to dismiss all the logical arguments and observations brought forth to show why it makes little sense to try to view these movies in such an order is more than enough to prove this. No amount of logic will convince them, instead they just keep on denying what the more critically-minded minority can plainly see and have no problem accepting (like the cities and average zombies being obviously more decayed in Day than in Land; this is not an "opinion", as they claim, but a plain objective observation. All you have to do is compare them side-by-side.) You have to be a good "nitpicker" to appreciate why Land happening after Day has quite a number of problems which are just not going to go away by any amount of denial or beating imaginary "dead horses". Critical viewers will plainly see them and point them out no matter what. The cold, hard fact is that Romero messed up quite a bit with Land, if his intention was indeed to have it happen after Day. He should have put more thought into ironing out several details before presenting this movie as such.