There are a lot of questions that have cropped up in the wake of Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead. Among the various topics of discussion have been the presence of robot zombies, the seemingly extraterrestrial origins of the undead and, of course, whether or not zombies can have sex. But another popular talking point has just gotten support from Snyder himself, as the co-writer/director is all in on the theories surrounding the film’s events acting as a potential time loop.
During this week’s big Geeked Week event over at Netflix, both Zack and Deborah Snyder were on hand to answer some fan questions pertaining to Army of the Dead. Sure enough, both robot zombies and aliens were addressed. But the most peculiar bit of enthusiasm came from Zack Snyder, as he discussed why he’s excited about the theory that Dave Bautista and his merry band of thieves may have been caught in a cycle of violence this whole time:
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. And, um, it might be true. Who knows? There’s a lot of clues in the movie that would support that theory. For instance, of course 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.
For a movie that’s been out for almost a month thanks to its wide theatrical release, Army of the Dead has found quite a healthy afterlife in the discussions it’s sparked among fans. Zack Snyder has been quite giving on his end, fueling the speculation with tasty bits of information being revealed as part of the extended post mortem period the movie has seen. But admittedly, out of all the potential mysteries that this Netflix original has put into the world, the time loop theory is among the ones that causes us to scratch our heads the most.
Let’s get into a quick recap of this time loop scenario. In Army of the Dead, there’s a scene where Omari Hardwick’s Vanderohe notices some corpses in the hallway leading to the big vault in the casino. They look suspiciously similar to members of the team that’s currently trying to pull off the huge cash grab at Bly’s Casino in Las Vegas. But as you’ll see in the scene, and an extended discussion of the theory officially issued by Netflix, this theory is a pretty wide open possibility:
If Army of the Dead were to be confirmed as a time loop scenario, it would mean pretty big things for the announced prequel projects that Netflix is going to be releasing at some point. Not to mention, any characters that had supposedly died during the film could come back, good as new, in a potential sequel. We’ll have to just keep puzzling out what happened in Army of the Dead, and hope that it won’t be too long before Army of Thieves or Army of the Dead: Lost Vegas gives us the answers we crave.
