Army of the Dead: How advanced are Zeus and his company Alpha Zombie?

“I think the conversation I was starting to have with myself is, what will people allow in this kind of movie?” Snyder said Geek’s lair earlier this month about Army of the dead. If the audience is receptive to the film, the response will be a lot since Snyder’s movie seems to suggest that zombies can be very intelligent, successful at problem-solving, and in some ways more evolved and egalitarian than we are. And if they can one day emerge from the ruins of Las Vegas… they could truly be the new gods of this world.

Of course, on paper, the idea of ​​a “smarter zombie” isn’t entirely new. The grandfather of our modern conceptualization of zombie lore, George A. Romero, even started playing around with his image of silly undead shamblers with his third zombie movie, The day of the Dead (1985). In this film, a zombie they call Bub is trained to solve rudimentary puzzles and even use a gun by humans; he then develops affection for the scientist who taught him. Romero developed the idea in Land of the dead (2005) when a zombie nicknamed “Big Daddy” leads a pseudo-revolution by organizing walking companions to storm Dennis Hopper’s citadel of power.

However, these two films, in particular Earth, were much more intrigued by the allegorical aspects of the union of the undead workers of the world, as opposed to the deepening of the definition of a zombie itself. Big Daddy and his cohorts represented the “have-nots” of 20th century capitalism and geopolitics, with Hopper’s character a thinly veiled caricature of US President George W. Bush (he is killed by oil at the end of the film) .

Other fictions have also explored the idea of ​​a smart zombie somewhat, but it has always been in a format meant to fuel other genre tropes, like the romantic comedy in Warm bodies (2013) or high fantasy in Game of thrones. Again, Thrones is probably the best comparison to what Snyder is looking for Army of the dead since the White Walkers (or “Others” in George RR Martin’s novels) are at the top of a hierarchical food chain with the ability to magically command the most insane Wights. They even kept pets like undead horses and bears, which is no different from Zeus’ undead mount and tiger in Army of the dead.

Nonetheless, the White Walkers are essentially a fantastic catch-all for any force of nature (or inevitable death) that overwhelms and erases man’s little grievances. Hence the countless pieces of reflection on the Night King being the harbinger of climate change. On the other hand, “alphas” in Army of the dead are not allegorical creatures at all. They are envisioned as the next evolutionary step among the living dead and (possibly) humanity as well.

We don’t technically know where Zeus came from in this story. There are some cold-paid cheeky comments about the Zombie King from Area 51, but those details are intentionally left vague and questionable. The point is, he was in army custody and they lost control of the zombie in a rather hilarious way. Now, every person he bites becomes an alpha – which is odd because it begs the question of where traditional walkers came from if Zeus is the proverbial Patient Zero of the zombie outbreak.