Army of the Dead Ruined Aliens’ Most Iconic Line
Despite the influence Aliens had on Army of the Dead, Zack Snyder’s zombie horror messes up the best line of James Cameron’s blockbuster.
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Zack Snyder’s Army of the Dead features plenty of Aliens references but manages to mess up the iconic sci-fi sequel’s best line. Netflix’s Army of the Dead is another zombie horror hit from Dawn of the Dead re-maker Snyder. While the helmer’s contributions to the DCEU have been divisive among fans and critics, Zack Snyder’s second zombie horror proves the subgenre suits him down to the ground.
A gory, fast-paced, and surprisingly bleak fusion of zombie apocalypse action and high-stakes heist drama, Army of the Dead is nothing if not inventive. However, despite featuring heists, robots and the undead, Snyder’s movie is not entirely original, with some of its inspiration coming from a famous sci-fi horror hit. Put simply, Army of the Dead owes a huge creative debt to James Cameron’s 1986 blockbuster Aliens, something the movie acknowledges with numerous tongue-in-cheek nods.
However, despite the movie’s evident love of Aliens, the Netflix hit badly fumbles one of the best lines of the Alien franchise installment during one of these many homages. Ripley’s iconic utterance to Paul Reiser’s slimy company man Carter Burke, ”You know Burke, I don’t know which species is worse. You don’t see them [expletive deleted] each other over for a goddamn percentage” becomes the Coyote’s “You don’t see them [expletive deleted] each other over,” in Army of the Dead’s iteration of the line. It’s a seemingly minor change, but one that cuts out the point of the original quote. Ripley’s line serves to criticize Burke, the corporation and corporate “profit over humanity” ideology at large, whereas Army of the Dead’s is a comparatively shallow comment.
The fact Ripley adds the all-important addendum “for a goddamn percentage” implies that Burke and the rest of Weyland-Yutani are letting their fellow humans die over money, something even the lethal eponymous monster the Xenomorph would never do. It’s an important element of the plot that would be revisited throughout the Alien series and in subsequent Cameron movies—namely, that most monsters pale in comparison to the appetite of corporate greed, and few beasts can kill with the amoral impunity of a company looking to make some more money. However, Army of the Dead—even though the heist storyline arguably focuses on similar themes of life being cheap in exchange for material gain—cuts this vital context, and just notes that zombies don’t attack each other. Which is true, but also not particularly incisive or thematically interesting.
Ironically, Snyder’s movie drops this context, as the question of why money even matters after Army of the Dead’s zombie outbreak could have been used to set up a satirical critique of big business attempting to profit off human suffering. The film could have deepened its comparisons to Aliens by depicting its characters as victims of uncaring corporate overlords who will send them to their doom to save a dollar, and failing to do so underlines the issue that Snyder’s movie has with homage. Although it borrows a lot from Cameron’s Aliens, Army of the Dead stops short of taking the movie’s message on board.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/army-dead-ruins-aliens-best-quote-why-explained/