Planet of The Apes 2011... your thoughts, please!

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...these are mine:

First off, it's the best "summer movie" of the summer--this from someone who did not even plan on seeing it 'til netflix!

Second, I think the uncanny valley has finally been crossed. The CG apes are quite moving and compelling. Strangely, even though much of the ape performance/communication is nonverbal, I "got them" in a way I rarely get real people.

I'd be interested to know if others had this experience.

Third, I really loved all the references to the original movie. In a strange way, it's actually more remake than prequel. Rod Serling would be pleased.

Finally...

Bonus prediction: The crew of the Icarus is in for a big, fat, hairy surprise!

Last edited by GoonSquad on 10 Aug 2011, 1:26 am, edited 1 time in total.

The premise sounds interesting, and it has a decent cast to pull it off. It'll be interesting to see if having Andy Serkis motion capturing for the main CGI ape will translate into any noticeable similarities physically to his Gollum character. Also looking forward to seeing if Frieda Pinto continues to be a rising star.

^^^ Frieda Pinto is very charming in the movie, but the CG apes really are the stars.

They have a screen presence unlike any CG I've seen before.

Caesar and the "circus orangutan" are simply incredible.

I plan on seeing it tommorow, heard this is a very good movie.

SPOILERS!! !! SPOILERS!! !! SPOILERS!! !












I found it very interesting on how the roles were reversed from the 1968 Planet of the Apes. Taylor's getting hosed down, anamolously has "bright eyes", and is caged up to Ceasar's mom and apes with "the cure" being labelled "bright eyes", Ceasar getting hosed down, Ceasar being caged, and Ceasar basically "raging against the machine".

The inversion of the moral universe of the first Planet of the Apes (1968) is also interesting. Rather than the hero, it is the villain that says "take your stinkin paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" and "it's a madhouse!". Clearly, unlike the first Planet of the Apes, it is apparent that humans are the bastards and (non-human) Apes are the morally superior beings.

As some Discover blogs pointed out, this film wasn't neccessarily as luddite as people assumed. After all, it seems the "The Cure" made the (non-human) Apes more moral than most of the humans - witness the relatively bloodless coup (or is it more of a prison break?). The (non-human) Great Ape revolution starts off very nonviolently, it looks more like they're just trying to be free of human oppression. In later instalments, I can see this going down hill due to one or both of these factors:

• In a manner similar to "The Second Renaissance" (an Animatrix cartoon that served as a loose prequel to the Matrix film series), xenophobic humans fear this developing society and decide to crush it. This goes bad for the humans.
• That more brutal Chimp, the one who killed Jacobs, decides to take charge of the revolution and steer it towards wipping out the humans, either by winning power from Ceasar violently or nonviolently acruing greater influence in the (non-human) Great Ape ranks, or succedding Ceasar after his death by either natural causes or human attack.

I suspect both factors will be at play and, given the hint at the end, the Cure 2.0 will decimate human ranks. They'll probably be some twist, like only humans with severe hereditary speech disorders can survived the plague, explaining the mutism of all people in the 1968 film.

I also liked this film because it showed how the (non-human) Great Apes rose up without having to fall back on an earlier Planet of the Apes, i.e. some perpetual loop type time travel genesis story. It truly pulled the Planet of the Apes genesis story up in a chronologically normal, by its own bootstraps, manner.









SPOILERS!! ! SPOILERS!! !! SPOILERSSS

I liked the references to the original I thought it was pretty well written. Not my normal type of movie, but I did enjoy it.

in anticipation of POTA 2011 i re-watched the original 5 POTA movies and the original POTA tv series of 13 episodes. i am 44 and love POTA,

for me the 2011 version was too much Computer graphic based characters.

the original POTA was all real ppl with excellent makeup. even on my 120 inch home theater the makeup is excellent, i loved the city and country settings in the original movies+series.
i even plan to visit malibu state park this winter to enjoy the scenic landscape where the movie was filmed. you will also see this area in the opening credits of mash.

i did find the computer animations had amazing detail and personality, however i found it detracted from the origianl series aspect which had zero cgi and was all hand built sets.

it could be cause i grew up with the old POTA style, as i do enjoy movies like Avatar which is heavy CG.

I loved it, mostly for the fact that all the apes (apart from Caesar who was too tall and humanlike) looked amazingly realistic. The circus Orangutan was immense! I liked the sign language conversations he and Caesar had, in fact the orangutan was my favourite character full stop!
I found it pretty funny when the alpha male chimp at the sanctuary was being groomed/massaged by his allies, it's actually pretty true to life because alpha males are always being pampered by their seconds in command.
I was not expecting Caesar to talk and it was quite a fun surprise, and they got his voice spot on. If a chimp spoke it would sound like that, I have seen videos of chimps saying "mama" and they sound like Caesar.

The only problem I have with the film is how they portrayed the gorillas, they were too King Kong (and way too tall) and for some crazy reason roared like lions. Gorillas make growly grumbly noises and when they charge they go "grrrrrrrororororor" not "RAAAWWWWR!" The chimp and orangutan noises were good though, the chimp noises were recorded over a two day period at the Chimp Haven sanctuary.

Overall I very much enjoyed the film and my face was a constant throughout the second half.

The is the first Apes I have seen that makes sense.

ruveyn

After seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes, I felt bad for all the chimpanzees and other primates who have to put up with this crap from humanity, being experimented on. It's appalling! I can't understand why humans think they have the right to put primates through that. It's like putting human beings through it, they are so similar to us.

By the time Caesar went through the typical bs he no longer felt any love for the doctor or his family, didn't want to return because he knew it would be more of the same. He had lost his faith in people. We betray the trust of other primates by subjecting them to such treatment.

We need more thought provoking films like this one, imo.

Mine too! For some reason I named him 'Orange' and every time he came on the screen I squealed 'ORANGE!! !' I think I was one of about three who caught the 'damn dirty apes' reference from the original film. Also did anyone else notice at one point that Ceaser is holding a toy statue of liberty? I thought that was pretty funny!

Later on when more orangutans appeared I squealed 'LOADS OF ORANGES!! !' and my support worker thought it was hilarious so we both refer to orangutans as 'oranges' now!

I thought it was awesome from start to finish and it left me wanting more. God I hope they make another one. The funny thing is I have never seen any of the other ape movies including the original. I know the jist of it, astronaut is stranded on the Planet of the Apes and in the end discovered it was earth all the long with the discovery of the head of the statue of liberty and he said that famous line. I've seen it being taken the mick out of on shows like The Simpsons like when Homer became an astronaut and quoted the damn you all to hell line and who could forget that famous Troy McClure episode.

I didn't like it. I thought it dragged quite a bit and the action scene was too short. The ending I hated.

I felt sorry for David Hewlett's character, he wasn't really that bad a person. The scene that stayed with me was his departure at the end, and its consequences. Makes you wonder whether globalisation is really worth it.

BUT IT HAD AN ORANGUTAN!! !!

Good film, although not something I'll watch twice. I find it quite funny that, seeing how the apes were made up in a brilliant way, the human characters weren't as interesting.

And I think that Andy Serkis should get every damn movie award on this planet. Shameful he didn't receive one after the Lord of the Rings. Gollum and now Caesar are awesome characters, made perfect by his acting.