Amph Planet of the Apes reboot series: Next up Kingdom otPotA

It is a call back to the dawn of anatomically modern humans when we spread out of Africa and began competing with other smart tool-using primates for resources and Lebensraum. A great allegory for the dawn of the planet of the humans although as I noted in the box office thread with a bit less interbreeding.

Spoiler

alert: despite the poster the bridge does NOT get destroyed unless I missed a post-credit scene

 

It's not really a serviceable stand alone film, but narratively it does a fantastic job moving from point a to b in an internally consistent and compelling flow of events. I feel the final confrontation between the two male human leads was a bit contrived and unnecessary, but loved te movie nevertheless

 

I thought it was fantastic. Took its time to really set up the characters, was excellent at building tension and the violence was gripping and unsettling. I don't know if this was everyone's experience, but it was certainly mine: this is the first summer blockbuster I've ever seen where the main theme of the film was the pointlessness of violence.

Some people are trying to politicize the film as anti-gun, but that's a stupid oversimplification. It doesn't matter if you use a gun or a spear or a bomb or your hands. This film is anti-violence.

 

Maybe the most extraordinary putsch in cinema history, recalling that iconic moment in Platoon.

 

Saw it yesterday, still reeling from how incredible those Apes looked and acted, how so much emotion can be conveyed with minimal dialog.

And I love love love Maurice the Orangutan.

And because I love talking apes, my top 3 talking ape moments are:
"Apes do not want war, but will fight if we must!"
"Run."
"Human work... human work... human work!"
...you'll understand when you see it.

 

Maurice is the breakout star! But I assume he's Dr.Zaius' grandfather or something. After all, the actor who played Dr. Zaius was Maurice Evans. A hint?

 

Well, that depends. I only go to see films in the theater 1-3 times a year these days (prior to seeing Dawn yesterday, the last film I saw in the theater was Superman: Man of Steel in June 2013). And, I plan on seeing Dawn at least 1-2 more times in the theater - I really enjoyed the film, and want to see the great scenery & CGI on-screen again - plus, of course, I thought the story was excellent.

It's possible he's an ancestor of Dr. Zaius, and these new films are supposed to somehow link to the original 1968 POTA film; this is something I think is a mistake, since I feel these new films should stand on their own...but that's me...

 

Maurice went all Walter White there for a second... "RUN."

 

Was anyone else bothered by the fact that the apes instantly knew how to use guns and never needed to reload (this is not a problem unique to this movie of course but some of those apes were still wielding guns days after first picking them up and not one of them was carrying any extra ammunition). Ceaser's kid was even practicing gun safety by not having his finger on the trigger as he walked around. Other than this minor suspension of disbelief moment the movie was great though. And Koba dual-wielding on horseback was pretty cool and worth the price of admission by itself.

 

I keep hearing conflicting reports on this. My Maurice/Dr. Zaius theory drew a "The movies aren't connected/in the same continuity" response over @ IMDb.

Personally, I'm not sure how well a new version of POTA would work in this continuity, as there really aren't any surprises left for the audience. They know what happened, what caused it all, and they'd just be waiting for the astronauts to catch up. Plus, I'm just not sure that's a story that needs to be told for a third time. Fourth, if you count the TV series. Fifth, if you count the animated series.

 

Yeah, I get the sense that there's a game plan in place here. That the entire story has been fleshed out, at least roughly. "This happens, then this happens, then...". That gives me some confidence that these movies will continue to build upon one another in an organic way. But if the plan is to eventually build to their way to POTA (astronauts from a pre-virus 21st century come back to Earth, not realizing right away that it is Earth, and find it populated with highly evolved apes who subjugate humans) I think it's going to be difficult to capture that same sense of mystery, confusion and fear with the entire backstory already known to us. But maybe they have an all new spin on that portion of the story that makes that moot.

Absolutely. I sort of get the sense he'll die in the third film (even as the apes prove victorious), removing any hope of reconciliation or peace between humans and apes.

 

The space exploration/time travel story no longer has any meaning for the franchise. Now it's the story of how a human-engineered primate competes for dominance with a declining human species.

 

...Well there were those scenes in Rise that showed those astronauts getting lost in space on the news. If you ask me, that indicated we're heading for some form of remake of the original movie.

 

That is unfortunate, as is the overemphasis on CGI


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A great movie. The human characters were pretty good, but this movie could have been entirely apes and would probably have been better. The first 15 minutes were magnificent. CGI in this film was great. Some of the most realistic work I've seen.

Good story, wasn't shorter or longer then it needed to be, great performances, I mean what more could you ask for? I mean to tell the truth when they were just sitting around their home just talking using sign language, I was more than entertained.

Didn't really jump on the Koba band wagon a lot of people were. Great performance, but I liked Serkis more quite performance myself.

 

I agree 200% that it's a mistake to try to connect the new POTA films to the original '68 film. That being said, this is what I think the plan is due to a recent online interview I saw with M. Reeves (the director of Dawn & the third?! film). If I can find the link to this, I'll post it here.

 

That's why I think having pre-rise humans come back into the story is a must at some point. There needs to be someone who comes in, is horrified by what they see, and then lights the fires of revolution. In a way, the story needs to come full circle, but with both learning to live together at the end.

Yeah, I believe Reeves is on board for the third film. If you do come across it, please do.

 

I enjoyed the movie as well. I would have a liked a little more action other than the events that bookended the film. I'm glad the speaking was left to a minimum concerning the apes. It (1) made it more impactful when they did speak and (2) since they spoke with broken english, it came off as non-intelligent when they were anything but.

Questions:
They never really told us what happened to James Franco's character, but I guess we can assume that the virus killed him off?

Also, I was wondering, while the virus spread killing humans all over the word, did the virus spread from humans to apes creating smart apes all over the country OR are the only smart apes the ones in San Fran? Was that addressed in the opening and I missed it?

 

It wasn't addressed, I don't think.

And I'm assuming Franco is dead, unless they decide they want him in again.

 

They're saving the big Charleton-Heston-Statue-of-Libertyesque moment for the next movie when "Caesar" unzips his ape suit, revealing it was James Franco all along.