RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Post-Release - Page 2

Because they just SMASH them!

(Which windows are you talking about in this case?)

Justin, that wordless final exchange between father and son was a beautiful moment.

Seeing the film a second time made me realize: the ALZ112 still ended up giving Lithgow an additional 5 good years.  It's not a 'cure' but am I crazy to think that GenSys could still market that?  The way the film zooms past Caesar's growth makes it feel like the ALZ112 failed right away. 

But 5 years!  That's a good amount of time!  Franco's reaction to his father's regression makes it seem like it was an outright failure.

Office windows which, granted, probably don't open. But they didn't even try! They just hurled their giant monkey bodies right through glass.

Eh, if we had the strength and agility of an ape, we'd do the same thing.  Hehehe.

Yep, probably the best movie of the summer.

Caesar's a completely believable and likeable character along with most of the other cg apes.

I loved Caesar's APE UNITY techniques.

YOU ALL GET COOKIES!!!!!!

Stupid ape hero shots aside, what a wonderful surprise this turned out to be. Whoever did the early marketing stuff should get beaten up by the director. They almost made me miss this.

Serkis and WETA should be categorized as a classic cinematic pairing. Freakishly good work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Andy Bain 
to be fair if I'd got an extra 5 years I'd want more as well.  A lot of reviews have outright slammed the human erformances in thsi film but I can honestly say I didn't have an issue with any of them.  I mean vet girlfriend was literally just a method to get Caesar some initial alienation from his 'father' (him butting in while they were picnicking was great) but she wasn't horrible.  I believed Franco's relationship with his father and that that was why he did what he did, and I 100% believed in his relationship with Caesar.  And that was enough.

 

Watched a review of this last night and my 5 year old daughter was in the room.  They showed the 'Caesar protecting Dad' moment, with the girl going "DADDY!" as Caesar attacks the arsehole neigbour (and ha! fuck you neighbour anyway BTW) and Olivia says 'oh no that poor man'.

 

To which I subjected her to a good five munte speech of how he had it coming because of what he did and furthermore most humans have it coming because of the way we treat almost every other living thing on this planet.

 

Bless her - she now knows just to go "OK Daddy" when I'm on my soapbox.

 

BUT if I can instill any ounce of respect for other people and this planet we live on it will be worth it.

Congratulations. Your daughter will now enable the ape uprising.

Aw, I loved the stupid ape hero shots.

PARTICULARLY the one on the trolley!  Hahahah

Did you think that there'd be a long heroic death scene for Buck?  They could have signed to each other about how Buck will die free, all in glorious subtitles.

I think I loved this movie.  Caesar is the character of the summer.  I think it is a pretty major accomplishment that audience sides with the apes despite the lack of truly evil characters (arguably Felton aside, though he was a bit broad).  We want to see Caesar succeed against the humans because we buy into him as a character.  He's also given an almost ironic streak of humanity in how he's able to show compassion (preventing his soldiers from killing their enemies, showing distress at his murders), which I found really interesting.  

Overall, a really great time at the movies.  

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

Aw, I loved the stupid ape hero shots.

 

PARTICULARLY the one on the trolley!  Hahahah

Yeah this movie gets a pass on the hero shots.   If you think of this as the Jesus movie Apes make about themselves then this type of treatment totally makes sense.   Also, how cynical do you have to be not to like this kind of goofy shit from time to time?  

Quote:

Originally Posted by neoolong 

Did you think that there'd be a long heroic death scene for Buck?  They could have signed to each other about how Buck will die free, all in glorious subtitles.

Well he got a good and proper hero's death in the movie.   Also, while the "word" gets alot of attention, I think another cool ass moment was Caesar riding a horse.   That's probably another ape "first".   Not as awesome as talking but still pretty cool.   Also, another great hero shot for Caesar!

HOLY SHIT.

I just walked out of the theatre 2 hours ago & I'm still a buzzing emotional wreck. This wasn't just good, this was a FUCKING CLASSIC. RoTPoTA is the franchise reboot Star Trek 2009 could only dream of being.

Summer of 2011, we have a winner.

The "No" is growing on me, but I felt it was a little too clearly pronounced at the time.  But, man, the "Caesar is home" with Franco's reaction hit me hard.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by dynamotv 

Well he got a good and proper hero's death in the movie.   Also, while the "word" gets alot of attention, I think another cool ass moment was Caesar riding a horse.   That's probably another ape "first".   Not as awesome as talking but still pretty cool.   Also, another great hero shot for Caesar!

You know what else really SELLS that "NO!!!"?

It's Buck's scared shitless "HOLY FUCKING SHIT..." expression.  

I think that "NO" had to be clearly pronounced.  It is that first true moment of willful open resistance.  And if it came out any less clearly, I think its effect could've been diminished.  But who knows?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mcnooj82 

I think that "NO" had to be clearly pronounced.  It is that first true moment of willful open resistance.  And if it came out any less clearly, I think its effect could've been diminished.  But who knows?

I have to disagree; I think that the way the NO! line works better when its halfway between Clear Human and Bestial Roar. I might have been reading to much into Serkis's performance, but I felt a bit as if Caesar himself didn't expect to say the word. He was definitely thinking the word NO, but his mind/body made the connection before his conscious self did.

OT, but I don't know where to ask, since I haven't been around since the forum upgrade: is there any way to have a plaintext editor when posting? I had to edit this because evidently the new software doesn't like me manually adding my own italics.

We saw a late show and this movie certainly lived up to the hype I've been hearing over the past few days. It's neck and neck with X-Men: First Class for my favorite film of the summer.

Just a full on great movie and I was really impressed with everything. The writing, the stellar acting, Serkis as Caesar is amazing. Lithgow steals a lot of it too. Lots of truly sad moments that tugged at my heartstrings. Did get a laugh out of the gorilla being named Buck. The "NO!" moment really shook everyone in the theater. I'd also wager this is probably the first Apes movie a lot of the people in the theater had seen. Great thing is this movie will get people to check out the originals, and I already want to see a sequel. I can see how post-apocalyptic everything will be. Especially after that final scene after the credits start.

I agree more with this.  It needed to be enough that the humans and audience realize that the switch has been flicked and that there was no going back for the uplifted apes.  But making it too articulate just pulls me out and makes it feel like a big jump instead of a more natural progression.  Besides, I was under the impression that apes lack the muscles to articulate verbally as humans do.

But, it was a hell of a "Oh, shit!" moment for the audience.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scumbag 

I have to disagree; I think that the way the NO! line works better when its halfway between Clear Human and Bestial Roar. I might have been reading to much into Serkis's performance, but I felt a bit as if Caesar himself didn't expect to say the word. He was definitely thinking the word NO, but his mind/body made the connection before his conscious self did.

Phenomenal.

I'll add to the love for the "NO!" scene.  I was not even remotely expecting any of them to talk in this film, so that just blasted me back into my chair.  HUGE gasps followed immediately by fists pumping in the air, applause, and loud cheers.  I was honestly afraid of Caesar in that scene, and considering how cute and endearing he was until that moment, that says volumes about the performance of Andy Serkis and the Weta team.  Wow, just wow.  Loved seeing the apes disarm while the humans were going for kills.  It made Caesar giving the nod of permission to the disfigured ape to push Jacobs' helicopter off the bridge even more powerful.

All of the humans save for Lithgow were utterly disposable, but Franco looking high as fuck and Felton being an eye-rolling Malfoy 2.0 for no apparent reason couldn't diminish my love for this one.  And am I the only one who thought Caesar was a dead ringer for Clint Eastwood at times?  I swear, there are some shots where he's got that Eastwood snarl down pat.

The "NO!" scene was perfect. Caesar's intelligence and rage became clearly apparent. And beyond making it articulate, they made it clear that it wasn't a human saying it. "Caesar is home" didn't come out equally well, though.

But as a sci-fi geek I wish they would have followed a path where ape intelligence was a bit less "human." I know though that questions of that sort could be more easily pondered in works of longer form than a movie.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Scumbag 

I have to disagree; I think that the way the NO! line works better when its halfway between Clear Human and Bestial Roar. I might have been reading to much into Serkis's performance, but I felt a bit as if Caesar himself didn't expect to say the word. He was definitely thinking the word NO, but his mind/body made the connection before his conscious self did.

There is definitely something to what you said about Caesar's body making the connection before his consciousness did.  His first "NO!" was clear (still a taste of a roar though).  He proceeds to continue chanting it a few more times and those were less articulated and more roar-like. 

I'm so glad that this is actually good! I really was thinking it would be terrible, so color me surprised! Guess i'll be seeing it soon then!

Am I the only one who thinks that if the only message you get out of this movie is "animal testing is bad" that you really aren't looking hard enough? Have people not heard of metaphors?

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes replaces the sociopolitical underpinnings of the original film and its sequels with a limp warning about the evils of animal testing" -  Jeanette Catsoulis, NPR

Sorry for the double post, I pasted that quote from NPR and got locked in to a bizarre all-cap hell.

If you substitute any subjugated population in to the role of the apes, you get an allegory about the futility and inhumanity of repressing that people. I got a strong anti-colonial reading out of this. Or, if one were in a particularly dark place, the downfall of the American / Western European hegemony.

To do these readings, it may be necessary to make some allegorical correlations between apes and people whose skin color is darker than mine. I hope it goes without saying that this particular aspect is incidental.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

Sorry for the double post, I pasted that quote from NPR and got locked in to a bizarre all-cap hell.

 

If you substitute any subjugated population in to the role of the apes, you get an allegory about the futility and inhumanity of repressing that people. I got a strong anti-colonial reading out of this. Or, if one were in a particularly dark place, the downfall of the American / Western European hegemony.

 

To do these readings, it may be necessary to make some allegorical correlations between apes and people whose skin color is darker than mine. I hope it goes without saying that this particular aspect is incidental.

Yeah, during the climax I was thinking, "This must be how staunchly racist white people see & fear black people".
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by Art Decade 

 

Yeah, during the climax I was thinking, "This must be how staunchly racist old white people felt about black people. Or even Gandhi's independence movement from Britain, for that matter".
 

 

I think it was Maurice's line "Guards don't like a smart ape," that really sealed the deal on that.

I liked this movie a lot. Maybe best of the summer for me. I didn't think the human acting was that bad either; Franco did just fine. The whole thing pretty much worked for me, except maybe Ceaser talking at the end. Good stuff.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

Am I the only one who thinks that if the only message you get out of this movie is "animal testing is bad" that you really aren't looking hard enough? Have people not heard of metaphors?

 

"Rise of the Planet of the Apes replaces the sociopolitical underpinnings of the original film and its sequels with a limp warning about the evils of animal testing" -  Jeanette Catsoulis, NPR

Wow. Takes a certain kind of idiot genius to be that stupid.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nardo 

Wow. Takes a certain kind of idiot genius to be that stupid.

 

Sadly, said NPR reviewer is not alone. From the tag team review's own comments section:

"Instead of being a critique of how we are destroying ourselves with our own technology(weapons, not genetics), it becomes an animal cruelty lecture?" - RCA

Thankfully RCA hadn't seen the movie before commenting on it.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

 

I think it was Maurice's line "Guards don't like a smart ape," that really sealed the deal on that.

 

Malfoy even unleashes the civil rights movement water hose on Caesar at one point.

Quote:

Originally Posted by HarleyQuinn22 

"civil rights movement water hose"

... included in every Malfoy action figure!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nardo 

Wow. Takes a certain kind of idiot genius to be that stupid.

Perhaps they needed a more literal portrayal of the metaphor:

So, Ceasar bites the finger off the neighbor guy and animal control comes to him away.  Ceasar is naked.  But before they take him to meet Brian Cox they stop, say wait a sec, we need to put some clothes on this guy!!!  Uggg.

Hold on, before you steal my monkey let me get his shirt.  Heck they don't even do that on COPS!  You just see them throw a pair of jeans on some crackhead and they drive away shoeless and shirtless.  Annoying.

While I respect your opinion I don't buy it.  It's not like the cops knew he was a super-smart ape - to them he was just a violent animal that attacked someone.  What would they care about calming it down - they'd just want to lock it up ASAP.  My point is more to the extremely low chance Franko could get the ape dressed between the two scenes - the authorities would think Franko was nuts!

It's a horrible continuity error - and I thought it was amusing - that's all. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by MikeI 

Sorry for the double post, I pasted that quote from NPR and got locked in to a bizarre all-cap hell.

 

If you substitute any subjugated population in to the role of the apes, you get an allegory about the futility and inhumanity of repressing that people. I got a strong anti-colonial reading out of this. Or, if one were in a particularly dark place, the downfall of the American / Western European hegemony.

 

To do these readings, it may be necessary to make some allegorical correlations between apes and people whose skin color is darker than mine. I hope it goes without saying that this particular aspect is incidental.

Although the film obviously would have been nearly finished at the time, it's interesting that the films most topical allegorical application would be this years Arab Spring. 

Yeah it isn't a HOOOORRIBLE continuity error at all. It's such a minor thing and it's not outrageous to think that Franco put a shirt on him before animal control took him away (possibly for good). He's basically Caesar's dad and that's how he dressed him.

Really the main thing that should bug people about this movie is the whole VIRUS subplot.

They didn't quarantine the fat guy or run any tests after he was exposed to 113? Dumb.

Doesn't ruin the movie, though.

One thing that I swear I heard during the battle scenes was Caesar doing this weird mix of grunting and spoken language.   Maybe he was learning to talk during the battle and figured out how to speak properly towards the end?   As I said, maybe he's smarter than humans at this point since he got exposed to the ALZ 112 and 113 together.   Just a theory.   There are still some unanswered questions though.   Namely, how did apes go from looking like apes to looking like humans in ape costumes?   This is a pressing concern for me.

Most of the medical stuff is horribly dumb.  Why were they only using respirators instead of full hazmat-esque suits?  How did they not notice that Bright Eyes was pregnant despite her being a test subject?  How did Franco keep stealing material from his company with nobody noticing?
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by wadew1 

Yeah it isn't a HOOOORRIBLE continuity error at all. It's such a minor thing and it's not outrageous to think that Franco put a shirt on him before animal control took him away (possibly for good). He's basically Caesar's dad and that's how he dressed him.

 

Really the main thing that should bug people about this movie is the whole VIRUS subplot.

They didn't quarantine the fat guy or run any tests after he was exposed to 113? Dumb.

Doesn't ruin the movie, though.

Loved it. Though I tried not to remember that chimps physically can't talk no matter how smart they are (vocal cords are situated differently).

"No" is halfway credible — the somewhere-between-roar-and-speech thing others here have cited. "Caesar is home," not so much.

Strangely, I buy the speech in the original series because you figure centuries of evolution have taken place. 

Still loved the new flick. Just saying.

(Though I guess we can add this to the dozens of scenes already talked about here that "must have been cut": the scene where Caesar is established as physically different* because he was born from an ALZ-112-dosed chimp.)

*other than the eyes

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Rain Dog 

Although the film obviously would have been nearly finished at the time, it's interesting that the films most topical allegorical application would be this years Arab Spring. 

I was thinking the same thing.

Tremendous. Best movie of the summer by far. Need the sequel now!

I get the feeling some people think Francos a different actor than he is - the guys never going to be a chameleon method man, he has a very definite 'thing' he does and has done since he was trying it on as a poor mans James Dean back in his Freaks and Geeks days. He's definitely evolved as an actor since then and in the right role he's very very good, but he does what he does at the end of the day. Rise was a perfectly serviceable Franco performance in my opinion. He won't win any awards, but he didn't stink up the joint or get in his own way. I had literally zero problems with his character.

Again tho, the humans are almost all under-written (with maybe the exception of Franko and Lithgow) and the villainous humans were broadly villanous because, well, they were stupid humans.

This is the Apes prestige Spartacus/Braveheart guys, us humans are co-stars in this film at best.

I raved about this to my sister, so we went to see it tonight.  The theater was damn near sold out on a Sunday night.  Word has gotten out about this movie in a big way.  I knew the "NO!" was coming, so I just sat back to savor the reaction.  Loud gasps and then the place went nuts.  Such a great moment.  My sister was very moved by the film, and spent the entire ride back home discussing how it reminded her of aparthied and the civil rights movement.  To her, the film is all about being oppressed without even knowing it, and how people react once the realization is made.  All it takes is one person to stand up and say no, and it's not a coincidence that "no", perhaps the most powerful word in our language, is Caesar's first word.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kriegaffe 

The sore point that prevents me from really loving this film is the humans. I'm surprised that a lot of people are letting James Franco off the hook. What stings is Serkis jumps into this stuff whole heartedly and delivers something amazing, while in comparison Franco looks like he's just collecting a cheque. 

I submit that the actors playing humans had a harder job than Serkis. Serkis, who's well-versed in the technique, is free to create and be his character; the human cast all have to look at/interact with what looks like a middle-aged weed dealer in the Tron Guy outfit and imagine the shit out of their eventual digital co-star.

Franco's no Montalban, but the humans are all either broadly written or underwritten (did Brian Cox have a subplot cut out?), and the actors playing humans all have pretty thankless jobs here. No one was going to run away with Franco's role as written.

I'd say Franco earned his paycheck for his reaction to Caesar's final line (I think it's what sold that moment).  That, and several of the moments he had with Lithgow.

Exactly.

Francos character only existed so that the liberal anti-human-cruelty group of the future CETH (Chimps for the Ethical Treatment of Humans) wouldn't be up in arms about the films anti-human agenda. 

Will Rodman is the character the producers can point to to prove that not all humans are villains. He's the token good one.

Those bastards at Fox know something we don't!

What're they hiding!?