Just saw preview for the Planet of the Apes.

[jimsmegos]

For me (as a kid) the Planet of the Apes films were all about the make up. They did such an outstanding job you would easily believe that these were real talking monkey's. CGI and modern techniques that evolved from the original processes is missing the warmth that comes from the "organic" in camera effects and practical sets and costumes/make up. It's like King Kong and Clash of the Titans to me. The uniqueness and cutting edge of the special effects of the time made the movie. Not slighting the stories but the uniqueness of the WAY the movie was made is what captivates me. Same can be said about Star Wars. Again practicals made up the originals, not computer generated images and as such there is no real warmth no matter how much "Gaussian Blur" you put on it.

CGI has it' place and I am glad its evolved to its current level of realism but still it will never have real warmth. Well probably not in my lifetime.

Which reminds me, I still need to kick in on Sandy's new movie. While I don't know much I do know that Hunter Prey worked for me because of the aforementioned reasons with practicals and in camera movie making, telling the story. So I'm certain that the new film will feature the same method of movie making.

May I apologize now for not having already kicked in Sandy. You are our only hope.

[GlobalObserver]

No one is a bigger fan of the original POTA franchise than I am. I've been a diehard fan for 40 years. The original '68 film is my favorite movie of all time.

I hated the Tim Burton remake, but judging from the official 3rd trailer for 'Rise', I think that this movie shows some promise. It's not the APES we've all known and loved since we were children, but from what I've seen so far, this movie looks pretty good.

[ctc]

Hmmmm....

I'll wait 'til my buddy Rob sees it, and get his take. From the previews I think it LOOKS okay, but it doesn't look to have a lot of depth or surprise so I'm not real excited.

Don C.

[Gorn Captain]

I saw the preview, and it looked very "CGI". It kind of crushed my enthusiasm to go see it. I really want to love it because we've been deprived of more POTA for so many years now (let's forget Burton's effort).
I'll take a guy in a good ape suit (and throw in some animatronic heads if you must) anytime.

What made me love POTA is that the apes were between ape and human (both physically and psychologically). It gave them an otherworldly presence. These new apes are practically "real apes", which kills it just like it made Jackson's Kong a failure. Same thing with Emmerich's Godzilla. They neglected the aspects of Godzilla that made him unusual (which the fans loved) and made him more lizard-like and stepped away from the concept that made it a hit in the first place.
Will...they...ever...learn????!!!

[sauce]

Looks like the only cool part is going to be to watch Caesar build his army. I love that kind of stuff in a movie. The rest is all too Jurassic Park.

[Wee67]

I saw the trailer a while ago and it didn't apeal to me, but not for most of the reasons many express here.

I loved the POTA films and they are, IMHO, unquestionable classics. Which, I believe, is all the more reason why they have to be rebooted or redone. What must be respected is the original theme and tone of the original, not the details. If you're simply going to re-tell the story, event for event, there is no reason to remake the film (outside of the huge potential profit, of course ). It was done so well the first time. The only real choice to give it value is to add a new angle or perspective.

I think MicromanZone tapped into why it looks like it might fail for me- it just doesn't feel like the original to me. It doesn't have to have the same details, but it should have the same tone.

Its like covering a great song- the original band rocked that song to almost perfection. Put your own spin on it or just recue the original.

[Megospidey]

Looks like the only cool part is going to be to watch Caesar build his army. I love that kind of stuff in a movie. The rest is all too Jurassic Park.

That's kind of what I thought watching the preview. I said to the guy beside me, "the idea and story look kind of cool, but I just can't get past the bad CGI special effects."

The apes looks BAD. TERRIBLE. I won't be able to sit for 2 hours and look at those things.

[Nostalgiabuff]

^^ yeah, he is a genetic experiment but he then uses whatever the experiment is and makes the rest of the apes smart and then they escape....hopefully they lead into the original series from there for sequels

[HardyGirl]

OK, I just saw it. It's like Project X meets Conquest of the POTA. I'm gonna say about this what I said about the new Star Trek movie. You could almost put any other name on this and market this as a Sc-Fi Movie in and of itself. I do think it will be better than the Burton fiasco, but it just doesn't have the POTA feel. If I do see this film, it will be the mindset of seperating this from the REAL POTA and just watch it as a Sci-Fi film which happens to have apes in it.

I also don't think there's much potential for mass merchandising as w/ the REAL POTA. Mego wouldn't have touched this movie w/ a 10 ft. pole, and I hope EMCE doesn't either.

[enyawd72]

I hope tim Burton has nothing to do with this movie, he destroyed the last one.

Why do people hate Burton's POTA so much?

1)The makeups were FANTASTIC. I love the originals, but Rick Baker's were better on every technical level.
2)The explanation of how the apes became intelligent was waaaaay better than the "all the dogs and cats died so we got gorilla janitors and chimpanzee housekeepers" explanation of the original series. Sorry, but we both know that was crap.
3)The ending was great...not as chilling as the original, but still unexpected.

I just don't get all the hate...

[Mikey]

I didn't like the Burton movie, but I don't hate it either.

I wish it had a better story and was more like the classic movies

The makeup was a big plus

Burton did do a good job on that.

[GlobalObserver]

For the most part, I loved the makeup in Tim Burton's film, but he made the female chimps look far too human.

[MicromanZone]

Why do people hate Burton's POTA so much?
I just don't get all the hate...

The story was horrible. The explanations were more logical, but they didn’t flow. There was no sense of adventure. To me it all played like cut-scenes from a video game. And I didn’t care at all for any of the characters. The production design was great, but the soul was not there.

As much as I hate Michael Bay, his vision of the Transformers resonated with some aspect of the fan-base I don’t relate to. In the case of Tim Burton, his direction alienated the old school fans and gave new fans (ie: kids) very little reason to care. Much like what Ang Lee did with the Hulk. Both directors “re-imagined” the subjects of their films to such a degree you wonder if they just passive-aggresively hated the job to begin with and instead of bowing out decided to screw with formulas that once worked to make it tolerable to them. It takes a lot of arrogance to screw up viable classics like that and to such a degree.

[ctc]

>You could almost put any other name on this and market this as a Sc-Fi Movie in and of itself.

I wonder if that’s what they did. A lot of movies are actually ANOTHER movie with a recognizable name slapped on it. So for example: GI Joe, I Robot, Starship Troopers were all other films.... no-name stuff that lingered in development hell ‘til they slapped an established brand on ‘em, juggled some scenes and voila!

I also wonder how it’d go over if someone made a POTA film that was more like the book, considering how much the classic films divulged.

>Why do people hate Burton's POTA so much?

Well.... for me it was ‘cos they’d sucked all the depth out of the story. The original film was a thesis on society and a shot at religion. All that got reduced to the “nope; no soul here!” scene in the new one; which was then about moneys fighting. Caesar was clearly a bad guy, whereas Zaius in the original SEEMED like a bad guy until the end.... and when you found out WHY the apes did what they did you almost had to agree with him. Effects are nice, but I like being surprised with my entertainment.

I also didn’t like the arbitrary romantic subplot in the new one ‘cos like MOST romantic subplots it didn’t really make sense. So.... the “hot” ape chick falls for our hero because....? Because she was a “human’s rights” advocate? (Which smacks of bestiality....) A closet “Funky Bunch” fan? In the original, Zira not only referred to Taylor as ugly, but spent most of the film considering him an animal. Since Heston was considered a heart throb back in the day that was funny, different and rung true given the setting.

Don C.

[GlobalObserver]

In Pierre Boulle's original novel, Ulysses (the human) and Zira share a passionate kiss while locked in a lover's embrace. Zira was clearly a full on chimpanzee with no softened human-like appearance. I suppose that Tim Burton wanted to explore that aspect of the human male/female chimp relationship without totally grossing out his audience.