Movie Review -- Rise of the Planet of the Apes

"Rise" is a rethinking of "Conquest". In Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar leads a revolt against humans. In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar leads a revolt against humans. But pretty much everything else is different.

Quote: s2dbaker

In Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Caesar leads a revolt against humans. But pretty much everything else is different.

Even the word revolt is not appropriate. I don't want to spoil the movie so I won't say more.

Both the new movie and the 1972 movie (the final one in the series) have an ape named Ceasar. Ceasar leads the other apes in both movies, and there are confrontations. But other than those simple plot points, everything else is different.

Watch the Trailer for Conquest of the Planet of the Apes with Roddy Macdowell playing Ceasar. Roddy MacDowell also played Cornelius in the earlier films.

Roddy McDowell dressed as an ape, is still, well, Roddy McDowell.

Looks like ape Elvis to me.

Nope, its McDowell between scenes in a 70's ape movie. Big glasses were the thing, thats why E wore them. So did everybody else, I even had a pair.

Just a couple side notes...


The movie is a major topic of discussion at the coffee pot at work this morning. Seems like everyone who saw it, liked it. One guy said "Even my wife liked it," as if to suggest that he didn't expect that.


The original movie won an Oscar for makeup. One of the movies they were up against was 2001.

After losing, the 2001 makeup team commented that the voters probably didn't even realize that the apes in 2001 were actually men in costume. Hell, there was one shot of a monkey clinging to a man in an ape costume. So if the monkey believed them to be real apes, maybe the judges did too!



The original Planet Of The Apes book did not have the astronauts landing on Earth. There was none of the time travel stuff. Still, it was a great book - with an ending that had it's own shocking twist.

Those of you looking for the discussion about intelligent life elsewhere in the universe, I split off those posts to a new thread, If we're not alone in the universe, then where is everybody else?. I apologize for the inconvenience, as it was me who got us off topic.

So I saw this movie recently on DVD, and enjoyed it, but was confused by one of the sequences. If you haven't seen the movie, but plan to, please stop reading, as I am going to give away a spoiler.



















On the bridge, the main Ape, Caesar, makes it very clear that killing people is not their goal. He yells "No!" to stop other apes from killing helpless policemen. However, after the helicopter crash, Caesar looks into the dangling cockpit to see the head of the lab struggling to climb up but refuses to help him. Instead, he steps aside, and allows another ape to pick up the helicopter skid, letting the chopper fall over the side of the bridge.

Why? I didn't note any point in the story where Caesar would have a beef with the man, or know that he was the head of lab. If he was killing him for shooting at them from the helicopter, why would he stop the other apes from killing the cops who were shooting at them from the bridge? The way the scene played, it was as if the ape that threw the chopper off the bridge was given permission to exact revenge, but for what? What am I missing?

Quote: Ayecarumba

What am I missing?

Never let the plot get in the way of a good movie moment.