The Planet Of the Apes bothers me. I don't actually mean the books or films (although they do), or indeed the idea that we will one day be overthrown and inevitably destroyed by our simian overlords. That doesn't bother me because either a) It'll never happen, or b) I'll be long dead before it does, or c) it's stupid. No, when I say The Planet Of The Apes bothers me, I mean literally those words in that order. And not really those words itself, as a title goes it's a pretty cool and foreboding sounding one. This has more to do with the sequels.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand the importance of brand recognition, but simply picking an exciting sounding verb or noun and lobbing "The Planet Of The Apes" on the end does not an effective title make. Let’s go through the list.
The Planet Of The Apes - Good Title. Good. There is a Planet. There are Apes on it. I like it. Succinct.
Beneath The Planet Of The Apes - All well and good, though technically if the title was accurate the film would take place in space slightly below the planet, and would be silent, full of floating dead monkeys, and rather short. "Inside The Planet Of The Apes" doesn’t quite have the same ring to it I agree.
Escape From The Planet Of The Apes - While technically an adequate description, the actual escape takes place in the first five minutes or so of the film, and the rest of our time is spent on Earth in the 1970s. The actual Planet of the Apes itself won't make an appearance for another umpty-thousand years. A more accurate title would be "The Oppression Of Some Talking Apes From the Future On Earth In the Present... Of The Planet Of The Apes."
I said accurate. I didn't say good.
Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes - This is where the title starts getting silly. We're still on present day Earth, well present day Earth 20 years ago. Based on the amusing premise that if all the world's cats and dogs were wiped out, humanity would naturally start keeping monkeys as pets (at least until the Rabbit and Guinea Pig Union stepped in) - and then snowballing from there to all humans secretly want to be fascists - the film is notable in that IT ONCE AGAIN DOES NOT TAKE PLACE ON THE PLANET OF THE APES. I'm fully aware (SPOILER) that it's going to BECOME The Planet of The Apes, it is not yet that planet. Conquest of Earth is a perfectly good title, or even better something like "Pets, Unite!" or "We Have Nothing To Lose But Our Collars" or "Let My Monkeys Go", though once again, no brand recognition.
Battle For The Planet Of The Apes - WE'RE NOT. ON. THE PLANET. OF THE APES! The Planet Of the Apes in fact never appears again in the series, unless you count the remake (Don't. Just don't.) We're certainly a bit closer to it being A Planet Of Apes in this one, but we're still on Earth. Really. The Planet Of The Apes is an entirely inaccurate suffix.
You did get points for having guerrilla gorillas though.
You'll notice I haven't really talked about the qualities and good points of the movies. If they were there I would talk about them. That's a little cruel, the first one has some excellent points, but "short" and "undull" are not among them.
This all brings us to the actual point of this blog entry: Rise of the Planet Of the Apes.
Allow me to elaborate.
Rise Of the Planet Of the Apes is a reboot of sorts for the series, acknowledging the original and some of the sequels, while completing breaking others, specifically Conquest Of the Battle Of The Apes. Since Conquest was the "Let's Oppress Apes Because I Miss My Cat" movie this is probably a good thing. It does also fix the infinite time loop from Escape of "Talking Apes arrive on Earth, Talking Apes have baby, Baby Overthrows Humanity, Nothing Happens For Two Thousand Years, Planet Explodes, Talking Apes escape and travel back in Time, Talking Apes arrive on Earth, Repeat Until You're Bored", as now Caesar the Ape (named I believe for the salad, although possibly not.) is the secret child of a laboratory ape instead of the secret child a time travelling talking ape.
The film was actually rather enjoyable and definitely the only one out of the series so far that I would venture to describe as "good" or "fun", but it does suffer from many minor and some rather major plot holes or logic missteps, as well as a few odd choices.
Focussing on the fun of the scenario over plausibility is one possible explanation. Writing the script on Swiss cheese is another. Some of these are trifling. A high tech and expensive science laboratory which submits apes to regular testing and 24 hour surveillance that is somehow unable to spot a chimpanzee giving birth (I'm no zoologist, but I'm pretty sure this would be a lengthy and potentially messy process), is an example of the former. A drug that enhances the neural pathways of the brain but which also mysteriously changes your bone structure, gives you good posture, and grows vocal chords is rather more of a worry. Rather like Revenge of the Sith, instead of allowing that the passage of time will create change in people and their environments, Rise prefers to get all of the changes out of the way right now, and then the characters presumably just twiddle their thumbs for the next two thousand years until the next movie starts.
Contrary to this, though, the film counteracts it's George Lucas syndrome very effectively with the hints of the eventual fate of the human race. Without beating you over the head with it, the film creates an effective and plausible reason that humanity will die out over time that isn't just Man Those Apes Are Smart. It also is perhaps the first time ever I have seen an end credit sequence actually further the plot in a meaningful (and rather ominous) way.
But, far more importantly: A planet does not rise. Particularly if you are on it. At no point during the film did a planet rise over the horizon, or indeed, go up in any capacity. Some apes might rise. They could certainly do that. Perhaps an entire planet's worth. But not a planet. A planet just sort of spins.
Also, and I really can't stress this enough, IT'S NOT THE PLANET OF THE APES YET.
3 out of 6 stars.
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