Planet of the Apes thread

I suppose RISE is then ENT S4.

Pretty much.

At home, eager to watch ESCAPE. I could if I wanted, but I have the blu-ray arriving tomorrow so I rather not spend a 2.99 rental for nothing. What to watch tonight? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

Makeshift Python wrote:

At home, eager to watch ESCAPE. I could if I wanted, but I have the blu-ray arriving tomorrow so I rather not spend a 2.99 rental for nothing. What to watch tonight? Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu

I've been going through some MAD MEN. Gonna watch all of S5 this weekend before the finale. Just watched "The Suitcase". But this is the wrong thread for that.

Speaking of suitcases, check out Zira's carpet bag.

This sounds like monkey stripper music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qA5bVjCm-Jc#t=2m26s

I'm rewatching Season 1 at the moment, personally. It's always weird to return to the beginning of long-running serial dramas; the characters are so different.

Well, some of them.

I have the POTA box set they put out a few years back in Caesar's head that includes all the original movies, the remake, and both TV series. The animated series is tripe but has anyone ever tried the live-action show?

It's basically a rehash of the first movie as a buddy fugitive drama but it has its moments.

re: MAD MEN. I started with the S2 finale and am halfway through S4. Watching this show is like reading a book for me. It's addictive as hell. As for S1, I miss Rachel. Thought she was very appealling.

re: POTA shows. Never seen 'em.

Watched ESCAPE.

Overall its pretty fun, but it got boring once they got onto the boat. I kept thinking the climax in BENEATH was a little more fun. It's just some government stooge snooping around to kill a chimp. Suddenly Zira gets shot, then the baby gets shot four times, then some idiot kills Cornelius. :shock: Fucking hell!

ESCAPE has a lot of stuff BENEATH should have had in the first place. It should have had Zira and Cornelius as the protagonists. They were barely in that one from what I remember. We should have followed their story after Heston didn't want to return, but instead we get a block of wood for a lead.

Overall I had fun with ESCAPE. It's a different animal from the previous two and the whole set up with them finding the spaceship and somehow functioning it enough to fly out of earth (where were they gonna go?!) and the blast causing them to travel back into time is beyond absurd, but once you get past that it's a lot of fun. Heck they even try to rationalize why they speak English, and this is film 3.

So yeah, it's a good light TOS episode. Tux calls CONQUEST late good DS9. Intriguing! And I have it tonight as well on blu.

Speaking of blus, they all look fantastic. I didn't expect ESCAPE to look nearly as good as the transfer for the original but damn FOX really got out of their way to clean them up. I didn't see BENEATH on blu, and I likely won't.

I'm not sure if BENEATH would have been made without Heston. And having it star Cornelius and Zira sounds good, but they didn't have Roddy McDowall. They barely get away with it because he and Zira are barely in the movie.

Ideally? My version of BENEATH... Taylor (played by a more willing Heston) and Nova continue into the Forbidden Zone. The apes return to the ape city where Cornelius (played by Roddy) and Zira are set to be tried and punished. They escape, maybe with the help of Dr. Milo. They set out into the Forbidden Zone in search of Taylor. And Ursus and Zaius do their shit.

I'm too tired to think. Be back tomorrow.

I'd mix your ideas with what we got in BENEATH.

Heston seemed adamant that he wasn't interested in returning, so I'll go with the idea of him appearing at the bookends. He disappears, Nova returns distraught over what happened (which remains a mystery until 3/4s in), so Zira and Cornelius decide to escape to the Forbidden Zone in search of Taylor. Ursus and Zaius use their escape as an excuse to hunt down humans as they believe them to be a greater threat with Taylor out there. Or whatever.

Basically, no Bland Taylor or mind reading mutants. More ape action, and a nicer budget.

Watched CONQUEST (theatrical).

Boy, what a heck of an entry. Despite the low budget and such, it's a very engaging installment of APES. I haven't seen the unrated version, but I hear the ending changed and without knowing what the change was it's still easy to tell what it was. Suddenly we cut to awkward close ups of Caesar's eyes which is obviously from reused shots and some of them are cropped up frames of (that we can only see Cesar's eyes) to hide the fact that they're dubbing in new dialogue, which sounded out of place.

Weird, RT has it rated at 44%. Da fuck is that about?

I'll get to the unrated version later tonight after work. Won't get to see BATTLE until Wednesday.

You should have watched the unrated version first. :) The differences are slight enough that you could watch the unrated, and then watch the last couple of minutes of the theatrical and get more-or-less the complete picture. Aside from the ending, I think the theatrical is only lacking some violence shots. There are some pretty wet 70's blood shots.

As for BATTLE. Drink a few Red Bulls so you'll stay awake. Seriously, it's more mindnumblingly boring than you're probably expecting.

Yeah, but I wanted to watch it the way it was seen before blu unveiled the unrated version. I would go straight to BATTLE, save the unrated version for last, but I won't get it until Wednesday so I'll just watch it tonight. I really dug CONQUEST overall and won't mind watching it all over again.

Forgot to mention some absurd bits I found amusing. So Armando dies and Cesar is distraught. Suddenly right after that every Ape seems to know him (???). I just rolled along with that, I assume there's an extra scene that got cut with Cesar making his first impression? Anyway. I like how his presence inspires rebellion: "THROW SOME TRASH AND STOMP ON IT!", "DON'T LIGHT HER CIGARETTE!" (*Arnold cue* filthy habit), "SHOE POLISH HIS SOCKS!"

I know, that kind of amuses me too.

Though that Lisa (chimp bitch) noticed he was different right off that bat. Maybe they just pick up that he's the alpha chimp, like a lot of other animals.

Makes sense, either way I just rolled along with it.

Rewatching CONQUEST, this time unrated.

LOL bits:

The Cat/Dog plague. Still ludicrous, I think the flick is better off just not acknowledging it at all. It should be telling you "apes are slaves in 1991, deal with it, move along."

The smoking lady with a death wish: "Funny. Now that I know they won't kill me, I don't enjoy them."

Dagger of the Ape torture device, barbaric. What's with the colorful disco lights?

Love the whore house scene, the chimp slut's sultry expression and Cesar's "huh, when in Rome" as he proceeds to... um... go ape.

Ricardo jumps out a window. Sad he's gone for the rest of the flick, but I love the way he goes out. Poor Cesar, now it's time for the great rebellion that begins with refusing to light a woman's cigarette. :o

"You, above everyone else, should understand" On the nose, besides MacDonald wasn't even a chained slave. Move along, move along...

Wait 'til you MacDonald's brother in the next one.

He plays the same role, but it's a new actor so they just he's his brother.

Finished. The ending definitely works better. Seeing that wide shot with the burning building and the apes still bashing the shit out of the governor. Then close to Cesar overlooking the revolt he began. Like in DS9... SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

It really makes me wanna see the next installment. Though it looks as if BATTLE really mucked it up, which is a shame. Seeing a full out war between human and apes? How bad can it be?................................................

They skip the war.

They skip nuclear annihilation.

They start with the ape civilization just beginning, and try to continue on from the theatrical CONQUEST where Caesar suddenly for no reason wants apes and humans working together (albeit apes dominant).

The battle in question is between the fledgeling ape society (already in the clothes from 3955 because they had a ton left over from the TV show) and the fledgeling mutants from BENEATH.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Finished. The ending definitely works better. Seeing that wide shot with the burning building and the apes still bashing the shit out of the governor. Then close to Cesar overlooking the revolt he began. Like in DS9... SHIT JUST GOT REAL.

It really makes me wanna see the next installment. Though it looks as if BATTLE really mucked it up, which is a shame. Seeing a full out war between human and apes? How bad can it be?................................................

The epic battle for earth amounts to a bunch of apes and Paul Williams fighting proto-mutants riding in a school bus. I shit you not.

BATTLE also features probably the single worst foot chase in all of cinema, when some pissed off gorillas chase the human teacher near the start of the film.

My review of BATTLE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qtMi8DlPOH8

Oh fuck. The mutants are back? :x

Christ, the series works so much better concerning Ape/Human stuff, the mutants are such a pointless addition. Sigh.

Makeshift Python wrote:

Oh fuck. The mutants are back? :x

Christ, the series works so much better concerning Ape/Human stuff, the mutants are such a pointless addition. Sigh.

Proto-mutants. The makeup is a complete joke. It's like they have scabs or something. Their main weapons include the Alpha/Omega bomb, a few Jeeps, a school bus, and a '61 Eldorado.

Even the Burton flick is better. Shall you be seeing it? It's not the worst movie in the world of apes. As a self-contained action movie it's actually not that bad the more I think of it.

I should be getting the Burton film along with BATTLE on Wednesday. At least the former will have a budget I suppose. I don't know anything about it aside from Marky Mark ending up in Washington ran by Apes, or something. I won't watch the trailer for that until I finish BATTLE, so I'm pretty blind on what Burton has done.

And seriously, Burton doing an Apes film sounds like one of the biggest mismatches in the history of film. So, it should be somewhat interesting seeing his take. Surprised his heterosexual lover Johnny Depp isn't in it.

Yeah, Burton's the wrong pick. And as usual, he's not too interested in telling a story. Wahlberg is a wrong pick too, as he has no charisma.

The makeup and ape effects are very good, though.