My brother, Dan, told me that there is a new Planet of the Apes movie in the works and that I should check it out. Which I did.
I’m an invested Planet of the Apes fan. It all started in my elementary school days. Get out of school, grab some grub and hit the floor in front of the TV for Planet of the Apes week on “The Channel 7 4:30 movie (I think they changed it to 4:00 at some point, I’m not sure). Sometimes you’d get Elvis Presley week or Monster week or Vincent Price week. Dinosaur week. It was great, and if the theme was something you didn’t like (think Jane Fonda week) you could take the week off and find some trouble in the neighborhood.
But, the point is, I’ve been a fan for a long, long time, and any news of something that might be good is always welcome. And this time around, my first question was what I’d been thinking for a while: will they do makeup effects for the apes or will they do computer graphics? And the winner is? Computer graphics. Which is troublesome.
Hair, fur, call it what you will: it’s very hard to do correctly with computers. It just is. And then there is the issue of “intelligent” apes. In what way does intelligence affect physiognomy? Getting that right is anyone’s guess. But I bet you know when they get it wrong.
I’ve watched the film trailers and there is much left to be desired in this film that is supposed to be released in just a few weeks. In some of the shots, the apes look pretty good. But in others they have a quality, especially in the faces, not much different than the apes in Jumanji. And that’s not a compliment. Of course, story can win out if it’s done exceedingly well. But, if you’re going to do a CGI movie, it needs to look very good or everyone walks out of the theater with that bad CGI taste in their mouth, where the brain is trying to reconcile how everything sort of kind of almost looked real. Sort of. Kind of.
Anyhyoo. It’s out on August 5. If you want to see some of the trailers for yourself, go here:
Rise of the Planet of the Apes
© LW Publishing 2011
When you talk about the 4:30 (4:00) Movie on channel 7, I just want to hug you. The POTA movie series was my favorite of my youth. I realize the installments after the first two got weaker, but I never knew any better. I remember being intrigued by the last one, where they have averted their original destiny for a better one. What a great them that is.
ReplyDeleteYes. We are have lived much of life on the same page my good man.
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