The Revolt of the Apes. The Rise of the Planet of the Apes

In the long-overdue newest title in the Planet of the Apes franchise (based on the 1963 French novel “La Planète des singes” by Pierre Boulle) that includes five movies in the original series and one reboot starring Mark Wahlberg, “Rise of the Planet of the Apes”, will tell the origin of the intelligent apes which begin the movement to replace humanity as the dominant species on Earth. Conceived as a reboot also a prequel to the earlier movies, but will also be a new story that should not change the original continuity too much, fans are undoubtedly hopeful that the film directed by Rupert Wyatt (the man responsible for the generally well-received prison break thriller “The Escapist”) will erase all memories of Tim Burton’s abysmal remake in 2001. Unlike the previous films which used impressive make-up effects, all the apes in this $90 million project were computer-animated and were created by WETA Digital using motion-capture technology from "Avatar". But, showcasing the cutting edge visual effects work by WETA, the marketing team really seems to be basing the promotion around the FX. Movie trailer even going so far as to make a direct connection to the groundbreaking James Cameron’s film, although it just looks a lot more like Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” if you ask me. As surprisingly enough as the movie is not being shot in 3-D, this second reboot/prequel is obviously much less commercial than Burton’s effort yet it still has a chance to be a significantly higher quality film from a franchise we vaguely recall from our dad’s youth. The idea of an all-out war between man and mentally-enhanced apes lends itself to many possibilities, including (with any luck) scenes of extreme chaos as the apes run wild.

“Rise of the Planet of the Apes” chronicles the efforts of one Will Rodman (James Franco), a scientist living in modern-day San Francisco who has engineered a chemical that could possibly cure Alzheimer’s disease, along with other neurological degenerative conditions in humans. However, in order to test the effectiveness of the drug, Will experiments on a chimp named Caesar (brought to life by Andy Serkis). The test genetically modifies his way of thinking to create a new breed of ape with human-like intelligence. Caesar learns well, but human authority continues to test him and contain him. He eventually proves smart enough to break free from his cage and release the cure among other apes. Millions of apes begin to rally up a revolution. War breaks out between humans and apes. Rodman may be the only one able to stop them before the ape revolution succeeds.
Also along for the ride are human players like Freida Pinto (Slumdog Millionaire) as Will’s love interest Caroline, John Lithgow as Will’s father, David Oyelowo (The Last King of Scotland) as Will’s superior, Tom Felton (Harry Potter series), Steven Jacobs, and Brian Cox (X2) as the cruel owner of the primate sanctuary where Caesar and his fellow apes reside.

Somewhere in the Universe, there must be something better than man:

# The film's tone is said to be informed by the fourth and darkest chapter in the old film series, "Conquest of the Planet of the Apes," which had a similar storyline.

# In “Conquest of the Planet of the Apes”, Caesar led primitive apes in an uprising against man, and the biggest battle took place on a bridge. The same happens in this new film, except this time the bridge is the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

# Before settled with the lengthy “Rise of the Planet of the Apes” title, “Rise of the Apes” and “Caesar: Rise of the Apes” were considered.

# James Franco was cast after talks with former co-star Tobey Maguire broke down.

# Oscar®-winning visual effects house Weta Digital – employing certain of the groundbreaking technologies developed for “Avatar” – rendered, for the first time ever in the film series, photo-realistic apes rather than costumed actors for this film.

# Like he did before in “King Kong” – albeit, on a smaller scale, of course – actor Andy Serkis was again transformed into a full-fledged, non-human simian in movie’s post-production.

# In a segment of a video blog post, director Rupert Wyatt commented on the originality of the plot: "This is part of the mythology and it should be seen as that. It's not a continuation of the other films; it's an original story. It does satisfy the people who enjoy those films. The point of this film is to achieve that and to bring that fan base into this film exactly like Batman [Begins]."

# According to screenwriter and producer Rick Jaffa, a version of the spaceship from the 1968 “Planet of the Apes” will be featured under the name Icarus in Rise of the Planet of the Apes as a hint to a possible sequel.

Mark your calendar on:
Aug 04, 2011: Belarus, Denmark, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, Thailand
Aug 05: Brazil, Canada, Lithuania, Turkey, USA
Aug 10: France
Aug 11: Germany, Hong Kong, Portugal
Aug 12: Finland, UK
Aug 17: Sweden
Aug 18: Hungary, Netherlands, South Korea
Sept 23: Italy
Oct 07: Japan

Sources: Wikipedia, IMDB – Photos courtesy of 20th Century Fox – Poster art by Den75