Excuse the Intermission
Alex and Max take you on a journey through film with this discussion podcast about movies.
Excuse the Intermission
Exploring the Legacy and Future of 'Planet of the Apes'
Embark on a cinematic odyssey with us as we unveil the genius behind the "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes," a film that intertwines mesmerizing CGI with poignant storytelling. We'll venture through the franchise's rich legacy, discussing the cultural allegories that have captivated audiences for over fifty years. Feel the thrill as we juxtapose the latest protagonist, Noah, with iconic heroes like Luke Skywalker, and debate the future of this enthralling saga. As we peel back the layers of this narrative, the compelling character dynamics come to life, especially through the eyes of the human character May, known as Nova, whose role may be pivotal in shaping the series' trajectory.
Concluding our foray into this legendary series, we lay out our definitive ranking of the Planet of the Apes films, highlighting both the emotional gravitas and cinematic prowess of each entry. From the nostalgic 1960s classic to the thought-provoking themes in the newer additions, we navigate the highs and lows, crafting a list that honors the series' evolution. As we revel in the cultural impact of Charlton Heston's iconic performances and the innovative spirit of the original film, join us for a celebration of the enduring Planet of the Apes legacy that continues to captivate the imagination of generations.
This episode is presented in sponsorships with the 92nd Newberry Film Festival. The 92nd Newberry Film Festival is a youth-driven film festival that showcases the student and youth-created movies. These short films are all adapted from the Newberry Honors books and feature a fun and unique twist that only a kid could dream up. The 92nd Newberry Film Festival is this Saturday, may 18th, at the Gig Harbor Galaxy Uptown Theater. The event will run from 3pm to 5pm, with free admissions for all ages. We hope to see you there.
Speaker 2:How's it? I'm Alex McCauley and I'm Max Fosberg and this is Excuse the Intermission a discussion show surrounding movies. On this episode, we will be discussing the Planet of the Apes franchise in honor of the new movie Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, with 10 films in the series that spans over 50 years of cinema. There's a lot to chat about, so we will begin that conversation on the other side of this break.
Speaker 3:This episode is brought to you by the Seattle Film Society. The Seattle Film Society is a filmmaker run project dedicated to organizing, cultivating and celebrating the region's filmmaking community Through screenings, educational opportunities and community initiatives. Seattle Film Society strives to be a centralizing force for Seattle-area filmmakers.
Speaker 2:Their monthly screening event, Locals Only, is held at 18th and Union in Seattle's Central District and spotlights local voices in independent filmmaking. Tickets start at $10 and are available at seattlefilmsocietycom.
Speaker 3:To keep up with the Seattle Film Society, be sure to check them out on Instagram or Letterboxd at Seattle Film Society or on their website, seattlefilmsocietycom.
Speaker 2:Come be a part of the next generation of Seattle filmmaking today. All right, we're back and we're recording in the morning A little AM session here on ETI. A little home away from home for me I'm in my office at work, so sorry if it sounds a little echoey. Max, how are you doing today?
Speaker 2:I see you got your smoothie, yes, podcasters together strong yeah, we're up and awake, very happy that we can be enjoying our um breakfast beverages and snacks without fear of the Simeon flu or anything else that may cause a post-apocalyptic society to come crumbling down. Ok, so we're here to talk Planet of the Apes, and we'll start this conversation with the new film, kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes Kingdom is crushing it at the global box office Opening weekend, for the film pulled in $58.4 million and now has eclipsed the 62.8 mark in domestic territories and is at $135 million worldwide. Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has a 3.5 on Letterboxd and I think it's catching some people by surprise. As far as how enjoyable, I don't know if we should use the word successful quite yet, but at least in terms of an entertainment factor, people are responding well to this film. How did you? How did you respond?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think you know uh apes movies I I especially these, these new, new generation of appes movies where really, you know, started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes through the Caesar trilogy and now onto this new, I guess, reboot or restart. It's kind of a continuation but also just like a relaunch ofunch of of this apes apes franchise under, oh you know, covering new characters and it's set 300 years in the future from the death of uh Caesar, which is really interesting and you know, is that the number 300?
Speaker 4:I believe that's what I've been reading and hearing everywhere.
Speaker 2:Many generations later. Many generations Is the title card we get in the film, right yeah?
Speaker 4:But I think it's really interesting, you know, going back and rewatching a lot of the Apes movies movies. So many of them have deeper lessons or meanings about society and allegories for society, which is, I think, kind of the reason they're so beloved. This one, this Kingdom of the planet of the apes is is, again, it's very enjoyable. It is a very by the numbers hero journey, right like the. The joseph campbell of it all is just very in your face and it's very much a it's kind of like star wars, right like noah. Our new character is very much Luke Skywalker throughout this film and again, I think it's very enjoyable and it does have some deeper meanings, but also very shallow. But I think that's okay, I think for a summer, for kicking off the summer in May. I think this type of apes movie as, although not as gritty or as dark as something like war and dawn, you know, kind of relates more back to rise and I'm, I'm, I'm in, I'm in for this, this new trilogy, if that's what we're going to be doing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that the balance that West ball, who's the director of the film, the balance that he and the other filmmakers who worked on the picture, what they found was a really good happy medium to where fans of the franchise, their palate can be wet, wetted because you're going to get a lot of spectacular CGI. The motion capture over the last four films now has been fantastic and so there's going to be that. But then there's also going to be just kind of the mass appeal. Like the school that I work at, I have a couple of kids who have seen the film, a couple of students over the last weekend and they're like it's my favorite movie ever.
Speaker 3:And I'm like.
Speaker 2:I can totally see why a 10 year old who sees this in the movie theater would then walk out thinking that's the best movie I've ever seen, and so I.
Speaker 2:I really like that too, because I'm starting to pay more attention to kind of these, these gateway films and a movie like this compared to something like whatever the last transformers movie was was that beast wars or rise of the beast, something like that? Yeah, whatever it was. That to me in talking to a few students who had seen that film, they didn't have the same response to it. That feels like a different type of popcorn, mindless action, blockbuster, whereas this, because of some of the human characteristics, a lot of the human characteristics that the apes possess, I feel like it kind of strikes a chord emotionally, especially with younger people when they haven't seen maybe they don't know the history of star wars and lord of the rings, this hero's journey.
Speaker 2:The film that I thought a lot about when I was watching it was apocalypto. No, noah is very similar. What happens to Noah in the film is very similar as to what happens to Jaguar Paw, our protagonist in Apocalypto. Even down to his village gets taken and he has to go back and rescue his village and then make his way back to his home. Like almost parallel when you think about it in that sense, kind of following in his father's footsteps along those lines. So I thought that for being as simplistic as it was, the film was very effective. The action was pulsating at times like really good stuff.
Speaker 2:So I don't think that Noah will ever be Caesar. I think that the Caesar character there were legitimate arguments for like does Andy circus get a best actor nomination in some of those later films, especially Dawn and Rise, but Noah it took me a minute to get there. I guess we can kind of go into the plot a little bit and talk about some of the things that we like, some of the strengths, and then maybe a few critiques. But we are many generations later with this new tribe of apes. They are eagle, they're an eagle. Tribe of apes, they are eagle, they're an eagle tribe.
Speaker 2:Eagle clan. Yes, thank you. So they raise these giant golden eagles as their companions of sorts, and that's kind of their Chekhov's eagle. What's that? Chekhov's eagle? Yeah, yeah, um, it was. There were a couple of beats there where, the first time that noah tries to get his father's eagle to land on his arm and he won't do it, you just kind of clock that moment.
Speaker 4:you're like, okay, well, this is going to come back around and there will be a time where the eagle lands, and it's and it's going to be awesome I'm telling you it's, it's so funny uh, studying film and then going and watching these movies and it's just like oh the the yep, that.
Speaker 4:That the Eagle, but yeah by the third time the Eagle is going to land on his, on his arm, and that that's like unlocking, you know, it's like the three, it's the rule of three. First off, this movie opens up with three apes and their three best friends, or whatever, and it always, always were obsessed with the number three. The eagle tries to land on his arm three times. Finally, once he, you know, unlocks himself, he will unlock that ability. That's him leveling up, you know, the whole the clan getting burned, you know burned to ground a death in the family. I mean, that's your inciting incident, which then he has to go on a journey.
Speaker 4:he meets a, a wise uh monk or companion that, yeah you know, teaches him something, and then, and then we've, you know, we get to the the big bad boss and we've got a showdown and all that stuff. Um, however, continue. Sorry to interrupt, but continue.
Speaker 2:That I mean we want to detail the plot and that was a pretty spoiler free way to do it right there. Um and so and so, once, once noah is on his own and on this journey he encounters may, who is the? The real, the, who is the only real human character in this story, until the very, very end. So I think for a long time fans of this new age franchise, the new age installments, I should say, of the Planet of the Apes films, have been asking for an ape slash animal only, only movie. We basically got it in this. So how do you feel that the balance was? Um, how do you feel they achieved a balance there between having the may character but then mostly just wanting to focus on on the apes. Is that successful in your opinion?
Speaker 4:yeah, I think, I think you could, honestly, I think you could lose the may character and even though there are, you know, the, the cool little easter eggs of them, calling, calling her nova, which of course is a, you know, an easter egg to the original film but also to a lot of easter eggs, to the original actually in this one, yeah yeah, throughout and um, you know it's interesting that may and again, I don't know how spoiler we we want to get, but uh, but yeah, I, I think that character, even though it plays a role in the end and and almost kind of like, tries to wrestle the movie away from noah, um, I think I think you could.
Speaker 4:You could have done, done without it. I mean, you could have just made this a story of noah going to save the eagle clan, um, yeah, now I understand need the human component to tease a second film and perhaps a trilogy.
Speaker 4:Put that in at the very end yeah, right, like have have may show up at the at the kingdom right like the. She is already there or something you know, um, it's interesting that they, they, they want you, they really want you to to trust and and like, uh the may character, uh which I'm telling you, if my forefathers, aka koba, have taught me anything.
Speaker 2:Don't trust you just never went aside with the humans, and it frustrates me when our protagonist ape, whether it was caesar or now noah, and and I think that this film does a good job of exploring that right off the bat right, because with the caesar arc the whole film was really about him loving humans, right, and then and then having the disconnect grow in this film.
Speaker 2:We already understand, because of the time jump that we have apes have completely taken over the planet that that the disconnect and and the two species cannot have not been able to get along for a long, long time, and so you're already understanding that. Okay, I either need to come into this film and inherently believe that the humans are are not good and I'm not going to root for them, regardless of of what sort of relationship that they try to build between a human character and an ape character, and or I'm just not going to want the ape who is trying to wrestle between this conflict of trying to coexist, and just root for somebody like Proximus, who is the big bad, the antagonist, in this film. So how do you feel the film kind of towed that line between having you as an audience member and maybe think about this as you yourself, watching all the films maybe from my friends here at school, 10 years old Like where do you think the movie is? How do you feel it's easiest to align with the characters in in these films?
Speaker 4:well, I mean, I think, I think, especially in this one, like the eagle clan, the and and the noah character, I think is is the easiest to align with. Also, raka, you know someone that we meet on the road, uh, justice or sage orangutan monk, yeah um the max fosberg of this world. I'd love, I'd. I always love the orangutans in this, in these films, and uh this one was this was just you grinding away, grinding movies.
Speaker 1:The work continues. I swear he quoted that a couple of times.
Speaker 2:He does, he, he does. The work continues the great work continues. Yeah, he called it the great work too. Honestly, yeah, he did.
Speaker 4:You know it is interesting because it is very. The Eagle Clan, you know, are very much the indigenous people who live off the land. You are symbiotic with, uh, nature, uh, they raise eagles, they farm, they don't have technology where then, as proximus caesar, his clan, you know, has cattle prods, has, they are starting to uh industrialize, they're building a kingdom like it it is. They are very much humanized, right, they are becoming humans where they are um power hungry they are power hungry hungry they have to get into this vault?
Speaker 4:uh, because there is more technology in there another callback to the original film right, totally, um, so, uh, so, yeah, I think I think aligning with with noah and uh, that that idea that I idealistic idea of living in one with nature, I think I think is is very easy, right, like they, they human humanize the evil apes, so much so that even Proximus like doesn't even really ever, ever walk on all fours, right, like he's always upright, yeah that's a good point.
Speaker 4:Walking around on two legs. However, he is right the whole time when he's like Noah, you're a clever ape. You can't listen to this human. This human is going to lie. That's what they do.
Speaker 2:Once again, man shades of my guy. Well, okay.
Speaker 4:That would have been buds. There's there's a reddit theory already that someone is trying to. You know that people are are trying to go through the or find out the lineage of the 23 and me of uh yeah that he might be koba's descendant okay which you know. That's that's. I don't think that really matters here or there, but I don't think kind of a fun to get busy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't think Koba had time to get busy with a female ape during the revolution.
Speaker 4:You never know, never know.
Speaker 2:OK, so. So I do think that the film, in my opinion, kind of handles all all of that, that what we're talking about, all of that, that what we're talking about and maybe like as like an eight out of 10, a seven out of 10 throughout most of the film. But then there's a really smart scene at the very end of the film that I don't want to spoil too much, but it's with may and it's with Noah. When they meet back up after the climax of the film, there's a really interesting she went to H and M and got.
Speaker 4:She went to H and M and got a poncho.
Speaker 2:Yes, got her Burning man outfit, but there's a really interesting moment where this airy sort of blouse, dress, item garment that she's wearing it flows in the wind and you see something behind her back and the tension there. I think they do a really good job of setting it up to where I was trying to think. I know that there's other films that have done this, but where it's like kind of your two heroes that you've been rooting for in the first film by the third film maybe this is a star Wars thing, who knows but like, by the end of this journey they will be on opposite sides of of whatever conflict they started on the same side with.
Speaker 2:So I thought that was really smart. I you know it's getting harder and harder to end movies nowadays, whether it's a horror film, really hard to stick the landing with franchise films. You don't want them to feel too baby at the end. And and I actually left the theater before apparently a cut scene and I had one of my students tell me that there is a cut scene at the end, totally, and and I actually left the theater before apparently a cut scene and I had one of my students tell me that there is a cut scene at the end of this film where you hear the voice of a character who you thought has has perished. So I really liked that as well.
Speaker 4:Did you stay for that? No, was this after the credits?
Speaker 2:it's after the credits god.
Speaker 4:The group I was with was like no, I looked it up, there's nothing after the credits, and so we got group. I was with was like no, I looked it up, there's nothing after the credits, and so we got up and left yeah.
Speaker 2:I, you know, again, we can talk about it off mic cause I don't want to spoil it, but it's. It's exciting, it makes me want to. I'm certainly not going to go back to the theater and watch this again, but it does make there's something and we can start to talk about the uh, or we will start to talk about some of the other films here in a minute. But the cut scene at the end of rise of the planet of the apes, the first one from the 2010s trilogy, has a cut scene of the simian flu outbreak after the credits, which I really think helps elevate the the. It kind of puts a punctuation mark on that film, which it really needs on rewatch, and so I do like that. I think that this franchise, especially these last four films now, have all really had a lot of intentionality. You don't feel like they are. They're not just calling an audible in the production room at the last minute.
Speaker 4:It's very planned out.
Speaker 2:It's very planned out. You don't feel like there's a lot of rewrites happening. It feels like a very clear vision and I really, really respect that when it comes to franchise filmmaking here in 2020.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, To not be reactive like that and to have a plan and stick with it, which also, I think you know, speaks to I mean, when did, when did war come out? Was that 2017, I believe, and so now it's 2024. I mean, it's you know what was that? Seven, seven years later?
Speaker 2:It doesn't feel like it, but that was a long time.
Speaker 4:It was a long time between movies and and you have to respect that. Uh, that that is. That is a. Really I'm so happy that they said, hey, we are going to wait to reboot this, or relaunch it and that trilogy that we got there throughout the 2010s.
Speaker 2:there was a great cadence into those releases as well, where you had three to four years between most releases. I think it went like 2011, 2014 and then 2017, whereas and we'll get to this too here in a second but the original films, those were coming out year after year once a year.
Speaker 4:Yeah which?
Speaker 2:then almost gives them this um friday the 13th or nightmare on elm street type of feel where it's just like, okay, this was successful, we're green lighting the next one right away and we're going into production right, yeah, uh, with with varying degrees of of success, as as they continued yes, exactly just kind of like those horror franchises where we're just we're just looking for at bats, we just want trips to the plate.
Speaker 2:You know, if one of them, if we get on base a couple of times, then great. But but I think when you, when you take your time, like these more recent films have done, you have a much higher batting average and we'll kind of get to our ranking here in a second. But I think that the last four films are some of the strongest that we've gotten in the series, and so that's. I think it's, it's encouraging, going forward, and I think it's. I mean you, we can talk about Lord of the Rings, we can talk about some of the other science fiction, action adventure franchises that we've gotten in the 21st century, but especially those three from the 2010s. I think you have to look at them as one of the better franchises of this century.
Speaker 4:Absolutely, and of the science fiction genre, you know, since the beginning, right, like I mean it. Yes, going all the way back, yeah, I also. You know, I was kind of wondering many generations after caesar and coba and that storyline do you find it odd?
Speaker 4:do you think it's weird that we are still kind of in this tribalism, uh, era of the apes? Is it weird that they're not? Because going back and re-watching the old ones, it's actually. It's starkly different that those apes and granted, it's for convenience sake, but those apes are all wearing clothes right, they have houses Inducting scientific experiments.
Speaker 2:Exactly, they are very advanced whereas we have yet to hit that with this new, this new timeline or this new franchise, which I think once we start to kind of get into the the timeline of it all right, I think that maybe in these more recent films we just haven't reached something like the year 3100 or wherever we're supposed to be in in some of those original films, but there is still a very primitive feel to those original films.
Speaker 2:However, there are, just like the, the modern advances that we know from our daily life present in those movies. So I don't know, I do think that it's a little strange that something in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, like a pistol being revealed, is a huge moment, right, yeah, because you feel like, with the cattle prod and some of these other things that would be realistic enough, I guess because of proximus caesar's obsession with, with power and trying to industrialize his, his clan of apes, his, his base, his slaves, who he's basically captured from other clans. And yet I do think that I don't know, we'll see what happens now that some technology has been released back into the world. But I do think they did a smart thing also at the end of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, by this vault that does end up getting open, being flooded, and I hope that's not too much of a spoiler, but I was a little wary while watching the film, thinking like this is going to open up a whole new can of worms.
Speaker 2:This is going to open up a whole new can of worms and we're basically just going to fall right back into the same movies that we got in the 2010s.
Speaker 4:Right In the last decade.
Speaker 2:Where, if all of a sudden it's just, instead of Coba, it's Proximus or whoever's going to follow Proximus now, just riding around on horseback with an assault rifle, and it's like we've seen this before.
Speaker 4:With two, sexy with double fists and sexy Rexies, listen, man.
Speaker 2:Coba, whoa, whoa, my guy, we'll get to him. Okay, any last thing you want to say on Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes? Where does this sit right now on like your 2024 best of list?
Speaker 4:Somewhere in the middle lower tier upper tier. I definitely recommend going to see it. Lower tier, tier I I definitely, I definitely recommend going to see it. Um, I I you know I gave it what three and a half stars uh, out of the five, I have it as well yeah, so like and and I think I was reading your review you know it is definitely on the higher part of a three and a half right, like yeah, it's not like a 71, if you were going to grade it out.
Speaker 4:Right, it's closer to a four-star movie than it is to a three-star movie. Yeah, it's within the top 10 right now for me. Again, I do really love Apes movies. It is a franchise overall that just really I just really dig it and I really it really speaks to me and so I'm always gonna have some fun going and watching a planet of the apes film yeah, and I think that's a great place to be in, because this isn't a franchise that feels too commercial.
Speaker 2:You know, it's not, it's not, it's an easy guilty pleasure to have. I guess I should say um, especially to a lot of things that you touched on at the top, like there are some deeper societal messaging, um, going on, messaging going on in these films. So so I do always think that they will continue to play well, especially as the one thing that they can sort of do as far as being reactive is look at the, look at the climate and look at the culture of the world that we're living in now and then, as these films have always done, put their own spin on them and get you thinking a little bit. So I do appreciate them for that. I'm the same.
Speaker 2:I have it, I think, just outside of my top 10 perhaps, but it's certainly one that I would recommend and that I think will have a good shelf life as far as 2024 releases, and so, when it's all said and done, you know this is probably going to end up being a 200, maybe even a $300 million movie at the worldwide box office, which is a great success. Um gets people back in the theaters kind of during this like in between time before the summer blockbusters really hit, and we I mean, like I saw the twisters trailer again before watching this movie and I just thought it's not, it's not going to be long until this trailer is out of theaters, and we're just in the middle of summer blockbuster season, and so this was a really good kind of bridge movie. I think that that that helped fill the gap.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah, it's a great. It's a great May release too, like yeah, it just it feels right in this month.
Speaker 2:And it kind of feels like it's going to play well in conversation with something like Furiosa, which comes out at the end of this month, right, Totally yeah.
Speaker 4:Another, another science fiction franchise that I'm sure Apocalyptic.
Speaker 2:Yeahocalyptic type of story. Yeah, okay, so you are the apes expert here on this pod. Talk a little bit about your history with watching the franchise growing up and kind of what these movies mean to you, before we get into trying to build out a top 10 here. Power rankings.
Speaker 4:Yeah, trying to build out a top 10 here, power rankings. Yeah, the ape movies were kind of some of the first science fiction stories that were ever shown to me by my parents. As far as adult science fiction movies go right, the original Planet of the Apes was a very big deal. I remember being sat, know, being sat down and being like, hey, we are going to watch. You are now going to see Planet of the Apes from 1968. And it is a very important movie. I also fondly remember, you know, canceling my weekend plans because AMC was doing an apes marathon where they would show all five of the apes. I think that was probably leading up to what would come out in 2001 with Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.
Speaker 4:So I have seen all of these movies multiple, multiple times. You know there are some that I enjoy more than others, but something like Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. You know as a kid when you're watching that you're just very taken by this, almost. You know I don't even know if you really understand that it's an ape revolution and that you just see a bunch of apes in colorful suits.
Speaker 4:Deeper meaning of social justice and slavery and escape from the Planet of the Apes comes out I think it's like a month or three months after the original Wade versus Roe, and that movie is all about abortion, which is kind of crazy to think about. Out abortion, which is kind of crazy to think about. You know the Beneath the Planet of the Apes is very much about nuclear weapons and you know what that means in a society, in a world and praising these weapons like they're gods. So I've just always really appreciated that, even though the ape movies are, especially those 60s and 70s movies are, can be a little silly, can be a little, you know, because everything is prosthetic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's almost. That's all the design.
Speaker 4:That's not the messaging, though. We've talked about the newer franchise stuff and that really goes into more of lore of the uprise of apes, right Of the origin story, of how maybe we get to where those ape movies started in the 60s and 70s.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the thing that I like about them all is that they are all in conversation with each other in some way. There's not one movie aside from well, there is one movie that really stands out as just kind of being like a standalone project, and I have a feeling that we'll end up talking about that movie very early on in our rankings here. But no, for the most part, the connective tissue in the messaging behind all these films has stayed fresh, and it's honestly kind of surprising. I was going to ask your opinion on this. Do you think that it's strange that in the 80s and the 90s and then even in the 2000s after the Tim Burton film, that there was such a lull in in these productions?
Speaker 4:Yeah, you think it would be easy money in the eighties. I mean, you think, though you know, I guess, but they had done five movies, they had done a TV show. I think they had done a couple of TV movies, a cartoon.
Speaker 2:And that's really important to mention.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and so yeah, so, like I guess maybe they had exhausted kind of everything. And again, I think it's really smart that you know they took the 80s and 90s off and I'm sure there were projects trying to be made, but then to wait until 2001 to try and redo it and kind of pretty much miss on that, which is really, again, a really interesting movie to go back and watch and examine. But yeah, it is really interesting that, although the ape movies have been around since 1968, it is kind of like small spurts, right. Right, we are experiencing, you know, like sprints of movies, as opposed to something like James Bond, which has just been always present.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, there's been. It's spanned, like we said in the top, it's spanned over 50 years of movie making, but there's really only been two concentrated areas of production, which is the late 60s to early 70s and then the 2010s and then with a few outliers. Okay, so let's get to our power rankings. We're going to try and do a consensus top 10 here of all the theatrical Planet of the Apes films. As Max has mentioned, there were some TV movies, there were some TV shows, there were other spinoff adventures, but we're just ranking the 10 theatrical films here. What is in your bottom spot? The bottom spot is the 2001 Tim burton uh, planet of the apes as, as is my 10 spot, yeah and like, listen this movie again.
Speaker 4:Really interesting to go back and examine. Um, the prosthetics I think are actually pretty fantastic and you know, it is kind of the lat, one of the last like big budget movies that I I feel like are going, you know, is going to be remembered for its prosthetics and going to be, used using prosthetic prosthetics in this kind of film.
Speaker 4:You know, it's right before, uh lord of the rings, yeah yeah, and it it does kind of remind me a little bit of something like you know, like Scott Summers, movies like Van Helsing or the Mummy. You know I think I said in my review of it, like you know, the high points of these action adventure movies in the late 90s to mid 2000s are stuff like Lord of the Rings and Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, the low points, the lowest of lows, is stuff like Battlefield, earth or something like that, whereas Apes, mummy, van Helsing, those kind of movies kind of live in this middle area Little time capsule.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it's just kind of like oh wow, these are very nostalgic to go back and watch and like they are kind of kooky but like very fun. Um, you know, and this movie, talk about like really going for it. Uh, and with a, you know, a post credit scene, even though it's within the movie, I mean a Lincoln. At the end there is just like just I don't know if Tim Burton was just like he knew in the middle of making this movie like I'm not going to get another chance at this.
Speaker 2:So I enjoy throw it all shoot my shot Um pretty pretty wild shoot my shot Pretty wild.
Speaker 4:I think Tim Roth and Paul Giamatti are actually really, really awesome in this movie as Thade, our main antagonist ape, and then also as Limbo, the Uranotain. I think they're doing something pretty wild underneath all those prosthetics. Marky mark, he's a little. He's a little dull.
Speaker 2:Uh, I don't know, I yeah, he just wasn't who would have been the right fit, but he just didn't feel right. Yeah, moving in this role he's just not the person.
Speaker 4:I think that should have been in there. But again, I think he could have played a really fun ape Right. He could have been a great like muscle ape or something like that. Yes, absolutely. But again, you know, in the 90s, you know who, who. Who does fill that role? I don't know Brendan Fraser, but yeah, then it's just the mummy and another mummy clone, so mummy with monkeys. Yeah, but but yeah, a ridiculous movie that's. That's kind of fun to go back and watch. You know, every 10 years.
Speaker 2:I feel like to every franchise kind of needs. I don't know if you want to call it a black sheep, but every, every franchise kind of needs a movie like this. When you've had as many films as you know this series has had Right. When you've had as many films as you know this series has had right. Um, okay, I'll go with my nine then and we'll see where you have this film in the nine spot I have battle for the planet of the apes, as do I. Yeah, very nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the thing about this movie is that I think there's a little bit of an identity crisis with this movie, where a lot of that messaging that you're talking about. I think when the film focuses on that, it's it's doing a fine enough job is tell it for telling that story. And then when it switches to the battles, it does a fine enough job of of telling like just an action war story. But but when you're folk, but when it's focusing on those two different things, you're losing. It doesn't feel like they're in conversation with each other, like what we've talked about. Where some of the other films really feel like they have a good balance, this one feels like the balance is off and it's also we're getting to the tail end of those original films and it just seems like we've kind of gone back to the well one too many times. So that's why I have this one down at nine.
Speaker 4:Yeah, you can tell that this is the fifth in you know seven years or whatever.
Speaker 4:Yeah, we're a little exhausted, and we're, we're pretty exhausted. The the amount of apes I feel like is is kind of laughably low as far as, like on screen apes, uh, and some of the, some of those war scenes, like when they're driving the buses and the Jeeps and whatnot, it's pretty evident that, like wow, we're working with a low, low, low, low, low budget. Really interesting though, with this, going back and watching this movie that you know a lot of. This movie is kind of picked as far as thematically to put into dawn and war, uh, of the anti-circus trilogy which I'm sure we'll we'll talk about later down the road here, but like really interesting that, like this is a lot of those I don't know.
Speaker 4:You can, you can see a lot of callbacks to this film specifically, but uh, I I do believe it at number nine is is the right spot all right.
Speaker 2:So these next three now are actually the hardest for me to place. So I will be interested because I think the top, the top, will be interesting too, because I think that some of those, the movies near, near the top of our list here, are just going to be like I don't want to say head and shoulders better than the other films, but they're just such good movies. Yeah, so at eight, what do you have? At eight, I have rise of the planet.
Speaker 4:Oh, okay, okay, interesting. What's your?
Speaker 2:eight. So rise for me is at six, but I'm kind of waffling between rise and kingdom in the six, seven spot. Okay, In eight. I actually have beneath the planet of the apes.
Speaker 4:Yeah, so yeah, and that's listen. Yeah, you're right. Eight, seven, six, I feel like can be switched all over the place.
Speaker 4:Beneath the Planet of the Apes. You know, I think before we started this, or leading up to this recording, I kept kind of calling out that, like yo, beneath the Planet of the Apes is the real one. That's the one that, like the ape heads love yeah, is the is the real one? That's the one that, like the ape heads love yeah. Going back and watching that now, um it is. It is literally a carbon copy of the first one, uh, just with a different lead, and then, and then, and then it just goes wackadoo once we get into the, the sewers of new york.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the ending is wild. I can't believe that. That the studio would just go for it, yeah right yeah, and then and then.
Speaker 4:The way it ends, too, where it's just like we, we set off the bomb, the screen goes black and a voiceover comes over and it's like there's there, once was a planet and now there is not it's just like jesus christ, like they did not want to do any more ape movies after two of them.
Speaker 2:It was a really strange sequel to where, yes, it was, it was accepting of, of where they were and like happy to be there, but at the same time you feel like there was a little bit of a discontent for for the film, like as they were making it, um. But again, you know what this movie does have going for. It is just like really, really fun production design. I won't call it great, but like the costume, the costumes and everything else it it should be said too. I'm not sure if he did the music on this one or not. I'm going to look it up real quick Jerry Goldsmith, jerry Goldsmith, hookin Hookin, whoever did do the music on this one, was definitely trying to emulate his work from the original Gosh. The cast list on this is, or the crew is, so big on this.
Speaker 4:I'm pretty sure Jerry Goldsmith does, because I know he does escape, so I know he does.
Speaker 2:The third this was a man named leonard roseman. Okay, okay so he did not do the music on this one, but it's very similar and it again. It's just kind of going for it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah and also I love paul rich Richards as the militant gorilla Mendez Like he is. You know, I feel like I don't know. Was Proximus Caesar a gorilla? I guess he wasn't. He was more, he was a chimp, right.
Speaker 2:He's a chimpanzee, yeah, like a yoked chimpanzee A yoked chimpanzee, chimpanzee, yoked chimpanzee.
Speaker 4:um I, I, I still would love to see, and even though we get a really good gorilla kind of general in in this new film I want to see a gorilla. Take on the role of our antagonist because I feel like that was something that happened all the time in the original ones. Um, but yeah, paul richards is excellent, as as mendez, as the general of of the gorillas in in this film um okay, so what's your case for rise at eight?
Speaker 4:so rise for me going back and watching that. You know, the caesar stuff is extremely endearing and captivating. However, I feel like I'm not locked in until the moment he speaks right, until the moment he says no. In the cage is when you really lock in to the film and a lot of the lead up to that, a lot of the human. There's so much human stuff in rise.
Speaker 2:I do not care about james franco trying to get a girlfriend right, get a girlfriend.
Speaker 4:You know, john lithgow running around thinking like every car is his. I, I just I don't, I don't care about the human stuff and and I think rise, out of all 10 movies, probably has the most human. Well, I, I mean, never mind, there's another one that's got a lot of human shit in it too, but that's because that's that's number seven for me. So, um, so yeah, I just think, out of out of the top eight, the, the more human stuff I'm just not going to be attracted to.
Speaker 4:Um, as opposed to some of the eight more ape stuff I.
Speaker 2:I think that. So yeah, because I have rise at six, so it's definitely in the bottom half for me. I think that what what pushes it above a few of the other films for me is that, like third act, I think that the the bridge siege on the golden gate bridge is. That was the first time where, of the 2010s trilogy, you really saw some thrilling filmmaking, where you were like this these movies might really be going somewhere when you have orangutans, monkey, barring their way across the bottom of the golden gate bridge in the fog yeah, you have Caesar on the horse. It's really exciting.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, and getting to the redwoods, caesar is home. All of that Like it can still induce goosebumps, like, and I I just don't think that some of the other I don't think some of the other earlier films carry that emotional weight, and so for me that's why I'm kind of like, okay, there's, there's a little bit more buy-in here with with my, with, with the love that I have for caesar by the end of the film. It does a good job setting it up. But I completely agree with everything you said, like I'm I'm fine putting it it needs to be in one of these spots and probably not six. It probably needs to be in seven or eight yeah what is your seven?
Speaker 4:my seven is escape from planet. Okay, um and again, lots and lots and lots of human stuff, even though re-watching this was pretty eyeopening and be.
Speaker 4:You know I think I touched on it earlier that you know it is all about abortion and like and and the the the right to choose whether to have a baby or not Right, and and so kind of a deeper movie. When you go back and and reexamine it. Because when, when you go back and and reexamine it, because when, when you think of escape, you think like, oh yeah, the the apes come to our time and then they're just kind of playing dress up and it's really, really goofy and like kind of seems a lot. You know it's very. It's just a very, you know, fish out of water kind of story and like more of a comedy as opposed to an adventure movie. But it actually has a lot more to say. And you get the Ricardo Montalban is just, he's fantastic in this movie and in Conquest and becomes kind of your, one of your favorite human characters throughout the series.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that this movie does do a really good job of just inverting what had come before it, where I think showing the human-ape balance was something that probably caught people off guard. I would have loved to have known what the reaction to this was in what was this 1972, this one 71. So I really would have liked to have heard the discourse around this film back then. Um, but I do think. I do think that it has. It has aged well, um, but, but in comparison, I just I don't have the emotional attachment to it like I do with something like caesar. Um, and I actually. Of the older films, no, no, actually this is the next older film on my list as well. I have this at five.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 2:So maybe what we do is we put Rise, rise at eight and then we put Well, I mean listen. Escape at seven.
Speaker 4:Well, I think you made a really good point about rise, because I have it at rise at eight, escape at seven, beneath at six. But we could put rise at six and then maybe bump those two older ones to seven and eight.
Speaker 2:Oh, I guess we hadn't placed Beneath yet, right, yeah, yeah, because where was Beneath for you?
Speaker 4:Beneath was at eight, beneath was at eight.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 4:Yeah, okay, and I guess we're just jumping around here, but where's Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes for you?
Speaker 2:So Kingdom for me is at seven, Seven. Where's kingdom of the planet of the apes for you? So kingdom for me is at seven, but I'm, I'm, I'm willing to move that up a little bit If you have it higher.
Speaker 3:I have it at five, Okay, Okay.
Speaker 4:And again I feel like this this, this row of of ranking, like five through eight it really you can kind of juggle them around anyway, any way, we want, so let's put Beneath at 8.
Speaker 2:Okay, even though I know that's a sentimental favorite, no, no.
Speaker 4:It's like I said, it's wackadoo. It is insane when we start singing hymns to a bomb and for some reason we have rubber masks of humans that look like us and then we take those off and we're fucking mutant creatures.
Speaker 2:I don't know it's like a twilight zone episode or something.
Speaker 4:It's very, you know, these old, those old ones are. They're so star Trek, Like it's so yeah, Twilight zone, star Trek.
Speaker 2:star Trek meets twilight zone.
Speaker 4:Totally, and it's just, it's just weird, it's just weird, it's just an odd, odd thing to watch, but so fun.
Speaker 2:Okay, so we need placement at seven.
Speaker 4:So I think then maybe rise at seven.
Speaker 2:Okay, and then Rise at seven and then escape at six. Okay.
Speaker 4:And then kingdom at five. Are you okay with kingdom at five?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, I'm totally okay with kingdom at five.
Speaker 4:Yeah with kingdom, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm totally okay with kingdom at five yeah, and I I think some of that is recency bias, but also I think a lot of what we were talking about before, like it is a very enjoyable you know all that, you know simple premise, but like enjoyable film, road film, really to to go in and watch, um, and also, you know it is, it is one of the longer films in the series it's like two, two hours and 15 minutes.
Speaker 2:I didn't really feel it though neither did I.
Speaker 4:I never did either. I've heard a lot of people be like oh man, it really lagged in the middle.
Speaker 2:But like I, I was alone, I was, I was alone for the ride, the whole time one person who we haven't talked about in in conversation with kingdom of the planet of the apes, and the one time where I did start to feel the length a little bit or maybe just I was just like we don't need this. This is just going to add 10 minutes to the film is the William H Macy character Short lived, uh. I love again, though I kind of love how cutthroat his arc was.
Speaker 4:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Where, when it was, when it was time for him to go, he, he went. Yeah, yeah, he took the trash out.
Speaker 4:Really good to see William H Macy, you know having fun looking long in the tooth.
Speaker 2:But you know, we appreciate a character actor popping up in these movies. Ok, so now we're in the top four, which, at my four, I have Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, as do I. Okay, go ahead and talk about it while I write this list down here of what we've done already.
Speaker 4:Conquest. You know, growing up as a kid was always kind of my favorite of the old films and again I didn't even really realize is always kind of my favorite of the old films and again I didn't even really realize what was going on in that film until much later in life. But and there's a lot of human stuff in this too. But I just love the commentary on the rebellion of, you know, the growth of Caesar and the rebellion of the apes and what it's saying about social justice and what it's saying about it's an allegory in this story, that reflective of the 70s right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely rage of its time and riots.
Speaker 4:And um you know that that final monologue from Caesar is um some of the some of the best like ape writing that you can find in these movies for real yes. Um, you know, and it's, it's too bad, because the budget does seem to hold it back a little bit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there were a little bit.
Speaker 4:A lot of the stories of behind the scenes of making that film is that the director had a much different vision and that the studio had a lot of notes and the director J Lee Thompson, I believe wanted to go even darker. Yeah, real bleak. Yeah, wanted to go even darker.
Speaker 2:Yeah, real bleak.
Speaker 4:Yeah wanted to go even more violent. But yeah, it was just always the most exciting, exciting Apes movie as a kid.
Speaker 2:Kind of you know after, because this is also too, it's kind of just like. It's like a civil war movie too in a way, and and so after coming off the heels of watching the, the latest alex garland civil war film, it's kind of I was thinking well, because I watched this one for the first time in preparation for this pod and I was thinking like what if this was, if if this was like a standalone film where you were just kind of dropped into the middle of a of a science fiction world where you don't understand really what's come before, but you just get this story and how effective it would maybe then be like almost again, you could do this as like, like this would be a great black mirror episode or something nowadays, this film no, I really enjoyed this movie. So I think conquest conquest is is properly placed here within the within the top five, at number four, so top three, then. I'm very interested in in hearing what you have at three I have war of the planet of the apes at three.
Speaker 4:What, what's?
Speaker 2:your, as do I, as do I look at this and now there's something. Something has happened here, because on my, on my personal rankings, I have I have war as a four and a half star film and I have dawn as a four star film, but for the purpose of these rankings, yeah war, war might be a better constructed film.
Speaker 4:I think you're on. You're onto something there.
Speaker 2:That's what I, yeah, that's what I'm kind of trying to say is that, like the, the crescendo that we reach in war, the death of our new Caesar, everything that happens, it goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning, where the intentionality, the trajectory of these films, it just feels so cohesive, so complete, with such a clear vision Right, that I respect the movie so much for that. But I think the action, the Coba versus Caesar, everything else that you get in Dawn, it slaps harder. It does, it really really does.
Speaker 4:I like the human characters more in dawn yeah, yeah, totally even though the the real conflict between apes and humans doesn't, it happens in war yeah, though it's interesting because it's called war and like there isn't that much war in War.
Speaker 2:Dawn kind of feels like it has more war.
Speaker 4:Totally War is much more. It's like a prisoner of war movie. Yes, yeah, which is really again. It's really good. I really respect it. I think it's probably one of the best you know, I don't know. Technically speaking, probably one of the best put together films of the 2010s You're talking about war.
Speaker 2:I'm talking about war, war of the Planet of the Apes. Yeah, I agree, I agree. I agree, yeah.
Speaker 4:But I don't think it's the best movie of all time Right, right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, woody Harrelson is just unhinged in this movie.
Speaker 4:He had a hell of a year, I believe in 2017. I think it was this Zombieland and something else.
Speaker 2:Oh, gosh yeah, that's a great year.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, year, yeah, yeah, yeah, it might have been true. Was that true detective year too? I was just gonna say that too, but I almost feel like true detective was like 2015, 14 or 15, a little earlier. Yeah, that show's been, that show's been around longer than we think you would like to admit. Um, but war, war of the planet of the apes is amazing. You know we haven't said matt reeves name yet, but when he took over this 2010s and these 2010 installments, um, the, the elevate, the way he elevated these films on a technical level. He and andy circus working in tandem, like some of the best motion capture stuff, like you really can put it, on par with lord of the rings, some of the most successful pirates of the caribbean avatar absolutely, yeah, um, just incredible graphics graph well, you work from the graphics department and motion capture and all of that matt reeves really, I think, making, I mean when you think about his career.
Speaker 4:Right, he kind of starts with what. Cloverfield which is which is a favorite of the show.
Speaker 2:We love it.
Speaker 4:Um and then, yeah, moving into these eight movies and then and now kind of tackling the Batman uh franchise, I'm I, I love Matt Reeves, I really want to see him. He, I feel like he keeps like let's get out of the franchise world, let's.
Speaker 3:I want.
Speaker 4:I want to see what's inside of his mind, because I do think he's got he's got similar moves to Fincher, Like he. I think he's got some of the same aesthetic and the meticulous of his films and the way they're constructed and how, almost like mechanical, they sometimes can feel. I really want Matt Reeves to be like just let loose on his own ideas.
Speaker 2:I love that call. He feels like someone who, although it has spent the better part of the last 10 years within the studio system, you don't really feel like he's sold out. Quote unquote.
Speaker 4:Yeah, isn't that weird? Because, I mean, plan of the apes is probably one of the biggest sci-fi sci-fi franchises you could do.
Speaker 2:And he did two of them. He didn't just come in for one.
Speaker 4:And then he's doing Batman movies now, which is like one of the biggest in the world. Yep. So yeah, credit credit to Matt Reeves. I he's. He's one of my, one of my idols.
Speaker 2:All right, so what's it? Your number two then?
Speaker 4:number two is the 1968 original planet of the apes.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 4:Which of course means Don of the planet of the apes. That my number one. And I have it the same way. Fantastic.
Speaker 2:So pot over the original planet of the apes Again, a movie that I watched for the first time. Not that this was really one that I was saving for a rainy day or anything, but it was just a blind spot.
Speaker 4:It's so interesting that it wasn't a big deal for for your dad to sit down to show you plenty of the apes it wasn't, and, and maybe there was an attempt, a half-hearted attempt, that I am neglecting to recollect right now, but I don't.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna see my dad, actually later today I'll ask him about that. I'll be like where, where was plan of the apes in my childhood? Um and so, and so I got to watch this for the first time. Shout out to Hulu for having all these phones available right now.
Speaker 2:Um, this movie is we've talked about it a little bit already. It is so psychedelic. It is such a product of the late 70 or late 60s, excuse me, um of of this, like new space age technology, but also the fear of technology. Um, what, what's going to happen if power slips into the wrong hands? Like it's? It's, it's layered in that sense, the way that we've been talking about all episode long. But then it's also almost, like you know, we just mentioned Batman it's almost like an Adam West Batman episode where the punches are thrown and you're almost expecting there to be like a kapow. I loved it. I thought it was so great, and then also it was really exciting to to watch this film and see in all the different ways that later installations have cribbed from this movie, like we talk about when, when caesar first talks in rise of the planet of the apes, when draco malfoy is spraying the hose at him. I love that reversal, because in this one you get the the apes spraying the humans with the hose.
Speaker 2:It's a madhouse it's awesome, it's, it's so great, um. And then even in kingdom of the planet of the apes, the most recent film I really liked kind of the um. It's almost like the uh, filleted man from house Bolton in game of Thrones, like those, those scarecrow type warning Um, uh, I don't even know what you would call them Like little mini monuments that are supposed to like scare people away. You see those in this film and they're all over the place in Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, and so I loved watching this movie and seeing just the foundation for this entire franchise.
Speaker 2:Really, charlton Heston too, someone who I'm not really familiar with too much of their work I know that this is, you know, like, if you look at the Wikipedia page and when it comes to that person's work in film, planet of the Apes is going to be at the top of it and it's really just for this one role. It's really not like he continued on throughout the franchise. But this movie was just such a big deal when it came out that it is kind of one of those signature performances, um, that that I'm sure a few other leading men could have pulled it off. You maybe could have put eastwood or burt reynolds or somebody else in that role, but he he plays it well, like I. There's nothing about this movie that when you watch it you're like for being in 1968, you don't want to over-criticize it.
Speaker 4:Right, totally and really, really interesting that this movie comes out in 1968 and then also 2001,. A Space Odyssey comes out in 1968. Out in 2000 or 19 1968. Like just say, what a rich text of science fiction. What was happening there in the late 60s?
Speaker 2:and then kubrick follows that up with a clockwork orange and I almost feel like a clockwork orange has a lot to say about the things that happened in the first planet of the apes. Absolutely, absolutely, um it's. It's a really, really fun movie to go back and and experience, or just to experience for the first time. Like it. It was one that I was like wow, this is. I haven't logged any of these watches on letterbox, but like it's one of these things. Where is this a five-star film? In the same way that the Godfather part two is a five-star film, way that the godfather part two is a five-star film.
Speaker 4:No, but again is there anything that I would change about it. No, no, no, it's, it's, it's perfect. It's perfect for what it is and and what it's trying to do.
Speaker 2:Uh, it really succeeds, uh, at at everything that a movie about planet of the apes should be I feel like, and just the iconography too, like the, the, the masks that the, the human actors, wore to portray these apes. We see it for the first time in in this film and it carries on throughout those first five movies and in in looking back, it's like you might know what the apes from the original planet of the apes look like without ever seeing the movie. Having seen the movie totally, you know what I mean. And it's it's interesting too, because it's not like it's a halloween costume, it's not like there's I'm sure there probably were action figures or something.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, back in the 70s and and later on for for you know other decades, but it's, it's not like. It's one of those things that if, if you aren't paying attention to movies, you're going to stumble across. And yet so many people I feel like either they, they know just the look of the apes, they know some of the one-liners from Charlton Heston um, you know, most famously, probably get your hands off me, you damn dirty apes. And when that happened like I'm watching it for the first time a couple of nights ago, and I'm like I have no idea when he's going to say it, but I'm waiting for him to say it and he says it, I kind of shoot up a little bit and I'm like let's go there, it is yeah.
Speaker 4:And it's. It's again like uh, you're right as far as like cribbing from these the moment in rise of the planet of the apes, when, when Caesar yells no, is like very much in in language and talking with with that moment from the original. So yeah, the foundation of of of the apes movies is is laid in this film and it's just, it's great.
Speaker 2:How many people do you think IRL have ever been shot in the neck and they only lose their voice for a couple of days.
Speaker 4:Well, I guess the question is what kind of ammunition is an ape society using? Yeah, right.
Speaker 2:What are?
Speaker 4:we using.
Speaker 3:Are they little bulls? Yeah, are they rocks?
Speaker 4:Yeah, are we actually using lead bullets, like you know where's the armory?
Speaker 2:who's? We didn't see that part of society who's making these bullets?
Speaker 4:these are the real questions because the guns are so like. I'm wooden toy looking right like they are, they are uh, who knows, who knows how, and then also the voice. The voice is able to come back eventually.
Speaker 2:Yes, right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, that's insane, it's absolutely insane no-transcript.
Speaker 2:It's when Raka and Noah and may come across the zebras and they're having this, like you know, serengeti desert watering hole moment with with other like feral humans, right when they're all there together and then the apes come to herd them. And it's this thrilling sequence that when you go back and you watch this original one very similar to after it's right there.
Speaker 4:Yes, yeah, so love that or whatever they're in in that original, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That scene in kingdom. It almost it pulls from Jurassic park a little bit when you're in the tall grass, like it's that seems so good, and it's also great that you know the the bones are there from the beginning. Yeah, yep, okay. So then that leaves.
Speaker 4:That leaves dawn and number one that leaves the story of caesar and coba. And listen, I I know this is cortex to you. This is a very important movie relationship, so just just go off and, like, tell me, tell us all about, about Coba and and Caesar.
Speaker 2:So I have been team Coba and and I will defend Coba I did defend Coba to his death when these movies were coming out and I still do it to this day. Because what I loved so much about their interactions and their relationship in this movie in particular first off, it's set up great in Rise where you think Coba is going to kind of be his general right, Coba is going to be Caesar's general going forward. But then, in the same way that us as an audience will watch that first movie and know that the humans cannot be trusted and that greater consequence is going to come because of human and primates inability to coexist, Coba is that that steady in caesar's ear, saying that by trusting humans things are only going to get worse before they get better. And it's not like he's wrong.
Speaker 2:he is not wrong where, where, where caesar stays true and where coba goes off the rails, of course, is when Coba begins his own civil war and almost genocide of some of the other apes and starts killing apes and goes against this age old creed of you know apes together strong, ape does not kill ape.
Speaker 2:Ape does not kill ape Exactly. And yet when Koba and Caesar have their climactic battle at the end of this, a part of me is always left wondering what would the ape society look like if Koba just took over? And I guess we get a little bit of that with Proximus and in the new film, and so we can see that it's a dictatorship. It's not good for the greater benefit of ap apes. And so I'm not here to say that kova should have killed caesar in that second film. But matt reeves, when he takes over in this second film, does such a good job, I think, of giving the kova character a real arc and not just someone who you are like. I can't wait to see this guy die right. Like you, you really understand the struggle that caesar's going through and how caesar is trying to keep.
Speaker 2:Caesar keeps trying to pull coba back, rein him back in, because he understands he is just as smart. You know he got exposed to that. All's timers, um, here or whatever. He's got the blue eyes too. He is bright eyes as well. Another funny callback in the original that charlton hesson is bright eyes. You know, um, that the apes call him that. I just love that. So, yeah, cobra, cobra, I honestly think, is you could put him right up there with like a? Um, a voldemort, uh, darth, maybe not darth vader, that's like mount rushmore of villains. But when, when you think of of genre filmmaking and some of the greatest antagonists that we've had, people that you actually feel like were real fleshed out characters and not there just to be like a slasher villain or something cobra is, I think I mean, cobra is one of my favorite quote unquote bad guys in all the movies, do you think?
Speaker 4:that if somehow cobra survives to war of the planet of the apes, does that elevate war of the planet of the apes?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think it would, because, you see, caesar has some real dark moments well, because he imagines, I think, cobra right doesn't he see like visions?
Speaker 2:he kind of Coba he haunts him a little bit because the dark, deep recesses that Caesar accesses in his own mind and through his fight with the Woody Harrelson character. I think he's really struggling with the loss of cobra, and how a lot of cobra. Even as he was killing other apes and and basically trying to usurp caesar and cause a mutiny, caesar still understands that, like a lot of what cobra was saying had value, had merit, and so that's a great struggle to see play out over over war. But you get all of it in real time during dawn, and so that's just what I love about dawn and also, too, we've talked a little bit about, you know, some of the human performances. I think there's a great balance in dawn, where you have completely overqualified actors, like some great actors, so loaded.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not doing a whole lot, though. Right, and that's good. Usually in these situations you're kind of like God. I wish I could have gotten more from the Gary Oldman character. You don't really need more from the Gary Oldman character, but the fact that it's just Gary Oldman doing like 20, 25 minutes of total screen time.
Speaker 4:Yeah, yelling, they're animals. Yeah, 20, 25 minutes of total screen time.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yelling, they're animals. Yeah, getting the people all riled up. Kerry Russell, a very young Cody Smith, mcphee and then Jason Clark. I mean, jason Clark is maybe, next to Charlton Heston, one of the best human performances that you get across all these films. His relationship with Caesar is so much more effective than the James Franco relationship with Caesar which is phenomenal to say, really, because Franco's the one that raised Caesar. And yet maybe it is the grittiness, maybe it's the toughness, maybe it's you understand Jason Clarke's desire to connect with what he knows is the more dominant species, but he still respects him. He's not trying to manipulate him. I just love it, just everything about the design of that story, of the plot, the script, it's all so well done.
Speaker 4:Yeah, it represents the best of the film series because it it, you're right the balance, the the balance throughout the movie. Uh, you know, the balance of the thought-provoking themes with the heart-pounding, expertly executed action is just, it's something you, that is just so elevated from rise, um, that it's just such an exciting movie to watch.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's phenomenal, these movies. That trilogy is so easy to recommend to people because no one's going to watch Rise and have a bad time with it, but they also might think, okay, I've seen enough. But the fact that the next two just continue to get better and and, honestly, kind of reach a peak in the middle, even though there's not like a cut scene between two and three, right, but like the climax of two and then the fallout in the beginning of three, that is really like that's the most interesting, because that's like that's right after coba defeat or caesar's going on there. Caesar defeats coba and and it's the most, it's the most human we get to see caesar, the most vulnerable that we get to see caesar. I think, um, before you know that the actions of of war take place and he it just basically turns into. I mean, that's like a yeah, it's like a prisoner of war movie. It's like a gladiator movie, like it's there's so much that that it's just very cut and dry. It's, it's phenomenal, but it's very cut and dry, whereas dawn is so nuanced between ape and ape interaction, human and an ape interaction.
Speaker 2:I, yeah, it's, it's a great film. Okay. So our top 10 looks like this. So many of these movies just end with the same thing. So to save some time and not say of the planet of the apes, I will just kind of say the first, the first word in the titles. Our first one is planet of the apes from from the 2000, the early 2000s, 2001. Yeah, 2001. Then we have Battle at 9, beneath at 8, rise at 7, escape at 6, the latest film, kingdom, at 5, conquest at 4, war at 3, the Original Planet of the Apes at 2, and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes at 1.
Speaker 4:Feel good, I feel great. Uh, that is a great list. Um, what do you? Do you have any guesses about what the next planet of the apes movie is going to be called?
Speaker 2:oh, that's a great question. Let's see. Just kind of looking at this list, could we have? I love conquest. I think that's such a good, strong word Right. It really epitomizes the struggle that these films always try to focus on between human and apes. Something along the lines of conquest.
Speaker 2:I should have a thesaurus near me that I could just pull out and find another word, but I almost feel like that's what they do in these production meetings, right? No, so yeah, I don't. I don't have one right now off the top of my head. Do you have any? Any wishes?
Speaker 4:Oh man, so we yeah, it's really interesting cause we've done war right, cause like that almost kind of feels like that would be that would be fair to do. This is feels like that would be that would be fair to do. This is kingdom, the most recent kingdom. The kingdom has fallen, so I I'm I don't have one for the next one, but maybe the third one in this trilogy, this new trilogy that we're doing the fall of the planet, of the apes.
Speaker 2:That seems like it should have already happened. It definitely should. I like that a lot. Um, I I did just pulled up what, so I just pulled up um, conquest here, um, and and I'm looking at a couple of synonyms for it could there be something like gosh? There's a lot of good things on here. Can we do something, maybe like the occupation of the Planet of the Apes?
Speaker 3:Ooh, yeah, yeah, I like that.
Speaker 2:Or the surrender of the Planet of the Apes.
Speaker 4:The surrender is really good. That could almost be like the third movie, like the fall right, the surrender of the Planet of the apes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, or it could go surrender, then fall. Yeah, yeah totally, you know where humans and number two humans kind of take it back and that's how they leave. That's how they leave the second installment, with the apes surrendering, but then what happens in three is the entire planet falls. Yeah, because apes aren't in charge anymore.
Speaker 4:I'll tell you what, if, if humans have have in this new trilogy, if they have access to technology like satellite technology again and everything yeah the apes are. I'm sorry, but they're done for right they're.
Speaker 2:They're in trouble because you gotta think there's more bunkers, like the one that was totally destroyed in in they start talking to somebody in Indiana there at the end.
Speaker 4:Like you know, indiana ain't no state you want to mess with.
Speaker 2:Send Caitlin Clark after you.
Speaker 4:Tons of tons, tons of bunkers in Indiana.
Speaker 2:Yeah, um, that's hilarious. Okay, so that was a lot of fun. We, we hope that you guys all, um, maybe take a minute to do a little deep dive into the planet of the apes films. Um, there's there's certainly worse franchises to binge over a long weekend or over a couple of over a couple of days, if you're just kind of home this summer. As we look ahead to next week's episode, we will be talking about the career of George Miller in preparation for the new film Mad Max. Let's see Furiosa a.
Speaker 2:Mad Max saga yeah Max, the tea leaves have been pointing in the right direction for this film. How do you feel about that as someone who is maybe a bit skeptical?
Speaker 4:Good, you know. Listen, this is this the summer of skeptical max. I'm, I've, I've been skeptical of of every film I've walked into so far. This uh in the theater this year, and the skepticism I think continues to turn into a pleasant surprise.
Speaker 2:So appreciation for 2024.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm excited. I Furiosa again. Much like the Apes trailer leading up to the film, the Furiosa trailer I just have not been on board with. I just watching it. Something about it feels off. Now early reports say that that is probably just a bad trailer. So I'm excited. I'm excited to see it. I'm really excited to go deep dive. George Miller, because obviously he is the conductor of these Mad Max films, but he's also done some other interesting films which will be really fun to go back and examine.
Speaker 2:For everyone who's been waiting to hear us talk about Babe and Happy Feet Babe and Happy Feet, your time has come, yeah, which will be really fun to go back. And everyone who's been waiting to hear us talk about babe and happy feet, babe and happy feet and your time.
Speaker 2:Your time has come, so I'll be a lot of fun, Um, and you know, just kind of forecasting, looking forward to like the Oscars for next year. The big prestige projects I feel like have yet to really reveal themselves, whereas, like last year, we knew it was going to be an Oppenheimer, barbie, killers of the Flower Moon, these big classic Hollywood directors dominating the nominations. This might turn into a science fiction genre extravaganza at the Academy Awards If it's Furiosa and Dune and some of these other movies going at it.
Speaker 4:for these technical categories, visual effects is going to be, I think, a highly toted award this year.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I totally agree, totally agree, yeah. All right. So in the meantime, follow excuse the intermission on instagram and the two of us on letterboxd to track what we're watching between shows, and we will talk to you next time on eti, where movies still matter.
