Another Pass at Another Pass at The Planet of the Apes (2001)

Let's look back at the time Case had Geoff Moonen on to talk about the 2001 Planet of the Apes reimagining.

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Transcription

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00:00
Sam
Apes. Apes here.

00:08
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome back to another pass. At another pass, I am case Aiken, and as I have been for the last several years, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:19
Sam
Hi.

00:20
Case
And today, of course, we are looking back at the annals of history specific quickly, we are looking back at one of the earliest episodes of another pass, and honestly, one of the ones that was the most dictated by the release schedule that was coming out at the time. Because today we are reviewing our episode on the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movie.

00:41
Sam
Oh, it's a rough listen. The episode itself is very good, and I think that both you and Geoff. Geoff is the guest. We love a Geoff episode.

00:51
Case
A "Geoff-isode".

00:52
Sam
A "Geoff-isode"! You guys hit the nail on the head, right? I agree with so much that you said. Having said that, normally when we do these, I tried to brush up on the film. I mean, I listened to the episode, but I tried to brush up on the film. I am right there with the both of you in the assessment of this film and decided I was just going to listen to the episode and let the memory, whatever may be, linger for whatever comments that I have to say. No, I think that many of our listeners will still, even now, even with all this time passed from when this episode was first released, and now still agree with most of the things in this episode, for sure.

01:46
Case
Yeah, I think so. A big thesis that the show has come to recently is the time healing all wounds. There's a lot of things that we talked about earlier in the show that had a lot more vitriol because at the time, it was the most recent thing, or it was a thing that kind of got in the way of productions. And like, this movie derailed the Planet of the Apes franchise for about a decade. But when it came back hard.

02:10
Sam
Right. You can't keep. What is it? The cream rises to the top. You can't keep a good down.

02:16
Case
Yeah.

02:17
Case
So, as you mentioned, this is a Jeff episode. So Jeff Moonin, who is the editor for the regular episodes and is the voice at the beginning and end of every episode, is the guest for this one. And it's always fun chatting with him because we have such a long history of being friends and having these kind of nerdy conversations. Jeff is a professional voice actor, so his sound quality is fantastic. And mine is not bad. I'm using the Tascam that I was recording with a lot of my early stuff with, and it sounds like I can hear a little bit of room tone in it. Like, clearly I was using an omni.

02:53
Sam
Mic, but it's not that bad.

02:55
Case
Yeah, it's pretty good overall. And the fact is we're not in the same room together, so that sort of is one of the big factors for it. We have our own isolated audio track, so that sounds pretty good. I feel pretty good about the quality of the conversation. I feel good about the points we make.

03:14
Case
Yeah.

03:16
Case
I don't think we need to beat around the bush too much on this one. It's not like people who are new to this channel are going to be unfamiliar with the concept that we talk about Planet of the Apes. We spent five episodes talking about the entire planet of the Apes series. And you know what? A lot of those opinions that were then go into this episode as well, because were feeling a lot of the same things then as well. So on that note, why don't we get into the actual episode, and then when we come back, I want to hear, sam, your thoughts about the Tim Burton Planet of the.

03:46
Sam
Yeah. Yeah.

03:47
Case
So let's do it.

03:49
Case
Let's do it. Yeah.

03:52
Geoff
Welcome to certain point of use another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

04:03
Case
Thanks for tuning in to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and today we're talking about the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movies. Today, to help me sort of dissect this false start in the relaunch of the franchise is Jeff Moonan.

04:16
Geoff
Hi there, everybody. It's great to be back.

04:18
Case
It's great to have the voice of another past the intro and outro main guy.

04:24
Geoff
Yeah, I record it live every time, and they invite me on every now and again. It's like a musician on the tonight.

04:29
Case
Yeah. Normally we only get you for a few minutes and then you go take a cigarette break and then come back for the end. But in this case.

04:34
Geoff
Exactly.

04:35
Case
We get to have a full discussion with you.

04:38
Geoff
Glorious.

04:39
Case
Yeah. So let's talk about the Tim Burton Planet of the Apes movie.

04:43
Geoff
Yes. A seemingly necessary misstep in bringing back in sort of the current planet of the Apes reboot that's going on. Sort of like this kind of needed to happen. You needed to get one out.

05:00
Case
I don't know if you do fully, but I do see what you mean. Let's just get cards on the table. I think this is a pretty bad movie.

05:10
Geoff
It's rough. It's that bland, bad rough. That's not even entertainingly bad.

05:18
Case
Yeah. It's not a movie that is completely without redeeming qualities, but it is not a good movie by any stretch, and it's not a fun movie by any stretch, which is different than some of the other ones we've talked about and what I've looked at on the show. This is empirically a bad movie.

05:34
Geoff
Yeah, it is.

05:36
Case
And I guess the way I take your statement of like, you had to get one out is this is the one time where they try to do another story about a fish out of water human in an ape society that isn't a direct sequel to the original Planet Apes movie.

05:52
Geoff
Yeah. I mean, they had a decently tight series of films going on back in the late 60s, early seventy s, and then there was a twenty eight year gap. And over the course of that, I'm sure, and I know you know better than I do, that there were many people attached to doing a reboot or what could we do with this, or making another one. And I feel like there was so much expectation or there was so many conflicting ideas or picked up and dropped or anything else that you almost had to get the nervous energy out.

06:28
Case
Yeah, I mean, there are some crazy names attached to this. Arnold Schwarzenegger at one point was attached to it, which I assume he was going to be a human, but it would be amazing if he was not.

06:39
Geoff
He just cameos as an ape and nobody realizes. And it's amazing.

06:42
Case
Yeah. Peter Jackson was at one point. Roland Emmerich is another name that was going to be a director at one point, as was Michael Bay. And those are ones I think would actually be really interesting. I mean, I'm sure Bay would be not great, but this also would be like late 80s, early ninety s Michael Bay, which is a different animal than the more recent, problematic Michael Bay. There's some really interesting collections of people like Oliver Stone, which I think would probably be too heavy handed anyway. So probably for the.

07:17
Geoff
And, and that's just it. And any one of these bring their ideas to it and it could have been something. So frankly, at this point, anything had to happen.

07:28
Case
Yeah, it's fascinating looking at the Wikipedia page, because there's no connection whatsoever to the actual movie that got like, by the time you get to Tim Burton coming on board, it's a totally new pitch, a totally new script, a totally new writer, a totally new everything. Like Burton was not attached to any of these previous productions. It was just the license was being tossed around.

07:48
Geoff
Yeah.

07:49
Case
And at this point the license had gotten was pretty old. Like you said, it was 28 years out from the original movie being rather 28 years from the last movie being made. And that movie is not good. So I see them wanting to get away from that reputation. But in that meantime, there was a live action show, there were animated shows. There was a lot of material from Planet of the Apes.

08:11
Geoff
It was still part of the cultural consciousness, in a way.

08:15
Case
Yeah. And that actually, I think, is the greatest flaw of this movie. I feel that this is a movie that was here is what the cultural consciousness knows about Planet of the apes. Let's do that.

08:28
Geoff
Yeah, it kind of was.

08:29
Case
It was know. We like the idea of, like, a person who's like an everyman stuck in a society of apes. And there's time travel, and there's a twist at the end. Let's do that. Cool.

08:40
Geoff
Yeah. And now look where it got us.

08:47
Case
Yeah. So let's talk about what's bad in a little more form than just being like, it's bad, it's bad. But then let's talk about some good, because I think there is actually some good here. So in terms of bad, I think the story is meaningless. I think the time travel mechanic is pretty wasted. It doesn't really do anything in an interesting way, and it isn't really actually relevant to the original Planet of the Apes. The original Planet of the Apes movies had a time travel component that was introduced later into it. But the book and the first movie isn't really about time travel so much as travel time. The book is about like, okay, well, if you're going to go faster than light, it's going to take a long time. You'll speed up, and then you'll travel really far, and then you'll slow down.

09:28
Case
It'll take a little while, but the world will move a lot faster around you than you'll move. Like, you'll be much younger. Physics and the first movie, I think, used cryogenic suspense, but it's the same basic idea where, because you traveled this distance in the way that you traveled in a manner that allowed you to survive the passage of time, you're a lot younger from your vantage point than the world that is around you.

09:54
Geoff
Yeah.

09:55
Case
And so that was the thing in the original kind of material. And then the twist aspect, like the movie kind of simplified what was very sort of a labyrinthian twist of the novel, where it's just like the argument made in that was that eventually we'll all just become apes. Like, eventually apes will just be the norm because they just copy people. And it happens here, and it happens on Earth, and then it happens even in space, is sort of the argument of the novel and the movie simplifies it in a very effective way, I think, to the like, oh, it was Earth all along. Isn't that obvious? And the second movie, because they had to figure out a way to make a sequel, kind of wrote it off as being like, it's time travel.

10:39
Case
And it was clearly like the writers were just, like, grasping its draws to explain it. And then the later franchise ran with that idea. Like, the third movie, which I would argue is the third best movie in the original five, and the second most enjoyable, is the most Fanficky idea you could imagine, where it's just like, well, there's a time portal. Maybe the apes go backwards in time and we follow them in modern day. It's ridiculous, but it's really fun. And then from there, you follow their timeline. So it goes back to modern day, and they have a kid, and then we follow that kid rising, surviving in the modern world that then changes around him into a totalitarian state, and it becomes a dark, grim future that eventually has to do battle to protect his people and yada, yada.

11:29
Case
It basically follows the path that the more recent movies have followed, but with a time travel mechanic and with the convention that the reason the apes are getting smart is that the genes of the apes of the future have been introduced as sort of a closed loop, as it were. Although it's sort of open at the end that it may not have been a closed loop. Like, maybe time travel has actually broken that loop. So the question is, how did the apes get there in the first place? And the more recent movies have kind of explained how the apes got there in the first place.

11:58
Geoff
Right. With deference to those previous films. And they can be their own beast. You don't have to watch the 70s saga in order to understand it, but it all links together, which in today's modern fan world is kind of the best of both worlds and an ideal to strive for, really.

12:13
Case
It is. But the Tim Burton one is none of those. Just. It's just vomiting out all the ideas of the Planet of the Apes movies that had come before without a lot of real things to say. And I think that really is ultimately the big weakness of it. The closest it comes is this conversation in it about religion, which is sort of in there. Like Dr. Zais in the original planet movie, uses religion as a source of power, and then the whole world kind of falls around the basic idea of, what is your story? How do you describe yourself? How do you see yourself, and how do people around you see you? And how do you do things to sort of change that? And how is that a source of power or weakness?

13:03
Case
Like, Taylor is this man's man character in the first movie, he's Charlton Heston, for God's sake. But when stripped of his position in society, where he's a successful astronaut and handsome man, about, like, all of a sudden he is no longer powerful. He's an ironic hero in a world that is totally different than the one he knows. And this movie is trying to do something kind of similar. They use Mark Wahlberg, who is a similar type of sort of figure, but none of it is really saying much. The most it says is about how the concept of their religion and their destiny and the things that drive them are perverted. This whole argument that everything you said was a lie and all the reasons that the ones who are in power is because they have corrupted the narrative.

13:55
Case
But it's not a very good version of that story in this movie.

13:59
Geoff
Yeah, it's kind of a Rob Liefeld retelling of Planet of the apes in a way.

14:05
Case
That is an excellent description.

14:07
Geoff
Thank you. It's very. On the surface, it feels like they know what themes they should be talking about, and there's no big exploration that goes on. Definitely, in rewatching it for this, I noticed some definite, like, okay, they're trying to draw some class parallels a little bit and some racial parallels as well, but there's not really any kind of. And then they just push something over the top, and it comes off as cartoonish, and you've lost me.

14:39
Case
Yeah. And it kind of sucks because the original had a lot of those ideas, and so they took some of those things, and Burton talked about how he found chimpanzees actually more terrifying than gorillas. And I agree. That makes sense. The original had this very basic idea of, like, gorillas are the warriors and the working class, and the chimpanzees are like, the scientists and the engineers, and then orangutans are the bureaucrats and the religious people. And that was a very, like, if you're just doing this very stark allegory to modern society, that worked for what they were trying to do in this one, they kind of changed some of the stuff around, but they don't do it enough to make a new statement. It's more just muddled.

15:20
Geoff
And it never really addresses the fact that. And this is just one of those detail things that. Okay, that means there's three separate species of ape that are all coexisting amongst themselves. Humanity hasn't even done that. Yeah, it's one of those. I'm not saying that can't happen. I'm not saying that it wouldn't happen. I'm just saying. Take a moment with that, please.

15:43
Case
Yeah, I'll say this. So none of the movies have really relied on science. The best ones usually have science as a tool to get to the storytelling device. But if you get into the real nitty gritty of it all, the most likely species to interbreed, for example, is actually mankind and chimpanzee. That's really weird when you think about it in terms of the story that they're trying to tell. The strongest ones really don't need to deal with the science. That's why I think that the most enjoyable one after the original of the first five is the one about them traveling back to the disco lifestyle. It's such a weird movie, but it's enjoyable because the point of it is just like the flipping of that allegory.

16:23
Geoff
Absolutely. And I suppose I'm bringing a more western sensibility to the storytelling, but how does it happen? Whereas from what I understand, there's a little more of an eastern like. Yes, but what if this happened? We don't need to know. Why. Isn't it just crazy that this happened?

16:39
Case
Yeah. And when you allow for distance that allows for that, you don't need to explain it as much like the original movie, it's supposed to be like thousands of years in the future. It's so far removed that there's no trace of human society aside from the barest elements or the things that are the most sturdily built. And those are buried literally in the ground. And that's okay. You can kind of deal with it where you're like, I don't need the full explanation because I don't need a fast explanation. The explanation could just be that eventually they evolved this way. And it's still kind of fast, but it still works because you have such a gap that you're not seeing the need for the explanation. Whereas you get to this movie where it's really not that long and there's a lot of big questions.

17:26
Case
There's weird things about why do the people speak but have this weird relationship with the apes the way that they do? And if you're going to have that, why is the relationship not starkly different from the one that they have? This movie has this kind of convention of them being treated both like animals and like slaves, but those are not the same thing. And the way that we relate to those two things are very different, and the lessons learned from that are very different.

17:56
Geoff
Yeah, it strikes me as a very od thing. It's a lot of trying to put your feet in as many boxes as you can.

18:05
Sam
Yeah.

18:05
Case
Like I said, it's a vomiting of ideas.

18:08
Geoff
Very much so.

18:11
Case
So let's move on to the good before we get too deep into some of these, because I think we're in danger of starting to talk about our fixes. So the good fuck, man, the special.

18:22
Geoff
Effects, they did a really good job. I really liked the makeup. The prosthetics like these hold up.

18:29
Case
The most recent one that came out, war for the Planet of the Apes, is the best CGI one to date, and I'd argue it's the best one, special effects wise, since this movie. Like, this movie has amazing special effects.

18:41
Geoff
Yes, it does.

18:41
Case
And it's all practical effects, and it's the height of that type of technology.

18:47
Geoff
And often you run into that where it seems as though the best is when they blend it well.

18:52
Case
Yeah, this is not the one where you couldn't do the more recent ones with this type of technology. The looks of these characters require the apes in question to be still, like some kind of hybrid or at least evolutionary version of the apes that have changed. Like, you can't just do the story of, like, here's the syring, who happens to speak sign language and gets kind of smart. The original plan of these movies presented like an evolved race, and this continues with that idea, but they don't take it. But rather than them just being humans with masks, they still have their anatomy looking very different, but they still have evolved somewhat. The more recent ones have taken it from the approach of, like, they are awakened like they are already what they are, but with the right kickstart, they can be even more so.

19:39
Case
That's a different. That's true in approach, that this movie. It's fine. This movie takes where it's coming from then, and it's great. The look, it was the best part about it. Everything leading up to it, I was like, oh, we're finally getting a planet of these movies where all of the effects are just in full gear and it just looks fantastic. Wow. What took us so long?

20:02
Geoff
Yeah, right. Well, it reminds me a little bit of the very beginnings of the revival seasons of Doctor who, where they did a lot of stuff where you can even look at it and go, and this is Doctor who, so bear with me here. It's like, I don't know, it still looks a little cheap. Yeah, well, that's the look of Doctor who. It is bringing into the modern era, but still with great respect for what came before. And not pandering, but with a connection with a lineage and bringing those same sort of effects and that great look into Planet of the apes. It kept that lineage, but also brought it to the modern day. It felt.

20:39
Case
Like. That's a huge strength. I think there's some interesting cast choice in here. Mostly on the ape side of things. I think Tim Roth is a great chimpanzee. That's really good. And Michael Clark Duncan is so good.

20:55
Geoff
Right. I didn't know that you could get a subtle performance as a guerrilla general, but here we are.

21:03
Case
Yeah, it's really good. Paul Giamatti is a great casting choice. I don't like his character, and I don't think I wouldn't have had that role in the movie. But he's a great actor. It's hard to really get mad about that part.

21:17
Geoff
Yeah, no, he took what was given to him and he didn't reinvent the wheel, but he made a damn good.

21:26
Case
It. Like, the bigger the role, it seems like the weaker the character. Mark Wahlberg, I don't think, was a great choice. I have some thoughts on, if you had to have him in this movie, how to make it work. But I think the movie that they wrote doesn't really work because they're kind of just like, taking a Charlton Heston character and transplanting it into a more modern time.

21:47
Geoff
Who's the manliest guy we could.

21:49
Case
Yeah, yeah. But it's a different. So, like, that kind of manliness isn't played out. Right. Stella Warren was not given much and is not a great. I don't just. She was there to be pretty, but they tried to. In this new context of the movies, it doesn't really work. Chris Christopherson's, like, kind of wasted. Helena Bonham Carter is not very good. No, she's not given a lot. Her style of performance is way more subtle than, I think, what she could get with the just.

22:22
Geoff
Yeah, it's just rough. You could see what she was trying for, but ultimately the dressing got in the way. You want something like what Tim Roth can do, which know when apes can leap that high, they can reach more scenery to chew.

22:40
Case
Yes. And, boy, does he ever.

22:44
Geoff
He does not leave any for anyone.

22:45
Case
But that works for the type of chimpanzee that they are trying to present. And having him be the villain, which is a stark turn from anything before in Planet of the ace movies, that's actually really good. I'm pretty happy with what he does to be that villain. I mean, they take a little far, but I get the explanation that they gave, which is that these are not as fully evolved apes as that we saw in the later movies, that the animal is just, like, lurking right beneath them. And the argument that chimpanzees can be kind of scary and dangerous is a good one to note. I have some thoughts for smaller tweaks that would have made this movie work, that work pretty well with that kind of context. But let's talk about other things that we liked.

23:35
Case
The score, I think, is actually pretty good. I don't think it transcends the material. I don't think it really elevates it, but it's a good Danny Elfman score. It has great rhythm and does the job really well. And I think, on a similar note, the art design, not just the special effects and the makeup and prosthetics, but the costume design for everyone looks really good, or at least on the ape side. The armor, the looks of the artwork that is around their society, the cities they live in, itself, look like a really interesting concept.

24:07
Geoff
Yeah, you can tell there was a lot of thought and care that went into the production design. And again, it's such a shame that what came out did not support that.

24:21
Case
Yeah. Again, nothing in this movie, I think, transcends the material, the artwork, and the armor that they wear, which is beautifully designed and has these great details for how an ape would wear it. And this, I think, is probably the best job they've ever done of being, like, what would an ape wear? Because there's only been a few movies where apes have been wearing clothes. It's only actually really three where it's been in that kind of society. And this is the first one. Set it up where it's like they had to have clothes that would hide the frame of a human in an ape form. This is the first time where we actually make it look like an actual ape, but it doesn't do anything in a truly brilliant way. It's not like rethinking the wheel on this.

25:03
Case
It looks like here's, like, kind of a roman esque kind of armor, but with ape designs to it. It's really well done. It's immaculately done, but it's, like, the best inked. Okay, artist. Like, the best inked 90s image artist lines are clean, and it's perfect, and it looks great. It's like Jim Lee stuff, but it doesn't do anything in a more advancing kind of way. We're not seeing true expression of the character, and we're not going so far that in the direction of realism that it totally breaks with reality. It's getting close, but it's still just, like, really finely inked drawings. It's not conveying that much emotion to it.

25:48
Geoff
There's no innovation. They merely ape.

25:52
Case
I feel like that covers most of the good. Like, it's Tim Burton. This is an interesting point in his run of movies. It's right before he goes kind off the deep end, but he still has a couple good movies left in him. Like, he had just done Sleepy hollow, which I don't think is, like, his best movie, but is generally regarded as pretty good. His previous movie that he had actually finished before that was Mars attacks, which I absolutely love.

26:19
Geoff
I have very fond memories of Mars attacks.

26:22
Case
And then right after this, he does big fish. And I love big fish.

26:26
Geoff
Yeah. It's not as if this was the sign of the descent. It was just like, oh, this is a misstep.

26:31
Case
And the weird part is big fish is actually saying something like, they have this conversation about narrative and whatnot that are all things that I wish were in this movie.

26:39
Geoff
I think this one also, because it was a property that was a bit of a hot potato for nearly three know. Who's to say how much got pushed onto Tim Burton's back?

26:52
Case
Yeah, I mean, it definitely is famously rushed from when they finally got into pre production or, like, into real pre production for its release. Like, they definitely were just like, tim, just say what you want to say about apes. And he's like, I know about time travel and this concept of manly men and can we get Charleston Heston? We can talk about guns. Okay, cool, let's do that. And let's just put that out. If you had. This is a movie where if you had to summarize Planet of the Apes, if you hadn't really thought about it too much, but you were like, I saw all the movies when I was a kid, and here's just my summary. You don't go back and revisit it. You don't really think about themes. You don't really go into deeper stuff.

27:38
Case
It's just like your surface impressions as you remember them three decades later.

27:42
Geoff
Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And I think that's what's ultimately so very frustrating here, because there is so many moments, dashes, splashes of sincerity, of thought, of everything, and then it's just like, but Planet of the apes, and they're kind of surfing along the surface here, which sucks. Yeah, it's a whole lot of do one or the other. I find often my biggest issues with many movies, and especially ones with franchises or properties, is just make a decision. And I know that is very difficult to do in the world of big budget Hollywood films.

28:29
Case
But, yeah.

28:32
Geoff
Making a poor choice is far more charitable. I feel far more charitably about it, and I even like it more than just a whole lot of waffling.

28:42
Case
Yeah, I would say that's an issue with Tim Burton in know, in terms of making a wonderful special effects movie. And when I heard that Tim Burton was making a plan of the apes movie, I was like, oh, that's great. He does great special effects, and he knows how to make those things look really visually interesting and good. That makes perfect sense to you. But especially now, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see his canon, like the work that he's done. He has a tendency, when he's doing adaptations, or quote unquote, reimaginings, as it were, to do this sort of, like, big splatter kind of shot thing, and you can really start to see it with Batman less.

29:21
Case
So, like, that's an early one for him, but Batman's like, here's all my thoughts about Batman, and that's why the Joker ends up being the murderer of the Wayne family and these kind of crazier ones. But then you do, like, Edward scissorshands, and it's his own idea, but he's, like, talking about narrative or big fish is the same way he's talking about narrative and how it all works together. But then when he goes and does, like, Charlie and the chocolate factory, that's, again, like, here's just a vomiting out of ideas about it. Or Alice in Wonderland. Here's a vomiting out of ideas about Alice in Wonderland. It's this very cursory, kind of superficial understanding of the story without a deeper introspection.

30:01
Case
That is an excuse for his art and his styling, but I don't think that excuses the movie from being weak when the material itself has a lot to say. And if you're going to ignore the material, that's where I get annoyed. If you're going to change something, do it. Say something again. Don't just put it out there, or don't just put a bunch of stuff out there. Say something, even if you want to just repeat the same material in a better way, or if you want to do a totally different story, even if it's a weaker story, but say something interesting.

30:40
Geoff
Yeah. And it doesn't even have to be a heavy handed thing. It doesn't have to be over and over again. But you can have a thesis and present that rather than your notes from class.

30:56
Case
So why don't we get into what we would fix? I was saying there's kind of a few smaller fixes I could do that makes sense in the context of the time. Again, that's always the rules here.

31:08
Geoff
Yes.

31:10
Case
Before getting into some of the more elaborate big ones. But let's talk about some small ones. I said that I think Mark Wahlberg is a poor casting choice for this movie. Imagine what if it was Depp? Like, we're definitely into the run of him working with Johnny Depp.

31:25
Geoff
Oh, yeah.

31:27
Case
And here's my thought on that one. So he wants to tell the story about the nature of. He has this idea that chimpanzees are scarier than gorillas. Okay, cool. He wants to tell a different kind of story about relating to different groups. Well, what if instead of it being, like, this manly astronaut scientist who happens to deal with chimpanzees for test subjects in this weird future setting that they do, what if instead, it was a much more. You focus on the scientist part of it? Like, if he's animal lover and if he is really devoted to the things that he's working know, because they happen to have chimpanzees in this cursory way in this movie, which is sort of like, it never even comes up in other material. Like, Taylor, the original planet of the apes, never dealt with apes.

32:13
Case
The fact that he encounters apes is just sort of like a thing. So the fact that Mark Wahlberg's character, who is a very Taylor like character, has to deal with apes but doesn't really care, is just sort of like. So why even bother with that in the first place? It's because the narrative requires it. Yeah, but what if he actually did care? Like, what if he was very passionate about the work he was doing with the apes, and then this was him being forced to confront the nature of humanity by virtue of seeing the animal within.

32:40
Case
So the narrative shifts from it being like, here's just man stuck in a Planet of the Apes to being, here's someone who wanted to devote all of his energy towards the betterment of these creatures, being forced to confront them at their worst and seeing how that changes him. Yeah, and I think that doesn't even require a whole lot of dramatic rewrites. It's just you portray him less as being like a confused everyman and more as someone who tries to relate to them at first and they reject.

33:11
Geoff
And you could have even done that with Mark Wahlberg. You could have made that sort of scientist characterization with him in the role, which would have been an interesting subversion because you again have the manly presenting guy who actually has more of an appreciation for the apes and more of a know why is he on the space station? Why is he doing this stuff? Well, he is a physical specimen. He needs to be able to survive these rigors, whatever else. But also because, well, if he was.

33:40
Case
Kind of like Chris Pratt's character in actually, yeah, that would work. Know, I think that with this, they sort of wrote him in a similar way to being like Taylor of the original Planet of the Apes. But the type of masculinity that Mark Wahlberg represents shows a shift in the era. Like, the idea of an astronaut being like a rock star was very prevalent. And by the time you get to the late ninety s into the two thousand s, we had already started to go towards the good old boy kind of archetype taking hold in pop culture. And that shows that for better or for worse, it's almost anti intellectualism that Wahlberg is a type of. I don't think he actually is, but I think that's the type of character he plays.

34:31
Case
Sometimes you can really see it in things like the Transformers movies, where even when he's like a brilliant inventor, he still has to be like, but I'm also wearing a baseball cap and I live in just. That's the character he plays in spite of.

34:48
Case
Mean.

34:49
Case
That's a, that's a good. The. Yeah, that's sort of my big thought. Know, at certain points, like Tom Cruise was attached, there's a lot of actors who could have played these roles differently if they had sort of defined the ape relationship with the humans. And this is sort of like my bigger idea, a little more distinctly. Very early on, they get captured and they get turned into house slaves. If this had become sort of a conversation about chattel slavery, which is very deep, but it's also what we talk about when we talk about Planet of the ape movies in a way that the original wasn't the original. They're dumb animals in this. They're not dumb animals. They're capable of speech, they're capable of rational thought. The reason why they're treated like dumb animals is not really addressed in a logical way.

35:44
Geoff
Yeah, the closest I can figure is the apes are stronger thus. But that's about it.

35:50
Case
Yes, but that actually makes it really interesting. What if we really dig deep into that detail because, frankly, this gets into the way that we dehumanized people in slave societies, particularly in the US, where it became a breeding thing, where it became like, there's a racial line that you can draw on to completely segregate them and then strip them of their humanity, despite the fact that they are actually human in this scenario. They could have really dug deep on that one. Like, if the society that they live in, and let's remember. Yeah, the original Planet of the Apes movies was not very geographically diverse. They had a forbidden territory that they couldn't really travel to, and you never really see that far.

36:34
Case
So presumably the movie doesn't act like their society doesn't have deep contact with people very far, even though they're relatively technologically advanced, at least so far as they have guns and horses and should be able to travel, but for whatever reason, they don't, and they're kind of cut off. This society is definitely much smaller. They have a small patch of forests, and it's only a few. Like, the actual population is relatively small. It's doubtful that the planet is actually of apes. It's more like the continent of apes at most, and probably more like the.

37:05
Geoff
Well, especially because since it seems as though all humans, all chimps, orangutans and gorillas, all four factions of apes, let's be real here, sprang from the Oberon, so you really don't have a very large breeding ground anyway.

37:23
Case
Right. And again, it's so small a time that you don't have the time for it to get that distinct. It would be weird if the people couldn't speak and were dumb animals. It's also weird that the apes can, and they probably should have dealt with something about what's making them smarter. Again, we have the benefit of hindsight right now, which is a little weird. The modern movies are about the apes becoming smarter, but even if you weren't doing genetic testing and you weren't just making it deep blue sea, but with apes, you could still do something with the radiation or whatever that causes the crash. Now then, we do have to talk about time travel, and that is a bigger thing. This movie really goes heavy on the time travel thing in a way that, again, the originals did not.

38:11
Case
The time travel is distinctly a part.

38:13
Geoff
Of this narrative, whereas the time travel in the older planet of the Apes films was simply a device, an explanation, not really a big piece.

38:24
Case
Yeah. So here was a thought I had about that, because I like this idea of really expanding on the societal relations and the apes are stronger, and so they are now like the overlords of the humans. What if the time travel component for Wahlberg's character was something where he actually was kind of unhinged from time? Because I kind of hate the humans anyway. I would rather sort of downplay it. What if it became almost sort of a generational story told in reverse where he found himself far in the future, and that's why he's surprised by this world of apes and him trying to change things. And his arc is him. He keeps falling back in time a little bit further.

39:08
Case
And finally he gets back to the point he needs to get to thinking that he's, like, saved the day, but in that he actually has allowed for whatever twist you want to make at the end. This could be interesting because you could introduce Christopherson's character in the first timeline, and then you could actually go back to when he's like a young mand it's a different political scene because you could then do a story about kind of like a reconstruction south and then a civil war era south and then like antebellum south using apes as the metaphor for it.

39:43
Geoff
Yeah. And you also don't get nearly as many good time travel science fiction stories where they're straight up like an unhinging like that.

39:52
Case
Yeah. I mean, admittedly, I'm kind of drawing on this series by Ben Bova called Orion, but I think that kind of works just in terms of creating something different, because if you're just reimagining it and not saying anything new, it is so boring in the context of what this movie is. It's not doing anything different in the worst ways. And sure, Hollywood loves that. Hollywood likes to do a remake, and calling it a rematching is just a way of getting around, calling it a like, unless you're doing that psycho style, shot for shot remake, you're retelling the same story and this movie is definitely doing that but worse. And I'm trying to say, like, well, what if instead of doing the same but worse, you do different but similar or failing to do something totally different?

40:44
Geoff
Yeah, I kind of like the idea, and this is something that I was thinking about and something that this conversation sort of germinated and I mentioned it a few minutes ago. I really like the concept of humanity as just another ape.

41:01
Case
Yeah, I do.

41:02
Geoff
If you're going to have gorillas as soldiers, if you're going to have the orangutans as politicians, things like that, humans as apes as part of this society, are the artists, are the thinkers, are the inventors, and there are other apes far stronger than them. And in a way, that invention, that whatever else is what's so terrifying about them, and they even have that within the movie. Their ingenuity and their cruelty and their capacity.

41:33
Case
Yeah, like, what if. What if humans were the tankers of the society, but not allowed to truly ascend to any sort of position of power? Like, what if the chimpanzees, which in the older material had been presented as the only ones who could really think and ascend above their own bestiality? What if they were the ones who were manipulating the others and the orangutans were more the slavers and the bureaucrats? And, yeah, you can keep religion in their doing, but the chimps are the ones who are truly the ones are the aristocrats. And they have religious reasons. Kind of like, there's talk in some of the material that they wanted to do something like a roman empire style. And so if we're talking about these are like the patrician roman families, there's that.

42:24
Case
And then you've got this sort of, like, mercenary class, which is the gorillas, and maybe they're the workers, the toilers, but they're also so strong physically. And that because they are the lowest rung after humans, the idea that the humans could try to rise up is directly threatening them, not anyone else. And this is how you get into a societal structures like that. The class directly above you is the one who's most threatened by your ascension.

42:52
Geoff
And your ascension, pretty much. And so it builds itself. It's a self working system.

42:58
Case
Yeah. What if the chimpanzees were barely even aware of their own position above the humans? Like, they barely even processed that the humans were there. Like, to the chimpanzees, the humans are this animal, but the gorillas are innately aware that the humans are smart creatures that have, like, this is what they bring to society. Because you get into how classism works, where you interact with the classes above and below you, the ones who are way too above you don't even really process your presence, or they don't even really think about it. So the chimpanzees, yeah, sure, they led the uprising, but now that they're so entrenched, they have almost. I don't want to say the following, but what if their whole thing is like a Game of Thrones?

43:47
Case
It's all political and them backstabbing and dealing with each other unbeknownst to them, beneath them, there is this human uprising that's building, that is created because of a spartacus style figure. That is our astronaut, Mark Wahlberg.

44:05
Geoff
Yeah. In whatever form we choose to have our astronaut there is that. And I like the idea of humanity still being there, being a few wild humans, maybe, but it being a lot more of, they're kept under guard. And whether the chimpanzees are like, oh, my, human made this, and now we throw it into society, or it's used as status symbols, and yet the others and the gorillas, they see what that means and what that is. It's an interesting idea, and I like that a lot better. It's certainly different from the original. It allows a lot of interesting looks into class, into history, into human and animal nature, because, as well, humanity historically, when kept under restraints, don't like that very much.

45:05
Geoff
And if you do that over generations, and even the sense of it's been long enough that apes know, the other apes know to keep down humans, but don't remember why anymore, don't remember why in the first place.

45:19
Case
Yeah. They've become so entrenched in the hierarchy and the structures that they've become a part of. Yeah, I like this. Again, this is kind of going off of that roman idea, if it's very much this world of strict classes, and here's our society that we are cognizant of, and maybe, let's say there's like a group of gorillas that live outside of the society, or like some sort of other society for them to war.

45:47
Geoff
Yeah. You can have other apes outside of the main city.

45:51
Case
Yeah. Maybe there's like a more peaceful existence of gorillas and humans that exist out there. And the ones that exist within this world are thus more hostile towards each other because of their mutual conditioning to believe that the state that they live in is important, and that as a result, the representation of them coexisting is anarchy and terror.

46:13
Geoff
Yeah. And that's one that can definitely benefit from having notions of power, from having some kind of a religion or cult of personality. And I'm not sure whether or not that would be cmos or what. But it's also a look into those ways that how do people in power stay in power? Is it through strength? Is it through brains? Is it through figureheads? Is it through resources? Is there a resource involved?

46:44
Case
It sounds like we've got a few ideas. We've got like a deeper Sci-Fi kind of convention of how time travel is, make it more dramatic, since right now it's sort of just like there as if it was always part of this franchise, but it's not. It's really just like a pop culture version of the franchise. We've talked about it being more civil war esque, being more roman esque, having more of a generational story versus more of a class struggle story, and actually getting into the nitty gritty. And not just like these apes are segregated into cultures the way they are.

47:17
Geoff
Right.

47:18
Case
So I think we've got some really interesting takes on this. I like all of these, but the problem with this movie being as bad as it is we could easily pitch a less dramatic one where it's like a much more touchy feely, kind of like, pardon this expression, like SJW kind of format, where it's just like someone who really cares about animal rights, like animal rights activist and someone who's really involved in this program is being forced, being confronted by the reality of how terrible animals are. And then he sees truly how terrible man is.

47:53
Geoff
Turns out it was man all along. Although also, I kind of like what we're getting at here and almost turning this into a gladiator movie.

48:00
Case
Yeah. And that's actually, I think, the one that I really like. Ultimately, if the time travel story could be kind of interesting and allowing for a retroactive generational tale would also be kind of fun. But making it really rolling with this roman kind of concept and really hitting that hard, I think, is very fun.

48:20
Geoff
And you could still keep the character in this. You can make him a social justice gladiator. Why not still be confronted with those things? But again, when humanity is pushed to its brink, what do we do? When apes break free from their shackles? What do they do? And what can we choose to do to overcome these things? Still keep that idea of for all apes, humans included, that the animal is just below the surface.

48:49
Case
Agreed. And I think it would be fun to see all aspects of society kind of having that element. It doesn't matter if you're an aristocrat or if you're a slave. You are the creature that you are and that there might be some kind of animal lurking beneath.

49:06
Geoff
Because the twist at the end is we are all the planet of the apes.

49:10
Case
Yes.

49:13
Geoff
I'm sorry I couldn't give it enough of a finger wiggle when I said that. But you know what I'm getting at here?

49:19
Case
I'm digging this, man. I think some fun ideas, like I said, this is a hard one, at least for me to talk about right now, because I just came out of seeing war, which makes me very excited, but at the same time, I just saw a much better version of a very similar movie. It's hard to do this conversation after I see a more effective franchise member. It's easier when I haven't seen it yet. Like, when we talked about Spiderman three, it was much easier because I hadn't seen the new Spiderman yet, which was awesome. It was.

49:52
Geoff
But that's.

49:53
Case
I'm glad we talked about it, though, because that was some good perspective stuff to go into that Spiderman movie with.

49:58
Geoff
Oh, my goodness. I had such a good time. And, yeah, definitely our conversation about Spiderman three helped fuel that.

50:03
Case
Yeah.

50:05
Geoff
On the flip side, this, I'm definitely excited to. I need to sit down now, and I'm very motivated to watch rise.

50:13
Case
Yeah, rise is great. I've been telling people it's great to watch rise, dawn, war, and then go back to watch the originals. The originals I love. They're weird movies. Like, the second one's pretty bad. Beneath the Planet of the Apes. The third one, I said, is the second most enjoyable and third best in the series, which is escape from Planet of the Apes.

50:33
Geoff
Right.

50:34
Case
But conquest for the Planet of the Apes, or conquest of the Planet of the Apes is probably the second best actual movie in the original sequence. And that's the story of the uprising initially that they did. But I would say it's a little dower and kind of simplistic ultimately, when you look at it in retrospect, which is why I say it's the third most fun, but technically, it's really good. And Rodney McDowell does, like, a tour de force as this, like, insurgent leader, and then battle is just terrible. But it's fun when you think about how nonsensical all these names are. Listen to that weird tirade.

51:08
Case
You can just mix and match, and it'd just be like, it's amazing that Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes is not the one that has the Vandy mutants that telepathically mind control people and force them to worship an atomic bomb. You could just kind of throw all these around, and from the benefit of hindsight, it'd be like the original Planet of the Apes. And then the second one is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. And then the third one. Yeah, that could be escape. The fourth one can be dawn of the Planet of the Apes, because that's synonymous with rise anyway, so might as well separate those out a bit. And then the fifth one. Yeah, we'll call it war. How about war for the Planet of the Apes?

51:42
Case
Then you get to the remake that comes out, which is beneath the planet apes because it is a terrible movie. And then you get to the new series, and you can call the first one dawn or rise, whichever one you didn't go with before. And then you go for battle for the Planet of the Apes, and then you go to conquest for the Planet of the Apes.

51:59
Geoff
Wow.

52:00
Case
Yeah. You could just totally throw them all around in whatever order you want because it all makes sense. And a lot of the, like I said, they're synonyms. Like, the first and second one in this most recent sequence are literally synonyms. Like it's rise and dawn mean the same thing.

52:14
Geoff
Yeah. Jeez. Suck at Machete order.

52:18
Case
Yeah. And like, war for the Planet of the Apes versus battle for the planet of the. Like, the scale is the only thing that really matters in that one.

52:25
Geoff
Fair.

52:26
Case
Yeah. The names don't really matter. What matters is that the first one's like a classic. The second one is not a good movie. The third one is a fun movie, but not as great. The fourth one is actually pretty good, but it is dour. The fifth one is terrible. This one's terrible. And then the most recent three are really good, especially when taken as a whole.

52:50
Geoff
Nice. It's actually kind of a unique and interesting thing to be able to look at. The only one that kind of is a standalone film.

52:58
Case
Yeah. That is another thing. Even rise as the start of this series of three movies, if you didn't know that, if they never made a sequel or anything, still has more ties to the original franchise. They have a lot of references, and it fits really well in the timeline this movie does. Not at all. It's just a separate thing.

53:18
Geoff
It is a drift.

53:20
Case
It's really weird in that regard.

53:21
Geoff
Yeah.

53:23
Case
Anyway, Jeff, thank you for rewatching Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. It is a movie.

53:31
Geoff
It was a worthwhile slog.

53:33
Case
It has great special effects, it has good music, it has good art design, and it has nothing to say.

53:40
Geoff
And I would be lying if I wasn't humming stuff from the Planet of the Apes musical from the Simpsons episode. Most of the time I was watching it.

53:48
Case
No joke. After Addie, Ben, and I recorded our Planet of the east one, I just went into a full song rendition out of nowhere on that one. And Addie's only words were like, I am so sad that we had stopped recording.

54:00
Geoff
Fantastic. I do love legitimate theater.

54:04
Case
I love every ape I see, from chimpanzee to chimpanzee.

54:09
Geoff
Oh, my gosh.

54:11
Case
Well, Jeff, thank you again. Jeff, do you have anything you want to?

54:17
Geoff
I mean, I've got my podcast that I do. It's a video game related fun and games with Matt and Jeff. I do that with Matt Storm, DJ Stormageddon.

54:27
Case
Is that on itunes right now?

54:29
Geoff
It's on iTunes. We have a Lipsyn page. We have a Twitter. We have a social media fun and games pod. And yeah, it's more talking about the culture of gaming. No one specific game or anything. Sort of the bigger idea of things.

54:45
Case
Everyone should be checking out Jess podcast, and when they're done doing that, they should be checking out certainpov.com, where you can check out this podcast. All of our other ones. The Star Wars RPG, which we have now named the Scruffy Nerf Herders. Our main show, certain point of view. But you can find all of that on certainpov.com. I look forward to the next time we talk because next time we'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickening. But until then, stay scruffy, my nerf herders.

55:17
Geoff
Thanks for listening to certain point of View's another past podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to Certainpov comics. I really want there to be like a Planet of the Apes Gladiator movie.

56:01
Sam
Are you tired of watching your beloved characters being tortured by careless authors? Are you sick of feeling like they could have swapped out all of the painful action and the plot would remain untouched? Subscribe to books that burn the fortnightly book review podcast. Focusing on fictional depictions of trauma, we assume that the characters reactions are reasonable and focus on how badly or well they were served by their authors. Join us for our minor character spotlights, main character discussions, and favorite non traumatic things in the dark books we love. Find us on Spotify, iTunes, Google Play, or wherever you get your podcasts.

56:36
Case
And we're back. Podcast time is so weird.

56:42
Sam
Honestly, I wish I could time travel to have not had knowledge of this.

56:49
Case
So I was so hyped for this movie, and I talk about this in the episode when the editing for the trailers. This, I think is the first time where I really felt lied to by the trailers. It was so good. It's so, you know, the Danny Elfman score is really good. It's not his best score of all time, but it's still really solid. It captures the sort of like, primal yet imperial kind of nature to the world of the apes. I think it does a really good job. A Tim Burton Danny Elfman collab is never going to be that bad in that regard. But fuck, man, this movie.

57:23
Sam
Listen, I think in terms of just like you guys said in the episode, in terms of visuals, and that's where a trailer gets you, right? Because Tim Burton has had issues in the last few years with really getting ideas across and having substance. But what he does still have in all of his films is they're beautifully shot, they're beautifully done. They look so visually appealing, and it's very stylistic. And so when you're watching a trailer. Yeah, it looks incredible. It looks so cool. And then you go and watch this movie, and like you said, I think one of the best points that you made is that it says nothing. It has no real point. And the thing about the original films, even the worst of them had a point of view.

58:24
Sam
And we know that because we watched all five and they all had a point of view. And no matter how wacky or crazy or even a little bit of whimsy there was in those films, there was a message in them. Right. And this is just kind of lacking in that. I also agree with. Well, I don't like Mark Wahlberg anyway, but I definitely agree with you on the Mark Wahlberg of it all. This is before the rule of recasting, is it not?

58:54
Case
Though we always kind of had that as a soft rule we discussed in this movie. Well, what if other actors who had been approached about the, like, the recasting rule isn't so much a rule so.

59:07
Sam
Much as, like, a guideline. Yeah.

59:09
Case
Here's an example of a kind of thing that might be a big. I throw out the idea of, like, well, what if they had brought in Johnny Depp to be the lead? And a Johnny Depp lead role in a Tim Burton movie is not a crazy thing to throw out there as a suggestion. So that one's more in the line of like, yeah, it was feasible. He was in discussions about it at some point. We tried to have conversations about what's realistic. A Johnny Depp led Tim Burton movie is an extremely realistic thing to throw out there as a concept, for sure.

59:42
Sam
Now, I want to throw something completely unrealistic out there, because at the end of the episode, and this tickled me pink, the both of you kept talking about the idea of a gladiator type film. And so I think that what Tim Burton should have done instead, just because I think this would be fun, is he should have gone paper the other way and actually gone full pulp with this, and he should have put someone even more masculine in the role, like an Arnold Schwarzenegger or Dave Bautista? Right. And then you just have, like, I am Spartacus kind of mixture. Take the two Charlton Heston films and just shove them together and make it Planet of the Apes somehow I think that would have been a lot of fun.

01:00:36
Case
Yeah.

01:00:36
Case
Actually, you know who would be more like, Dave Batista wasn't really an actor at that point.

01:00:41
Sam
Well, he wasn't an actor then, but I'm like, this is my impossible casting now. Someone like him. But back then.

01:00:48
Case
But let me throw out the rock as a possibility.

01:00:50
Sam
Yeah, possibly. Although I think Dave is a slightly better actor, but sure.

01:00:54
Case
But the point is, at the time when the movie was coming out, they could have gotten the rock actually pretty easily. This was around the time that he did like Scorpion King.

01:01:02
Sam
Yeah.

01:01:03
Case
And I don't know if they would have wanted him to lead a movie at that point, but they were kind of positioning in it. And the Planet of the Apes is a big enough franchise that you could probably justify not the biggest star on the planet as their lead. So. Possibility there, especially if you're trying to show off. I just realized Michael Clark Duncan is also in the Scorpion King.

01:01:24
Sam
Oh, my God. Hilarious.

01:01:27
Case
So you could have actually.

01:01:29
Case
That.

01:01:29
Case
That actually isn't, like, that unrealistic right there. And you could do a big movie about someone who is supposed to be this alpha male type, especially if he's in his Scorpion King era or the Rundown era. In terms of his physicality, the rock was not quite as big as he is now in terms of just, like, raw steroidy muscle. So you could have still had him be this crazy alpha male who's like, such a badass, and then all of a sudden he's like, face to face with fucking Michael Clark Duncan as a.

01:02:03
Sam
Know, just. I think it would have been such an interesting idea of just to really do this. Basically shackles and slavery and animal mistreatment because maybe they're battling because they're gladiators. I think it would have been really cool and have this human be, like, kind of below lowest of the food chain in this space, but making friends with these apes. And it would have been like, such an interesting. Freaking weird. I'm sure people still would have been like, what the fuck was that? But I think it would have been more interesting.

01:02:48
Case
Yeah. Having someone with that kind of muscle mass go up against, say, like a chimpanzee, which is fairly small but way stronger, would be a really interesting visual sequence. Like, you have someone who's like, I'm not going to take this kind of crap and rush into a thing and then just get tossed around. And the rock I'm throwing out there is like, this was a moment where he was on his first rise before he kind of fell apart and was doing kind of bit parts for a while and then had his resurgence about ten years later. So he's a possibility at this point. But like we say in the episode, Arnold Schwarzenegger actually was approached about a part in the movie. It's just, it was before Tim Burton really came on board. And so that could have been a really interesting know.

01:03:32
Case
I think this was around the time this was after he did eraser. This was around the time he did like 6th day, that clone movie. So not entirely out of the question that he could have been swayed to do a movie like this, especially if it had anti gun message, because this is around the time that he started refusing to have guns on posters. So he could have actually made a thing about that. And again, having a point of view would have been a really interesting thing in this movie.

01:03:59
Sam
Yeah, because that's the thing. This movie doesn't ever really commit to any idea or anything. It's all references to stuff that kind of happened somewhere else but somehow disconnected from the series. All the same is a really interesting way to screw up a film because you have all of this source material and you could have easily mashed the movies together, which we see. Right. We see this later with the ones that have Andy circus because as we know, because we've gone over five of the original films, there are themes that are definitely good in those newer films when you're focusing on. Definitely in the fourth film, rise, we definitely saw. Right. Like some of those underlining angry kind of. This is what they've taken from us. Uprising of the apes already formed in the original series, right?

01:05:11
Case
Oh, yeah. I mean, Conquest, that is a very angry movie.

01:05:14
Sam
Conquest is hugely angry. It is brutal and angry. And I enjoy it immensely more after the rewatch, I didn't think that I was going to enjoy that movie as much as I did when we watched it.

01:05:27
Case
It is fun coming back to this one now after we did the five movie rewatch, especially in the reverse order, which is such a weird way to watch it, right, but to feel like the rough edges that were there in those movies. And then this movie, I describe this. It's a problem Tim Burton has with a lot of movies, but it feels like a poorly remembered book report or like a skimmed the book kind of book report. Like, I read Cliff's notes and then I'm putting all the things that I know are part of the franchise into a blender, but I don't actually really know why any of those things are there or what they're trying to say or anything like that. Man, this movie just, again, just no fucking viewpoint on anything that it's trying to say.

01:06:11
Case
It has this whole thing about slavery, and it doesn't say anything about slavery.

01:06:15
Sam
Nothing. And it's really interesting because it's not interesting. But I actually put off watching what I'm going to call the Andy circus group of movies because this film just, I was like, you know what? I'm going to just keep watching the originals, and I'm not going to watch anything new. So I put off watching those films that eventually I watched and I found very enjoyable. But this film, I was just like, you know what? Maybe the five originals were enough. Maybe just watch the original movies and call it a day.

01:06:56
Case
Yeah, I mean, we shout out the makeup in this movie, which is still incredible. Even looking at it today, it's fantastic. So we're recording this before Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes comes out, which if were able to better control because we're doing this in order, we would try to have this come out more like that. But I believe that comes out in May, and we are recording this in February, so we can see how the CGI has gotten. And I don't think it's quite as good as the practical effects in this movie yet. I thought that war for the Planet of the Apes, I thought the CGI there was phenomenal, and it got so goddamn close most of the time. And where it falters is when they're doing things that apes don't actually do.

01:07:46
Case
And it looks like the new movie has, like, the uncanny valley is there when the apes are riding horses and wearing clothes and stuff like that. It doesn't quite fit with the aesthetic versus in this movie because the makeup is so good and it all works together so well. That's all so great. Will there ever be a better looking planet the apes movie? Probably, but right now, this still holds up as the best ape effects that you're ever going to really get.

01:08:17
Sam
Right. I mean, honestly, if. If the makeup they had in this film they had for our lovely original fifth film, it'd probably be a lot better. Especially the last battle that was barely.

01:08:32
Case
Yeah, if battle for the Planet of the Apes had. That's the thing. I talked in this episode, and we talked a lot over the course of the five movie marathon of like, well, what is your ranking of the Planet of the Apes movies. And I always end up with this trifecta of the bottom three that are always competing with each other with battle beneath and then this one, as they all have one thing that I really like and a lot of stuff I'm kind of annoyed by. And I keep kind of coming back to battle being like, well, it just didn't have the budget and it's a more forgivable situation. This one had the budget and it just didn't have the heart. It had so much of the aesthetics and they had cool ideas.

01:09:12
Case
Like, the thought about making chimpanzees creepy and scary is a good idea. Having Tim roth be this insane chimpanzee, good idea. Having Paul Giamatti being a creepy ass orangutan. Aside from, like, did he have to go quite so creepy in some of those spots? I don't know.

01:09:29
Sam
Yeah, I thought he went a little far in his creepiness. I remember thinking that, again, I did not rewatch it, but I remember being very uncomfortable.

01:09:40
Case
Yeah, I mean, that and things like the ape sex scene that happens at one point where they're all like, when they start hooting and hollering and all that, there are spots where it's like they're playing it for laughs. But you have to be tuned into that sort of adolescent sense of humor that this movie really wants to have.

01:09:57
Sam
Yeah, for sure.

01:09:58
Case
Yeah. It's just unfortunate that Mark Wahlberg is this blank slate who at no point do they write anything on the canvas that he is in this movie.

01:10:08
Sam
So it's so strange that with him and like, in this film, they just kind of plug them into these default roles. And I think that when you're watching the original Planet of the Apes, I think there's some forgiveness for the time of year or the time of year. The era that it's written in the style of science fiction that's kind of out there like this pulp fiction that kind of minimizes especially female characters but also just kind of where some of your characters are a little more two dimensional because they're kind of stand ins for an archetype. Right. And so you can kind of forgive that happening back then.

01:11:09
Sam
But when this movie is created having two leads that are kind of blank slates that have no real motivations or real wants or needs with these apes, it's just so kind of OD to have these people be your lead but not have them. And even the original, I I still feel that Charlton Heston's character had more drive and urge than Wahlberg's right.

01:11:43
Case
Yeah.

01:11:43
Sam
Well, that's part of, like, such a weird thing.

01:11:45
Case
The timeline is also so compressed in this movie because, again, this is kind of just like a cliff's notes version of a Planet of the Apes movie. He arrives and he is with people very quickly, and there are people who can talk, which is like all these elements that are part of the original planet of the Apes. They strip it away because the isolation, the loneliness, the horrible trip in the desert at the start of the movie.

01:12:10
Sam
On the rewind, losing his companions, right? Like, the way that they do and.

01:12:14
Case
The fact that his companions suck, that was actually an important part of that movie. The fact that he can't stand one of the guys. And yet at the end of it all, he really misses him because he missed having any kind of human companionship, this movie. He doesn't have any of that. He always has a hope to get home. He always has people around him who can talk. His significant other in this movie, because there's this implied love story between him and Estella Warren's character, just because he always has a mate who is able to challenge him mentally. She seems very smart for a person who's been sort of, like, raised in the wild, as it were. He's surrounded by people who respect him sufficiently.

01:13:08
Case
Even the weirdness with him having this kind of relationship with Helen Elbow and Carter is like a thing that isn't in the previous movie, because they have literal species divides that keep them from responding to each other in that way.

01:13:21
Sam
Right.

01:13:21
Case
That isolation is very important to the story of Taylor. Like, he is a misanthrope who has shown how far he can be pushed to love humanity again and at the same time curse them and see their faults. And I don't think that at any point in this movie, Mark Wahlberg looks at the apes and sees all the faults of humanity in front of him. That never happens. He is never pushed to the brink. And the original Planet of the Apes is an endurance challenge. Taylor is pushed so goddamn far even before you get to him getting captured by the apes in the first place. And then he is stripped of his voice, he is stripped of his clothes. He is covered in fleas. He is, like, hosed down.

01:14:05
Case
There's all this stuff in it that is this horrible experience for him to go through, building up to eventually the last hope that he has, that he's going to carve out a life for himself on this new world, and he finds out it's the exact same world that he left.

01:14:22
Sam
And it's even worse and it's just like, damn know. And I think that's the other thing. There is no point at, like, you're right that Mark Wahlberg sees humanity reflected in the apes, which is like, it's such a big thing for the overarching series, for Planet of the Apes, right? This is just a microcosm of us. If it's not humans doing it will be apes eventually doing it. There is a nihilistic quality to the cycle of destruction within this series, and this movie doesn't embrace any of that. And I'm not saying that they necessarily have to. Right. Because I don't necessarily always prescribe to or subscribe to the fact that I think that everything is nihilistic about the films. Then again, the third film is probably my favorite. And, yeah, let's go have fun until we don't. Until we don't. Until we're very sad.

01:15:34
Case
I don't need it to be nihilistic.

01:15:35
Case
I'm just saying that if you're aping the first one, pun intended, then that is part of the animal there. And if you're looking at the larger franchise, even if you're saying, like, okay, well, this is actually set on a different planet and we're actually dealing with different apes. Or this is sort of its own offshoot situation where the roles are reversed. Say something about the role reversal besides just, hey, isn't it weird that the roles are reversed? Get your stinking paws off, you damn dirty human. Is a fun line to say, but let's explore more of that. How is the roles reversed? What are we doing? And again, they amp up the slavery component of this dynamic here, which is not present with the humans in the first one. They're not slaves because they're not smart enough to be slaves.

01:16:22
Case
It is present in the later movies. So, sure, again, you're aping those features there, but then fucking talk about it. Like you said, uprising movie, do something with it. Do anything with it besides just doing a fantasy story like this movie plays out. Just like a d and D game.

01:16:40
Sam
Yeah. And what's interesting, too, is the other thing that you could have done is, okay, so we are not having silent humans. So then instead of focusing on getting back home, why isn't he focused on equality? There's just no point of view. It's just like you said, it's a cliff notes of just, here's stuff that happened in the planet of the apes and also cool time track, right? I feel like, I don't know, maybe that twist at the end was just so cool that's all that they could think of for this. Because I think what works so much about the first films, and I think Jeff actually says this in the episode we just listened to, is that time travel is not everything. It's just kind of know, kind of like as a device later on for your twist ending.

01:17:59
Sam
It's not the focus of the film. This is not like it. Technically, yes, it's a time travel film, but you didn't know that the entire time you were watching the film, you were on the planet of the apes. You followed an astronaut and his team, for all you knew, to another planet, to a whole other world where things were topsy turvy and people didn't talk, and they were hunted by apes. And that's not how it is at home. And so the whole movie, you're watching this human guy kind of be the fish out of water, not even just, like, lonely and isolated, but out of his depth, right out of his fucking depth in the whole world. And then you find out at the very end it's the future and it's his planet.

01:19:02
Sam
And it was destruction that was wrought upon his planet that brought this about. And you're like, my God, how did that happen? It's New York. What? Right. And you're like, right. But that's it. That's it. That's what it leaves you with. And it's shocking, but it's not what the movie is about. And I think this movie got lost in the idea of the franchise and kind of trying to smoosh it all together.

01:19:34
Case
Right.

01:19:34
Case
And that doesn't work for a movie. Like, there's a Planet of the Apes reference episode of the cartoon Mighty Max. And I'm sorry that this is such a deep pool, but it's where they find a guerrilla civilization in the jungles, and they're surprised that humans could compete with them. And they ride zebras, and it's clearly a planet of the apes homage that worked fine in a 22 minutes cartoon. Like, just being like, oh, can you imagine? We're the ones riding horses, and our civilization is built on us doing these big ape calls across the forest. And here's how our society works, because we're all apes and we're all big and strong, and humans are puny and nothing. Again, 22 minutes. That's fine. 90 minutes, full movie. You need to say something.

01:20:22
Case
Otherwise, again, this is just like an adventure movie in a fantasy setting, which.

01:20:26
Sam
Would be a little more fine if the main character wasn't a blinks right. And if it wasn't a Planet of the Apes film, because I feel like if you are a fan of the franchise, you expect Planet of the Apes to say something because it always has said something. And listen, I like adventure films. I think there's something to be said for fun, like, let's just go on an adventure and do kooky things. But it only works if your main character is likable and something like, not a blank slate.

01:21:10
Case
Right? This feels like a Gulliver's travel kind of mold kind of adventure.

01:21:15
Sam
I hate Gulliver's travel. I just want you guys to know that.

01:21:19
Case
But my point was that each of the places that Gullivers goes to is clearly a commentary on british society.

01:21:27
Sam
Right?

01:21:28
Case
If you look at compare this with, like, lion the witch in the wardrobe, there's stuff going on there. Now, some of the stuff going on there is talking about faith and religion, but at least there's stuff going on there in this whole, like, we've got people going off to this other adventure world, and there's some faith and religion conversation in this movie. But aside from it being like, look at these superstitious apes. They're so silly for worshipping their ancestor, who they lionize and whatnot, well, you could make that a bigger point right now. It's just kind of played for, like, look how silly the apes are. They think that they're on top when actually this is just like.

01:22:06
Case
This feels.

01:22:07
Case
Like a world in a bottle that some sort of petri dish kind of scenario universe that sort of rose up and rose up wrong, but build more nothing that they're not doing anything that's that absurd. And they're in a position where they're powerful and strong and all that. But if you had this whole thing where they were really mean to people on purpose because their faith demands, like, you could actually make a whole case about that.

01:22:35
Case
But again, this movie just doesn't really.

01:22:37
Case
Want to make a point. It just wants to be like Mark Wahlberg and a pretty girl are going to run in the woods and he's going to maybe make out with ape version of my wife. Like me being Tim Burton in this scenario, for sure.

01:22:52
Sam
I think we all got that. Your personal wife is safe. Tim Burton's wife is going to be dressed up as an ape and make out with no, if anyone in this.

01:23:02
Case
Relationship is going to be dressed up.

01:23:04
Case
As an ape, it's going to be me. Let's be.

01:23:11
Sam
There's just no getting around that. It's as if they wanted to play it so safe because they wanted to make sure that it would be, like, hit all the demographics without really challenging anything. And that just doesn't work for a plan of the apes film.

01:23:30
Geoff
Yeah.

01:23:33
Sam
I actually think that there is a little bit of cowardice in this remake.

01:23:38
Case
I think that's fair.

01:23:40
Sam
Yeah, I think that is its main fault. I think it wanted to be reminiscent of the original films without taking any of the stances that the original films took, whether it be anti nuclear weapons or high grade weapons, guns, equality, systematic racism, any of those things that the original films specifically challenged. Uprisings, riots, things like that. This film stayed carefully away for the most part and just kind of lived in a kind of pretty package with amazing effects and wonderful makeup and some very immature humor. And that's kind of where it lived in trying to just be a blockbuster, but basically just a shell of what the actual franchise has always tried to be.

01:24:56
Case
Yeah, I think that's why this movie is so disappointing. Getting back to the whole, like, this movie is the first movie that really. I felt lied to by the commercials. I was so excited for this movie. And then you see the actual movie that they put out, and it's kind of lazy and it's kind of playing it safe and it's kind of just incoherent and trying to get by on the amazing special effects and the fact that there is a good cast, even though the cast isn't really given much to work with. And it ends up with this movie that had the potential to have so many messages, like the fucking gun message. Jesus Christ, you have Charlton Heston and there's this whole thing. And the endpoint of this movie is just like, yeah, guns are pretty dangerous.

01:25:47
Case
It's pretty lucky that I've got mine.

01:25:51
Sam
Again, just 1000% just cowardice on the whole front.

01:26:01
Case
So, look, we talked about this movie probably every single episode of the five movie marathon that we did leading up from episode 146.

01:26:10
Sam
At least once. It was referenced at least once.

01:26:12
Case
Yeah, well, every single time we talked about, like, a ranking. So we at least had that discussion and every one of our guests wanted to talk about it because it's so disappointing for everyone. So I don't know how much more I have to say about this particular Planet of the Apes movie. It's tied for worse.

01:26:26
Sam
I think we're good.

01:26:28
Case
And it's.

01:26:29
Case
Because it is so disappointing. Even though, damn it sounds good, it looks good, it's got a great cast, or at least a fine, like, whatever you want to say about Mark Wahlberg or Warren, like, everyone else, is like, oh, those are amazing choices for every other part in this.

01:26:46
Sam
Yeah, Michael Klagderkin is awesome in this film, but neither here nor there.

01:26:51
Case
And we talked about this when we did the five movie marathon. This is like the one time that you could have gotten away with Michael Clark Duncan playing a gorilla in a movie because a few years later, people would have been like, is that cool? And a few years earlier, people would.

01:27:04
Case
Have been like, is that.

01:27:07
Sam
Yeah, for sure. This is the pocket in time.

01:27:10
Case
This is that one tiny little sliver where we're like, no, we're all on board here. No one is being racist. It is fine. But there certainly would be conversations about that later and conversations before and fuck, man, I'm not trying to lean into it, but God damn it, was he born to play that part? He's so goddamn good and scary when he shouts to everyone to bow their heads and so forth, like, fuck.

01:27:34
Sam
Oh, for. Yeah, absolutely.

01:27:36
Case
He's, he's really know, such a loss as an. Yeah, so I like your idea, Sam, of having, like, well, what if we had a big, manly man who just got his ass whooped? That would be kind of fun to be.

01:27:53
Sam
You know, because we do eventually get, like, a nerdy scientist when know, head towards the indie circus stuff. So we do kind of get that take of it. So I would have liked to see if we're going to really lean into this. Fuck Wahlberg, go manlier. Let's go real. Let's challenge the idea of, like, I hate this phrase, but the alpha male, let's challenge that. And kind of like, I'm going to.

01:28:26
Case
Be honest, even Wahlberg would be fine if you leaned into it for one. Like, just tell him, get as ripped as you can get his pain and gain level of ripped, and just lean into that and play up him being so goddamn manly and then have him get bitch lapped by a tiny little chimpanzee.

01:28:44
Case
Just do it.

01:28:46
Sam
Yeah. Honestly, I don't know. I just feel like if this movie had anything to say, it would be interesting. And if it was like, a movie like, that just feels like somehow like a Charlton Heston meta project where it's like a Charlton Heston project inside of a Charlton Heston project created by a whole new, you know, spartacus was a then, you know, I think there'd be something really, you, even if you have the freaking, like, as the roman empire running the gladiators and humans are fighting each other, I think that'd be interesting, too.

01:29:34
Case
Yeah.

01:29:34
Sam
And have an uprising film for that.

01:29:37
Case
Yeah. I mean, there's so much you could have done.

01:29:42
Case
You know what?

01:29:43
Case
Fuck, take mark Wahlberg and have him play the part. You know, that could have been fine.

01:29:48
Sam
But it's just, that's what a Spartacus. You take Spartacus and then you basically make the apes the roman empire because there's plenty, know, political and religious intrigue there. And you have humans fight each other. You have mark wahlberg basically be Spartacus. You basically take these two crazy films and then you can still have humans have rudimentary ability to speak, right? Because now it's a different kind of structure of slavery and battling and chattel and things like that. And it can still be the planet of the apes, right? This is just the new way the apes are keeping the humans in line. Now you are our entertainment. You could even have some poor, lowly, weak humans get in the arena like early christians and feed them to other animals.

01:30:56
Sam
Honestly, I just wish that they had leaned into the idea of embracing classic film and pulp for this remake if you weren't really going to include or if you weren't really going to properly do the old lore properly, because it.

01:31:16
Case
Could be a big, fantastical world if this was like a john Carter of Mars type situation. I mean, I guess john Carter of.

01:31:22
Sam
Mars is a great movie. It has flaws, but I love it.

01:31:26
Case
I can't wait for us to get to that movie because that one I can't wait for us to talk about on here because that was the round robin episode. So I actually wasn't on that episode that we did of another pass. So that's going to be finally my chance to really do that episode. And that's coming up, guys. That's coming up soon.

01:31:42
Sam
Cannot wait.

01:31:43
Case
But I can't wait for that.

01:31:44
Case
I can wait for this to be over because, look, I can keep getting angry about this movie, or I can accept the fact that, hey, there's another cool ass looking planet of the Apes movie coming out in like, three months. I am so excited for that. I love the circus movies. I love the originals. This one's just tied for worst. And you know what? I'm going to just say it. Battle has, through grit and gumption, etched its way into not the worst spot. So this is tied with beneath. And it takes a lot of work for battle to be just flat out. I think it's a better movie.

01:32:21
Sam
Yeah, I agree with you. I actually really enjoyed battle more than I thought I would when we rewatched it. So, yeah, I'm with you on the ranking.

01:32:31
Case
Yeah, so, yeah, it doesn't really change anything there. I feel like this was a really good episode. Sam, I'm glad that you had a chance to kind of share some thoughts about it, but.

01:32:41
Case
Yeah.

01:32:44
Sam
And thank you, Jeff, for your original thoughts.

01:32:46
Case
Yes, Jeff, thank you. We love you, even though you're not the editor on this episode. So you will be hearing this as a regular episode and not as the editor. But, yeah, I mean, we'll. We'll be back next time with. We're actually doing.

01:33:00
Case
We have.

01:33:01
Case
Our next fifth episode is coming up on the main show. So that's going to be episode 160, where we talk about Batman, the oath, which is a Batman fan film that I actually was a producer on and I helped out on. So we have the director, Johnny Kay coming on for that one. So that's in the can. I'm excited for that to come out. We've got more cool episodes coming up, but I am really glad to be revisiting these. This one felt the most repetitive just because we just spent so much time talking about the Planet of the Apes.

01:33:34
Sam
At least we had a fresh frame of reference for everything.

01:33:40
Case
So, Sam, thank you for joining me for this one.

01:33:42
Sam
Yeah, absolutely. It was my pleasure to not rewatch this film but still be able to talk about it.

01:33:48
Case
We'll be back in a couple of weeks with a full ass episode, and a couple of weeks after that, we'll be back with the next another pass at another pass episode. The next another pass at another pass episode is going to be the Dark Knight rises, which is one of the first ones we recorded.

01:34:01
Sam
Amazing. I cannot wait. You said first one, sound quality. Very interested to hear.

01:34:11
Case
It's going to be actually pretty good overall because it was in the CPOV studio with Ben and Addie.

01:34:16
Sam
Okay.

01:34:17
Case
So quality is pretty good. There's going to be stuff where we can't cut it out because we're all in the same room together. But overall, I think that's going to be fine. I'm going to cavetch about that movie. A lot in it because I was left burned by the Dark Knight rises.

01:34:31
Case
So. Yeah.

01:34:34
Case
Can't wait to revisit that one.

01:34:36
Sam
We'll see. I cannot wait. I cannot wait. It's going to be hilarious.

01:34:40
Case
Yeah. But, yeah. Until next time.

01:34:45
Sam
Until next time. Pass it on, guys.

01:34:51
Case
All right, Jose, let's go through our.

01:34:52
Geoff
New comic day stack.

01:34:53
Case
We have a lot to review. I know. Maybe we've gone too far.

01:34:57
Geoff
Let's see.

01:34:58
Case
Marvel, of course. DC. I got image.

01:35:02
Geoff
Dark horse, black mask.

01:35:04
Case
Boom.

01:35:04
Case
Idw.

01:35:05
Geoff
Aftershock vault, of course.

01:35:07
Case
Mad cave Oni, valiant scout, magma behemoth.

01:35:14
Geoff
Wow, that's a lot. All we need now is a name for our show.

01:35:18
Case
We need a name for a show.

01:35:19
Geoff
About reviewing comic books every week. Something clever, but not too clever.

01:35:24
Case
Like a pun. It's kind of cheesy. Yeah, something that seems funny at first.

01:35:29
Case
But we might regret later on as an impulsive decision.

01:35:31
Geoff
A few dozen episodes in. Yeah, we'll think of something.

01:35:34
Case
Join Keith and Oats way for we have issue, the weekly show reviewing almost.

01:35:37
Case
Every new comic released each week, available.

01:35:40
Case
On Geek Elite media and wherever you.

01:35:41
Case
Listen to your podcasts.

01:35:49
Case
Cool. That was a bad ape. I can do so much better, and I'm just running out of breath. Cpov certainpov.com close.