And I guess I'm bugged that, despite what the manipulation of the trailers let me to assume, there's no violent battle or attempted overthrow of society by the apes. Their aims are pretty peaceful, only seeking to escape to sweet nature, and only being violent on the defensive. Bah. Kind of revisionary on the p.c. side, and I'm not really pleased with that. Seems from the ending that man was wiped out by the coincidentally-same lab's virus, and the smart apes just happened to be hanging out in the woods ready to take over when everyone died out. Pfft. Lame. But I suppose the sequels will tell for sure how this series intends the tale to play out ... and maybe by the third film, we'll have the story that's itching to be told. #StarWarsPrequelSyndrome

I'm glad they didn't have the apes themselves overthrowing human society as there is no way that could be written so as not to be incredibly stupid (unless, I guess, Caesar went out and invented the virus).

My disappointment: Not one of them sounded like Roddy McDowall.

Still, I would like if (and it still may go this way) there were a violent rebellion by the apes, and not simply an escape to the redwoods. Maybe this should have played off old titles and have gone by the name "Escape by the Planet of the Apes." As it is, I really didn't see the "Rise of the Planet of the Apes," but merely the rise of the circumstances that could one day give rise to the Planet of the Apes!

The relatively small army of apes at the end of Conquest could not by any means have taken over the country/world either. By the way, I got the Blu-ray set of the Apes films, and it includes the original, much harsher ending to Conquest. It's way better than the last-minute "nice guy" Caesar in the theatrical re-edit. This alone was worth the price of the set.

I was just saying to Lani that I liked that they didn't slap the audience in the face explaining that the virus would go on to decimate humanity making room for the apes, when the coda in the credits began to do just that (though not as explicitly as it could have).

1. The chimpanzees in general seemed to be too tall. I know Caesar slowly became more erect as the movie went on, but in general they were all way too tall. A full grown adult chimp is about 4 feet tall when standing erect. Caesar was almost as tall as James Franco in a couple scenes.

2. Too many apes? Yes, when the girlfriends visited one of them said something about there being a couple hundred of them, but that is never otherwise indicated.

3. Capacity to learn does not equal knowledge. Capacity for language does not mean you have a language. Yet Caesar was apparently able to convey to the other group of apes "Hey, go to the San Francisco Zoo, these are the directions from San Bruno, break out the apes, and then we'll meet up at the Golden Gate Bridge" very shortly after they found their new found intelligence. Similarly, they all learned combat tactics pretty quickly.

4. Even the unexposed apes got smarter just by being with the exposed apes. The apes escaping from the San Francisco Zoo were seen grabbing spears on their way out of the exhibit.

5. I don't really blame movies for this since it is a necessary reality but over familiarity with Bay Area geography will cause issues. You can't see the Golden Gate Bridge from San Bruno, you can't get a phalanx of mounted police to the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge in 5 minutes, and most of all you can't EVER go to that part of Muir Woods and be alone.

6. Humans never really reacted in a realistic way to the apes regardless of the conditions. Draco decided to take on a chimpanzee in an open space with just a cattle prod? It doesn't take an enriched chimp to imagine him suffering the consequences of that. A mounted police officer charges a gorilla with just his baton? Hikers encounter a six foot gorilla in Muir Woods and their response is "huh, is that a chimp?"

7. It felt a little off that throughout the movie Franco's relationship with Caesar never seemed to cause him even a moment's twinge about the ethics of animal (or at least chimpanzee) testing.