Miscellaneous Movie Musings the Sequel

[Alex]

I know they will, but I would prefer that they not do any sequels further bridging this movie to the first Planet of the Apes movie. This one explained the alpha, that explains the omega. The middle is just needless expository.

Along the same lines

Spoiler:

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).

Some other spoilers with my quibbles about the movie, just to express them (because the movie was entertaining they don't really bother me):

Spoiler:

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.