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Pretty amazing how you accept everything in Prometheus at face value, but nit pick POTA's to death! 
TOuche!
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We could easily re-title the thread 'Inconsistencies on the Planet of the Apes'!
Back in the 70s I loved the Apes movies. Escape was the first one I saw on release, missed Conquest (too young for the certificate I think) and then Battle. When the tv series did fantastically well in the UK, despite disappearing without trace in it's home country, they pressed the movies into double bill action, so I managed to see the first two.
Then Marvel started their comic books. I got the British weekly, and a couple of the US magazines including Issue 1, long since gone.
Was disappointed in the Burton remake, which I thought added little, and the future Mrs Burton's make-up, and worst of all didn't feel like a genuine Burton movie. The property didn't feel 'Burtonised' (an actual word in the UK meaning water made suitable for brewing with!!) enough.
The recent revamp of the series looks interesting, and as they must they seem to be going their own way, the first being far more enjoyable than Tim's 're-imagining'.
So now I have the lovely Blu-ray set. No, didn't bother with any of these ape head releases, just the movies, with the intention of showing the family how good the films were back in the day........... and got as far as Beneath. Daughter left home in the meantime so there's a project left incomplete.
BUT!! Yes, as a series sloppiness doesn't even begin to cover the inconsistencies. I've always likened this to the same thing with the old Universal Frankenstein series. As we have said these things aren't meant to be seen altogether. And in times past the film companies didn't care whether the few who really liked them would keep up with the details. These people were simply cashing in, flogging an ever dying horse for what money was left.
Apes ended up animated on tv, and the poor Frankenstein Monster was the butt of Abbott and Costello before finally becoming the star of a tv sitcom!! What more evidence needed that the money men only see these properties as cash-cows?
Fun though innit? And more importantly lest we forget about being on or off-topic, some great music was produced throughout BOTH franchises. Career bests for Waxman and Goldsmith for starters!!
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Hey Rory -- per our discussion in the PROMETHEUS thread, maybe you'd find this interesting?
Yeah, I've been here before, but doesn't this thread belong on "the other side"?
Surely all it takes is mentioning the music to this stuff to qualify? Like I said Goldsmith created a career best score for Planet of the Apes, and though I wasn't the greatest fan of the Burton remake I was pleasantly surprised recently by an impressive performance of Danny Elfman's Main Title during two concerts in his recent tour.
Even the ill-fated tv series had a theme that didn't stray very far from that percussion led dissonance, created by Goldsmith, no?
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Posted: |
Nov 2, 2013 - 10:23 AM
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By: |
Thor
(Member)
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Hey Rory -- per our discussion in the PROMETHEUS thread, maybe you'd find this interesting?
Yeah, I've been here before, but doesn't this thread belong on "the other side"?
True, but when I did this thread back in 2001, there was no division into on-topic and off-topic.
I agree with you that Burton's remake was rather bad. The story had more holes than a swiss cheese and Marky Mark is rather lame. Still, there were several great features -- production design/photography, music (obviously), Tim Roth, make-up. I can enjoy it for those features alone.
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Posted: |
Nov 2, 2013 - 10:49 AM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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I agree with you that Burton's remake was rather bad. The story had more holes than a swiss cheese and Marky Mark is rather lame. Still, there were several great features -- production design/photography, music (obviously), Tim Roth, make-up. I can enjoy it for those features alone.
I thought the make-up ran hot and cold. Some of the apes looked good, others looked terrible -- and I'm not just talking about the female chimps. Rick Baker can be seen in an early pan across Ape City, and I thought his make-up for himself looked awful. The whole production was just too rushed. Remember, the industry was up against a threatened writer's strike, so Fox wanted it done and done. Nearly everyone thought Tim Burton was the right guy to direct it, but I think he was all wrong. I don't think he had a good handle on what made the original movie work and the end result proves it, but I also think Burton just did it for the money. In fact, I think everyone just did it for the money, including, almost unforgivably, Dick Zanuck. The entire enterprise reeked of craven money chasing, but that's how it all started back when those two hack producers were working with Oliver Stone on NATURAL BORN KILLERS and proposed the idea in a meeting with Fox, saying, "Think of the action figures with McDonald's Happy Meals," then roped poor Stone into it. (He had little repect for even the original movie.) It's one of Hollywoods most infamous stories. And has anyone here ever read the Terry Hayes script from back then? Bloody awful. The whole project was doomed from the start, but don't tell Tom Rothman that -- it made over $300 million and remains the largest grossing APES film. I just hope DAWN OF THE POTA turns out well, but the modern Fox being what it is... "Lawgiver, who knows about the future?"
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Didn't Tim have it given as an apology over his collapsed Superman Reborn project? So maybe even HIS heart wasn't quite in it. I don't know anyone who bought his explanation of it being a "re-imagining", a phrase which is probably more famous than the movie. Either way, it is poor. Apart from being a poor Apes film, it doesn't quite satisfy as a Burton film, with very little of what we expect from a fully Burton flavored movie.
And yes, I had the soundtrack lent to me and never got through it all. Obviously a live performance improved matters, but hardly an iconic film for either director or composer. Even geniuses have their off days.
Agree about the better make-ups, especially the chimp. Others, like Helena Bonham Carter's were less impressive.
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Posted: |
Nov 3, 2013 - 7:08 AM
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By: |
jkannry
(Member)
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Thor, your basic observations of the inconsistencies are correct. The reason I haven't chimed in before is because point-for-point, I can't really argue. A few years ago, I watched all the films back-to-back with an interested friend, and we noticed the same things. We began to wonder if, perhaps, each individual picture is SUPPOSED to be inconsistent. The sequels were written by the great Paul Dehn, who certainly knew what he was doing from a craftsman's point of view. Even the first inconsistency, changing BENEATH's time-frame from 3978 to 3955, throws a wrench into the works. And, I rather think, a deliberate one. One of Dehn's running themes throughout the sequels (alas, he did not fully script the dismal fifth film) was the mutability of time, the idea that the future can be changed. The whole concept of time travel is so dodgy anyway, the possible permutations are endless. One could argue, persuasively I think, that EACH of the films operates in a SEPARATE time frame. But I will have to think about this some more. (One thought: certainly when Cornelius is discussing Aldo, the first ape to say "no," and when Dehn puts Aldo in CONQUEST, but gives Caesar all the action, I have no doubt he was up to something very specific. Again, I'll think some more.)
I always thought 3978 vs 3955 was to show ship chronometers not Swiss clocks. Also to create some suspense if Brent would find Taylor.
As for landing in same spot had pet theory. Whatever world these ships came from had incredible tracking and trajectory systems. Think light years and landing close together or in escape 3000 miles away. This is why their cities wet so destroyed. These people didn't miss.
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So where does the tv series fit in? Complete remake? And why did it bomb so quickly in the US but do great business in the UK? I remember Mark Lenard being pretty good, and of course Roddy McDowell.
Best part of all this was wandering through Barnsley (South Yorkshire, England) market, on a Saturday afternoon with some feller carrying a load of glove puupets yelling " Galens, Galens, come and get yer Galens!"
What would Roddy say?
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Posted: |
Nov 3, 2013 - 10:16 AM
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By: |
RoryR
(Member)
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Best tying together is book timeline of the planet of the apes Paul Handley
I don't go with this tying it all together stuff. The film series happened because Fox needed $$$$ badly in the early seventies, and the APES movies were almost guaranteed to make a profit (and they did!). When a film as bad as BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES turns a profit, craven studio execs take notice. Fox wanted a sixth APES film even before BATTLE opened. Producer Arthur Jacobs said, "I'm done," and sold the rights to Fox. Fox pitched an APES series to CBS, but the network wasn't interested, then they broadcast the first three movies in the fall of 1973. The ratings were huge and now CBS saw the $$$$ potential. (Oh, that human greed!) The TV series was rushed into production and, of course, it was ill-conceived and poorly handled. It died an early death, and I contend, to quote Dr. Zaius from the first film, "deservedly so."
But as to tying all the APES stuff into one universe, or timeline.... please, don't torture yourself. I've been a member of the "pota" Yahoo group for over ten years and I've had to endure some really crazy convoluted scenarios on how it all fits together, and it simply doesn't and it can't. POTA is soft Science Fiction, meaning it's more fantasy than scientifically plausible. None of the writers on it, not even Rod Serling, were true Science Fiction writers (though some true SF authors did the novelizations -- and they're better than the original scripts!), so there's a lot of suspension of disbelief required. Roddy McDowall was asked about this question of the APES series inconsistencies before his death and he just laughed. An old movie fan too, he just asked, how many times did the Frankenstein Monster, or Dracula, or the Wolf Man get destroyed in the old Universal series only to return without explanation for the next entry? You're not supposed to ask or even think about it. The studio's need for more $$$$ brings them back.
The way this old APES fan (me) deals with it is to just think of all the entries in the franchise, the original film series, TV show, remake and reboot, as different planets circling the same sun... and then forget about it.
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Posted: |
Nov 3, 2013 - 11:05 AM
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By: |
jkannry
(Member)
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Best tying together is book timeline of the planet of the apes Paul Handley
But as to tying all the APES stuff into one universe, or timeline.... please, don't torture yourself. I've been a member of the "pota" Yahoo group for over ten years and I've had to endure some really crazy convoluted scenarios on how it all fits together, and it simply doesn't and it can't. POTA is soft Science Fiction, meaning it's more fantasy than scientifically plausible. None of the writers on it, not even Rod Serling, were true Science Fiction writers (though some true SF authors did the novelizations -- and they're better than the original scripts!), so there's a lot of suspension of disbelief required. Roddy McDowall was asked about this question of the APES series inconsistencies before his death and he just laughed.
The way this old APES fan (me) deals with it is to just think of all the entries in the franchise, the original film series, TV show, remake and reboot, as different planets circling the same sun... and then forget about it.
Marvel comic magazine version postulated 3 separate universe with one for poa, one for beneath, and one for last three old movies. They explained it as perhaps Hasslein's changing time lanes.
One could argue for sloppiness with 3955 vs 3978, ansa vs nasa etc
I'm an old apes fan too. From SciFi to comic books to religion people spend their time trying to explain the inconsistencies. Many of us me included find it fun and stimulating as life itself is inconsistent. It's too easy and rational to say different writers move on. Respectfully as one old time fan to another I disagree in trying not to explain it.
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