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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - 03/17/2009 : 12:00:31 AM
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Everyone has seen Planet of the Apes, so there's no need for rehash. Besides, this first sequel does more than enough.
The Behind the Planet of the Apes documentary DVD goes into fair detail about how Beneath came to be. A short recap of that:
Associate Producer Mort Abrahams was incredulous when Fox insisted on a sequel. He saw the original as a political film, and hence, “There's nowhere else to go!” As a political film, this was correct. The movie had said its piece, so there was nothing left for it. But as a narrative, there was everywhere to go. Surely Taylor didn't just curl into the fetal position and let the tide wash him out. He must've gotten on with whatever he was doing. The original's co-writers, Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle, submitted many potential scripts, all of which were rejected as “not providing enough visual shocks.” Abrahams turned to Paul Dehn, writer of The Man Who Came In From the Cold and Goldfinger. Dehn gets writing credit for Beneath, while Abrahams get Associate Producer. With the original's director, Frank Schaffler, busy directing Patton, Ted Post was brought in. Post almost walked away from the project when he learned that Charlton Heston had no interest in doing a sequel. Heston felt that a sequel would only make a joke of the original and probably didn't want to be typecasted, either (incidentally, right after Planet of the Apes, he starred in a Western called Will Penny. That movie is, IMO, one of the most unjustly overlooked Westerns ever).
But since Heston was friendly with the producers, knew that they needed a sequel, and knew that a sequel wouldn't happen without him, he agreed to make an extended cameo. He was so laid-back about it that he didn't even bother negotiating a salary. He took the first offer given and donated it to charity. So it really was a favor on his part.
In addition, Roddy McDowell was also unavailable, as he was directing a movie in England. A replacement actor was found to play the role of Cornelius, and the result was just fine. But the absence of Heston meant some detrimental script revision had to be done. Because the introduction of a new main character naturally necessitated that that new character needed to be introduced to the setting; which in turn meant that the audience would need to be re-introduced to the setting. This would be the single biggest flaw in the movie, and not the only one, either.
Still, the movie would also take an on-a-dime 90-degree turn straight into weirdness. And the results in that aspect are not displeasing.
Ready? Here we go.
We open with waves breaking against the shore, obviously the scene of the conclusion of the original.
About three minutes of the finale of the original, with the opening credits running as we watch Taylor and his mute squeeze Nova on horseback ride towards an unhappy surprise. For some reason, Heston's credit is tiny. I don't know why. After damning everyone to hell, Taylor and Nova gallop across desert and more desert and even more desert. Makes sense, because towards the end of the original, Taylor did tell Cornelius that he was going to try for a jungle that Dr. Zaius believed was on the other side of the Forbidden Zone. That must be where he's going now. The soundtrack is mildly annoying. For eerie ambiance, we hear muted percussion behind various brass pieces taking turns cresendoing and decrescendoing. I can see what Leonard Rosenman (who also did the music for Battle for the PotA) was going for, but the brass is a bit blarey. And do you remember in my Alien3 review when I mentioned that it was odd that there was an Ominous Note when the director's credit was shown? This movie doubles down on that by giving us a Shock Sting for both the producer (Arthur P. Jacobs, who produced all of the PotAs), and director Ted Post. It's a little bit of a kick.
Fade on the horse's retreating ass. Fade in to a wrecked spaceship in what looks to be the same desert. From out of the ship pops an astronaut. You can almost hear a PA announcer saying, “Your attention, please. Pinch-hitting for Charlton Heston,...James...Franciscus.”
James Franciscus was, as Linda Harrison tells us with a hint of a smile, “a smaller Charlton Heston.” I would say “ouch,” but Franciscus had already died years before she said that. Other review sites describe him as “a poor man's Charlton Heston,” but that's not quite true either. He was a reasonably successful TV actor who kept busy with guest appearances on The Twilight Zone and the title role of Mr. Novak. So he wasn't cheap, he wasn't unknown, and he wasn't unlikable. And he's not bad, either. Granted, his later career until his death in 1991 wasn't very lucky, with schlock like City On Fire, The Last Shark, When Time Ran Out, and Killer Fish, although he did play JFK in two different TV productions, so he obviously wasn't unattractive, either.
Bonus fun fact: Football fans, have you heard of the infamous Heidi Game? Franciscus was the producer of Heidi! **chuckle of amazement** The s**t you learn on online, I swear!
Still, he is so obviously cut from the Heston mold that the movie must want us to know it. It's similar to Star Trek VI, where Kim Catrall is obviously pinch-hitting for Kirstie Alley, only worse. Because in the case of Trek, simply substitute “Valeris” with “Saavik,” and the script is the same. Here, that's not so. With Heston, the movie could pick up right where the original left off. With a pinch-hitter, this movie now has to spend time showing us stuff we've already seen before.
Franciscus' character is named “Brent.” I don't know if that's a first or last name, and I find it odd that last-name Taylor refers to himself as Taylor rather than using his first name. A little disc-swapping revealed that it wasn't until Escape... that we find out that Taylor is indeed his last name, not his first (“Did you know Colonel Taylor?”).
Brent's captain, who is never given a name, is laid out by the wreckage. Blind and half-delirious, he takes the news of their leaping 2,000 years into the future in morbid awe. Mmm....this may or may not be quite right. In the intro of the original, Taylor spoke as if traveling through a time distortion was the idea all along. He never says it in plain English, but that's the implication. So if Brent and the captain are following Taylor, which we later find is precisely what they're doing, then shouldn't they be expecting to be thrust through time? **shrug** Maybe I was reading Taylor wrong, and the time travel was accidental, and Taylor didn't it that much. Given how gleeful he was at his companions unhappiness, that's not hard to believe, either.
There's also a continuity error here. Brent says that they've arrived in the year 3955, but in the original, the year was 3978. I can't see a narrative reason why the year would be changed on purpose, so my bet is a careless error. The remaining three sequels will all stick with 3955.
Despite Brent's survival-minded optimism (“We're alive, we've got plenty of oxygen, water...we're gonna be all right”), the captain lapses into what turns out the be death, as we fade to Brent finishing his burial. Or more precisely, heaping a bunch of dirt onto the captain, as he's not actually IN the ground, he's a mound covered in dirt. Can't fault Brent for that. Given the situation, it was a huge courtesy that Brent went to all the sweaty trouble in the middle of a desert on a hot sunny day to give his captain some dignity in death.
Resting after the toil, Brent hears the unmistakable sound of a horse neighing. Atop a distant sand dune, the horse appears, and its rider is Nova! Implausible that Brent just happened crash his ship that close to Taylor's area, but what's the alternative? Have him get captured by Chinese apes and a montage of him sailing by wooden ship across the ocean, after having shouted “You blew it up!” in Mandarin upon seeing the wreckage of the Great Wall?
Brent tries to communicate with Nova (Who are you? Where am I?, etc.), but Nova of course understands none of it. She sits there on the horse with a nicely done look of simultaneous incomprehension and curiosity. The movie never says, but I get the sense that she sticks around because she's not sure that Brent isn't actually Taylor. In her animal mind, it would be easy to mistake the former for the latter.
Brent notices the military dogtag that Nova carries, and when he sees that it's Taylor's, he gets excited about it. Saying his name aloud causes Nova to flashback. Good of Nova to do that for us, because nobody in the audience wanted to see this nOOb. We came to see Taylor. And through this flashback, we do. Taylor is trying unsuccessfully to get Nova to say his name. He playfully gives her his dogtag, which qualifies as a retroactive deus ex machina so Brent could learn that Nova is a link to Taylor. I say retroactive because given the events of the original, it's totally implausible that Taylor would still have his dogtags. The man has had his clothes stolen by humans, found makeshift rags, had those rags ripped off him by apes, then settles for a loincloth for the rest of the movie. How in the world does still have his dogtags? And given their pretty obvious lack of utility, would he even bother hanging onto them even if he had managed to still have them?
Taylor seems to have thoroughly recovered from Statue Shock, because he's back to his usual sarcastic self (he did the same after shouting, “It's a madhouse!” and I thought it totally killed the emotion of that scene).
Galloping on through the desert, Taylor and Nova witness giant walls of flame that spring up out of nowhere, lightning bolts crashing down on a clear day, the earth suddenly splitting apart, and a cliff face appearing where before there was a clear view to the horizon. We witness Charlton Heston with the wind machine (or maybe actual wind, I dunno) blowing his hair straight up and back, and he looks ridiculous!
Realizing that something's not quite right with sheer rock edifices materializing out of nowhere, Taylor dismounts the horse, grabs a rifle, and tells Nova if they get separated then she should go find Zira. ?!? Why on earth would Taylor figure that to be a good idea? Even if Nova did understand (and she doesn't seem to), Taylor is telling her to go back to the place where all the baddies who want to cage her, taxidermize her, vivisect her, and just generally treat her like dirt are hangin' out, and try to find the one who might be kind to her. Ain't buyin' it.
Taylor approaches the rock face, makes to staff it with the butt of his rifle, but vanishes right through the rock! Nova looks on in mute horror, then there's a long shot and a sudden silence as we see....the desolate desert stretching to the horizon. I gotta admit, it's nicely effective! It definitely feels like something eerily bizarre is happening.
Ending the flashback, Brent mounts Nova's horse and tells her to take him to Taylor. They gallop off.
Pip? You're the resident horse expert. If you're reading this, and if you have this movie handy, I'm curious about something: When we see Franciscus riding on this horse from 16:16 to 16:20 and from 16:30 to 16:38, he looks stiff as can be, and my guess is that he wasn't at all comfortable doing this. You likely have an eye for this (I sure don't. I'm terrified of horses), so I'd appreciate your take.
A 20-second bit of riding through desert, scrub, and grasslands, then Brent and Nova finally spot the title characters.
I'll continue either Tuesday or Wednesday. |
Edited by - Food on 03/17/2009 12:19:52 AM
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/17/2009 : 11:25:18 PM
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Brent and Nova have arrived Apeville, where General Ursus (James Gregory) is giving a rousing speech to his soldiers. This speech is interesting, as it reveals that not only will this movie lack the subtlety of the first, but it will also lack the focus of message of the first as well. Too, this scene also introduces cornball stereotypes. Ursus' first words are, “I'll tell you one thing that every good soldier knows: The only thing that counts in the end is powah! Naked merciless force!” That's pretty much the thesis statement of the military's presence in this movie, and it was never even mentioned in the first. The movie probably recognizes it as well, because Ursus goes on to describe that Apeville is now in the grip of famine, and that something is alive in the Forbidden Zone, which has been closed to apes by divine edict for centuries. Reasoning that if these unknown beings are alive, they must have food, Ursus' idea to prevent mass starvation is clear. That's actually a solidly good reason for a military expedition into the unknown lands, and none of the orangs or chimps in the audience object to the claim. But there are two problems: First, we never see any evidence of this famine; and second, the orangs and chimps seem more distressed over this military adventure than about the famine. From this, I would guess that the writers threw that bit it in too keep Ursus from seeming implausibly bellicose, but held off on showing us any evidence of the famine to keep us from sympathizing with him.
He goes on to say, “I am a simple soldier, and as a soldier I see things simply.” Yeah, folks who have experienced combat are so shallow, aren't they? Only cushy folks know how the world really is. Uh-huh.
He gets on the subject of humans. This is where the social commentary of the entire franchise really gets it steam from, even though the analogy is colossally imprecise. He says, “I don't say all humans are evil because their skin is white....”
Hold everything.
The humans in the original were not analogous to black folks. The humans were neither second-class citizens nor slaves. There were animals. Zira twice referred to herself as an animal psychologist, and will refer to herself in this movie as a veterinarian, so the movie knew it, as would Escape..., which would handle modern man's reaction to this inversion with amazing even-handeded. Nor will this movie make the humans to be anything other than animals. So why is this line even in here? Most likely because somebody wanted to seem clever. Ain't workin'. Especially because plenty of the humans in both this and the original have skin that is darker than that of the apes.
Ursus introduces Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans, returning). Zaius has been sitting behind Ursus during the speech, but he doesn't look quite comfortable with it. The gorillas in the audience aren't too thrilled to see him there, but the orangs and chimps are (the immobile pull-over masks that most of the apes are wearing are noticeable). But Zira (Kim Hunter, returning) sarcastically continues clapping for him after everyone else has gone silent. I can see why she does it, but I can't see why the movie expects us to symphathize with her. The shock ending of the original proved that Zaius was right all along and that Zira didn't know what she was talking about. Did this movie expect us to have forgotten that? **shrug** From Zira's reaction, we can infer that Zaius hasn't let her in on what he knows about man's history, although her “What will he find out there, Doctor?” in the first implied that she knew that he knew something that he wasn't sharing. In Escape..., however, both Zira and Cornelius have an imperfect but detailed history of how man fell and apes rose.
Throughout the speech, Zira is appalled at this militance coming from Ursus (well, he is a general, so it's kinda hard to fault him), while Cornelius (David Watson, ably pinch-hitting for Roddy McDowell) implores her with quiet urgency not to call attention to herself. Mmmmm.....Given that march will take them into the Forbidden Zone, which Cornelius has a boner for doing archeological research in, you'd think he'd be totally on board for this, just as a hanger-on to see what there is to see. Zira, too, would have to have some scientific curiousity, because she's already aware of a link between her animal psychology research and Cornelius' archeological research.
Despite Ursus' talk of famine, he switches into full-blown bellicosity for the finale. Kinda strange if there really is a famine, as you'd think that'd be enough to make the sale. Doubly strange when none of the apes have any idea who the opponent is, or if the opponent really is an opponent at all.
So I have to declare this entire scene to be a a mess. But an entertaining mess, because James Gregory seems to be having a blast giving this military pep-talk (“Invade...Invade...Invaaade...INVAAAAAADE!!!!!”) I would be, too.
Out of the apes' sight, Brent is horrified at this. He and Nova make to flee, getting sidetracked to avoid an ape soldier who almost spots them and does shoot Brent in the arm. A throwaway scene.
Cut to an ape steam bath! There's no way the makers could've been expecting us not to laugh at this. Ursus and Dr. Zaius are in full-body fur suits that look like exactly that. Zaius is openly worried about Ursus' plans, despite Ursus' believably stated conviction that the choice is either to invade or to starve. Further, Ursus believes that whatever lives in the Forbidden Zone must be hostile, as 11 of his best scouts were sent in and vanished without a trace, with one survivor insanely describing huge walls of fire. I gotta say, I'm not disliking Ursus. The scene ends on a stupid note when Ursus asks what could be more dangerous than famine, and Zaius answers, “The unknown.”
Huh?
Ok, I suppose that's in character for Zaius; but as a foil for Ursus, who were obviously supposed to dislike, it doesn't make Ursus seem rash, it makes Zaius seem timid. The unknown is not more dangerous than famine, unless we believe that Zaius knows precisely what weapon they're going to find and that's it's going to be used. I'm not on board for it.
I do wonder, though, what's going through Zaius' mind. Zira and Cornelius came a hair's breadth from learning what he wanted hidden, and now the Forbidden Zone is being thrown open to Ursus' army. If Zaius wants the scientific community to buy into the idea of humans as evil incarnate, why not let them in on the secret? It'd be pretty convincing.
Cut to Brent and Nova hiding out in front of Chez Zira. Inside, Zira is going on a rather bigoted and closed-minded rant about how stupid the gorillas are and If It Was Up To Me, etc. Um...if the PotA series is supposed to be racial parable, it's pretty poor form for the ostensible heroine to be bitching about how stupid the darker-skinned member of her species are. As usual, Cornelius is more on the ball. He points out that if scientists had the power the military had, they'd do no better with it. Zira doesn't agree, but her hot-headed hatred of the gorillas is making Cornelius' case pretty effectively.
Brent and Nova take this moment to enter. High time. Zira and Cornelius (Z and C, henceforth) are surprised to see them, mistaking him for Taylor at first. Zira's reaction is to say, with I-Can't-Believe-My-Luck in her voice, that this is only the second time she's ever met a human who could talk. No sweat, but Cornelius' reaction is totally out of character. He says that Taylor was an excellent specimen, and wistfully adds that if it hadn't been for Zira, Taylor would've been taxidermized and placed in a museum “with his two friends.”
Waitaminit.
Cornelius, as an archeologist, didn't seem to have much interest in biological specimens of anything. Further, why is he blaming Zira for Taylor's escape? Cornelius was every bit as complicit in it as she was. Lastly, I would think that Cornelius' memory of Taylor would be inextricably linked to the memory when he got to put his professional archeologist's skills to their fullest use when making his presentation in the cave. He would remember Taylor as the man who helped him push the boundaries of archeological knowledge, coupled with the crashing disappointment that Zaius wouldn't allow it to go any further. Instead, neither Zira nor Cornelius say anything at any time in this movie to indicate that they even remember it.
Brent's reaction to “with his two friends” is a bit of a flub. When Taylor left Earth, he had three. One died on the journey, but of course Brent wouldn't be aware of that. So instead of gaping and husking “with his twoooo frieeendssss,” I'd think he would beginning wondering if the third hadn't escaped as well and may still be around. Still, I do like Brent's sense of urgency here. He quite naturally doesn't want to stick around this place, and he says so. Even when he's just standing there munching an apple, you can sense that he's eager to get going. Props!
Cornelius shows Brent a map and describes Taylor's last known whereabouts while Zira patches up the bullet wound in Brent's arm. A knock at the door sends Brent and Nova into hiding behind a curtain, while Z and C scramble to clean up the place and admit Dr. Zaius. Zaius has come to bitch out Zira. The movie might be trying for dig at domestic violence when Zira attributes her bloody bandage to Cornelius having hit her, which Zaius doesn't seem to find either surprising or displeasing. Zaius tells them that they're on the verge of a grave crisis. He addresses them as “you two psychologists.” No. One is an animal psychologist, the other is an archaeologist. Sloppy! Zaius and Zira agree that Ursus is using the famine as an excuse to go on a rampage of conquest. It would be believable if not for the fact that this “conquest” is, as far as any of them know, nothing more than an armed scouting expedition. As Minister of Science, Zaius feels it his duty to accompany Ursus on the journey for whatever scientific knowledge can be obtained. Cornelius looks thoughtful (he even strokes his chin). Now I think I see why the movie describes Z and C as both psychologists. Because as an archeologist, the first words out of Cornelius' mouth right now should be “Can I come, too?”
Then we get a line that just annoys the piss out of me. Zaius speaks of the need for ape to live in innocence. He asks Zira rhetorically if innocence is so evil. She answers, “Ignorance is!” How hypocritical can you be?!? The shock ending of the first movie proves that Zira is the one who is ignorant. Zaius knows the history. Zaius knew what Taylor would find. Zaius knew what it meant. Zira knew none of it. Then and now, she doesn't know what she's talking about.
Remember in Ken's Rocky IV piece when he said that the sequels sabotaged Adrian's likability? The PotA sequels do the same to Zira. In this one, she's the embodiment of Passion Without Knowledge. [b]Escape... would depict her as not knowing the value of silence, enough that even Cornelius gets infected by it. Am I supposed to be rooting for her?
Wow, this one's gonna be long! I don't mind, though; I'm havin' a blast. I'll continue Thursday or Friday.[/i] |
Edited by - Food on 03/17/2009 11:36:30 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/20/2009 : 12:14:55 AM
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I'm careless. I finished the last chunk without finishing the damn scene. Sloppy!
Zaius tells Z and C that if he doesn't return from the Forbidden Zone, “the whole future of our civilization may be yours to preserve or destroy.” What, did they get promoted after the first film? I could actually buy that if not for the evidence this film has given that nothing much has changed since the first.
Incidentally, the movie never says how much time has passed between films. Towards the end of the first, Taylor requisitions enough food for a week for him and Nova, and in the intro of this one they were galloping across desert. So we can say that Taylor vanished a week or less after leaving the Statue. Nova was likely on her way back when she encountered Brent, so that's no more than another few days. So this movie can't be happening more than a fortnight after the first.
With Zaius gone, Z and C turn their attention back to Brent, who is now even more anxious to flee. Cornelius reminds him to not speak. His warning of what happens otherwise is the most quotable line in the movie, just the way he says it. Call me heretic, but I don't think McDowell could've done that as well.
Brent curtly take his leave. Cut to him changing into smelly rags Zira gave him while Nova watches. Brent is hidden waist-down behind a bush. Hm. Maybe he is a smaller Heston after all. They mount up and move out. They don't get far before their horse is shot out from under them. A half-dozen apes chase them on foot through the lush green grass (famine?) for about a minute, eventually snagging them both and caging them in with a bunch of other humans. It's not terribly exciting, as we don't seen Brent and Nova in the same shot with apes until the point of capture. It's just not that interesting. Especially because we saw all this in the first one.
Cut to Zira's chop shop. I believe this is the same set as from the first. Good stuff. Z and C's home was either a different set or heavily redesigned. Brent and Nova are led in by the gorillas. Zira tries to get them into her care by pretending to marvel at their unique crania, but Ursus overrides her, saying that they've been marked for target practice.
Cut to them being loaded into the paddy wagon. Zira manages to unlock the door so Brent will be able to escape. At 36:41 of a 113-minute movie, this concludes Z and C's interaction with the humans. Kinda sucks.
The paddy wagon gallops off towards the target range. Through the magic of rear-projection, stunt doubles, and a cartoonish but well-done deus ex machina (looked like it hurt!), Brent is able to overpower the gorilla driver and commandeer the wagon. He and Nova ditch the wagon and take off on the horses. Another minute or so of uninteresting horseback chase. As before, we don't see Brent and Nova in the same shot with their ape pursuers, so it never feels like their in any danger. They ditch their horses when the grass gives way to rocky crags, and eventually duck into a hole tucked among the crevices where I suppose the apes can't reach.
Brent immediately gets a weird feeling when the wall of the cave they're in is tiled. He finds a two-millenia-old pay phone, seeming having grown into the thousands of years of dirt and rock. He recognizes it and begins to look sick. He sees a tiled sign reading “Queensboro Plaza” and finds a faded and dirt-caked poster for a New York Summer Festival. Up to now, this scene is well-done. There's no soundtrack, and barely and sound at all. The movie lets Brent take good long looks at everything. I would guess that the movie figures that even though the audience already knows where he is, it still needs to play this as if it's the first time for the audience as much as for Brent. I'm not sure how effective that is, but I appreciate the effort. The little body-quiver Brent does when he drops/throws down the poster is a nice touch, as well. But then Brent goes Heston, only with Whisper Mode on. He gives a Hestonian soliloquy, only he whispers it. He even repeats Heston's “Finally, really did it” line. C'mon movie, give this guy some uniqueness.
Cut to the Ape Chapel, where a priest is praying to God on the eve of what he calls a holy war, but I still maintain is just an armed scouting expedition. Maurice Evans and James Gregory do some good silent acting here, doubly impressive as its through makeup. Zauis, who knows that God's will doesn't have much to do with this, is obviously embaerassed by all this religious pomp, so he sits with elbow on knee and fingers on forehead. He struck the same pose at one point in the trial scene in the first movie. Still, I gotta wonder what happened to his status as Defender of the Faith (I loved that album). This movie has twice referred to him as Minister of Science, but not as Defender of the Faith. If he is still Defender of the Faith, then he likely would have some say over the extent of the church's involvement in Ursus' outing. **shrug** Maybe it's a rotating assignment, I dunno. As for Ursus, he expresses a bit of what I interpret as impatience with all this. It's very nicely done. Instead of striking a pose, he simply keeps making slow glances up at the priest while the rest of the apes keep their heads down.
With the holy pep talk complete, time to march! The first thing we see of the ape army is a battle flag. A more unlikely battle flag you'll never see. They're pink. PINK!!! Pink battle flags! How ridiculous! Z and C watch the army pass by, with Zira bitching some more about Zaius, while Cornelius doesn't hold a grudge against him. Zira, still clueless about the history, gripes that Zauis' only motivation is to keep things they way they are. She wants Change! (Ape technology ain't got teleprompters yet, Zira, sorry). And that, at the 44-minute mark, is the last we'll see of Z and C until Escape.... Might as well have made it a different ape village all together.
On the way through the streets, the army encounters protesters who chant slogans akin to Vietnam War protesters. On the Makin Of DVD, even Roddy McDowell describes it as “obvious.” Even worse than its obviousness is its imprecision within the context of this fictional universe. For three reasons:
1.Chanting “Stop the war*” is all well and good, but when this war is, again, just an armed scouting expedition with no identifiable enemy yet, I'm just not buying it. I guess “Stop the armed scouting expedition” isn't quite as catchy, but I know from having seen numerous student protests (I live 10 miles east of Berkeley) that college kids even when they haven't been drinking can almost f**kin' never keep the chant coherent. Sometimes it's so bad that I have to read the signs to even know what the protest is about, and even then it's not always clear.
2.Even worse, ape civilization is at a technological level far below modern weaponry. The most advanced weapons they have a 18th-century non-breech-loading cannons. So chemical warfare, carpet bombing, and nukes are totally unknown to them. So the worst these protesters can expect is that the gorillas will go into the unknown and not come back. If these apes have the same hostility to soldiers that Berkeley protesters do, I don't see what they would mind that outcome.
3.If they really want to stop the war, the quickest way for that to happen is for the gorillas to go ahead into it, because when the enemy sees the pink battle flags, they'll be laughing too hard to shoot straight, and the gorillas will win in a rout, bringing to war to a swift end.
Short bit tonight. I'll continue Saturday or Saturday. [/i] |
Edited by - Food on 03/20/2009 12:38:09 AM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/21/2009 : 4:29:10 PM
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Back to Brent. He peeks out of his cavern to see that there are gorillas parked right outside. He and Nova hear a hum from deeper within and decide to investigate. At this point, the entire ape civilization drops out of the movie except for a few brief bits. As far as plot goes, it's all Brent and what he's about to encounter from here on in. Into the long-dead railway tunnel they go. Before too long, they find a ladder leading up to a lighted tunnel with clean and new-looking tiles. The humming stops when Brent puts his hands on the ladder. It resumes when he lets go. After doing that twice, Brent concludes that it must be a consciousness causing this, and that it knows they're there. How he's figuring that, I don't know. Into this new tunnel they go, with the hum getting loud enough to be annoying. On the other side of the tunnel is a cavern containing the ruins of the New York Stock Exchange, the New York Public Library, and Radio City Music Hall. These were realized by taking photos of those buildings and simply scissoring them. It's not too bad, but that bus embedded into the rock looks fake and flat. And that hum is starting to drive me nuts. Turn it down, movie!
The humming finally does stop at the ruins of a cathedral whose doors seem to be new. A water fountain suddenly turns on. Brent and Nova drink their fill, until Brent is overcome with a desire to drown Nova in the water while telling himself out loud to drown her. After screaming at the unseen something that possessing him to leave me alone, he staggers through the cathedral doors. The soundtrack has a kind of whooshing sound that made me think he was actually suctioned into the room. Maybe that was the idea, I dunno.
Clearheaded, Brent turns around and goes into the amazed reaction shot that he's already done a half dozen times already. He's at the entrance to a chapel carved out of the rock. These are actually reused sets from Hello Dolly. Halfway up the altar stairs, a robed figure with his back to the camera kneels before.....a nuclear missile! The movie has officially arrived at Bizarreness, and I gotta admit, it's a pretty cool twist! Granted, the very presence of a nuke all but guarantees that there'll be some heavy messaging going on, but it's gonna take a delightfully unexpected form.
Brent's seen enough. Bomb-worshipin' ain't for him, so he makes to leave. Before he can, though, the figure (turning to reveal that he's human) notices him and begins communicating telepathically. This is one of the only times I've ever seen where telepathy is conveyed by a means other than voice-overs. A simple....I guess a ring or a buzz, like a random ringing in your ears that you occasionally get....that kind of sound for less than a second, that's how telepathy is portrayed here. I like it! Brent answers the questions out loud, so the audience doesn't need to hear the exact words being thought at him. We get it.
The conversation only gets as far as Brent realizing that telepathy is happening, when two more humans escort him out. Cut to....the interrogation room, we'll call it. A checkerboard floor with a stone steps on the sides, with five humans (including Victor Buono!) standing on the landing (another Hello Dolly reuse). Telepathically, they “see” Brent being brought to them, shown as sepia-tinted ghost images (what's are those others doing as Brent walks past, playing Ring Around the Rosie?). Brent is finally brought in. Upside-down crosses on the doors, gee that's subtle.
Telepathic introductions are made. Brent swears he's not there to spy on anyone, and that he's looking for Taylor. A ghost image of Taylor appears, denoting that these folks know who Brent's talking out. He tells them that he and Taylor are astronauts from 2,000 years ago. For a moment, they don't seem to buy it. Historical records must've taken a massive hit from the Apocalypse and the passage of time. Believable enough, no sweat. Then Brent tries to feign ignorance about Nova (“Nova? What's that? A star, a galaxy?”). I don't see why he bothers. By now, he's figured out that these folks have mental powers strong enough to be weapons (he did mention to the guy at the bomb that he knows that it was they who tried to make him drown Nova), so what's the point of coming off as less than up-front? You wanna live, right? On the other hand, the fact that they're bothering to ask him anything indicates that they're not full-blown mind-readers. Still, I wouldn't chance it.
The humans see through it and cause Brent to cringe in pain until he admits that yes, he knows her. When he mentions that she helped him break out of Ape City (not quite accurate. She helped him get into Ape City. She was useless when it came to escaping from it), the humans wig out and start flooding him with telepathic questions. He screams at them to stop it because he can't handle it all at once. This is so the movie can dispense with the telepathy bit and switch to ordinary speech. I like it. Again, I like the conveying of telepathy through a simple brief tone, with the spoken answer revealing the gist of the question. So so long, telepathy. You've done well.
The female human asks him if really was among the apes. This is Natalie Trundy, who would appear in all of the sequels, playing a total of three different characters. She was the wife of producer Arthur Jacobs. In Escape..., she was absolutely gorgeous. Today, though, she's ballooned big-time. Brent confirms that he was in Ape City “two days ago.” Mmm...that's a shade implausible. If the humans are only two days on horseback (less if we count the bit where Brent and Nova were crashed out asleep), then it's kinda hard to imagine that the apes and humans haven't had direct clashes already and know all about each other.
The talk turns to the bomb. Brent is appalled that they pray to it. He laughs when they describe it as a “holy weapon of peace,” eliciting the expected result (Brent's kinda slow to pick up, isn't he?). They explain to him that their only weapons against the apes are illusory. The walls of fire and sonic ringing are just illusions. Brent yells at them that the bomb is not an illusion, then somehow figures out that it's operational. I have no idea how he figures, but I guess it's so. He stays defiant, telling the humans that they and the apes can go ahead and annihilate each other as far as he cares.
The humans bring in Nova. Brent pleads with them not to harm her. Natalie Trundy answers, “We never harm anyone, Mr. Brent. You're going to harm her.” Then the humans mind-control him into strangling her again. C.mon, Ms. Trundy. You're splitting hairs and you know it. Good quotable line, though. Brent tries to lie to them again (he never learns, does he?), they see through it, and finally he spills that the apes are on their way and they're bringin' the heavy weaponry.
Cut to the apes marching across the desert. Impressive number of them, no doubt. But look at 1:08:16 to 1:08:20. See the middle of the three rows? Looks kinda ghostly and grayish compared to the other two rows. It's not a biggie, and if it is a composite image, it's skillful, because I can still see their shadows and they look appropriate. **shrug**
Eventually, the apes come across a horrifying site. Hundreds of their fellows crucified naked upside-down while fire burns all around! The fire is annoying. It's just flames superimposed on the image. I'm guessing this was a budget decision. The budget for this movie was markedly less than the first. Dr. Zaius is scared to death. He tells Ursus, “Look what we're faced with, I told you we should wait!”
Hold everything.
Can you imagine if the general American, British, and French public were aware of the Holocaust as it was happening, and the people deciding that the best thing to do was wait? C,mon, Zauis! Ursus, being the buff apely general that he is, has a more appropriate response, although he sounds like he's reading it off of the cue card. This scene also features the first use of the phrase, "Ape shall not kill ape" that became a standard tenet for the rest of the franchise.
The ape ranks begin to panic as a massive statue of the Lawgiver (by massive, I mean 100 feet or so high) appears and begins bleeding from eyes and mouth. Ursus suddenly adopts a vaguely Brooklyn accent when he says, “Da Lawgivah bleeds!” I have no idea what that was about, I really don't. I don't know if it's actually a Brooklyn accent, but that's as close as I can describe. He sounds like the buffoonish bad guy in a Saturday morning cartoon, the kind of guy who says, “Duuuh, okay boss.”
At 1:10:56, look at the left side of the screen. See that ape fall off the horse? I'll bet that was a blooper that someone decided to leave in the film because it fit the context of the situation.
This heresy is enough to get Dr. Zaius all miffed. With righteous fury, he proclaims, “The Spirit of the Lawgiver lives. We are still God's Chosen.....This is a vision!...And it is a lie!” And he rides his horse straight into the flames. Those are effectively stirring words, but when the horse gallops into the flames, the ground is uneven enough that he cannot charge full-speed. It gallops at a brisk trot. That takes away from the force of the words because it's almost as if the horse is expressing a lack of confidence in Zauis' direction.
In the flames, the statue of the Lawgiver collapses onto Zaius in a huge fireball. Apes panic, horses go nuts, pandemonium! But suddenly, it all vanishes. The flames, the Lawgiver, the crucified apes. Zaius is a bit surprised, Ursus is in open-mouthed shock, and the apes freeze in incomprehension. Through close-ups, Ursus gives Zauis a look that says, “I don't know how you figured that out,” and Zauis gives him the calm look of a man who has just emerged from an ordeal that he knew God would see him through.
Then the movie blows it. Zaius simply announces, “The vision was false!” and the march resumes. MOVIE, COME ON!!! In a movie that keeps hammering the point that apes and humans alike rely on religious faith for motivation, and with Dr. Zaius being portrayed far more sympathetically here than in the first film, and with the ape army having just shat their collective pants in panic and needing reassurance, this was an absolutely perfect time for Zaius to give a bit of John Brown-style make-the-f**kers-die speech. And it could've been awesome, it really could've been. But the movie gives us “The vision was false.” They know the goddamn vision was false, Zaius, that's not the point. The vision was horrifying and almost broke unit cohesion. They need reassurance, they need reminding that they are soldiers! and that they are gorillas! And that they are God's instrument of vengeance! Are you getting the point, Dr. Zaius? Christ, even Zira could've done better than that! In fact, in Escape..., she does do better than that!
**fumes for a bit**
The march resumes, but before too long, the apes again freeze in shock. But this time what they see is no illusion. It's the half-buried wreckage of New York City. For the audience, this doesn't carry much of a shock at all, because not only did the last movie already give us the shock, but so did this one. So the only potential shock is visual. As a visual shock,...**shrug**...it ain't bad, but it's just a matte drawing, so it just doesn't do much for the audience. Also, if this army has found New York after only two days on the march, it renders it implausible that Zaius and the High Council could've kept this place a secret for that long.
I'll continue tomorrow or Monday. |
Edited by - Food on 03/21/2009 4:41:45 PM |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/24/2009 : 11:51:25 PM
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Time for the bomb-worshiping scene. Everyone loves the bomb-worshiping scene! All the humans are in this church, singing glorious “Aaammmeeennn”s to the bomb. The sermon reads exactly like a standard Christian service, except the “god” is replaced by “Bomb.” The subtitles even spell it with a capital B. Neat! If this is supposed to make the point that worshiping God is like unto worshiping nukes, I’m afraid I’m having too much fun to care. This is delightfully bizarre! Something nifty I noticed is that the music book the organist is playing from reads “Psalm Mendez II.” Mendez was the name of the human in Battle… who gave the speech towards the end about the bomb “must be respected, even venerated.” So Battle gets props for continuity and sharp eyes.
Brent and Nova sit silently without much of a reaction, until everyone removes their human skins to reveals mutated vein-prominent flesh underneath (dig how long the choir holds the note as they do). Brent looks grossed out. On the Making Of DVD, one of the make-up artists says that they went through numerous designs of various deformity, with ears and noses in unnatural places. I think the end result is just fine, as there’s only so bizarre you can make it before it just looks too fake. This looks natural enough.
As far as backstory, though, this seems a bit off to me. 2000 years back in their history, humans became irradiated by nukes. Over the years, they mutated into what they are now. I can see putting on the masks for ceremonial purposes, similar to how modern church employees will put on the altar boy robes or whatever for Mass. But we’ve seen that these humans keep these masks on all the time, and only remove them for Mass (or, as we’ll see, when they die). It just seems off to me that, even for a theology, they would keep the masks on the whole time, especially if they see their real skins as their “in-most selves.” Maybe the skin is so sensitive that it can’t be exposed to the open air. Maybe, but that would make it improbable that this species would even have survived this long.
Still, this is fun, so who cares?
At the conclusion of the mass, they all sing “All Things Bright and Beautiful.” Compared to the rest of the singing, which seems deliberately minor-key, this is fully as bright as when sung with no irony at all.
After the service, one of Brent’s interrogators thanks Brent for participating and understanding the situation, but also says that on the brink of war, he can’t just release Brent and Nova. So Brent is imprisoned with another human. The humans turns to the camera for standard dramatic reveal, and it’s Taylor! Nice touch for Taylor to need a second to remember Brent’s name. Brent and Taylor not-quite-hug (in fact, watch Taylor’s hand. He never even touches Brent. Message, Mr. Heston?). Brent gives a very very brief run-down of how he got there, but then the humans use their mind control to make Brent and Taylor fight each other Star-Trek style. This fight reveals that I was a bit hard on Ms. Harrison earlier: Franciscus really is a smaller Heston. Heston TOWERS over him. It almost looks like father and son fighting. Even the humans know it, because they take time out from the mind control to give Brent a spiked club to make it even (it also smashes holes in the walls of this secure cell pretty effectively, too).
Cut to Nova being led a hall somewhere by a human. She hears someone in the direction of the fight say Taylor’s name (who said that? Didn’t sound like Brent. It sounds like an overdub). So she gives the Cinematic Hand Bite of Extreme Agony and flees her custodian. Reaching the fight, she freezes and trembles in panic before exclaiming, “Taylor!” Props to Linda Harrison, if she’s only gonna get one word in two movies, she made it count. She pronounces “Taylor” exactly as you’d expect someone speaking their first word to pronounce it. “Tay-ur.” This so shocks the guard that he turns off his mind control for a moment. Taylor seizes the moment, and he and Brent kill the guard on the spikes of the cell door. In a small touch that I like a lot, Nova rushes into the cell, she and Taylor embrace, which distracts Taylor from the door swinging shut, keeping them locked in. I don’t know why, I just dig it.
Brent fills Taylor in on the Bomb. Taylor gleans from Brent’s description that the Bomb is a Doomsday Bomb, capable of destroying the entire planet. In Ken’s Doomsday Machine review, Ken describes the implausibility of such a device existing, whether it’s technologically possible or not. I think Ken’s correct. Still, it makes for some fun plot devices.
Cut to the ape army. They've reached the cave in the Brent and Nova found the buried New York earlier. Waitaminit, what did they do, go to the above-ground ruins of New York, then come back? What in the world happened while we were watching the humans bomb-worship? The apes invade the underground ruins (that bus still looks 2D). They gun down some of the humans, and take others prisoner.
Back at the cell, Taylor/Brent/Nova hear the apes coming, narrowly avoid an ape's peek inside, and finally get the door open. They don’t get far, though, before an ape spots them. This scene is awkward. The apes cautiously approaches Brent and Taylor (both armed with spiked clubs), and Nova, all three of whom are in plain sight. It’s like he doesn’t see any of them. He gets a shot off before Brent and Taylor clock him into unconsciousness or death, but the bullet has hit Nova, who dies immediately. Taylor does some brief let-‘em-all-die moping, before Brent reminds him that there’s something that they need to do.
Elsewhere in the city, the apes smash the marble busts (hollow plaster, actually), which Dr. Zaius deems “obsense.” Zaius takes a moment to gawk at the corpse of a dead female human lying in what looks like a stone laundry basket. Beneath her dead hand are what looks like a pair of....either giant glass thimbles or minature beakers...and discards them. I have no idea what that was about.
The apes break into the chapel, where a lone human tells them that they’d better stand down or he’ll set off the “instrument of my God.” Zaius laughs him off and orders him shot, which is carried out with instantaneous ease (They apes now have machine guns!). As Zaius gloats over his corpse, Ursus starts shooting at the Bomb. As Brent and Taylor watch unseen from above, Ursus, seeing that bullets won’t work, orders block and tackle to take the Bomb down. Zaius poops his pants over this, but the apes soon have the thing pulled over. The rear stage of the nuke detaches, just comes apart, filling the room with what I guess is poison smoke, as apes start collapsing. Mmm, I don't think that's quite how nukes work. Ursus makes to start fiddling with the Bomb’s control panel (a crystal-looking thing like in Superman; but before he can, Brent, knowing that Ursus might accidentally trigger the thing, bangs on the organ to divert attention away from the bomb and onto himself. Taylor, on a ledge opposite of Brent, tries to sneak towards the Bomb, but Zaius spots him, and Ursus blasts Taylor into swiss cheese. Taylor collapses to the floor in front of the control panel.
Brent, seeing that the starting quarterback is out for the year, goes nuts and starts shooting every ape he sees like it's a video game, starting with Ursus.
Then we get some royally baaad acting. I know a lot of folks see Heston as a flat-out bad actor who got by on charisma alone. I don’t believe that, but this is one scene where I can see their point. He clutches his chest (looks like he’s holding a prop heart!), and fake coughs. Zaius recognizes him and cusses him out for being all human and destructive and stuff.
Brent runs out of bullets, and the apes machine-gun him to Kingdom motherf**kin' come. Taylor, in a script move suggested by Heston himself, husks “You….bloody bastaaarrrds,” then pitches forward right onto the Bomb’s On switch. The screen fades to white, there’s a loud rumbling, then a narrator monotones, “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star. And one of its satellites…a green and insignificant planet…is now dead.” Roll credits.
**raises eyebrows in surprise** Damn! I gotta say, while you can’t top the original’s shock, this movie gave it a damn good try!
AFTERTHOUGHTS
This wasn't as long or as in-depth as I thought it would be. I'm not sure why.
According to the Making Of..., Beneath the Planet of the Apes was financially a success, grossing over three times its cost. It was enough that another sequel was immediately requested by the studio. Critically, it received mixed reviews. Not hard to see why. On the one hand, the first half is pure rehash, while the second half goes off on a tangent so sharp and so central to the plot that one wonders if the movie wouldn't've been better if it hadn't been an Apes movie at all, but the start of a whole new franchise. It can't be said that the Apes are the least plot-superfluous title characters ever (I think Cyborg holds that distinction), but they really don't have all that much to do with anything beyond providing a familiar setting plus obvious-as-can-be social chest-thumping.
On the other hand, you can't say the movie's boring. It's never boring for a minute. Rehash and obvious social points the first half may have been, but it had enough fun to carry the day. Ursus' speech, Nova in a fur bikini, and the gorilla training area were kicks to see. The span from Brent realizing where he is to when he finds the humans does contain a solid (not excellent, but solid) sense of imminent discovery, and that's just what I like. And the third act gives you a laughable fight scene between two mismatched opponents, horrible acting from a screen legend, the end of the world, and of course, Bomb-worship. So it's not hard to see how this movie has its fans.
It only occurred to me during writing this review that what's missing from this movie that might explain its low rank among the fans is the lack of a hambone. The first movie gave us Heston; Escape... gave us Eric Braeden, who, while not the most likely candidate for a ham, spends the entire movie glowering at everybody and giving impassioned pleas to the better angels of our progressive an enlightened natures to get off our asses and kill the motherf**kin' apes, and its great fun...and then Ricardo Montalban shows up; while Conquest... gave us the criminally underappreciated performance of Don Murray, who was having so much obvious fun that I actually bought a suit precisely like his because I was so won over by him (I look great in it, too, if I do say so myself). But Beneath... and Battle... didn't give us much. Beneath... gives us an extended Heston cameo that was pretty subdued until the end, when he was just flat-out bad. Battle... gave us Severn Darden, who played a bored character with even more reserve that he showed in Conquest.... And those two are almost universally considered the two worst of the PotA sequels. Coincidence? YOU decide.
Producer Mort Abrahams says that iBeneath... was an okay film. As good as it could've been? “I don't know,” he says. When he says that on the Making Of..., it's clear he wasn't satisfied with it, but felt that they had done a respectable job with what they had in terms of script and budget.
As for me, I like this movie for precisely that reason. They took all the problems that the absence of Heston created, all the problems that the lower budget created, and all the problems that trying to do a sequel that doesn't need to exist created, and came up with something that certainly isn't a classic, but equally certainly, it was a good try, and good fun to watch, and I appreciate the makers for it.
AFTER-AFTERWORD
On the Making Of..., Heston says that his reason for this ending was simply to end the franchise. Didn't quite play out that way, but at least it got he himself out of it. Screenwriter Paul Dehn was able to pull a dragon-sized rabbit out of his hat with [b]Escape...[/i], a movie that begins by begging you to accept an insultingly implausible set-up, but makes it worth your while by being a flat-out excellent movie, both as a sequel and in its own right, with a de-emphasis on action and social commentary, and emphasis on a love story, moral ambiguities, a shockingly even-handed portrayal of governmental bodies, and an emotional arc that feels perfectly natural from start to finish.
End of dissection. Thank you. |
Edited by - Food on 03/24/2009 11:53:37 PM |
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Nlneff
Diocesan Ecclesiarch of the Sacred Order of Jabootu
USA
84 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2009 : 1:02:32 PM
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The Apes technology was interesting, I don't remember if they had machine guns in the first movie, but they definetly had cartridge firearms, aparently with smokeless powder. But no steam engines or electricity...
Excellant review, looking forward to the next. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2009 : 5:09:25 PM
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Good review, Food.
Nlneff is right, there were some odd tech combos in these movies. One thing I noticed was a cabinet in Dr Zaius' office has a glass door, but it's jagged and doesn't match the shape of the cabinet.
By the way, you can take my word for the fact that rocket fuel is toxic. We had a spill one night at FE Warren afb and several of the boys were hurt bad by the fumes. Luckily, we had been issued gas masks a couple of months before; luckier still, I was off duty at the time and just on the edge of the contaminated area.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Food
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
USA
342 Posts |
Posted - 03/25/2009 : 8:05:45 PM
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^Thanks for the correction, GR. I totally forgot that the nuke is in missile form and a missile's gotta have fuel. Bonehead error on my part!
The tech isn't quite consistent in the first two movies, for sure. Even in the first itself, it's off. The apes have rifles, cameras, and brass hose nozzles, yet a pair of ape scientists are blown away by the physics of paper airplanes.
Incidentally, an excellent review of the original on 1000 Misspent Hours (I think), pointed out that Cornelius says that "flight is a scientific impossibility," which would have to mean that these apes have never seen birds or insects. |
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Greenhornet
Holy Cardinal and Five Star General of the Righteous Knighthood of Jabootu
1791 Posts |
Posted - 03/26/2009 : 6:22:32 PM
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I also (Kind of) remember that in the TV series, an ape character makes an off-hand refrence to the events in this movie.
"The Queen is testing poisons." CLEOPATRA, 1935 |
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Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
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