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CG Planet of the Apes remake announced

2

23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
According to this blog entry, Fox has announced a plan to remake Planet of the Apes, using CG to render the ape characters:

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12.../fox-formally-announces-an-all-cg-apes-reboot

And once again a studio misses the bloody point of what made a film popular in the first place. Yeah, "God---- you all to hell!" was a great hook, but what made the film was Roddy Macdowall and Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans in ape make-up. The Tim Burton film failed on many levels, I'll admit, but what made it enjoyable was Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti and Michael Clarke Duncan in ape make-up. And defining their characters accordingly.

If they're doing CG it's just gonna be little better than a cartoon. Yeah, OK, the apes will be photo-realistic, but they don't have the actors personalities. They barely managed to escape the uncanny valley effect with Avatar -- and that was mainly because the Navi were little more than tall and skinny human with blue skin. It won't be the same trying to get that same personality across in a CGI'd silverback, no matter who they get to do the voice. And I can already see the "they stole this from Peter Jackson" when the inevitable comparisons arise with that other big-name CG simian. But King Kong wasn't supposed to be seen as an intelligent creature and spout dialogue in Shakespearean tones, as Roth or Carter or Macdowall had to do around the make up.

If they're going to do it, I hope they at least try to do a closer adaptation of Boulle's original book this time.

Alex
 
I thought they were already working on that Caesar: Rise of the Apes movie. Is this something different?
 
It's the same project. The only "news" in the article is the release date and that they're just calling it Rise of the Apes (thank god). The other potential titles were awful.

And rendering the apes via CGI is the only way to make them look remotely plausible. This isn't 1968.
 
Oh, I see now, actually reading a bit of the article.

I'm not sold on CGI apes (I like the make-up in the Burton version), but it could work.
 
If they CGI can be like "Pirates of the Caribbean" where people are motion captured and the CG is added in post then i'm fine with that.
 
The Only one I truly Love is the Original, I'm sick of the fracking remakes. Yes I get the Irony of using fracking and complaining about remakes. I will probably watch it as I did Tim Burton's version.
 
Yeah, it does miss the point. Actually, I could go so far to say, that if there's been a recent failed attempt, that moviemakers shouldn't be able to try again until 20 years has elapsed.

Although, I could see this as one of the few movies to use Cameron's technology that would really benefit from it, if they would use it. Although it would still have to be a mix of live-action and CGI.
 
23skidoo said:
According to this blog entry, Fox has announced a plan to remake Planet of the Apes, using CG to render the ape characters:

http://www.hitfix.com/blogs/2008-12.../fox-formally-announces-an-all-cg-apes-reboot

And once again a studio misses the bloody point of what made a film popular in the first place. Yeah, "God---- you all to hell!" was a great hook, but what made the film was Roddy Macdowall and Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans in ape make-up. The Tim Burton film failed on many levels, I'll admit, but what made it enjoyable was Helena Bonham Carter, Tim Roth, Paul Giamatti and Michael Clarke Duncan in ape make-up. And defining their characters accordingly.
Alex
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Well, suspension of disbelief. I think the Original and the Tim Burton one worked out okay.

I was kinder waiting for conclusion to the 2001 version which hasn’t happened the Elfman score at the end had that tone to it, yet nothing as come by, in 9 years now.

I think Fox is being ran by snooty greedy kiddies following there parents footsteps. I mean the word “reboot” is computer term. Back in the past it was “remake”. only a snooty nose bunch of kiddies working for Fox would come with lame term “reboot” that word just makes my vomit curdle up!

Aragorn said:
Stephen Sommers would be the ideal director for CGI: The Movie. :lol:
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I think he should stick to doing another Mummy film that doesn’t stink like the last one.

HunterB5446 said:
The Only one I truly Love is the Original, I'm sick of the fracking remakes. Yes I get the Irony of using fracking and complaining about remakes. I will probably watch it as I did Tim Burton's version.
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+1

The original still holds its ground, even to this very day!

images

“Get your stinking (re-make) paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”
 
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Considering the nature of audiences these days and what the studios like to spoil in the trailers, I wonder if they'd call the movie Planet of the Apes: When Apes Rule the Earth or something like that. Hell, the VHS cover showed the Statue of Liberty.
 
I’ve seen the films three of them late 70’s with my dad, and WOW I was blown away. Even then by that time, one might say. “Let’s remake it” no they reissue the prints out and it always works.

I think Fox should just reissue the original prints clean them up and the re-mix Dolby 5.1 seems to sound okay on DVD, normally I don’t like re-mixing, just as long as its not piss poorly done like most.

No reissue it back into cinemas (for a limited time) that is the way to do it!
 
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Patch together a decent story, get the proper voice talent to spill off some punchy lines...exotic alien scenery, explosions, some violence and some sexual tension... and we've got another C- summer popcorn flick.

I don't think the monkey people being CGI will matter all that much with regard to the success of this film.

And I am being optimistic.
 
23skidoo said:
If they're doing CG it's just gonna be little better than a cartoon. Yeah, OK, the apes will be photo-realistic, but they don't have the actors personalities.
Click to expand...

First off, that's an insult to cartoons. Cartoon characters -- and CGI characters -- are animated by human beings, and those human beings bring a lot of personality to the work. Animation essentially is acting -- just very slow acting. The animators base their animation on their own or the director's acting out of the scenes, on the voice actors' expressions as they read the lines, etc. (For instance, in the Wallace and Gromit films, director Nick Park acts out every line and movement of every character on video, and that's used as a reference by the animators.) So it's grossly ignorant to say there's no human performance in cartoons. Well-animated cartoon characters can be just as expressive as live performers, because they're based on real human performances. Indeed, a single animated character can incorporate performance from more than one person, so the amount of talent and expressiveness concentrated within a single character can be even greater than in live action.

Second, Avatar shows that we've reached the point where a human actor's performance can be captured in detail in a virtual character, so your objection on that point is spurious.


But King Kong wasn't supposed to be seen as an intelligent creature and spout dialogue in Shakespearean tones, as Roth or Carter or Macdowall had to do around the make up.
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I found Jackson's Kong to be extremely expressive and believable as a character. Dialogue is the easy part. What makes a performance visually convincing is the body language, the nonverbal component, and Kong had that down pat.


Now, as a matter of fact, my personal preference would be for practical makeup effects. I think Rick Baker has routinely done masterful work at creating believable apes with prosthetics, at least when he wasn't following Tim Burton's marching orders to make the female apes into some grotesque human-ape hybrid with eyebrows. But I do think CG technology has reached the point where it can pull this off.
 
Hah! I knew they were going to call this RISE OF THE APES.

I admit I'm intrigued. The original is probably my favorite sf movie, but this could be an interesting new take on theme. CONQUEST was definitely one of the better sequels so I can see remaking it.

And I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on the motion-capture thing. The original make-up effects were amazing, but we've already done that . . . six times. Why are people so resistant to trying something different this time?
 
If this is as well-done as Avatar - which is a tall order - they'll be fine. And yeah, the decision to do it this way is clearly a direct result of that movie's artistic and financial success.

I don't see the final title of this thing not including "Planet Of The Apes" someway somehow.
 
Another example of an unnecessary remake!

What was wrong with the 2001 version!?

"Beware of the beast film producer. He kills popular franchises for money." ;)
 
CG apes, huh? Say what you want about Tim Burton's movie, I thought he did a pretty good job with the apes themselves.

Didn't one of the actors get injured on set, and when they took him to hospital (still in ape make-up) the doctors thought he was an actual ape? You can't beat realism like that.

Of course, that could also provide a sound argument for why they should be CG...
 
^There's no "should" here. "Should" the Mona Lisa have been a sculpture rather than a painting? "Should" Seurat's A Summer Sunday on the Island of La Grand Jatte have been realist instead of pointillist? It's an absurd question. Special effects is an art form, and there's no reason why there "should" be only one way of creating art. Greg's right -- we've seen the Planet of the Apes premise developed using prosthetic makeup, and we've seen it done using cel animation (those of us who are old enough to have seen the '70s cartoon or who have watched it on Hulu more recently), so where's the harm in applying a different artistic technique to the concept? Indeed, what's the point of remaking a story if you don't bring something different to it?
 
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