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[JohnIan101]

Past Tense - Monkey Madness Part I


[An earlier version of this PT was originally posted on December 8th, 2011 on JoBlo's "DVD, Blu-Ray & Home Theater Discussion" forum.]

It's a mad house! Get pawed this week by first remake of "Planet Of The Apes"...



The Tim Burton motion picture opened on July 27th, 2001. It was made with a budget of $100,000,000 (estimated) and grossed over 362 million during its U.S. theatrical run. The film opened number one at the box office, the following week it dropped to number two.

The feature opened against "Jurassic Park III", "Legally Blonde", "The Fast And The Furious" and "Shrek".

This originally was released in 2001 with a foil wrapaound in a common two disc case. In 2003 it was repackaged as a digipack inside a cardboard slipcase. And later still re-re-released back in a standard case, now with a matted wrapaound.

There were three inserts. The first is a booklet showcasing the content and chapters. The second is a mini ad brochure for other 20th Century Fox DVDs; there were twenty titles shown, special editions and TV sets (including additional POTA titles). The third one...

I will talk about in a few.

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The remake/re-imagining streeted on November 20th, 2001. There was one exclusive and it came from Best Buy, a bonus CD-ROM (inside a printed cardboard sleeve). This limited set sold for $15.99. As I understand, this was sealed with the DVD on the outside of the case.

I could be wrong, my info is a bit fuzzy. The release came out before I started collecting DVDs, I was still buying laser discs at the time.

No main menu screen snap; the bonus is for Windows, I'm a Mac user. I had a hard time to accessing the videos since the media folder for them is an invisible. I can't recall how I did it YEARS ago. What I do recall; I copied the disc onto my hard drive and booted OS 9 - from there I used a program to make them... visible.

Then I had access. The thing is - I only took the interviews and desktops - for some bizarre reason, I don't take the making-of featurettes. So that material is stuck on this disc. *shrug*



The brief video interviews (less than two minutes each) are with stars; Charlton Heston, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, Paul Giamatti, Michael Clarke Duncan, Estella Warren (the role she was born to play) and Mark Wahlberg. Additional interviews with composer Danny Elfman, special makeup effects Rick Baker and director Tim Burton.

The CD-ROM has a gallery, desktop images, trailer, character bios, making-of featurettes and something called "The Forbidden Zone" (as listed on the back). And most likely an ad from AT&T, you see they sponsored the bonus disc.

It's a neat addition to the release, but sadly very limiting by it's nature - just Windows. I suppose you could say that all of this material is just a repackaging of the press kit for film critics and newspapers. And I can't say it isn't so. Probably is.

- - - - - - - - - -

Rant.

So that third?

The final insert, printed on cardstock is an explanation - WTF happened???

Don't get all smiles, it still doesn't make sense.



There's a big hole in this official exposition. They don't even know! This movie has the most stupidest ending in quite some time. Timmy thought it would be fun to have an shocking ending for the sake of having a shocking ending. No real thought on how that would occur. Is he gonna pull a Simpsons and say 'a wizard did it'?

Anyhow, I have my bonus disc (inside the sleeve) in the standard foil case. I tired in the digipack, but it bulked it up, making a bit difficult to insert into the slipcase. I need to get a three disc case for it.

- - -

A bit of personal history.

I originally had the regular release, but rebought the movie to get the digipack (a sale from Best Buy many years ago). The re-release is far more fancy looking. *nods*

The movie.

Look, lets not pretend this isn't a cinema turkey. The story is lames as hell with a ending that makes it worse. Just look above.

All that said, this is a popcorn flick and works, quite well.

But man, it feels so half-hearted. They had this incomplete screenplay; no middle nor ending. 'Lets make it up as we go.' Yeah.

What saves the movie for me is the awesome ape make-up, done for real, not CGI. Rick Baker did an magnificent job. The other reason is the performance by Tim Roth the chimpanzee, General Thade (on the cover of the exclusive).

That is one fracking scary monkey! He's evil. The BEST villains are the ones who do terrible, heinous things, but believe they're doing good. Thade is truly convinced that his actions is saving their world, no matter how high the body count; ape or man.

What I would've liked is a Thade-like character for the 1974 TV series of the same name. The main antagonist, General Urko (Mark Lenard) was too stupid/goofy, not serious enough. If he had, that would've been badass. It's on DVD, twice over (2001 and again in 2006).

It's not half bad and does entertain at fourteen episodes. For whatever reason it became obscured in Ape franchise history - do seek it out.

The TV show takes place over nine hundred years before the events of the first movie. Human are slaves and pets - we can still talk at this point in history, before we reverted into savages. Some have suggested this downgrade is attributed continued/persistent radiation for the nuclear war that took Man from the head of the food chain.



Well, Estella Warren was nice to look at as Daena. I'll be honest, she doesn't really do it for me.

I suppose she fits the bill; pretty, but not too pretty.

I'm not being mean - they needed a human love interest for Davidson and there she is.

The first incarnation of 'the girl' was just right (original flick [1968])...



Nova played by Linda Harrison straddled the trope by being hot and not too hot. It's what pops in your head; what an attractive cave girl should look like. A nod to Raquel Welch as the primitive girl in "One Million Year B.C." (1967), but that went a bit over the top.

A bit of trivia. Harrison had roles in several Apes movies - including this remake.

"Planet Of The Apes" (1968) - Nova
"Beneath The Planet Of The Apes" (1970) - Nova
"Escape From The Planet Of The Apes" (1971) - Postal Letter Carrier (uncredited)
"Planet Of The Apes" (2001) - [Old Human] Woman In Cart

Anyhow besides the poor story and crapacular ending - I didn't care for the future technology. Yeah, I get that they were going for a minimalist design, but it looks so cheap. C'mon, the space station Oberon looks just like the Trade Federation station from Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace (1999).

Like they ran out money to do any modeling and pulled the prop out of storage; 'good enough'. Plus the shuttle pod feels amateurish, there's no texture to it, like a toy from the 99 Cents Only store, not joking.

I will give credit to composer Danny Elfman; the score sounds so different, unique - in a good way. Excellent job on a bad movie. I own the CD soundtrack by the way.

The planet where Apes took place was NOT Earth, but a different planet.

Why does this place have horses that look like Earth horses?!?

It's never addressed.