Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

[Postmortem]

Until Guardians of the Galaxy proves otherwise, this is my favorite movie of the summer. Surprisingly heartfelt and emotional, while still being extremely entertaining and fun. What they did with making the apes feel animalistic yet still humanized is something I really don't feel I've seen in a film before, and the special effects rivaled Life of Pi. I truly couldn't tell if some of the apes were real, guys in suits (for closeups), or CG throughout (most likely).

It also made me go on a kick recently of watching all the original films, and man am I glad I did. It reminds me a lot of how the 2009 Star Trek enabled me to go back and watch The Original Series, yet imagine it as a more visually fantastic world. Looking past the cheesiness of the original Apes movies, there's a lot of fantastic acting and storytelling going on. And I never realized that the new films were actually retelling the story from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

All around great franchise that I'm glad I've been turned on to, and I'm already looking forward to the end of this prequel trilogy (and to seeing how far along they're going to take it after that).

[Capac Amaru]

There are background hints in Rise about the space mission being lost.

[Tar Alacrin]

I went on a binge the other weekend and watched both of the new Apes films;

I have to agree with your assesment post; I was pretty impressed at the quality of the film all around.

And I enjoyed that they were only like an hour and a half each, while still retaining that same experience. It really bugs me when movies *Cough* Hobbit *cough* extend themselves to be these huge 2.5 to 3+ hour long events and wind up without enough quality content to fill in the gaps.

[Postmortem]

There are background hints in Rise about the space mission being lost.

I highly doubt the third installment is going to jump ahead 2000 years though, unless they're retconning how long the spacecraft was lost. I felt like that was more of just a throwaway reference. Might not be. Like I said, it'll be interesting to see where it goes.

[Capac Amaru]

From what I've heard, the next film will be further down the road to ape civilisation, with Caesar being seen as an almost godlike figure.

[Postmortem]

I'll be interested to see how they hold our attention cutting out the characters we're already familiar with halfway through. But yeah, interesting premise nonetheless. Probably based considerably on Escape from the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

[Capac Amaru]

Just saw it yesterday. Loved it.

The music had a real old school vibe, reminded me heaps of the original films (although its been a while since I actually watched them.. i threw out my VHS copies a while back lol)

Why is it so many films struggle to present believable human characters while this film makes apes into more believable people so seemingly effortlessly?