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Planet Of The Apes© James C. Hess If Mr. Burton had been sincere in his intents he would have not attempted what he did with this movie. He would have continued the story line already started, he would have built on what came before. Consider: "Planet Of The Apes", directed by Tim Burton, picking up at roughly the end of the first movie: The Statue of Liberty has been revealed, we know that this world, ruled by primate, is actually our world, and we brought it to this point in time by way of our poor choices.
But how is this possible? Surely the apes will give pursuit. They do, just to keep things interesting, and punish other humans to show they mean business. Despite this the humans endure. How? Ah. There's the rub: It seems the humans have support from apes, and it is these apes that help the humans survive. The humans survive and reproduce. One generation, then two. Three generations, then four, five, six. All the while preparing an attack against those 'dirty apes'. The day of reckoning comes. As it does the story by Director Burton begins. (Had he gone this route instead of the one he did, oh, what fun: Imagine, if you will, Charlton Heston as a very aged Taylor (who says he couldn't live this long?), and the ape he played in the movie Burton did make. The spaceman (Wahlberg) has landed, the conflict between man and beast is unleashed. Taylor (Heston) and the ape-with-gun (Heston) come face-to-face. They consider each other. They frown at each other. They look at each other, finally realizing how much each is like the other. And someone--one of the two Hestons, maybe--finally says the funny but predictable line of dialogue: I'll be a monkey's uncle.) Not that this matters. In the long term people will remember the original movie, not this high-handed, heavy-handed, long-winded waste of celluloid. They will remember it because it did what Burton's "Planet Of The Apes" should have done: Entertained. Enlightened. And, odd of odd, educated. |
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