Best Tattoo Design: Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes: Final Preview

The Ape-ocalypse will be televised... tonight. Swinging into the Summer box office war today, The Daily Zombies go ape with the seventh film in the surprisingly long-lived Planet of the Apes franchise, Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

In a Summer of superheroes, boy wizards, giant robots, and alien invasions, a film about a primate revolution led by an ape who was bestowed with human-like intellect induced by a test for a cure for Alzheimer's Disease seemed terribly modest by comparison. The ninety million dollar question (purportedly the film's budget) would be, can the Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes stand against the onslaught happening now at the box office? The Daily Zombies take on that hard question while bringing on a collection of trailers, TV spots, set stills, and the awesome viral video campaign as well as the concept art from the film.

Directed by British writer and film director Rupert Wyatt, the maker of the critically acclaimed British prison escape thriller The Escapist, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is at first glance, a prequel to the evergreen Planet of the Apes franchise.

For the uninformed, a short history is prerequisite. The Planet of the Apes film series begun in 1968 with Planet of the Apes, based on the 1963 French novel La Planète des singes (Monkey Planet or Planet of the Apes) by Pierre Boulle. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner and starring Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowall, the ground-breaking science fiction film has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" in 2001.

With the success of the 1968 film, a sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, was released in 1970, followed by another three sequels churning out at the rate of one each following year: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes(1972), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973). Further indication of the popular culture's undying fixation with the franchise, not one but two television series (one live-action, the other animated) based on the series were released in the 1970s. Along came Tim Burton's critically panned though relatively lucrative remake of the original film in 2001. Despite the remake's financial success, Fox finally decided to reboot the franchise from scratch with Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

And here we are, with the opening of Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes tonight. While the film is commonly known as a prequel similar to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, the fourth film in the original series, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes is actually a reboot of the Planet of the Apes series, not unlike how Matthew Vaughn's X-Men: First Class and Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins worked. Projected as the first step in the predictably much-convoluted process of the revolution of the primates, director Rupert Wyatt has been forthcoming with the film's intention to be a catalyst for a new franchise with the next sequel (if any) being "about the all-out war between the apes and humans."

While the original 1968 film applied then-groundbreaking make-up techniques on actors in bringing the apes to life, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes utilizes state-of-the-art CGI apes created by Weta Digital from motion-capture performances led by Andy Serkis, renowned for his mo-cap performances from Lord of the Ring's Gollum to the other infamous ape, King Kong.

In an interesting interview with iO9, Serkis brought up some intriguing points on the modern interpretation of the film's moral element:

There's a very interesting thing that you said, and I think you're touching on it now a little bit, and I would like for you to elaborate more on it if you can. You said: what do you do with an animal that has superior intellect, and why do we force the idea that this makes it more human? It was very interesting, why does it make it more human?

Yea, that was the challenge for Rupert, the director, and myself. We really wanted to get to grips with, If you are demonstrating that this ape has superior intelligence, does it necessarily mean we have to make him more kind-of anthropomorphized or not? Or is that insulting? Because actually, he would have his own way of communicating that intelligence or understanding, so emotional intelligence plays a part in it and a kindof empathy.

And so we had to invent a kind-of language for him and tip-toe between something recognizable, because there's a lot of this film which has no dialogue in it whatsoever, and a lot of it is conveyed through visual storytelling, through visual performance, so it has to be something that the audience have got to recognize what's being thought and felt and said, communicated, so it was a very, very interesting time.

And it is moral consideration as such that convinced me of the depth and thought being put through in the film. From the trailers that we have seen thus far, we can even opined that the true villains of the film are indeed mankind and it is the apes that have been forced to rebel. That said, what is truly disturbing would be the realization of the fact that it is found more often than not that primates and rats are frequently the standard issue lab test subjects.

While we are hopeful that a sequel might just be on the horizon, the almost hard-science (relatively speaking) element might just be too much for the increasingly brain-dead audience to digest. Nevertheless, after being bombarded by the alien invasion in the old west and the little blue annoying creatures at the box office last week, people might find a little realism in their sci-fi a nice change.

An interestingly different take on a popular sci-fi franchise, Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes boldly take on the relatively more realistic facet of the subject, bypassing more familiar treatment like time travel or alternate reality, and sought to bring a heart to the protagonist/antagonist. So yeah, we here at The Daily Zombies will be there in the theaters for this one.

For those who have missed out on our earlier preview, here is the official synopsis of the film:

A single act of both compassion and arrogance leads to a war unlike any other — and to the RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES. The Oscar-winning visual effects team that brought to life the worlds of Avatar and Lord of the Rings is breaking new ground, creating a CGI ape that delivers a dramatic performance of unprecedented emotion and intelligence, and epic battles on which rest the upended destinies of man and primate.

Before we take a final look at the usual trailers, TV spots, featurettes, set stills, and concept art from the film, we take a slight detour and take a look at the awesome viral video campaign.

Surprisingly outstanding and suitably haunting, the viral video clips, in the guise of "uncovered scientific research" clip, started from the mundane (chimps playing First Person Shooter) to the deadly serious (armed ape retaliating against moronic humans). We have gathered all of them right after the jump.

Gorilla Walks Upright

Chimp Beats Human: Intelligence Test

Chimp Plays First Person Shooter

Ape With AK-47

Chimp with Machete

And here are the trailers, followed by the TV spots and some cool featurettes featuring the motion capture process of the film.

Trailer

Real Apes and Rise of the Apes Mashup

Rise of the Planet of the Apes International Trailer

NEW Rise of the Planet of the Apes Trailer

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Official Trailer

Rise of the Planet of the Apes Trailer

TV Spots

Rise of the Planet of the Apes TV Spot #1

Rise of the Planet of the Apes TV Spot #2

Featurette

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - Weta Featurette

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - WETA Livestream

Rise of the Planet of the Apes - The Story

And here's a massive collection of posters, set stills, and concept art from the film.

Posters