Jenn Dolari @dolari@driveinsaturday.org

@socketwench - Here is your reward for making it through all the movies, Wench. You deserve it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5jQYOcpVks

@socketwench

@socketwench - Bleak, right?

After a few weeks of development on the story, the decision came down to make this the final movie and therefore a lot more hopeful. They took Paul Dehn off the project and gave it to John and Joyce Corrington and we got the movie we got, except with Breck still alive and MacDonald still in his original role.

After the first draft, they gave it back to Paul Dehn for a polishing since he had written all but the first movie.

@socketwench - So, a trip in to an alternate Battle for the Planet of the apes.

The writer of the Apes films #2 through 4 created a timeline when he wrote Escape. The idea was to create a continuity that would get them to the Movie #1 timeline.

When production began on Battle, Paul Dehn was still writing it, and his story was "Epic of the Planet of the Apes" which went a very different route.

Nuclear war has destroyed most of the human world. The movie opens in the same city the apes took over in Conquest was spared. The movie opens with almost the exact same opening as in Conquest, except the roles are reversed: Cesar is now the overly cruel ruler over a slave human population. The only human on Caesar's side? MacDonald.

One human dares to openly defy Caesar, wearing regular clothing and refusing orders. He's arrested and taken before Caesar, where he's threatened with torture. But before they can act, the man opens his coat to show a radio. And through the radio, a voice announces himself as "Nimrod," who leads a group of humans in the North, with a nuclear bomb and a suicide flight to deliver it ready to go. If they harm a single hair on his head, they'll drop the bomb. Caesar kills the spy, and orders all apes to the nuclear shelters. And after all apes are taken care of, whateer humans, according to what necessary society services they offer are allowed in.

One man, a friend of a psychiatrist, kills the psychiatrist and takes his identity, getting into a shelter. The bomb drops and everything is laid waste in the city.

Fast forward a few years, and we come to that ape city in the tree like in the theatrical movie. Humans are still slaves to a slightly less tyrannical Caesar (but still not a friend of humans). Lisa is pregnant with their baby. Two new apes show up: Zeno and Pan (oranguatans) and Aldo (the Gorilla). Zeno is religiuous. Pan is smart. Aldo is dumb and violent.

A gorilla patrol comes across some human survivors who had their own secret shelter in a church. The gorillas attack and a child survivor dives into a cave where we find a whole group of humans building a civilization in the cave, and working on building another bomb. They're all mutants at this point, and ar all in contact with Nimrod. The psychiatrist is among them and apparently is working with them. Worse, one of his patients? Caesar.

Aldo reports on the humans they found, and Caesar actually suggest allowing them to join the Ape City. "Let their survival depend on their co-operation." Aldo of course says no. Caesar gets very irritated and we lated find out he's being drugged by his psychiatrist to give him headaches.

Caesar's baby "Cornelius Armando" is born but there are complications. Their doctor tries to save her, but the psychiatrist has swapped the medication for poison and Lisa dies. In the panic, the psychiatrist steals Cornelius and heads back to the cave.

Nimrod, knowing the panic, decides to head south into Ape City to kill the apes. Cornelius is in the a shelter being taken well care for by two women.

Caesar goes off the deep end. He's convinced the Doctor has killed Lisa along with the psychiatrist (he wasn't involved), and decides that if humans talk, they're conspiring. There for they shall not be allowed to talk. He orders the one human who can do the operation (The Doctor) to sever the nerves that control the vocal chords of humans. At first the doctor absolutely refuses. It's not until Casar says "This operation is going to be done. It can be done by you, or by your chimp understeady who does not have your skills at pain management." He acquieces, and MacDonald, who is compeltely against this plan, decides to volunteer to be the first, since Caesar still trusts him.

The Doctor is about to make his first incision about the same time Lisa's funeral happens. As Caesar bends down to wish her goodbye, a voice comes out of the headstone: It's Nimrod speaking through a speaker that if one drop of human blood is shed, Cornelius dies." He flies back to the Doctor to stop the operation.

Casesar orders to let all humans free, and just as he gives it, Aldo and Zeno, who think Ceasar has gone mad, attempt to shoot him. MacDonald takes the bullet and in the shock of it all, the second bullet hits Caesar killing him.

The battle on Ape City suddenly commences. It goes pretty much the same way as it does in the released movie. Except for one thing. Nimrod has also targeted the humans as collaboraters.

What few humans survive join the humans in the caves, which they protect by using a fake nerve gas device. The gorillas retreat.

Zeno and Aldo take over the government of Ape City, declare the land the human city a Forbidden Zone.

Finally, the two women, realize they have "won" the war, release Cornelius into the jungle to find his way back to Ape City.

THE END.

@socketwench - If it has the scene with "Sargeant York" reporting in font of Mendez and Alma as they play checkers, it's the TV Edit.

The TV Edit isn't missing footage, just had a lot added to round out the playing time.

@socketwench - Funny thing. In the theatrical versions, the mutants retreat and that's the end.

The death of Kolp was actually ADDED to the TV Edit. Parental guidance suggested indeed. :)

@socketwench - So after development on Battle started, there was a edict from on high that this would be the last of the Apes movies.

Instead of going down the original path intended by Paul Dehn (I'll get into that later), the idea was to have a lighter movie that would close off the series.

The original idea was...shall we say...fucking dark.

@socketwench - Some cut lines from the shooting script again really points out that the idea of the apes in the prologue is to make sure that when Taylor inevitably arrives in the future, that he finds a world of man and ape working together. Why? Taylor ended the world. This way, not only are ape and man cooperating, the world doesn't end.

@socketwench - Assuming you're watching the TV Edit, nearly all of the scenes with "Mendez" and "Alma" were removed from the theatrical cut. Putting them back in specifically points to these folks becoming the mutants from Beneath.

@socketwench - "I'm sure there's deep lore about this somewhere someone on fedi would be happy to point me to."

You rang?

Chawmp.

@Tekk - the McRib is one of two things I'll go to McDonald's for. The other is McNuggets.

So I missed out on free pizza today because I slept in. But dare I go for the runner up prize? THE McRIB?

"If you want to conquer a people, create an imaginary enemy who seems more dangerous than you, then be their savior." ~ Noam Chomsky

Trans-folk are being made into that enemy.

Aw, yeah. That's the stuff. Right in the veins.

@pandora_parrot - I have a song that got released! I just did the lyrics, but Ashley made it shine:

https://laurenashleyeriksson.bandcamp.com/album/ashley-eriksson-disco-project

@pandora_parrot - Someone scolded me for saying "Good for him" as a comment about how he had died.

I fought for a three day hospital stay for nine months, with the insurance goign as far to claim I was an impostor because I was trans just to get me to hang up.

Good for him.