It's Friday night, y'all. Time for #wenchwatches
Tonight: #battleForThePlanetOfTheApes
So, it's the last of the 70's Apes films. And we're starting off in the...25th century with a Zaius-like figure giving us the exposition of the last two films.
Previous followers of the tag would know that in the last film we had the treat of two different endings. The original, darker ending where Caesar gives no quarter or reprieve to humanity is *not* the one this film continues from. Instead, we get the revised, softer ending where Caesar's love interest spoke, interrupting the death of General Kolp -- the racist asshole from Conquest.
This opens a fun read for the previous film: Both endings are valid, but are different timelines. The original PotA and Escape follow from the darker original, whereas Battle follows from the softer ending instead. I'm sure there's deep lore about this somewhere someone on fedi would be happy to point me to.
The new Ape city is populated both by Simian and human alike. And unlike the original PotAs, humans retain their minds, their skills, and their power of speech. The harmony is delicate, as one would expect.
Nor has it been that long since Conquest. MacDonald is still alive, an not elderly. Humanity has indeed been decimated due to nuclear war. As such, Ape city is more basic; treehouses with thatch walls. Some human technology still exists, kept carefully under guard and out of common use.
Cinematically, the film is trying to return to the more Ape-centric fantasy of the first film while still continuing the existing plot. We even get some callbacks to the loving shots of stark desolation with some nice incidental music.
After the previous four films, you'd think we'd have sucked every last bit flavor from this setting. Instead, it feels like a much welcome return.
As the first act draws to a close, we also return to the Dead City, The Forbidden City, which we can guess will become the Forbidden Zone. Caesar and MacDonald hope to recover archives of Zira and Cornelius's testimony of the future. We find that indeed, the radioactive city is inhabited by humans, highly suggested to become the bomb worshiping mutants from Beneath.
And I was wrong. MacDonald is actually the same actor, but playing the descendant of the character from Conquest.
Holy crap, the movie is really going there. This film *is* explicitly in an alternate reality.
Or rather, an attempt to found an alternate reality.
Caesar and MacDonald aren't trying to get Zira's and Cornelius's testimony of the future of the planet just for Caesar's indulgence. They're trying to get the record of the destruction of the Earth as seen in Beneath.
The titular "Battle" then, really is twofold. It's not just the coming altercation between the humans of the dead city or Caesar's coming conflict with the gorilla General Aldo. It's for the future.
All combined, this adds some nice dimension and stakes for the film. For Conquest, we already knew the conclusion, we knew how it would end. Here, the entire timeline is in doubt, and that adds interest.
The transfer for my DVD copy of this film is really quite good. Delightful technicolor widescreen.
The heavy makeup is solidly on point as well. Actors have refined techniques for communication and expression through the appliances, and the appliances themselves bear none of the reused, decay that we saw in the background during Beneath.
The second act closes with Caesar's son mortally injured after overhearing Aldo's plan for a coup. Meanwhile, Kolp and the rest of the irradiated humans make their way to Ape City.
So far, the film doesn't seem to be in conversation with the racism metaphor it used in the first several films. The conversation here seems more of a three way fight:
Kolp, who wants humans on top.
Aldo who wants apes, and particularly gorillas, on top.
And Caesar, who wants a third path. Not one where we bury the subjugation and horrors of the past, but where we are constantly, and painfully aware of it. It feels a bit of 60s pastorialist idealism while also maintaining that 70s work to found a more equitable future.
One that began to die on-screen in the 80s with Reganism.
The fourth act ends with Kolp being dead but the power struggle between Caesar and Aldo unresolved.
Its at this moment, in front of a crowd, that it is revealed Aldo killed Caesar's son. Support for his coup dissolves, only leaving Caesar's grief and rage against Aldo's crime.
In terms of plot, it all comes full circle. The ape's proposed idealism -- ape does not kill ape -- is tarnished forever. And with that moment, the future does indeed change.
So that's #battleForThePlanetOfTheApes and that's #wenchwatches
I enjoyed this film more than Conquest, as it had some clever moments and vastly better storytelling. Instead of constant action, there was some good performances from multiple cast members. The ending and the endcap of the series hits me square in the utopian feels.
Yet, I do still wonder, if Magneto was right.
Either way, give this one a watch, Fedi, will you?
@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 - 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.