Voices From Krypton: Planet of the Apes

Rise of the Planet of the Apes has defied Hollywood's box office expectations by grossing an astounding $54 million in North America, plus another $23 million overseas. Given word of mouth on this one, it wouldn't be surprising if the grosses didn't drop all that much next weekend. Speaking of word of mouth, VFK editor Ed Gross recently chatted with Rise director Rupert Wyatt and the conversation turned to a potential sequel. One point that was made is the notion that language would likely play a much larger role in the next entry.
"I think so," replied Wyatt. "The thing is, apes don't have a voice box -- well, actually they don't have an Adam's Apple, but they do have a voice box. Their larnyx is set far lower in their throat, hence the reason why they cannot speak. Through genetic enhancement you could elevate that. We actually had a scene, which we cut, where Caroline the veterinarian [Freida Pinto] sees that there's something different about Caesar's throat, but the trouble with that was, then the audience would say, 'Oh, I know where that's going.' So we had to be very careful and decided not to use that. But in the next film we could do that; we could see how they're taught to speak and how they evolve. That would be great."

In the days leading up to the release of Rise of the Planet of the Apes, it's obvious that Rupert Wyatt is feeling a mix of apprehension and exhiliration as he awaits the world's response to his reimagining of a classic scifi film series. From the earliest rumors of its development and right through much of production, there was a palatable sense of skepticism surrounding the film, with many people immediately dismissing it in much the way they had Tim Burton's 2001 remake of the 1968 original. But then the trailers started to be released and the skepticism began leveling off to the point where now, just as it reaches theatres (and fueled by almost unanimous critical praise), Rise of the Planet of the Apes is being perceived as a potential sleeper hit of the summer.
    "I've watched versions of this movie as it's constantly evolved, it must be coming up to 400-500 times," muses Wyatt, who had previously directed the prison film The Escapist, "so when your face is up to the glass.... well, I guess that's the challenge of filmmaking. You have to have the distance and that space to always have the conscious awareness of how people perceive the movie, and what people will pick up on and what they won't. And there are moments where you think, 'That's not working' or 'That is working,' and then you'll screen it again and the opposite is true. At the end of the day you have to put it out there and see how it floats. That being said, two nights ago I watched it at the premiere, with a big audiences, and I loved it. I enjoyed it. And that's not always the case. I've sat there on tenterhooks saying, 'God, that was a mistake,' but I think the beauty of this film for me is the story. It's a great story, and we've had so much fun and so many challenges that we've overcome in telling that story in a way that's never been told before. To be part of that is great."
   As is fairly well known by this point, Caesar (Andy Serkis) is a chimp who has been genetically enhanced through the experimentation of Will Rodman (James Franco), who in searching for a cure for Alzheimer's unlocks a means of increasing the intelligence of apes, which in turn paves the road to humanity's eventual downfall. As the story evolves, Caesar goes from being a rescued infant to a member of the Rodman family to "prisoner" of an ape sanctuary that is anything but, and, ultimately, the leader of a revolution. The latter, it should be noted, is a role that he is gradually pushed towards until he has no choice but to grab it and push back.
    "Through it all," Wyatt points out, "he's hanging on to his belief in humanity to the point where -- and it's very subtle -- there's a reference costantly through the film to go home, which bears out at the end of the movie. Home is one of the first words he's taught by Will, but as you watch the movie you see that, in a sense, humanity is not there to help him or protect him or look after him. That humans have been represented by his surrogate father, and he realizes he is on his own. That's when a certain choice is made and that's where we see the beginnings of the revolution."
ESCAPE
"This movie is an escape film," proclaims the director. "It's about a species finding a place where they belong. They're not part of our world; they don't belong in prison, they don't belong in a science laboratory. They belong in a world in which they can adapt and grow. And at the same time, we've made them smarter than they could ever have been. That coupled with the fact that because they're stronger than us, they can therefore become evolved... potentially more evolved than us."
   One of the challenges Wyatt had to meet was to always keep in mind that Rise of the Planet of the Apes had to be designed as a summer blockbuster; an entertainment that would pull a large audience in to watch a movie that would excite them, would be visceral, visually ambitious and a spectacle.
    "But Planet of the Apes was a great blockbuster; the Star Wars of its day," he emphasizes. "It had people lined up around the block going to see it, but in Hollywood sometimes I think we lose track of what movies are for. They're not video games; they shouldn't be video sequences strung together in one line. They should be, at the end of the day, great stories. That's why I think the filmmaker of our time, and will always be considered the filmmaker of our time, is Spielberg, because he has that ability to tell wonderful stories on a large scale, and that's what we were aiming for with this. We wanted to tell a great story.