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Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the number one movie in America this week. I haven’t seen it yet, have you seen it? 55 million dollars worth of people saw it. Perhaps, if you saw it, you can answer this question I’ve been having: how many apes DOES an average American city have in it at any one time? We know it’s enough to take over the world, clearly, but how many. 40,000? 40,000 apes per city? Anyway, congratulations to Frieda Pinto and the rest of Frieda Pinto’s Planet of the Apes on their huge success! Today another film blog posted a blog post called Andy Serkis Won’t Be Nominated For An Oscar This Year, But He Doesn’t Need To Be about Andy Serkis as the Premiere Motion Capture Actor and can we just talk for a second about how the Andy Serkis thing is kind of weird? Like, he was Gollum and King Kong and now he plays Ape #1 in this movie. His career highlights are all CGI creatures. It’s just weird! God bless him. I hope his family is literally COVERED in food. And he seems to be good at something that apparently is very hard to be good at. I’m not saying that sarcastically. I believe it! You might not think that it would be hard, but if he’s the only one who is ever hired to do it, then it must be pretty hard, because he’s probably pretty expensive at this point. Anyway, I don’t know. It’s kind of weird! He’s probably one of the more unlikely CELEBRITIES out there. Wanna talk about it? Hey, wanna talk about it? #SUMMERTUESDAYS
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Wait, you estimate that there are 40,000 apes in a city and that his family is literally covered with food? Do you…are you trying to get his family to be eaten by apes?!
Oh come on, leave Peter out of this.
i guess his star-making role as the boss in “13 going on 30″ didn’t work out too well. maybe he should have been a cgi boss.
I would Fandango the shit out of a film in which Andy Serkis plays a motion captured Andy Serkis.
I liked him in The Prestige.
He also played Lumpy, the ship’s cook in King Kong, and was very slowly eaten alive by giant worms in a scene that really scared the shit out of me.
And the giant worms were made my motion capturing his penis.
♫Will the Serkis be unbroken, by and by, Lord, by and by?♫
If you watch the first 10 or 15 minutes of 2001, the striking thing is 1) how fake and odd the apes seem and 2) how real and frightening they seem. I figured out that it’s the eyes, more than anything, that makes those earlier apes superior to everything that’s been CGI’d since. So no matter how well the motion capture works, Serkis’ characters still come off as soulless digital figments. In conclusion, Serkis is good at moving his body around, like a certain Golden Surprise we all know.
Got to disagree Jeb, the actual actors in ROTPOTA seemed lifeless compared to Serkis in ROTPOTA. But on the other hand, I’m comparing him to Franco.
I don’t know, Jeb. The apes in Rise look pretty photo-realistic, especially in the close-ups.
I hate to break it to you, Gabe, but Frieda Pinto is the worst thing in the movie, which is actually pretty good.
And there’s about 100 apes in the greater San Fransisco area.
And thus Gabe was led to introduce the “Editor’s Choice Worst Comment Of The Week” into the Monster’s Ball.
I saw Rise of The Planet of The Apes this weekend, and rather enjoyed it. Much better and different movie than the trailers implied.
To Gabe’s question about how many apes there are – I assume his point is related to the fact that apes, no matter how intelligent, cannot just get together and take over the Earth by force one day. Which is what the trailer implies happens in the movie! But – and this is truly not a spoiler – the apes do not take over the Earth in this movie. Not even close. What actually transpires is more than reasonable enough in scale to make suspension of disbelief reasonable.
THANK YOU, R2D2. I’ve seen so many people, who haven’t seen the movie, talk about how few apes there are out there and how dumb the movie is.
PRO TIP: Don’t stand up when the credits start rolling.
(You’re welcome.)
I guess I understand….But he still doesn’t hold a candle to live-action apes. i.e. Jorma
“Amy”
-Ridiculous talking Gorilla from Congo
You can’t improve on Trading Places gorilla technology
Andy Serkis was on Fresh Air (RADIOgum?) last week talking about… exactly this.
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/04/138930501/serkis-playing-virtual-parts-on-the-big-screen
it’s good, if you’re interested.
In the next Charlie Kaufman movie, entitled Serkis Tent, Andy Serkis motion captures a computer generated Andy Serkis, has an existential meltdown re it, finds actualization through having the computer generated Andy Serkis motion capture HIM.
Did anyone see the movie? It found it to be really bizarre, like it wants to be a big scary movie about crazy apes but it also is very Disney at the same time. Apes don’t kill, humans refuse to shoot bullets when THE GODDAMN MONKEYS ARE STORMING THE BRIDGE (San Francisco hippie cops), and the villains do nothing but twirl their mustaches every time they’re on screen. It’s in some PG-13 limbo but I almost like the weirdness that creates?
It was an interesting balance to strike, for sure. I’m kinda glad they stayed with a PG-13. An R would’ve been too much I think.
I agree, the non-violence was kinda jarring. It worked for me because at the end of the day I still want to love monkeys.
Also: isn’t there some Chekov’s gun law in these types of movies where if a by-the-books girlfriend is introduced in the first act, she has to get fed up with the dangerous animal antics of the protagonist by the third? Where were all the “You treat him like a child but he’s just not; he’s a chimp!” arguments that lead to an eventual breakup and/or calling of animal control? Frieda Pinto just smiled and hummed next to Dr. Sexy Brain Juice for the entire movie, I don’t even think she had lines. Come to think of it, both lead actors seem rather unfazed after essentially causing the ape revolution.
I saw Caesar as more of a main character than Franco, much like Frankenstein’s Monster v. Frankenstein himself.
I would also say that Cesar is the main character but by-the-books girlfriend remains by-the-books girlfriend!
True, she seemed to be an afterthought to the story. Like the execs at Fox thought the movie needed some “sex appeal”.
First off, a surprisingly great movie. **(mild) spoiler alert** But yeah, Franco was a bit too nonchalant about the whole “enjoy your new home in the Redwoods…with these 200 virus-enhanced apes” thing. Speaking of nonchalant, what about Franco’s research lab? Time and time again, they were just *wildly* under prepared to handle any adverse situations. The opening scene comes to mind, but how about when Franklin (the ape consultant?)’s mask falls off while testing the new “more aggressive” aerosol treatment, nobody thinks to keep him on site for tests? You know, just in case?
This cat play Ian Dury in Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll. That is cooler than all this.
I wonder how good that movie is. He sure does look a lot like Ian Dury and he probably does the polio thing well.
“Thanks a lot Gabe!” -Andy Serkis’ children:
Is Jane Goodall single? I feel like Andy and Jane need to meet.
Also, I feel cheated that Terry Gross isn’t interviewing him.
My favorite part of RofPotA was at the end when Nick Fury recruited Caesar to join the Avengers. #stolenjoke
How does the Volkswagen commercial kid feel about this whole Andy Serkis thing?
My favorite part of RofPotA was at the end when Nick Fury recruited Caesar to join the Avengers. #originaljoke #patentpending
We’re talking about Apes here, Gabe. Better his family be covered in food than covered in, well, let’s just say there are worse things they could be covered in.
I wonder if his children will grow up to put him out of CGI motion capturing work and drive him into a lonely state of post-CGI Motion Capture Stardom alcoholicism. Man, how has Hollywood avoided the Andy Serkis biopic for so long?
Doug Jones and Andy Serkis should have a “make-up vs. mocap” fight to the death.
“Will it be filmed?”
YUHHH.