Oneshot – (Kingdom of the) Planet of the Apes (2024)

[00:00:00] There's man that marveled at the universe, that glorious paradox who sent me to the stars.

[00:00:07] Still make war against his brother.

[00:00:27] Welcome to the Madhouse. This is a Lorehounds One-Shots podcast. We're the Lorehounds, your

[00:00:32] guides to the simian apocalypse. I'm Alicia.

[00:00:35] And I'm David, and this is our coverage of the Planet of the Apes franchise so far. I'll

[00:00:40] be joining Alicia for the first part of the discussion to relive the original Planet

[00:00:44] of the Apes films.

[00:00:46] And then I'll be joined by Logan, the person who inspired me to take my recent deep dive

[00:00:50] into this IP to discuss the new films, especially, of course, the brand new Kingdom of the Planet

[00:00:55] of the Apes, a film we, spoiler alert, both love.

[00:00:59] We're going to keep my part of the discussion spoiler free for the new film timeline with

[00:01:06] a nostalgic tour of the original films instead.

[00:01:10] And then at the end of the podcast, we'll talk about our upcoming schedule as well

[00:01:14] as news and updates about all of our affiliate podcasts.

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[00:01:27] is curious about this franchise.

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[00:02:14] So David, thank you for talking through this with me.

[00:02:17] Now you we're going to be talking mostly about like the original Planet of the Apes and you

[00:02:23] have quite a bit of nostalgia for that.

[00:02:25] What's your background with this IP?

[00:02:27] Yeah, these were a kind of movie that was always on Saturday afternoon matinee on the whatever

[00:02:39] local broadcast station, you know, in whatever market that you lived in.

[00:02:44] And I don't think I ever saw any of these in the in the theater, nor did I ever watch

[00:02:51] these in any particular order.

[00:02:53] They were always catch as catch can, right?

[00:02:55] Can you come home from being out doing whatever when our parents would let us back in the

[00:03:00] house and you'd flip on the TV, you know, pre dinner and whatever was on was on and

[00:03:06] be it old World War Two movie or Westerns or Planet of the Apes.

[00:03:13] And so I've seen them all never in any particular order.

[00:03:18] And I don't even know if I've ever watched any of them from start to finish other than

[00:03:23] maybe the original film.

[00:03:24] And so they're just part of that fabric of my childhood, that sort of nostalgia of

[00:03:34] whatever was on and that's what you have.

[00:03:36] And you watched it.

[00:03:38] And I think by the time that VHS rentals and, you know, movie rental shops and things like

[00:03:44] were around, we never bothered to rent them because we'd seen them all already.

[00:03:49] And we weren't really interested in film history.

[00:03:51] We're interested in being entertained.

[00:03:53] And so they were kind of like, you know, we know all those.

[00:03:57] So why bother?

[00:03:58] I don't be watching them.

[00:04:00] So I think coming back into this now with this little project is the first time where

[00:04:06] I've actually sat down and watched them, some of them from beginning to end, considered

[00:04:13] what they mean, considered what is what's so essential and what is so poignant about

[00:04:21] these movies, because they do have quite a bit to say from a social satirical standpoint.

[00:04:30] So yeah, so these are just really deeply embedded, but in this really haphazard way.

[00:04:36] Yeah.

[00:04:37] Okay.

[00:04:37] Yeah.

[00:04:37] I asked my mom when I started getting into this, like, did you used to watch these films?

[00:04:43] And she's like, oh yeah, I watched them all back in the day.

[00:04:45] But I guess for whatever reason, they weren't my parents' favorites.

[00:04:49] Like I was raised on Dune and Star Wars, and these were the films we watched over and over

[00:04:54] as a family.

[00:04:54] And so I was aware of these, but never really just never went back to watch them.

[00:05:00] And then Logan actually I saw were in the Academy of Death Racers server together.

[00:05:06] And he started this project of starting at the beginning.

[00:05:08] I was like, you know what?

[00:05:09] I was going to just rewatch the modern trilogy because I've seen the Burton film,

[00:05:14] and I'd seen Rise in the modern trilogy.

[00:05:18] So I was going to watch all those for the new one.

[00:05:21] I was like, nope, I'm going to go all the way back to the beginning.

[00:05:24] And I am so glad that I did because I got really into the IP.

[00:05:30] I love the original films.

[00:05:31] I watched the TV shows, the documentary, started picking up and reading the comics.

[00:05:37] And it's just now become one of my favorite franchises very quickly.

[00:05:42] That's amazing.

[00:05:43] You've just, I know we've been chatting on the side and you're like, oh, I got to watch

[00:05:47] this movie.

[00:05:48] It's like, wow, you really have consumed all of the even to do the television show.

[00:05:52] That's pretty wild because I don't even think I watched the television show.

[00:05:56] I think I was dimly aware of it.

[00:05:58] But there were other things on that were grabbing our attention at that time.

[00:06:04] You know, 77 came out.

[00:06:05] That's when I could really become aware of modern media with the Star Wars 77 release.

[00:06:11] And so, you know, it was Star Wars, it was Battlestar Galactica and a whole bunch of

[00:06:15] other stuff.

[00:06:16] I think by then the television show had already passed by because it was so short lived.

[00:06:21] Right, just one season.

[00:06:23] Yeah.

[00:06:25] During watching the documentary and seeing some clips of it, I was like, oh yeah.

[00:06:29] And then it's like, oh, these dudes, I kind of recognized the actors.

[00:06:35] Yeah.

[00:06:35] Roddy McDowell came back, the one who played the ape the most.

[00:06:40] Yes, exactly.

[00:06:42] So what do you when you were talking about, you know, you notice more the themes of these

[00:06:47] films?

[00:06:48] What were the themes that were standing out to you in this series?

[00:06:52] Well, I think as coming back as an adult and looking at them and being a podcaster, you

[00:06:57] know, obviously trying to think about things in a different way.

[00:07:03] What really struck me is how deeply political all of these movies are.

[00:07:08] Mm hmm.

[00:07:09] There's an outer wrapping of gonzo filmmaking, but inside there are deeply political messages.

[00:07:17] And I know that in some cases they weren't intending them to necessarily be in other

[00:07:24] ways, you know, in some ways and then in other ways they were being intentional about some

[00:07:28] of the stuff that they were addressing.

[00:07:31] But I think when you look at this, especially the original movie, it is a satirical mirror

[00:07:40] of the power structures of the patriarchy, of religion, the use of religion, the use

[00:07:47] of, you know, authoritarianism and militarism.

[00:07:53] All of these things are very front and center.

[00:07:58] And then I started thinking about like ape society and you have gorillas and chimpanzees

[00:08:05] and orangutans.

[00:08:07] And while that's not something that I'm always aware of, too, with these movies is the

[00:08:15] history of racism in America and how we've struggled with that from deep in our country's

[00:08:23] history.

[00:08:24] And I've always been, these movies always sort of make me think about that in some ways.

[00:08:30] And so I was thinking about this idea of structuring society around species and the

[00:08:35] gorillas are the brutes, the orangutans are the religious and political leaders and the

[00:08:41] chimpanzees being scientists and other types of intellectuals.

[00:08:47] It's very essentialist, right?

[00:08:49] It boils down sociological function into the species.

[00:08:55] And then once you're a member of that species, you're limited in what you can do, right?

[00:09:01] And it's a science fiction show, so there's a certain amount of realism that we're not

[00:09:06] pushing past.

[00:09:08] Right.

[00:09:09] I have a lot of complaints about the way that they portray different species of apes.

[00:09:15] But anyway.

[00:09:16] Yeah, but that's the thing is that functions as part of that satirical mirror and to make

[00:09:24] us examine and think about how we structure our own society.

[00:09:29] And I think that's something that is what really captures people's imagination.

[00:09:37] With the original films, there's the, you know, and what they were going for, and you

[00:09:43] picked this up in the documentary, is they're going for G-rated films, which are general

[00:09:50] audience for kids.

[00:09:51] That seemed to have a much looser definition back in the day.

[00:09:54] Right? It was just wild.

[00:09:56] And they were trying to give people some action adventure style entertainment.

[00:10:04] But then why do these films, like this film, I mean, okay, we have something, what, like

[00:10:10] 11 films in the Fast and Furious franchise.

[00:10:13] Okay, that's, you know, that's wild.

[00:10:14] But if you look at a lot of the other and Star Wars has what nine major movies, so that's

[00:10:21] pretty high.

[00:10:21] But Planet of the Apes is up there in terms of sequels and total number of films.

[00:10:27] What's the total number of films now?

[00:10:30] Five, three.

[00:10:31] Five in the original, two seasons of television, four in the new series so far.

[00:10:36] And then yeah, books and comic book.

[00:10:39] Right. So what is it, 10?

[00:10:40] In a game.

[00:10:41] Right. At least for franchise movies.

[00:10:43] So there's nine, oh yeah, sorry, 10 including-

[00:10:46] The newest one, right?

[00:10:48] Well, yeah, I meant including the Tim Burton one, which I was blocking out.

[00:10:51] Okay, right, right.

[00:10:52] So for any franchise that is significant.

[00:10:55] And especially when you go back and look at the first five films,

[00:11:01] was there a franchise industry when these original films were?

[00:11:06] I'm not as much of a film historian to answer this question, but I think Planet of the Apes

[00:11:11] is certainly early on.

[00:11:11] It kind of invented this.

[00:11:12] Yeah.

[00:11:13] I mean, it kind of invented this because it predated Star Wars, which kind of picked it

[00:11:19] up to another level.

[00:11:20] But also we learned in the documentary that it sort of invented film merchandising in a way.

[00:11:27] Right.

[00:11:28] Right?

[00:11:28] Exactly.

[00:11:29] It was very early in that.

[00:11:31] And they did not think there was going to be a sequel, which is why there's some weirdness too.

[00:11:36] Yeah, yeah.

[00:11:37] And I think we're going to talk about each of the original films in a little bit more detail.

[00:11:41] This idea that how does a franchise persist or last?

[00:11:46] There has to be some essential quality or nature to it to keep people coming back to it.

[00:11:53] And I think it's these issues of deeply intertwined, examining social structure,

[00:12:03] being satirical about it, holding up that mirror, examining power structures in society.

[00:12:09] And so there's some substance wrapped around some really gonzo filmmaking.

[00:12:16] Some of the later films, you're just like, wow.

[00:12:19] Or even the second one.

[00:12:21] Oh my gosh.

[00:12:23] And what's wild, this thought that...

[00:12:26] And again, in the documentary, they mentioned this, that each of the budgets of the original

[00:12:32] films subsequently went down.

[00:12:36] They kept forcing the budgets down on them.

[00:12:39] But yet expecting more and more in terms of audience and return in terms of the box office.

[00:12:46] Right.

[00:12:46] Which is just wild that they think that, okay, they were really squeezing the blood from the

[00:12:55] stone here.

[00:12:57] And yet they kept pulling them off and people kept coming back to them.

[00:13:02] And I think that's a really interesting thing that I'd never considered before.

[00:13:07] And so, yeah, it's a whole new level of appreciation.

[00:13:11] But that first movie, really an exceptional science fiction film and what they did and

[00:13:20] how they pushed the boundaries and how they pushed it through actually getting it made

[00:13:24] is pretty exceptional.

[00:13:25] But by the time we get the last of the films, it's pretty whacked out.

[00:13:30] They really overdid it.

[00:13:33] So then, thinking about the modern franchise movies, I think I saw one of them.

[00:13:40] I can't remember which one and I bounced off of it because it didn't have that gonzo nature

[00:13:51] and that satirical cutting edge to it.

[00:13:55] All of these movies are very cynical and satirical in some way.

[00:13:59] There's a little bit of cynicism.

[00:14:02] The satire is very sharp.

[00:14:04] And in some of the modern movies that I've seen, and I haven't seen that many, I didn't

[00:14:09] find that quality to them.

[00:14:13] And so I was stuck in my own nostalgia.

[00:14:15] I was looking for something and I was rummaging around in the attic and looking at this new

[00:14:19] thing going, okay, does it match my old experience?

[00:14:22] And it didn't.

[00:14:23] And so then I was like, eh, it's not grabbing me.

[00:14:26] And that's on me.

[00:14:27] So I have a really hard time evaluating the newer films because I'm so stuck in the nostalgia

[00:14:34] of the old films.

[00:14:36] Yeah, I can see that because the newer films, they have the political bent.

[00:14:42] They have the analysis of society, but they also are more grounded in a way in reality.

[00:14:51] It's not just like, so they actually have the apes.

[00:14:55] How could they actually physically evolve over 300 years, the jump to the new one?

[00:15:00] And yeah, so it doesn't have the same silly punch, but yeah, it does have the rest of

[00:15:09] it, which from my perspective, I was like, well, I like that they are bringing something

[00:15:15] fresh to the table.

[00:15:16] Not that I uniformly adore all the new ones.

[00:15:19] You'll hear Logan and I talk about that, but.

[00:15:22] Right.

[00:15:24] Yeah, I do like that they're doing something different.

[00:15:27] Yeah.

[00:15:27] Right on.

[00:15:28] What would be your Pukila rating for this, for the original series?

[00:15:36] I think it would have to be probably around, what do we call the null Pukila, like the

[00:15:44] middle, the zero.

[00:15:45] Yeah, zero.

[00:15:46] I guess it's zero.

[00:15:47] Yeah, I think it's a zero on the scale, maybe a 0.5.

[00:15:53] There's violence, but there's not a lot.

[00:15:57] It's a very simplistic and stylized.

[00:16:00] It was a G rating, so they were going for a G rating, so it doesn't really go.

[00:16:03] Yeah, well, except for Conquest is a bit more violent.

[00:16:13] Sure, and that one has some very deeply biting social commentary.

[00:16:20] But yeah, I think all the violence is very staged and sanitized in a way.

[00:16:26] And I was saying just the original movie itself, there's some action, some violent-y

[00:16:34] action, but there's nothing ever, there's no John Wick style.

[00:16:38] Right.

[00:16:38] But they do, so spoiler alert for the original films, they do at one point

[00:16:43] off-screen shoot a baby chimp.

[00:16:46] Right, that's right.

[00:16:48] No, no, they do in the, well, it's wrapped in a blanket, right?

[00:16:54] Right, yeah, that's true.

[00:16:58] You do see the shot land, but there's a blanket.

[00:17:00] Right, yeah, pretty funny.

[00:17:02] I think I like the, indeed, I see in the notes you have the Western vibes.

[00:17:08] Well, I thought we'd talk about it a little too when we get it, especially when we get

[00:17:11] it to Beneath the Planet of the Apes, but you can really see the Fox Ranch is very well

[00:17:17] represented in all of these films.

[00:17:19] It's an iconic landscape from film and television of that era, that dry scrub land with scratchy

[00:17:27] mountains and so forth.

[00:17:29] Lots of Star Trek has been filmed out in that environs, and so that landscape is very burned

[00:17:36] in.

[00:17:36] But as well, I noticed in some of the action, now I didn't finish all of the original films.

[00:17:42] I got up to Escape, I wasn't able to finish Conquest and Battle by the time we are recording

[00:17:49] this.

[00:17:51] In the original films, especially with Beneath, one of the things that I really noticed was

[00:18:00] how much DNA is in the action sequences of the Western-style television and movie shooting

[00:18:09] that these studios had been doing a lot of.

[00:18:11] So a lot of stagecoach jumps and jumping from the stagecoach or jumping from the stagecoach

[00:18:17] and jumping from the stagecoach or jumping on or off or fighting with somebody who is

[00:18:24] driving a horse-drawn cart or using a lot of horses or jumping out of a tree down onto

[00:18:32] somebody.

[00:18:33] There's a lot of Western, from the film and television history of American filming Westerns,

[00:18:41] there's a lot of that action DNA in here.

[00:18:44] And it makes sense because that's what we were just coming out of in terms of history.

[00:18:50] And so all the cameramen and the stuntmen and the production people, that was what they

[00:18:56] knew how to do.

[00:18:59] Everything looks like a nail if the only tool you have is a hammer.

[00:19:02] And so they really wove that in quite a lot.

[00:19:05] So I just found that those two things, even all the way up to Conquest, which I didn't

[00:19:11] watch, but they're just sort of, okay, we'll throw in some World War II jeeps and some

[00:19:15] explosions into the same sort of set piece.

[00:19:18] So pretty funny.

[00:19:20] Whereas Escape, I think is the one that deviates the biggest from all of that.

[00:19:24] Sure.

[00:19:25] Yeah.

[00:19:25] That's the more cosmopolitan one, actually.

[00:19:27] Yeah.

[00:19:29] So if we start at the beginning, this is all based on a 1963 book written by Pierre Boulle

[00:19:36] called La Planète des Singes.

[00:19:39] And just a public service announcement, the literal translation of La Planète des Singes

[00:19:45] is Planet of the Apes.

[00:19:46] We don't have to call it Monkey Planet.

[00:19:48] I need people to stop.

[00:19:49] It's a pet peeve.

[00:19:51] I see.

[00:19:54] But yeah, I recently picked up a copy to read and David, you were talking about, you were

[00:20:00] interested in reading it as well at some point?

[00:20:02] I was going to try.

[00:20:04] I was going to, my local digital, our local library is part of a digital consortium and

[00:20:12] I went to see if I could go check it out and skim through it really quick.

[00:20:17] But my library card had expired and I had to, yeah, you know, just got all messy in

[00:20:21] terms of getting it done.

[00:20:22] And I've been preparing to do some coverage of the original movie Alien.

[00:20:31] And that was some background work on Dune.

[00:20:34] So my IP bucket is a little full right now.

[00:20:38] I'm not reading it at any time soon.

[00:20:41] So yeah, no, I didn't, I had intended to if my library card hadn't been expired, I definitely

[00:20:47] would have downloaded it and read it really, or skimmed maybe the opening of it pretty

[00:20:53] quickly.

[00:20:53] I don't know.

[00:20:54] I didn't have a sense of how big the book is.

[00:20:57] Is it a big read or is it a short read?

[00:21:00] It's not a big read.

[00:21:04] There are some differences that I'm, I do actually know what the whole plot of the book

[00:21:09] is.

[00:21:10] And I skimmed like the opening part too, just out of curiosity.

[00:21:14] I was also trying, I got it in French, which is my third language.

[00:21:17] And so it can be a struggle for me to just read for pleasure in that.

[00:21:23] But I skimmed it.

[00:21:23] Right, because you're working a little bit.

[00:21:25] Yeah.

[00:21:25] Yeah.

[00:21:26] And I skimmed it and it's actually, it's pretty accessible.

[00:21:30] So I assume the English translation is as well.

[00:21:33] But I know it's framed by this, is a couple who's in space and sorry, spoiler alert for

[00:21:39] this decades old book.

[00:21:43] The couple turns out they are apes and they find this like sort of bottle message in a

[00:21:50] bottle in space.

[00:21:51] And it's this account from a human man who goes through the events of the book.

[00:21:57] And the difference is that they're more advanced technologically in the book, but they basically

[00:22:03] didn't have the budget for that in the original film.

[00:22:05] So they're like, oh yeah, they're just a simpler culture.

[00:22:09] So that's an opportunity where the new films can pick up on the original book more.

[00:22:14] And also, yeah, he gets a whole family and they actually do escape and they talk.

[00:22:20] Okay.

[00:22:21] But it's funny because Bull considered it one of his lesser works, but it's basically,

[00:22:27] this is all kind of the brainchild, this IP of Arthur P. Jacobs, who he had Kong fever.

[00:22:34] He was like, I wish I had made Kong.

[00:22:36] What can I make instead?

[00:22:37] And he found this book.

[00:22:38] Oh, interesting.

[00:22:39] And he just ushered this whole IP into existence and then he passed away right before the TV

[00:22:45] show was made.

[00:22:45] So he wasn't involved from there on out.

[00:22:48] Yeah.

[00:22:48] It's interesting.

[00:22:50] I didn't realize that aspect of it.

[00:22:52] And I don't wonder if at some level, this movie and the fascination of it doesn't reflect

[00:23:06] on the modern sensibilities of evolution and Darwinism.

[00:23:12] And certainly there are times in American history where there was a struggle over teaching

[00:23:19] creationism versus evolution in the schools.

[00:23:22] And there's a lot of stuff there.

[00:23:23] So I don't wonder if some of that modern American history and that struggle of who are we and

[00:23:33] how do we differentiate ourselves from other species on the planet, apes being the close

[00:23:38] relatives is not bound up in that.

[00:23:40] And if Jacobs is struggling, not struggling, but somehow captivated by this idea, if that

[00:23:45] does not play some part in his energetic response to this story, this bull story.

[00:23:55] Yeah.

[00:23:56] Well, I feel like just judging based on the step down in nuance from the movies to the

[00:24:03] television show, I feel like he was the one who was really pushing for some deeper commentary.

[00:24:13] Right.

[00:24:15] And again, going back to what we were talking about before, without a deeper commentary,

[00:24:20] I don't think that these films last as long as they have.

[00:24:25] Right. Absolutely.

[00:24:26] Especially getting a modern remake, right?

[00:24:30] I mean, that's significant.

[00:24:31] I mean, I know that the studios are always looking for cheap IP to mine, but in the modern

[00:24:38] films, none of them are inexpensive films.

[00:24:41] None of them are films that feel very schlocky.

[00:24:45] I mean, the amount of CGI and voice acting and the work that they have to do, just because

[00:24:50] you can use CGI doesn't mean that it's easier to produce a film.

[00:24:53] That is a lot of work in its own right.

[00:24:56] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:24:57] Yeah.

[00:24:58] So the original film, so Jacobs pulled together kind of a dream team.

[00:25:03] Boo was involved in it, but ultimately Rod Serling wrote of Twilight Zone fame.

[00:25:09] He wrote the first major draft, which was later revised by Michael Wilson.

[00:25:14] This film was revised over and over and over.

[00:25:17] And then the film was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.

[00:25:20] And Serling though, he's the one who wrote the iconic ending.

[00:25:25] Right.

[00:25:26] Which is a really great, this is a Twilight Zone-esque story.

[00:25:34] There's no doubt.

[00:25:35] I didn't realize that Serling had been involved in writing of the script until we started

[00:25:40] digging into this.

[00:25:41] And then I was like, oh, I had one of those penny drop moments where I was like, oh, it

[00:25:45] all makes sense now.

[00:25:47] And again, like a lot of other things, Perry Mason, Twilight Zone, I know those two aren't

[00:25:53] necessarily connected, but I'm trying to think of old television shows.

[00:25:58] Gomer Pyle.

[00:25:59] This is the kind of cultural refuse that was on syndication when I was a kid and when we

[00:26:05] were just sort of shoved, not shoved in front of the TV, but allowed to watch all this kind

[00:26:11] of TV.

[00:26:11] And so yeah, watching a lot of Twilight Zone and Outer Limits was certainly baked into

[00:26:17] the nostalgia of my youth along with the Planet of the Apes movies.

[00:26:22] It never occurred to me that this was Rod Serling, but boy, once I realized it, it

[00:26:27] was like, yes, this is clearly, because the ending that, and I think that's what grabbed

[00:26:32] the audiences too.

[00:26:34] That shock and awe of, oh my God, right?

[00:26:36] We've been on Earth this whole time.

[00:26:38] Spoiler.

[00:26:41] Yeah.

[00:26:42] No, I mean, I wish that I had seen it before I knew The Big Twits because I had to, watching

[00:26:49] it and thinking like, if I didn't know, then this would blow my mind.

[00:26:53] Right.

[00:26:53] Right.

[00:26:53] Yeah.

[00:26:53] You have to sort of manufacture that sense of surprise for yourself because it is so baked

[00:26:59] into our cultural lexicon.

[00:27:01] Charlton Heston pounding his fist into the sand and screaming from The Simpsons to I

[00:27:09] don't know how many other times that motif has been played out.

[00:27:14] It is such a cornerstone of modern cultural literacy.

[00:27:22] Yeah.

[00:27:23] Yeah.

[00:27:23] And I was pleasantly surprised by the ape makeup for the film from the 60s.

[00:27:31] Wow.

[00:27:32] Apparently that was one fifth their budget and a million dollars.

[00:27:36] The shout out to the documentary as well, because they really spend a lot of time talking

[00:27:43] about how that process worked and that the original franchise, the whole series of them

[00:27:51] would not have worked were it not for the effort that they put into the makeup.

[00:27:56] If it looks ridiculous or funny, people would have just been like, meh.

[00:28:01] We've seen these before in the 50s monster movies, right?

[00:28:04] Where it's just a person in a rubber suit, right?

[00:28:08] It's not going to work.

[00:28:09] But the ability for the actors to be able to emote through the appliances, through the

[00:28:17] mask work, it really is what differentiates these films from anything else at the time.

[00:28:24] So John Chambers was the makeup artist and he ended up earning an honorary Oscar eventually.

[00:28:31] But yeah, he's definitely...

[00:28:34] It seems like this is the work Oscars are made for, but whatever.

[00:28:40] The fact that Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowell show...

[00:28:49] I think Roddy McDowell is a perfect person to play.

[00:28:54] Cornelius as well, there's a gentleness to his nature as a person that comes through.

[00:29:02] And Kim Hunter is so...

[00:29:07] I don't want to say she's sarcastic, but she has this very cutting way about her,

[00:29:13] but with a gentleness and a smoothness.

[00:29:15] With warmth.

[00:29:16] Absolutely.

[00:29:18] And those two actors, I think without them...

[00:29:21] I mean, Charlton Heston is iconic in his own way.

[00:29:24] Meh.

[00:29:25] Yeah, well, but he was a huge star at the time, right?

[00:29:27] Yeah, I know.

[00:29:28] Massive.

[00:29:29] And granted, he's the marquee headline.

[00:29:33] But again, I don't think the franchise goes for as long and as wide as it does

[00:29:39] without McDowell and Hunter.

[00:29:43] They really set the floor for this.

[00:29:45] And I mean, I know we lose them in an escape, but it really...

[00:29:49] Well, then they come in an escape.

[00:29:52] Right, right.

[00:29:52] But I'm saying after, at the end of the escape.

[00:29:54] Oh, right.

[00:29:55] But then McDowell, he plays...

[00:29:57] Reprises.

[00:29:58] Yeah, exactly.

[00:29:59] And then he plays in the TV show, he plays Galen.

[00:30:02] And all three of those characters have such different personalities.

[00:30:05] I really came out of this with a deep love of Roddy McDowell.

[00:30:08] He was very much in our...

[00:30:12] Just part of our...

[00:30:14] Of movie stars at the time.

[00:30:16] He's again, a big star, a big star in the sky for us at that time.

[00:30:22] He's just...

[00:30:23] His onscreen persona was so sweet, but yet so confident.

[00:30:29] Yeah, he really was a really special actor.

[00:30:32] Yeah.

[00:30:33] I don't know much about him personally.

[00:30:34] I don't know much about his personal history and acting history,

[00:30:39] but he was definitely a big presence for us.

[00:30:44] Yeah, I looked up some stuff about him.

[00:30:46] And I mean, and he was...

[00:30:50] It's interesting, but then not surprising to learn that he was a gay man who was kind of

[00:30:56] trying to hide it as you did at the time.

[00:30:57] Right, yeah.

[00:30:58] And he died of lung cancer actually right after that documentary that we kept.

[00:31:05] Oh, wow.

[00:31:06] That was released in 98.

[00:31:07] So I have to wonder if he made that documentary to just sort of leave behind his legacy.

[00:31:13] Like this is my legacy.

[00:31:16] Right.

[00:31:16] Thank you for watching.

[00:31:17] Right.

[00:31:19] To dive in on the original film a little bit more too,

[00:31:23] when we were talking about this idea of we have to manufacture our own surprise for it.

[00:31:29] And so while I was watching on my laptop screen in bed,

[00:31:33] I kept trying to put myself into the theater and doing a theater experience,

[00:31:38] like a big 70 millimeter.

[00:31:40] And then thinking about the sound design and the music and how otherworldly and different,

[00:31:48] they really pushed the boundaries of the audio space for that movie.

[00:31:55] So yeah, I really wish I could have had that experience of...

[00:31:59] I'd love a re-release in a big, in a laser.

[00:32:03] I don't even know if an IMAX, just something big and colorful and bright.

[00:32:07] Because the audio and the music is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.

[00:32:13] Completely agree.

[00:32:14] And I thought that I would hate the fact that the only human woman character just

[00:32:23] sits around not speaking.

[00:32:24] It's mute.

[00:32:25] Yeah.

[00:32:26] But I think Linda Harrison did such a good job.

[00:32:29] And to know she came in this as a complete newbie, just modeling background.

[00:32:35] Right.

[00:32:35] And without any lines, she sort of grounded the first two movies a lot.

[00:32:39] Especially the second.

[00:32:41] Yeah, that's true.

[00:32:42] And played a kind of a pivotal role in terms of giving the audience some structure to grab onto.

[00:32:52] And in creating a dimension to it that I think without her,

[00:32:55] I think it would have been a very different movie and less interesting in a lot of ways.

[00:33:00] Yeah.

[00:33:00] Because we needed Taylor to care for something in this world.

[00:33:05] And without him being attached to something,

[00:33:09] then what's the point?

[00:33:11] There would be a kind of a nihilism, I think.

[00:33:14] Yeah.

[00:33:16] And I've gotten quite attached to the name Nova now.

[00:33:18] And I judge very hard in the other movies, how is it used?

[00:33:23] So I completely squandered it in the Tim Burton movie.

[00:33:27] But the new series has given a good respect to the name.

[00:33:31] They've put respect on Nova's name.

[00:33:33] Okay, fair enough.

[00:33:35] My favorite character from the film series is definitely Zira.

[00:33:39] She's wonderful.

[00:33:40] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:41] And her willingness to challenge the power structures, her willingness to

[00:33:48] never let the patriarchal orangutans ride roughshod over them,

[00:33:54] where Cornelius is always like, Zira, pipe down.

[00:33:59] She's out there.

[00:33:59] She's loud and proud.

[00:34:00] And then of course in Escape, well, I know we're going to talk about Escape in a minute.

[00:34:03] But in Escape where she goes and she gives a speech to a woman's club, right?

[00:34:08] And says, we have voices, we have brains, we should use them.

[00:34:12] It had, again, going to a very political place in this wildly sci-fi genre.

[00:34:23] The writers are constantly putting in little digs and pushes

[00:34:27] at challenging modern assumptions.

[00:34:31] Mm-hmm.

[00:34:32] And Kim Hunter, I think if Kim Hunter hadn't had, again, the actor does such a great job in terms of

[00:34:40] not softening the message, but she's so genuine and authentic in some way that she doesn't sound

[00:34:48] angry or she's giving, she's ribbing society in this way where she's winking and smiling

[00:35:00] at the same time as poking with a sharp elbow.

[00:35:03] And that combination delivery I think is more effective than

[00:35:06] if she were just jamming us with her elbow.

[00:35:09] Yeah, I'm glad.

[00:35:11] Well, we'll get to the third movie in a moment.

[00:35:13] Did you have anything more to add about the first?

[00:35:15] There was one thing that I just never quite understood, which is Taylor's sardonicism,

[00:35:22] I guess you can say it that way.

[00:35:24] He's very sardonic.

[00:35:26] He is a man who is very, well, and you played the opening quote, which is really great,

[00:35:32] where he's sitting in the cockpit of the spaceship and he's really over humanity, right?

[00:35:40] He's just like, oh, where it is.

[00:35:42] And so then that plays nicely at the end, but then there's times in the movie where he's just

[00:35:50] he's really ribbing.

[00:35:52] What was the name of the guy who gets the lobotomy?

[00:35:55] Oh, yeah, their friend.

[00:35:57] Landon.

[00:35:58] Landon.

[00:35:58] Was it Landon?

[00:35:59] I think you're right.

[00:36:00] Yeah.

[00:36:02] He's giving them a hard time while they're walking through the forbidden zone area right

[00:36:07] after they had crashed.

[00:36:08] And I was like, I don't get why is he ribbing this guy?

[00:36:10] So that was like something I never quite got.

[00:36:13] But the way that Heston played Taylor is, you know, he's so over human society and human

[00:36:22] culture.

[00:36:23] But yet when he's faced with ape society, it's a madhouse.

[00:36:28] It's a madhouse.

[00:36:29] You know, he can't accept it either.

[00:36:31] So he's this man who's trapped between two worlds.

[00:36:35] So I guess that plays.

[00:36:36] I guess that doesn't.

[00:36:38] I was scratching my head over it when I watched the movie the other day, but I guess that

[00:36:42] kind of works out in the long run.

[00:36:44] That he is this sense of trapped between two worlds gives us an entry into examining both

[00:36:50] worlds.

[00:36:52] What did you make of the see no evil scene when the orangutans are having their mock

[00:36:59] trial and they actually cover their eyes and mouth and ears?

[00:37:04] Did you find that funny?

[00:37:06] I found it a little too on the nose.

[00:37:07] I honestly didn't even notice it until it was really out to me.

[00:37:11] Yeah.

[00:37:12] And then so and then so when I saw it in retrospect, I was like, oh, cute, because, you know,

[00:37:17] it didn't distract me in the moment.

[00:37:19] But I thought that it was well blended enough for me, at least.

[00:37:24] Apparently, it played very well when it first came out.

[00:37:26] So I thought it was a little bit too much because they really do make a point of doing

[00:37:31] it.

[00:37:31] But whatever, it's fine.

[00:37:33] But the two biggest scenes, right, which are just so iconic in terms of film history are

[00:37:43] the, you know, take your hands off me moment.

[00:37:46] And of course, then the final scene of seeing the Statue of Liberty there.

[00:37:51] Right.

[00:37:52] The interestingly enough, do you know about the one hour mark thing in films?

[00:37:57] What do you mean?

[00:37:58] This idea that for a film that's usually, you know, under two hours, there is this point

[00:38:07] in the film that some people and I can't find it in official literature, but it exists.

[00:38:15] And you can find, you know, Reddit threads and things about this.

[00:38:19] That at the one hour mark, the movie has to have a punch or a turn or a coming awareness

[00:38:29] of something to then kick the movie into the next chapters, the next cycles of the story

[00:38:38] plot.

[00:38:39] So that by one hour, if you don't have that twist or punch or whatever, you know, however

[00:38:46] you want to describe it, then the rest of the movie will kind of drag and it won't have a

[00:38:51] story driven energy or dynamic dynamic-ness to it.

[00:38:56] And so the take your hands off me, you damn dirty ape line comes almost on the hour mark.

[00:39:04] Exactly.

[00:39:05] It's like between one hour and one hour, two minutes, depending on what.

[00:39:08] Okay.

[00:39:09] And that's when the film takes a definitive turn, right?

[00:39:12] That's when it really amps up its action.

[00:39:16] So I thought that was really great.

[00:39:17] And then we kind of talked about the Statue of Liberty a little bit, but that is such

[00:39:23] a, the way that they shot that, the way that the film ends on that is such a powerful moment.

[00:39:31] And you just, you know, you just have to applaud the creativity and the genius insight into

[00:39:40] flipping the whole time.

[00:39:41] Oh my God, it's not another planet.

[00:39:43] It's Earth, right?

[00:39:45] Although the Statue of Liberty shouldn't be on the coast on a rocky outcrop.

[00:39:50] We'll ignore, they do kind of explain that in the next film.

[00:39:53] Why?

[00:39:56] It's true, but it works so well visually.

[00:39:59] So anyway, I think that's about all I have to say for the original.

[00:40:03] It's a real standout movie and I would love someday, you know, if I had the time,

[00:40:08] I'd love to run through sort of all of the iconic sci-fi movies.

[00:40:14] And this one is, it stands as one of the greats all the time.

[00:40:18] So yeah, I'm glad we get to talk about it today.

[00:40:20] Yeah.

[00:40:20] And you made me think about this whole one hour thing.

[00:40:23] Now I'm wondering if in the first one in the new franchise, there's an iconic line,

[00:40:28] sorry, mild spoiler, but I'm wondering if it happens one hour in, it's the line is only

[00:40:35] no.

[00:40:36] Hmm.

[00:40:37] So I'm wondering, I'm going to go back.

[00:40:39] I mean, you know, on any given film, be it a rom-com, be it a, you know, a prestige drama,

[00:40:46] be it sci-fi look to see when the, you know, what's happening right around the one hour mark.

[00:40:52] Sometimes it's, you know, anywhere between 55 and 105, somewhere in there,

[00:40:57] there has to be some kind of, because the, what I've heard about this is that the

[00:41:02] audience's energy and attention needs to be reinvigorated.

[00:41:06] Right.

[00:41:06] At some point.

[00:41:07] Well, so it's interesting because Logan and I will talk about, you'll hear in the,

[00:41:11] in our conversation that the new film Kingdom, it has a turning point 40 minutes in,

[00:41:17] it's a two and a half hour film.

[00:41:19] So it's like a third of the way through.

[00:41:20] Yeah.

[00:41:21] And the whole thing changes.

[00:41:24] Shifts at some point.

[00:41:25] Yeah.

[00:41:25] So the, yeah.

[00:41:25] And that's a question because, you know, in the past we didn't, we had, you know,

[00:41:30] 30 minute or one hour television shows.

[00:41:32] And then we had one and a half hour plus or minus one and a half hour films,

[00:41:36] you know, getting an audience to sit two and a half hours was a hard thing.

[00:41:41] And so now, you know, we've got two and a half and three hour long films.

[00:41:43] I was completely engrossed, but yeah, sometimes it's like that.

[00:41:46] Yeah.

[00:41:47] So, so what does that do to the flow?

[00:41:50] What, what does it do to the dynamic arc of a movie?

[00:41:54] I don't know how that plays out.

[00:41:56] I just know that in the, in the one and a half hour zone that the one hour is crucial.

[00:42:01] Yeah.

[00:42:02] I think, yeah, you need to definitely make sure that your film has warranted that.

[00:42:07] And in this case, Logan and I both felt that it did.

[00:42:09] Although I know obviously there are other people who are like, well,

[00:42:12] it could have been half an hour shorter or whatever.

[00:42:15] Right.

[00:42:15] Right.

[00:42:16] Okay.

[00:42:17] So the second film in the original franchise is Beneath the Planet of the Apes released in 1970.

[00:42:22] And so they basically were, this is a funny story because they were not going to have,

[00:42:28] I mean, sequels apparently weren't a thing then.

[00:42:31] Right.

[00:42:32] But this did so well, they're like, we have to do another one.

[00:42:34] And they called Charlton Heston and he's like, I don't want to be in a sequel.

[00:42:37] He's like, fine, I will appear if I can only be at the beginning and the end.

[00:42:42] Yeah.

[00:42:44] And then he throws in the, you kill me at the end.

[00:42:46] And it's great.

[00:42:47] And it actually ends up, I think working really well.

[00:42:50] When I saw it.

[00:42:50] In terms of.

[00:42:52] Yeah.

[00:42:52] Go ahead.

[00:42:53] No, when I saw the end of the movie, so spoiler alert, but the end of the movie, it ends with him,

[00:42:59] his character blowing up the entire planet.

[00:43:01] I'm like, how are there three more films after this?

[00:43:05] It's a wild film.

[00:43:07] It is so whacked.

[00:43:09] And I, you know, again, like I said at the top, I watched these out of order.

[00:43:15] I never watched them in whole and complete.

[00:43:16] So you didn't know that.

[00:43:18] I always assumed this was later.

[00:43:19] This is one of the last ones.

[00:43:21] I have something I have to say to Charlton Heston about this.

[00:43:24] Okay.

[00:43:25] You're a maniac!

[00:43:28] You blew it up!

[00:43:31] Oh, damn you!

[00:43:34] God damn you!

[00:43:35] Damn you all to hell!

[00:43:40] That line is seared into my brain and deep into my synapses.

[00:43:45] But yeah, he blew it up.

[00:43:46] He blew it up.

[00:43:47] It's so great.

[00:43:49] And I think this is where, well, and then of course, Escape fixes it, right?

[00:43:56] But this idea of the time traveling paradox, would we have as much time travel in our modern

[00:44:07] storytelling were it not for this movie?

[00:44:10] And the fact that for Escape, well this and Escape, that the studio is like,

[00:44:18] need next ape movie.

[00:44:20] Period, right?

[00:44:21] That's like the kind of note that they would get.

[00:44:23] Apes live, new movie needed or something like that.

[00:44:26] Wild!

[00:44:28] And they had to invent something, right?

[00:44:30] And it works.

[00:44:33] And I think it creates the modern time paradox, time travel, you know, Back to the Future,

[00:44:39] Star Trek, all this stuff.

[00:44:41] Would we have all of it without these movies?

[00:44:43] I don't know.

[00:44:44] Right.

[00:44:46] Yeah.

[00:44:46] So the director of this one, Schaffner was unavailable.

[00:44:49] So Ted Poe stepped in and they said he quote unquote struggled with the material.

[00:44:53] And this is, Paul Deden by the way wrote this and the next two as well.

[00:44:58] But this is definitely the most wild and gonzo of the-

[00:45:02] Totally.

[00:45:03] And Roddy McDowell's not in this one.

[00:45:06] But they sort of slipped through it.

[00:45:09] Yeah.

[00:45:10] Oh man, at the beginning where he and Nova are writing, where Taylor and Nova are writing in

[00:45:21] the flames and he falls through the rock wall and stuff and you're just like, what the hell?

[00:45:26] What is going on?

[00:45:27] And then I forget the name of the actor who they replaced Heston with.

[00:45:31] James Franciscus.

[00:45:33] Yes, that's right.

[00:45:34] James Franciscus.

[00:45:35] Who played Brent.

[00:45:35] Who was a television star, not a movie star.

[00:45:39] But damn if he is not a carbon copy of Heston.

[00:45:42] Yeah, but I liked him better.

[00:45:43] I thought he was an upgrade.

[00:45:45] Really?

[00:45:45] Yeah.

[00:45:45] Interesting.

[00:45:45] Because for me Heston was just always too like over the top and James Franciscus I

[00:45:50] just felt more believable about.

[00:45:53] That's interesting.

[00:45:53] Yeah, he does have a more depth to his quality because Heston is playing Heston pretty much

[00:45:58] in any role that he plays, right?

[00:46:01] He's this big upfront chest out leading man stereotype.

[00:46:08] But yeah, Francis Kenzie just when he crawls out of the spaceship you're just like, oh,

[00:46:13] okay, I see what you're doing here.

[00:46:16] Like not subtle guys.

[00:46:17] Not at all.

[00:46:18] Go along.

[00:46:19] Yeah.

[00:46:20] But oh man, what a wacky film.

[00:46:23] What a whacked out movie for a second seat, you know, for the second of the series.

[00:46:28] It's just nuts.

[00:46:30] But I really enjoy this idea of this religious death cult.

[00:46:39] Again, that's what these movies do is they really hold a mirror up to us.

[00:46:43] So when they recreate the church scenes at the end where they're singing the hymns to

[00:46:47] the bomb and of course at the time when is this 1970, right?

[00:46:51] Mm-hmm.

[00:46:52] The whole idea of nuclear war, the whole idea of we're still in America, still fighting

[00:47:02] in Vietnam.

[00:47:04] And so there's a lot of anti, there's the obvious anti-war protest by the chimpanzees

[00:47:10] in here.

[00:47:12] And so again, just really bracing modern society, just pushing up against it and saying, you

[00:47:19] are worshiping, this is a death cult and this is what happens.

[00:47:23] They're worshiping the bomb.

[00:47:24] Yeah.

[00:47:25] Yeah.

[00:47:25] And when you take off your mask, what's underneath?

[00:47:27] It's ugly.

[00:47:29] It's terrifying.

[00:47:30] Skinlessness.

[00:47:31] Skinless.

[00:47:32] Yeah.

[00:47:33] So it really works and for whacked out it is, it works on the social commentary.

[00:47:40] Yeah.

[00:47:40] I liked having the contrast of the underground people who had, because actually before watching

[00:47:47] this, I have to say I've been working in the background on this novel for ages about this

[00:47:53] culture where people were, some stayed above ground and some stayed underground.

[00:47:57] And the ones above ground did not go dumb or anything like that.

[00:48:00] But the ones underground are forced into advancing more because they have to be able to survive

[00:48:06] in this environment.

[00:48:08] And so this is maybe why I love this film a lot more than a lot of people seem to.

[00:48:15] It's just so weird and it ends with the entire world exploding.

[00:48:19] What's not to like?

[00:48:20] Right.

[00:48:23] And it has a kind of wackiness too, because I think they were not prepared to make a sequel

[00:48:32] and the studio pushed them so hard that they're like, okay, fuck it.

[00:48:38] Let's just go.

[00:48:39] Let's just do this and see how far we can take this storyline.

[00:48:44] So it's a really special film in that regard.

[00:48:48] Yeah.

[00:48:49] And in this, you can also really see, I was talking before about the

[00:48:56] filmmaking style of the genre of Western TV films.

[00:49:02] And you can really see that in this movie as well,

[00:49:04] in terms of the horse chases and the carriage escapes and things like that.

[00:49:10] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:49:11] And at some point, I had this feeling that I was just watching an extended

[00:49:17] Star Trek, the original series.

[00:49:19] It was just like an extended episode of that.

[00:49:23] Visually it read very similar to how they were making those shows at the time as well.

[00:49:28] Just the quality of the film stock and the set design.

[00:49:31] The best episodes of the live action TV shows reminded me of Star Trek.

[00:49:37] Okay, nice.

[00:49:38] So very funny.

[00:49:41] Yeah.

[00:49:41] Go see it.

[00:49:42] Definitely take a couple of edibles and watch this movie because it's a lot of fun.

[00:49:47] It's a lot of fun.

[00:49:47] You can watch this one when you're punchy with friends.

[00:49:50] That's right.

[00:49:50] That's right.

[00:49:51] Okay, so that brings us to the third movie in the series,

[00:49:54] which is actually my favorite movie in the original series, 1971's Escape from the Planet.

[00:50:00] So this is directed by Don Taylor.

[00:50:02] And I think, first of all, they solved the problem with,

[00:50:08] they're like, by the way, while all this stuff was going on underground, Cornelius and Zira

[00:50:13] somehow pulled up and fixed the human rocket ship from the future and took off in it.

[00:50:19] Don't worry about it.

[00:50:20] It happened.

[00:50:21] Right.

[00:50:22] They have a random scientist character with them who I guess figured that out.

[00:50:26] Who then dies.

[00:50:27] Yeah.

[00:50:27] Right.

[00:50:27] Who then promptly dies.

[00:50:29] Killed by a non-

[00:50:31] Gorilla.

[00:50:31] Yeah, a non-evolved gorilla.

[00:50:33] Yeah.

[00:50:35] But this is, it's a roller coaster like the previous film, a roller coaster in tone.

[00:50:41] But this is a much more cohesive version of that with, and with some of, in my opinion,

[00:50:47] some of the deepest philosophical discussion in the entire series and quite the twist,

[00:50:52] dark ending of its own.

[00:50:54] Yeah, very, very dark ending.

[00:50:55] And I agree with you.

[00:50:56] I think it's got the most, it's the least gonzo of the movies for sure.

[00:51:03] And it-

[00:51:04] But you still get like a shopping sequence and then you get a baby killed at the end,

[00:51:09] but not the talking baby.

[00:51:11] So it's just that poor other mother gorilla's baby who was switched.

[00:51:15] Right.

[00:51:18] And at some point, this is a bit of a love story between Cornelius and Zira.

[00:51:22] It's very sweet.

[00:51:24] And it has a kind of a rom-com style from that age as well.

[00:51:32] A kind of Breakfast at Tiffany's, singing in the rain.

[00:51:37] I don't know, just this idea of you're on this, the king and I,

[00:51:41] you're on this whirlwind of adventure and drama.

[00:51:45] Publicity.

[00:51:46] Yeah, and publicity.

[00:51:46] Yeah, absolutely.

[00:51:47] The party scene in the hotel is wild.

[00:51:50] And watching all the humans act like chimps on the little toys that they've gotten there.

[00:51:57] And the court scenes, yeah.

[00:52:00] Yeah, yeah, of course.

[00:52:00] Which mirror the original movies with their tribunal kind of thing.

[00:52:09] I love that this presidential commission has such gravity and weight.

[00:52:14] How dare you question a presidential commission?

[00:52:17] Wild.

[00:52:18] So I see you wrote here, tropey ending.

[00:52:22] You weren't a fan of the ending?

[00:52:23] No, I didn't mean it in a bad way.

[00:52:26] I mean it in a way of both of our primary characters die in this very sort of tropey way.

[00:52:37] Did Cornelius have to be shot?

[00:52:39] Did Zira?

[00:52:41] The thing was Zira getting shot kind of makes sense given the moment.

[00:52:45] But the whole idea that all of our main characters die in these very dramatic ways.

[00:52:50] Right.

[00:52:51] Except the miracle infant in the circus.

[00:52:54] Right.

[00:52:55] And it just is a very overly dramatic sort of thing with Zira crawling up to Cornelius's body.

[00:53:07] Yeah.

[00:53:08] Yeah, you're right.

[00:53:08] It's really dark and shooting the baby was like, wow.

[00:53:13] But again, they-

[00:53:13] I was, yeah.

[00:53:14] Go ahead.

[00:53:15] Go ahead.

[00:53:15] I was going to say, I was also after the last two endings, I was like,

[00:53:19] how are they going to live up to the endings of the last two movies?

[00:53:22] I was like, oh, here we go.

[00:53:23] Yep.

[00:53:24] So I started to really look forward to the dark, cynical endings of each of these films.

[00:53:30] And that's what makes these films so iconic is that they are not willing.

[00:53:35] They'll give you convention, but in the middle of convention,

[00:53:38] they will completely surprise you and completely upend your expectations.

[00:53:44] And that's really great.

[00:53:47] They brought in Ricardo Montalban for this movie.

[00:53:51] So I love that man.

[00:53:52] I love that man's acting, his voicing and his intonation.

[00:53:57] He's just so great.

[00:53:59] And for him to have smuggled the baby out like that, what a perfect ending.

[00:54:05] What a perfect way.

[00:54:06] Yeah.

[00:54:06] He was a good bridge to the next film, but then I was mad that he died.

[00:54:10] Yeah.

[00:54:12] So this is where my film watching ended.

[00:54:15] I wasn't able to get Conquest and Battle done, but I did watch the documentary.

[00:54:20] I made sure I watched the documentary.

[00:54:23] And so what they did and how they did it and the themes of the other two,

[00:54:30] I think Escape is really unique because it's able to take the universe and expand it in a way that

[00:54:43] there was no way to see or predict prior to it, right?

[00:54:47] Right.

[00:54:48] Because it gives us their baby.

[00:54:50] It gives us Caesar and that moment that this storyline opens up these possibilities,

[00:55:00] not only for those original films, but also gives a seed for all these future

[00:55:07] iterations of the Apes franchise.

[00:55:10] So we can get modern movies with...

[00:55:12] If we didn't have that central character of Caesar, I don't think you could make more

[00:55:18] Ape movies, right?

[00:55:18] You really need the embodiment of this.

[00:55:21] And this oppositional figure who is saying, Ape shall not kill Ape.

[00:55:27] We are going to live and have a society that is better, that is different.

[00:55:32] We're going to strive for something greater.

[00:55:35] And then that's a challenge.

[00:55:38] That's a struggle to be able to execute that when the circumstances change and your values

[00:55:45] are being tested, your societal norms are being tested by circumstances that are unforeseen,

[00:55:51] like a spaceman coming from the past.

[00:55:55] Right?

[00:55:56] Yeah.

[00:55:56] So the next film was kind of the darkest in tone, which is Conquest of the Planet of the

[00:56:01] Apes in 1972, directed by J. Lee Thompson.

[00:56:06] He also directed the final film, by the way.

[00:56:09] It dragged for me a little bit this one, but it is a lot of people's favorite and I do

[00:56:13] appreciate it as a political statement.

[00:56:16] It's interesting because they did cover in the documentary how they changed the ending.

[00:56:23] That at first it was going to be a darker ending and that didn't test well.

[00:56:26] So they were like, Oh, well, actually, because they were like, it was going to be, you know,

[00:56:32] you all got your weapons and fuck the humans and rise up.

[00:56:36] And then they change it to a voiceover of, so now you can put down your weapons and we

[00:56:41] can all live in peace until cut to Battle of the Planet of the Apes, the final film

[00:56:49] in the original series in 73.

[00:56:52] And this one didn't have Den anymore, the writer, he dropped out due to illness.

[00:56:58] And so it was written by John William and Joyce Hopper Corrington.

[00:57:02] And Battle winds up being the punching bag of the series.

[00:57:06] Right.

[00:57:08] But I think it does a couple of things well.

[00:57:12] First of all, it jumps forward in time.

[00:57:17] So it's this sort of linking film between, because the entire series ends up being a

[00:57:22] time loop basically.

[00:57:24] And so Battle's kind of in the middle of this time loop, wrapping back around to the

[00:57:28] beginning.

[00:57:29] Although there's this ambiguous ending where you don't know.

[00:57:32] We have human kids and ape kids together learning.

[00:57:36] And then a statue of Caesar, you know, who is the one who rises up in the final films

[00:57:42] and leads the apes to independence.

[00:57:44] There's a statue of him with a tear rolling down his face, which all this goes directly

[00:57:49] into the new Kingdom of the Apes movie, which is about the legacy of that version of Caesar.

[00:57:55] So it's interesting, the parallels between this final film and kind of the story.

[00:58:02] The new film.

[00:58:04] And, you know, at this time, what is this?

[00:58:08] This is a 73.

[00:58:10] You know, we are in America, we're right in the middle.

[00:58:16] We're struggling with civil rights and questions of civil rights and laws and Birmingham and

[00:58:21] King and X and all of this stuff.

[00:58:25] And so then to put forward the storyline of two different kinds of people, right?

[00:58:32] Two different kinds of societies trying to live together.

[00:58:36] It puts that question center into the film.

[00:58:40] Can apes and humans live together?

[00:58:42] Can blacks and whites live together?

[00:58:45] And I'm not equating a black or a white human being to any particular ape.

[00:58:50] I'm just saying.

[00:58:51] That was obviously the questions that they were addressing.

[00:58:54] Right.

[00:58:54] And just saying, okay, can these two outwardly appear?

[00:58:58] Because in the movies, when the ape movies, the apes are a people, right?

[00:59:02] They are a society with language and culture and norms and values, right?

[00:59:08] So can two different seeming societies coexist?

[00:59:15] And how do we do that?

[00:59:16] And I think the film really draws a big circle around that and highlights the questions.

[00:59:24] And it brings back the underground telepaths, which are personal favorite again.

[00:59:32] Yeah.

[00:59:32] I like, yeah, it shows them also in development.

[00:59:36] Yeah, it asks all these questions.

[00:59:38] It lays out and maybe we're not having the exact same conversations about race today,

[00:59:44] but we are having different versions of the same conversations.

[00:59:48] So where I think, which is why I've talked to a bunch of people now who have gone back

[00:59:53] and started watching the original films because just because they see people gushing about them

[00:59:59] because they're watching because of the new one, but also it's just, they are timeless.

[01:00:04] Their themes.

[01:00:05] Yeah.

[01:00:05] Right.

[01:00:06] It's something I wanted to mention too about the conquest is this idea of,

[01:00:13] and this is a concept that I'm only dimly aware of.

[01:00:16] So I don't mean to speak authoritatively about it.

[01:00:19] I'm just sort of aware of it, this idea of the master's tools.

[01:00:24] And so the ending of conquest really has that, which is we have guns now,

[01:00:31] we have knowledge and are we going to use those tools to persecute those who persecuted us?

[01:00:37] Mm-hmm.

[01:00:38] And are we going to do something different?

[01:00:41] Or are we going to use the master's tools?

[01:00:42] Because one of the things that the tools of the master do to you as the wielder is they corrupt

[01:00:48] your soul.

[01:00:49] They do moral harm to you as a human being.

[01:00:53] And so even though, you know, the ending was the ending, I think they hit on something which

[01:00:59] is really important is how do we find mercy and how do we find space when we have been

[01:01:06] so wronged and so persecuted?

[01:01:07] It's a challenging question.

[01:01:09] And for as gonzo as these two movies are, they do, they dive really deep into these

[01:01:16] very difficult questions of what it is to be a human being and how do we find social justice?

[01:01:23] Where is justice?

[01:01:25] Yeah.

[01:01:25] And as I said, there's two TV series actually.

[01:01:28] There's a one season live action series, 14 episodes in 74, and then a one season animated

[01:01:35] series, 13 episodes in 75.

[01:01:37] And I enjoyed them in the sense that I wasn't ready to be done with the movies.

[01:01:42] And so they're like extensions of that, especially the first one, you know, we have Roddy McDowell

[01:01:47] back and he's playing Galen.

[01:01:51] And Galen is actually my favorite Roddy McDowell role because he's a sassy ape.

[01:01:56] Okay.

[01:01:58] Quite different from the other two.

[01:02:00] But this series is kind of a mess.

[01:02:02] And without Arthur Jacobs, the producer, you can feel the difference in it.

[01:02:09] Although sometimes, like I said, the best episodes felt like Star Trek.

[01:02:12] And it just, it ends awkwardly.

[01:02:15] They obviously weren't planning on it being over, but there is a sort of ending.

[01:02:19] And the animated one, it's my lowest ranking of them all, but it's interesting that it's

[01:02:25] remixes the book, the movies and the TV show in terms of setting and the characters.

[01:02:30] So that's for free on YouTube, if anyone wants to watch.

[01:02:35] And then the era came to a close with that documentary we've been talking about.

[01:02:38] So yeah, super cool to see all of like basically all the cast members and key crew members

[01:02:45] coming back.

[01:02:47] I would say anybody who's listening to this and is like, no way can I go back and watch,

[01:02:53] you know, five films, maybe I'll watch the original or whatever.

[01:02:56] And there's no way I'm going to get the TV show or anything like that.

[01:02:59] At a minimum, go see Behind the Planet of the Apes documentary.

[01:03:05] It is really-

[01:03:05] I think you can watch it without the rest.

[01:03:06] Yeah.

[01:03:07] Totally.

[01:03:07] And I think it does a really good job of pulling the essential things from each of the movies

[01:03:15] and explaining the core themes and putting them forward.

[01:03:19] You had even said this to me, which is, you know, get the doc because it does this very

[01:03:26] function.

[01:03:26] And I really am glad you encouraged me to watch it because it put the movies into a

[01:03:34] whole new perspective for me, both from the Gonzo production through to these deeper themes.

[01:03:42] Right.

[01:03:43] And it's what?

[01:03:44] It's a two-hour documentary, so it's very watchable.

[01:03:46] And it's really well produced.

[01:03:48] Like they really pull some great archival material.

[01:03:51] They show some of the original trailers for how they excited audiences.

[01:03:56] Hosted by Rodney McDowell, What's Not to Love?

[01:03:58] So good.

[01:03:59] On the Fox Ranch.

[01:04:00] Mm-hmm.

[01:04:03] Yeah, it was a nice- I'm really glad that he was able to make that before he passed away

[01:04:07] because there's a really great close to that original era.

[01:04:10] Yeah, for sure.

[01:04:11] Did you watch the Tim Burton reboot?

[01:04:14] I think I must have.

[01:04:16] Was that the one with Mark Wahlberg?

[01:04:18] Mm-hmm.

[01:04:19] Yeah, I think I did.

[01:04:20] And then that's where I was kind of like, ah, I don't-

[01:04:23] Yeah.

[01:04:23] I didn't have- what I always loved about the originals, like I said, was that there is a

[01:04:30] biting sarcasm and a social commentary to them.

[01:04:33] And I didn't get that vibe from the Burton film.

[01:04:37] Yeah.

[01:04:38] That one completely missed the mark, although visually it's great.

[01:04:41] Well, no, but maybe I don't even think I- maybe I watched the next round of movies.

[01:04:48] The one with James Franco?

[01:04:51] I think-

[01:04:52] Yeah, that's the one I must have watched and then bounced off of.

[01:04:55] And then probably I went back to peep at the Burton one.

[01:05:00] And when I saw Mark Wahlberg with a chimpanzee in a spaceship, I was like, nope, I'm out.

[01:05:05] This is not for me.

[01:05:06] I couldn't do it.

[01:05:08] I think it was the next round that I did.

[01:05:10] I at least watched the whole movie and was like, okay, fine.

[01:05:13] I don't dislike it a lot as much as a lot of people, but I will only recommend it to

[01:05:18] completionists.

[01:05:20] The only thing I recommend less than that is the animated series.

[01:05:24] Right.

[01:05:24] Wow.

[01:05:25] Wow.

[01:05:27] But yeah, so Logan and I will be discussing the reboot trilogy that was released in 2011,

[01:05:34] 14 and 17.

[01:05:36] Just though to rattle off a few tie-ins for that, for anyone who's curious, I really found

[01:05:42] my watching of especially the latter two in that trilogy to be enhanced by the tie-in

[01:05:48] comics.

[01:05:49] So there's tie-in comics from both Boom and Marvel.

[01:05:51] I especially like the Marvel ones, although I know some other people prefer the Boom ones.

[01:05:55] You can find them all online or Marvel Unlimited, which I happen to have.

[01:06:00] And just a note that the comics history for this is so rich, especially connected to the

[01:06:07] original series.

[01:06:08] And actually Marvel just started a new comic series tied to the original chronology.

[01:06:13] Wow.

[01:06:13] I haven't started yet, but yeah.

[01:06:15] I had no idea.

[01:06:16] Yeah.

[01:06:16] So this was another one.

[01:06:18] It was owned by Fox.

[01:06:19] So again, just like X-Men and Fantastic Four, when Marvel bought Fox, they acquired this.

[01:06:27] There's been some other books that I want to read.

[01:06:33] There's a game called Last Frontier I'd like to play, a branching story game where you

[01:06:38] can choose whether apes win, humans win, or they live in peace.

[01:06:42] There were some shorts that I did watch that lead into Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:06:48] Variety published them.

[01:06:49] If you want to look them up, you can Google them.

[01:06:53] And also I really want to read this book called Firestorm, which is the backstory of Koba,

[01:06:59] who's a big...

[01:07:00] He's the main antagonist of the second film.

[01:07:05] And there's also another book I'd like to read called Caesar's Story, which is this

[01:07:10] entire trilogy through Maurice, the orangutan's character.

[01:07:13] So lots of tie-in stuff.

[01:07:17] Interesting.

[01:07:20] So David, do you think you might get into the new movies at all?

[01:07:24] You think you might give them another try?

[01:07:25] You're just like, nah, I just prefer to preserve the memories.

[01:07:29] I gave the newest one a quick peep and it didn't grab me.

[01:07:34] And I know that you really enjoyed it.

[01:07:40] Again, it just had too much modern sensibility filmmaking in it for me.

[01:07:46] And so, yeah, the CGI looked great and no shade or anything like that.

[01:07:55] It just wasn't something that excited me.

[01:07:58] And again, it may be just because I'm stuck in a nostalgia trap with these old movies.

[01:08:04] I don't know.

[01:08:05] But yeah, we'll see where they go.

[01:08:09] You're going to finish watching Battle or Conquest and Battle?

[01:08:12] I am not sure.

[01:08:16] I may on high speed.

[01:08:18] We'll see.

[01:08:19] I'm trying to do a bunch of work for Alien and then I still have these Dune plans.

[01:08:26] But of course, as we're talking about Lore Hound's upcoming programming schedules as

[01:08:30] well, we have House of the Dragon, which is a huge topic.

[01:08:34] And then we've got The Bear and some other things coming down the pipe.

[01:08:39] So I'm a little concerned that I don't think I'll be able to finish them.

[01:08:43] I might, though.

[01:08:44] We'll see.

[01:08:44] We'll see.

[01:08:45] Yeah.

[01:08:46] And would you watch it?

[01:08:48] Is this a series that you would watch with your daughter?

[01:08:52] I would gladly watch it with my daughter.

[01:08:55] Do you think she would watch it?

[01:08:57] No, I don't think so because she is a very empathetic person and is really affected by

[01:09:07] dramatic tension.

[01:09:09] And she can watch documentaries about orcas eating seals and lions chasing wildebeest

[01:09:17] and all kinds of stuff.

[01:09:18] No problem there.

[01:09:20] And she loves science stuff, so Magic School Bus and these kinds of things.

[01:09:24] She's also very into fashion and she's watching these other cartoons about, what is it?

[01:09:29] Fashion High or something like that.

[01:09:31] It's terrifying.

[01:09:33] Which has a lot of dramatic tension, but whatever.

[01:09:36] She's more into the fashion of it.

[01:09:40] At this stage, at this age in her life, there's no way that I could get her to sit down and

[01:09:44] watch any of these.

[01:09:45] Fingers crossed, maybe when she's a bit older and has grown through some of this ability

[01:09:53] and developed some more facility in terms of integrating her emotional responses, it'd be fun.

[01:09:59] I certainly would love to show her the original film.

[01:10:02] I'd love to see what a kid of this generation makes of Charlton Heston, a shirtless Charlton

[01:10:08] Heston running around.

[01:10:12] But yeah, I don't think there's no way I could convince her right now to watch them.

[01:10:16] She'd run screaming from the room.

[01:10:18] Okay, fair enough, fair enough.

[01:10:20] Any final thoughts on this series before we jump to my conversation with Logan?

[01:10:26] I would say, well, I already gave a plug for the documentary, but I would definitely

[01:10:31] say if you've got a moment in your film watching, you dear listener, if you've got a moment

[01:10:38] in your TV and film watching schedule, definitely go back and see the original.

[01:10:46] It's such an iconic film.

[01:10:47] It does so many interesting things in terms of sound design.

[01:10:51] And put yourself in 1968 headspace in a movie a little bit to catch the twists and the

[01:11:02] vast bits, the vistas and the way that they built Ape City.

[01:11:07] There is a lot to say for this movie, even though it's a shirtless Charlton Heston.

[01:11:14] There is some, and a lot of our modern visual storytelling is, this is one of our ur-texts,

[01:11:24] right?

[01:11:24] This is one of the pieces that we draw on either directly or indirectly.

[01:11:31] I think it's always good to go back to these original sources.

[01:11:34] It is an original story from Wool's point of view of writing that.

[01:11:38] It does a lot of original things, and I think it's always good to do that.

[01:11:42] And damn, for anything, just the soundtrack of this thing is exceptional.

[01:11:48] Yeah, absolutely.

[01:11:48] And that does keep up with the new ones, and they mix them together.

[01:11:52] All right, well, that's a great way to put it.

[01:11:55] Thank you so much for talking through the old stuff with me.

[01:11:59] My pleasure.

[01:12:00] Listeners, if you just hang tight for a minute, we'll be right back after the break with my

[01:12:05] discussion about the new films, especially Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, with Logan.

[01:12:10] What will he find out there, Doctor?

[01:12:13] His destiny.

[01:12:16] Hi, later editor Alicia checking in.

[01:12:19] Funny story, Logan and I had a bit of a sound issue recording this conversation,

[01:12:24] and we assumed it was his mic, but when I got the audio to edit,

[01:12:27] it's clear that it was actually my mic that was the problem.

[01:12:30] So sorry, Logan, you sound great, and apologies to listeners for the quality of my mic in this

[01:12:36] section, but I did really enjoy this conversation, and I hope you will as well.

[01:12:41] What a wonderful day.

[01:12:47] Are we thankful for the words of Caesar?

[01:12:52] Do we bend our head?

[01:12:55] We bend.

[01:12:57] Say his words.

[01:13:01] Say his words!

[01:13:06] What a wonderful day!

[01:13:12] I am joined now by Logan, who's also seen the entire original series, but also the TV show

[01:13:20] and the new series as well.

[01:13:21] So spoilers, Planet of the Apes films and shows, including the four new films, especially,

[01:13:28] of course, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:13:30] So welcome, Logan.

[01:13:31] Thank you for joining to talk about this series of simian-based dystopian futures.

[01:13:38] Yeah, thank you for being here.

[01:13:40] Thanks for having me.

[01:13:41] You were actually the person I was copying when I started this whole watch everything apes.

[01:13:48] Now, you and I, of course, we know each other through the Academy of Death Racers.

[01:13:52] Can you explain a little bit about what that is for people who don't know yet?

[01:13:56] So the Academy of Death Racers were a group of film watchers who tried to watch the Oscar

[01:14:04] nominees every year.

[01:14:07] We watch all of them.

[01:14:09] We also host our own film festival every year, and it's just a giant film loving community.

[01:14:18] Yeah, yeah, basically.

[01:14:20] And we are people who like to check off lists.

[01:14:23] So I know this is kind of a silly question, but what made you decide to do this deep dive

[01:14:28] and watch all the films?

[01:14:31] Probably back when I saw the first trailer for Kingdom.

[01:14:35] The franchise was never one that really like stood out to me.

[01:14:39] Okay.

[01:14:40] But the trailer for Kingdom really had some visuals that I really enjoyed, and I've always

[01:14:47] admired the technicality of the films from the sidelines.

[01:14:52] But I had always heard my grandparents talk about the original Planet of the Apes.

[01:15:00] So I finally decided, hey, why don't I sit down, watch all these suckers, get ready for

[01:15:06] Kingdom.

[01:15:09] And now that you've seen them all, where does the franchise rank amongst your favorite

[01:15:14] franchises?

[01:15:18] I have a lot of nostalgia for this one now.

[01:15:22] It's not perfect.

[01:15:24] It's pretty chaotic.

[01:15:26] But overall, the themes are way more solid than some franchises around.

[01:15:36] It does a really good job of holding tight to the sci-fi aspect, which is something that

[01:15:43] franchises this old will just eventually lose and devolve into some chaotic outer space

[01:15:49] nightmare.

[01:15:51] But this one stays really grounded to Earth and still, even now with Kingdom, seems somewhat

[01:15:58] plausible.

[01:15:59] Yeah.

[01:16:00] But yeah, especially the new series is quite cohesive.

[01:16:04] It really feels like a progression.

[01:16:08] I asked you to rank all the things.

[01:16:12] So we've seen...

[01:16:14] Yeah, I just went through...

[01:16:16] The listeners will just heard me go through with David, everything that was released.

[01:16:21] And you've seen it all except the animated series, I think?

[01:16:27] Correct.

[01:16:27] OK.

[01:16:28] So what are your rankings of the entire Planet of the Apes path down of film and television?

[01:16:36] So the original film for me is top of the line.

[01:16:42] There's nothing quite like...

[01:16:46] Well, we said spoilers.

[01:16:47] There's nothing quite like that end shot when we see the Statue of Liberty buried in the

[01:16:52] sand and we find out that he's actually been on Earth the entire time.

[01:16:58] It really adds this weird moral humanity to it that you kind of feel for the guy at the

[01:17:06] end.

[01:17:07] Kingdom is my second because it's just so freaking good.

[01:17:14] I usually am a person who fights against long run times, but this is the first one in quite

[01:17:21] a while that I felt really justified its own runtime.

[01:17:26] There's just so much with the characters and you can see that it's building on the legacy

[01:17:33] of the most recent three while also kind of honoring everything else before it and prepping

[01:17:41] for the future.

[01:17:42] So it's kind of, I don't know, an all in one type thing.

[01:17:45] Right.

[01:17:45] I agree.

[01:17:48] After that, I say Conquest and Escape.

[01:17:53] Both of those are relatively interchangeable for me.

[01:17:58] I'm a huge fan of Roddy McDowall.

[01:18:01] Yeah, me too.

[01:18:02] That guy, I mean, he played three different apes over the course of the franchise.

[01:18:07] And quite different ones too.

[01:18:09] Yes.

[01:18:11] And every time he played one, I was excited to see.

[01:18:18] The new trilogy, they're all pretty solid.

[01:18:23] I have them ranked as Rise, Dawn and then War because Rise had a lot more action.

[01:18:30] Rise had a lot more of the kind of humanity things.

[01:18:34] Whereas Dawn and War kind of started to get into the weird societal stuff that the franchise

[01:18:43] is known for where it's humans versus apes.

[01:18:48] Then, I mean, the live action series is, that sure is a serialized piece of TV.

[01:18:58] It sure does have that.

[01:19:00] There's 14 episodes and it's not really cohesive story.

[01:19:06] But somehow still really fun and it's got the life lesson-y stuff that's pretty reminiscent

[01:19:13] of shows from back then.

[01:19:14] Can I ask though, because I asked myself this, I also quite enjoyed it, but did I enjoy it

[01:19:20] as an extension of what came before rather than I would have enjoyed it on its own?

[01:19:27] That's the hard part for me.

[01:19:30] Because I didn't want the party to be over with the films.

[01:19:34] Yeah.

[01:19:35] And I think it also helps that Roddy came back to play Galen.

[01:19:40] Yeah, immensely.

[01:19:40] After he had already played Cornelius and-

[01:19:43] I cannot tell you the two humans names in that TV show, but I know Galen.

[01:19:47] I want to say one's Burke.

[01:19:49] Yeah.

[01:19:50] And I only watched the show like two months ago and I can barely remember the other two

[01:19:54] leads.

[01:19:55] So that does say something, but I also don't remember the villain.

[01:20:01] Yeah, it was-

[01:20:02] I remember it was one of the gorillas.

[01:20:04] Verco, Verco.

[01:20:04] I don't remember his name.

[01:20:06] Yeah, there you go.

[01:20:08] But you had Galen and you had his mentors.

[01:20:12] Yeah, there were a couple solid episodes on their own and then others that were like-

[01:20:17] Yes.

[01:20:18] There was one in particular that was Galen and his love interest and her being a surgeon.

[01:20:27] And it was really weird.

[01:20:29] Yeah.

[01:20:29] It was so weird stuff.

[01:20:31] I actually thought that was one of the better episodes.

[01:20:35] I wouldn't say that overall it was bad.

[01:20:40] It just felt so out of place in comparison to the rest of the series.

[01:20:47] And then the franchises.

[01:20:48] You have two more than the series below that?

[01:20:52] Yeah, so after the live action series, I put Battle, which again, enjoyed battle.

[01:21:01] Beneath is where things get weird.

[01:21:06] You have weird telekinetic humans and by the end a nuke gets launched.

[01:21:11] Yes, it's insane.

[01:21:12] You can tell that that was a film released in 1970.

[01:21:19] Because it very much screams Red Scare, the entire film.

[01:21:25] And we learned in the documentary that it was Charlton Heston's idea to

[01:21:30] do that because he thought he would stop the movies.

[01:21:33] That's, yeah, too, was only so absolutely insane because Heston didn't want to return.

[01:21:40] That's why he magically disappeared throughout the entirety of the second one.

[01:21:46] Yeah, exactly.

[01:21:49] And then I put the behind the Planet of the Apes documentary and it was fine.

[01:21:56] I just thought it focused too much on the original film

[01:21:59] and needed to focus a little bit on the others as well.

[01:22:03] I thought as a body, he would like it.

[01:22:06] Yeah, I, it also didn't help the quality I watched was rough.

[01:22:14] It was like a recording of a VHS of a recording.

[01:22:18] It was very, very grainy.

[01:22:21] But it, I loved watching the technicality of making the apes come to life.

[01:22:29] Because like nowadays we just, it's CGI, like it's always CGI.

[01:22:33] It's always CGI.

[01:22:35] When you look at anything anymore, it's very, very rare that it's practical anything.

[01:22:40] And so to see them making the practical apes was just so freaking cool.

[01:22:45] And I really wish we still did stuff like that.

[01:22:48] Because the quality of those films, while yes, you can always tell it's a person in a suit.

[01:22:55] But like, I still always felt like they were apes.

[01:22:58] And it's something that like this franchise manages to do better than so many others.

[01:23:03] And I have to say, I don't disagree with your last place going to the Tim Burton one, but

[01:23:11] one thing they did well was those apes looked really good.

[01:23:16] They did.

[01:23:17] I will give them that.

[01:23:18] That's about the only thing I will give them.

[01:23:21] Why do you think the reboot didn't work?

[01:23:23] God, there's a lot of reasons.

[01:23:28] It's you take all of the kind of iconic pieces of the franchise before it.

[01:23:37] So I mean, the original five films, the live action show,

[01:23:42] and I guess the animated series, which I didn't watch in this binge.

[01:23:46] And I guess the animated series, which I didn't watch in this binge.

[01:23:51] You take those things.

[01:23:54] And it felt like a lot of the love and care for the characters in the world that got built,

[01:24:00] kind of just got tossed to the side for Tim Burton's typical, you know, Tim Burton-ness.

[01:24:09] And like, it's not like I dislike his stuff.

[01:24:12] But this one, personally, it just didn't feel like it should have been his vibe.

[01:24:17] It shouldn't have been a Tim Burton film while also being Planet of the Apes.

[01:24:23] It needed to be Planet of the Apes with a Tim Burton spice.

[01:24:27] I don't know.

[01:24:27] Okay.

[01:24:28] No, yeah, I completely agree.

[01:24:31] Didn't rank high for me either.

[01:24:37] Why not the cartoon?

[01:24:38] Was that a step too far or the reviews too bad?

[01:24:42] It looked rough.

[01:24:44] I watched, I don't know if it was like an official trailer for it or commercial for it.

[01:24:51] But I did watch one and I thought it was pretty rough.

[01:24:57] Which is weird because I'm such a big animation guy.

[01:25:00] But that one just kind of screamed that it wasn't going to be any good.

[01:25:04] And so I steered clear.

[01:25:07] Okay.

[01:25:09] All right.

[01:25:09] So my rankings.

[01:25:11] So I did go and read all of the comics associated with the new reboot timeline.

[01:25:20] And that's not included in here.

[01:25:21] But I really enjoyed doing that and recommend it.

[01:25:26] I actually like the one by Marvel best, even better than the ones from Boom.

[01:25:33] Did you know that there's actually one releasing right now?

[01:25:36] Linked to the original timeline.

[01:25:40] Yeah.

[01:25:41] There's only like three issues out or something right now.

[01:25:44] I was, I happened to look at it the other day.

[01:25:46] Yeah.

[01:25:46] Every time I open Marvel, they're like, don't you want this?

[01:25:50] I'm like, no, I'm reading the old comics.

[01:25:53] You're listening to my every word.

[01:25:57] Oh, I mean, to be fair, I was reading other Planet of the Apes comics there.

[01:26:02] Fair enough.

[01:26:03] But okay.

[01:26:04] But of the onscreen stuff, my number one goes to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:26:10] And yeah, we're going to talk about why, but I just, I thought that it really brought together

[01:26:17] all the best aspects of this IP and then added something new, you know?

[01:26:24] So yeah, I really loved it.

[01:26:28] My number two is the Behind the Planet of the Apes documentary.

[01:26:32] I thought that it did have a good coverage of, you know, touching on everything.

[01:26:39] It did focus a lot on the first one, but I learned something interesting about every single film.

[01:26:45] And I love Roddy McDowall.

[01:26:47] It was just like, it answered questions that I had and then also just gave me

[01:26:53] insights into filmmaking that I've been thinking about since I watched it.

[01:26:58] So I really liked it.

[01:26:59] My next in the list is Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:27:03] And I think it's just because it's so, it felt so fresh also when it came out.

[01:27:08] And then also when I rewatched it recently, it's, I just like that.

[01:27:13] I love science and I love when they make an attempt to use science well.

[01:27:19] Yes.

[01:27:19] Would have been better without James Franco as a scientist.

[01:27:25] Okay.

[01:27:26] You gave me John Lithgow.

[01:27:27] You gave me John Lithgow, so I'll forgive you.

[01:27:31] Well, and that's another thing for me personally.

[01:27:34] I mean, my degree is in biology education.

[01:27:36] So like I have the science background.

[01:27:39] And so them even halfway attempt, like some of the science they mentioned in the new trilogy

[01:27:44] is actually genuine.

[01:27:45] Yeah, no, they're really genuine.

[01:27:46] And then, you know, then it devolves into the little bit of the sci-fi.

[01:27:49] But the stuff is like, the base is real.

[01:27:53] Yeah, exactly.

[01:27:54] And it's done well.

[01:27:56] Yeah, I got to appreciate that.

[01:27:59] So my favorite of the original trilogy, number four for me is Escape from the Planet of the

[01:28:05] Apes.

[01:28:05] For me, it's just, so the reason why I don't have the original so high is definitely just

[01:28:11] like for personal reasons.

[01:28:12] I can recognize if I did not already know all of the twists and everything, it would

[01:28:18] blow my mind.

[01:28:19] But since I went in knowing that, it just, I don't know, some stuff that I really love

[01:28:27] about it and other stuff, I just think some of the other films did better.

[01:28:30] And Escape from the Planet of the Apes gave me a little bit of everything.

[01:28:34] It gave me, first of all, the two best characters are like, let's ditch those stupid humans.

[01:28:39] And yeah, we got, you know, comedy.

[01:28:45] We got like really moral quandary.

[01:28:48] We got twists galore, you know, action.

[01:28:52] It was just a bit of everything.

[01:28:55] So then next I have the original Planet of the Apes followed by from the new trilogy,

[01:29:01] Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:29:03] I thought it was good, but I like it better actually after reading the comics.

[01:29:10] So I shouldn't have to do that though.

[01:29:15] Yeah, it should be able to stand on its own.

[01:29:16] Yeah.

[01:29:17] And it's not like the villains were not unrealistic, but they were just kind of frustrating and

[01:29:22] I didn't get super invested in the characters.

[01:29:26] Yeah.

[01:29:26] And it was like in the original, the revolt felt earned.

[01:29:29] In the second one, it was like, I don't know.

[01:29:31] I didn't know what I was rooting for there, you know?

[01:29:35] Yeah.

[01:29:38] And then, yeah.

[01:29:41] So then I love Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

[01:29:44] I have it, you know, number seven.

[01:29:46] So it's in the middle of the list, but it's just batshit crazy and I love that about it.

[01:29:52] So yeah, I like finished the film and I was buzzing and I was like, kind of like jumping

[01:29:58] around the room like, how are they going to make another movie after that?

[01:30:01] Three more.

[01:30:04] Yeah.

[01:30:06] So I was very excited in the new film to see underground people like telepaths are coming.

[01:30:14] It would be, I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to touch on it again soon.

[01:30:18] Yeah.

[01:30:19] Or maybe then we'll get to the whole plans.

[01:30:24] Okay, so my number eight from the original was Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

[01:30:30] Yeah, it's just a good, solid uprising movie.

[01:30:35] One of the better made ones, I think.

[01:30:37] And then War for the Planet of the Apes from the new trilogy.

[01:30:41] And it's just basically, it's not ranked higher because I hated the Harrelson character.

[01:30:47] I just found him too cartoonishly evil and it undermined the, there was, he had, well,

[01:30:56] I'm just going to make them work and never feed them or give them any water.

[01:31:00] Like, no, he would have been a more convincing villain if he had given them like dirty water

[01:31:06] and too little food, you know?

[01:31:08] Yes.

[01:31:10] And there was also that weird, it was a little weird with that one that it felt like Woody

[01:31:17] Harrelson wasn't really allowed to be Woody Harrelson.

[01:31:19] Okay.

[01:31:21] Allowed him?

[01:31:21] They kind of shoehorned him into that cartoonish villain when I think he can play a villain much

[01:31:27] better than that.

[01:31:27] Oh, we've seen it for sure, yeah.

[01:31:29] It's very interesting that he didn't feel as evil as normal.

[01:31:35] Yeah, it just felt flat for me.

[01:31:38] But on the other hand, I really, I loved Bad Ape played by Steve Zahn.

[01:31:43] Yes.

[01:31:44] And I liked what they did with Nova in that one.

[01:31:46] I thought they handled the Nova thing well.

[01:31:49] Yeah, that was cool.

[01:31:50] And maybe in retrospect, I should have it a little higher, but the Harrelson thing.

[01:31:59] Okay, then Battle for the Planet of the Apes, which I don't dislike as much as other people.

[01:32:04] You know, the last one, the original series, it kind of wraps back around on the timeline

[01:32:11] to finish off that loop.

[01:32:14] So I appreciate it for that.

[01:32:17] And then under that Planet of the Apes TV series, I enjoyed it, but you could tell that the

[01:32:25] creator of the original series had died.

[01:32:27] And now the new series was kind of watered down for television.

[01:32:31] It didn't have quite the nuance and emotional punch.

[01:32:36] And then Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes, for all the reasons that you said.

[01:32:43] And then, yeah, the return to the Planet of the Apes animated series.

[01:32:46] I didn't hate it, but it's last.

[01:32:49] It has its problems.

[01:32:52] There was some stuff I liked about it.

[01:32:54] There was a Kong crossover, and there was some pluses.

[01:33:05] I mean, yeah, it was that weird era of Hanna-Barbera, everything absurdist.

[01:33:17] The vibes on that one specifically reminded me of the old Aquaman series.

[01:33:23] I think it was 68 or so.

[01:33:25] I mean, if anyone's curious about it, it's free on YouTube.

[01:33:30] So check it out.

[01:33:32] It's not that bad.

[01:33:35] But yeah, so you and I both kind of ranked the prequel trilogy in the middle of the pack.

[01:33:41] How would you say overall you think it compares to the original series?

[01:33:46] Overall, I mean, I think I gave all three of them an 8 out of 10.

[01:33:52] I do enjoy the heck out of them.

[01:33:54] But they are so much less memorable.

[01:34:01] Even if the originals only had certain moments that really stood out,

[01:34:06] those moments still really stand out.

[01:34:09] Whereas the new trilogy has moments that, sure, I kind of remember things being funny

[01:34:17] or enjoying pieces of it, but I couldn't recount the exact scenes.

[01:34:23] Like, I love Bad Ape.

[01:34:25] Super funny.

[01:34:26] But I don't remember any specifics.

[01:34:28] Yeah, just the gag.

[01:34:33] Yes, but like, see, I kind of forgot about that until you just mentioned it.

[01:34:37] But like, you look at, oh god, is it Escape?

[01:34:41] I think Escape.

[01:34:42] When they're in the court and Cornelius is cracking jokes about Zira and kind of, you know,

[01:34:51] kind of showing the sexism of the time.

[01:34:53] But at the same time, it was funny.

[01:34:57] Yeah, it was the progressive type.

[01:35:00] Yes, it kind of related to the human society of the time.

[01:35:03] So there's just something about the characters from the originals that just stick out more.

[01:35:12] Yeah, I mean, Weta is the company that did the VFX.

[01:35:17] They are the company created in New Zealand for Lord of the Rings.

[01:35:21] They are still the best in the biz, and they show it with every film.

[01:35:27] Getting even better every time.

[01:35:30] But yeah, I mean, they did all that work with Andy Serkis back when he did Gollum for Lord

[01:35:36] of the Rings.

[01:35:37] And then they brought him, you know, they worked with him again to bring Caesar to life.

[01:35:42] Yeah.

[01:35:42] What did you think of Caesar as a character and portrayal and all that?

[01:35:48] The most recent trilogy, I think Caesar is fully fleshed out.

[01:35:56] We see his origins in Rise.

[01:35:59] We see him kind of trying still to like see the redeeming qualities of humanity in Dawn.

[01:36:09] And then a war is when he just says all hell break loose.

[01:36:12] Mm hmm.

[01:36:13] And that's when Caesar really breaks, because there's no reason for him to want anything.

[01:36:23] And I think it's interesting how in anytime Caesar is ever mentioned after his death,

[01:36:32] no matter which timeline you're looking at, they always misconstrue things he said and did.

[01:36:39] Mm hmm.

[01:36:39] Well, it seems like Caesar ends up inevitably being the catalyst for a lot of different things.

[01:36:44] Yeah.

[01:36:45] I mean, that's something handled well in the new film in Kingdom, of course.

[01:36:50] Yeah, because it's very realistic, sadly.

[01:36:54] Are you a fan of Matt Reeves as a director?

[01:36:57] He was the director of the new book.

[01:37:00] Personally, yes.

[01:37:03] But also, I haven't seen a ton from Matt Reeves.

[01:37:08] Um, I've obviously seen that the films he did for Planet of the Apes.

[01:37:15] And of course, the Batman, who hasn't?

[01:37:19] And I've, of course, Cloverfield as well.

[01:37:23] But I think that's all I've seen from him.

[01:37:27] And his his eye for stuff, especially with the apes, and I'll throw the Batman in there, too.

[01:37:34] It's very, very cinematic.

[01:37:37] And attention to detail is always paid.

[01:37:41] But he also has a tendency to make things incredibly dark.

[01:37:47] That really bugs me.

[01:37:49] But that's maybe that's a personal thing.

[01:37:51] But I do feel like his two apes films were really dark.

[01:37:56] And there were scenes where I couldn't like, see what was happening.

[01:38:00] Yeah.

[01:38:01] But again, maybe that's just a personal thing.

[01:38:03] Yeah, I mean, I think that he visually he's incredible.

[01:38:09] But then emotionally, I find his films often don't go as deep as I want from the apes.

[01:38:19] And to be honest, I'm not a huge fan of the Batman, which I know, makes me uncool or something.

[01:38:26] But yeah, I just yeah, I like Josh Balls has more pathos, I think.

[01:38:42] I would argue the same at this point.

[01:38:46] I don't think before this I would have.

[01:38:49] But because let's be real, Wes Balls previous credits are not great.

[01:38:57] That's considering his his biggest thing was the Maze Runner trilogy.

[01:39:02] Yeah.

[01:39:03] Which I only watched the first one.

[01:39:06] Those are abysmal.

[01:39:08] I only watched the first one but it's okay.

[01:39:11] Yeah, like if they were standalone, sure.

[01:39:15] But as someone who read the books.

[01:39:17] Okay.

[01:39:18] But you can see he learned from his mistakes on Maze Runner.

[01:39:26] And he like actually built up something with Kingdom.

[01:39:30] Yeah.

[01:39:32] I mean, that's how you would hope someone, you know, improves over time.

[01:39:36] They see their mistakes, they improve them.

[01:39:38] They work to make things better.

[01:39:39] Yeah.

[01:39:40] And it seems like he really did with Kingdom.

[01:39:42] Well, also we have to give some credit to the writer Josh Friedman is a credited writer.

[01:39:48] Although I know that Josh Balls also worked on it.

[01:39:51] But so Josh Friedman's previous work, I think War of the Worlds was very well written.

[01:39:57] I never saw the Black Dahlia.

[01:39:59] But this is all giving me hope for the Fantastic Four and Avatar 4, which he's writing both of.

[01:40:06] Avatar, I don't know.

[01:40:08] I could care less.

[01:40:09] But I am incredibly excited for him to do Fantastic Four.

[01:40:17] I do think it's also interesting that he is tapped to write three incredibly well-known properties.

[01:40:26] Like he just did Kingdom but he's also helmed to write Fantastic Four.

[01:40:33] He's also helmed for Avatar 4.

[01:40:35] But he's also helmed to write the next live-action Star Trek film.

[01:40:40] Which is, I mean, those are all huge franchises.

[01:40:44] Like and to have so few writing credits or I shouldn't say so few, so few film writing credits

[01:40:51] under his belt.

[01:40:52] That is very interesting to see that he's got four massive franchises.

[01:40:57] Oh, he hasn't missed yet.

[01:40:58] That all want his writing.

[01:40:59] Yeah, he has a knock on wood.

[01:41:01] Clearly he's got something that even if we don't, we haven't seen it as the world yet.

[01:41:07] Like somebody is seeing his writing and they know it's good.

[01:41:11] Well, you and I, not everyone will agree with us, but you and I both found Kingdom to be the

[01:41:16] number one in the new series.

[01:41:19] Number two for you overall, number one for me overall.

[01:41:22] So we're going to get into the film spot.

[01:41:25] What do you think makes it special for you and where does it rank in your films of the year so far?

[01:41:34] So, okay.

[01:41:37] Overall on the year so far, Kingdom is like my number two film.

[01:41:45] Just below Challengers.

[01:41:48] As of right now, I'm also behind.

[01:41:49] I haven't watched a lot this year, but Kingdom is very much up there.

[01:41:57] I think a big one that helped me with this one was just the hype I had built myself for it.

[01:42:07] By watching all of the films and watching the series.

[01:42:11] And then I had like a month between when I finished and when it came out finally.

[01:42:16] And then throw in another week because life was busy.

[01:42:19] So I was really looking forward to it.

[01:42:23] It's the only Apes film I've seen in theaters.

[01:42:27] It takes a lot of the best aspects and builds on them.

[01:42:31] It establishes a new, not a new timeline, but a new era.

[01:42:36] And kind of allows these new characters to shine while also honoring everything from

[01:42:42] the previous three films.

[01:42:44] Caesar is constantly referenced.

[01:42:47] And it really just, like we finally see the buildup of a new protagonist.

[01:42:56] The last three films was the buildup of a different version of Caesar.

[01:43:01] And like we had seen Caesar before.

[01:43:04] And so some of it felt like it was constantly a rehash.

[01:43:08] Whereas this was like, hey, here's Noah.

[01:43:12] We're no longer focusing on Caesar.

[01:43:15] His influence is still there, but the film is not about Caesar.

[01:43:19] Yeah.

[01:43:20] No, I agree with everything that you said.

[01:43:23] It was also my number two of the year.

[01:43:26] My number one being Doom.

[01:43:29] But I also feel like it really, it was built up by the, it was like built off the back

[01:43:35] of the first three films, which I really appreciate.

[01:43:39] But I like, it felt like there was a unique culture here.

[01:43:42] I really liked the Falconers.

[01:43:45] Just yeah, new take on the classic.

[01:43:49] Yeah, it was very interesting to see that they had grown enough to domesticate their

[01:43:55] own animals.

[01:43:56] Yes.

[01:43:57] Yeah, very true.

[01:43:58] Not just horses.

[01:44:00] Yeah, previously in the original films, the apes were domesticated by humans.

[01:44:06] Right, because all the cats and dogs died off.

[01:44:09] Yeah, the cats and dogs died off in those.

[01:44:11] And then they domesticated the monkeys instead.

[01:44:15] And now here we are, and they've domesticated some of the birds and the horses like always.

[01:44:23] Just because it looks cool.

[01:44:24] Can't make a film without monkeys riding horses.

[01:44:26] Yeah, that's crazy.

[01:44:28] It just doesn't work.

[01:44:30] But it's very interesting to see.

[01:44:34] Yeah, and birds are, that was a good choice because birds are very cinematic.

[01:44:37] I love birds.

[01:44:39] They just, yeah, they look good on screen.

[01:44:41] They're cool.

[01:44:42] And yeah, the pacing just really worked for me.

[01:44:45] I know some people complained and found it slow at first, but I was hanging on every

[01:44:51] scene at the beginning.

[01:44:53] And the fact that they gave me time to hang out with this group of friends got me way

[01:44:58] more invested in everything that happened after that.

[01:45:02] Yeah, I totally agree.

[01:45:05] That beginning really allows you to, like you said, get kind of attached, get invested

[01:45:10] in the characters.

[01:45:12] When I went and saw it, I saw it with my dad and my brother who have seen no other Planet

[01:45:17] of the Apes films.

[01:45:19] Like they both went in blind with me.

[01:45:22] They also had seen trailers, thought it looked interesting, agreed to go with me, like that

[01:45:27] type of thing.

[01:45:28] And to see that they were also as hooked as I was in the beginning there really solidified

[01:45:36] how well crafted it was.

[01:45:38] Yeah.

[01:45:39] Yeah, I think that they just nailed the action because it's not like you're just hanging

[01:45:46] out getting bored in the beginning.

[01:45:47] That's what I thought from some reviews I've read before I went.

[01:45:50] But I was biting my nails through a lot of those scenes.

[01:45:55] They really, because also you've just met these characters.

[01:45:58] You don't know who can die.

[01:45:59] And then all of a sudden you get a left hand swing from out of nowhere and knocks you out.

[01:46:08] And you're like, wow, okay, this is...

[01:46:11] And I looked at my watch actually because I wondered, people said like, oh, it's two

[01:46:17] different movies.

[01:46:18] And there was a review online that said that, or I think it was like Kermodem Males podcast.

[01:46:27] Anyway, they said that it was slow in the front half and then all of a sudden it gets good

[01:46:34] in the second half.

[01:46:35] When the fire happens and the village is being burned down, that's only 40 minutes in.

[01:46:41] So it's like a third of the way through.

[01:46:44] Yeah.

[01:46:45] And you wouldn't even think that that was a third.

[01:46:49] Right.

[01:46:49] Like it feels like so much happens during that time.

[01:46:54] But it's because we see the stakes being set for Noah and his friends.

[01:46:59] Like, I mean, the loss of their village and the death of his father in front of him.

[01:47:05] Like it's going to mess you up.

[01:47:09] Yeah.

[01:47:10] And I thought that of these new Apes films, this was the first where the nuance of the

[01:47:16] morality finally lives up to the original.

[01:47:18] So like I love seeing the big debates over May online.

[01:47:24] That means that it's raising questions.

[01:47:27] Yeah.

[01:47:29] Yeah, I think the world feels real.

[01:47:31] It feels big.

[01:47:32] It feels like this story could go in any direction from here, but still like it's not straying

[01:47:39] from the originals.

[01:47:40] You know, we'll call back to those callbacks we'll talk about.

[01:47:43] And I think I'm going to bring one up now because I think one of the best callbacks

[01:47:50] is Raka.

[01:47:53] He's this wise orangutan.

[01:47:55] Like always, those orangutans were always kind of the wise ones in the original series.

[01:48:01] Right.

[01:48:01] And this is the first time they really re-

[01:48:03] Well I thought, what's his name?

[01:48:05] I'm sorry, I'm forgetting.

[01:48:06] Murray?

[01:48:07] Maurice?

[01:48:08] Maurice from the original trilogy was great too.

[01:48:10] Yes.

[01:48:12] Yes.

[01:48:13] But it's that Raka was like he kind of helped.

[01:48:16] He was like the plot device to kind of bridge the Caesar trilogy with the Noah trilogy.

[01:48:23] The Noah trilogy, which I believe is still being considered a trilogy.

[01:48:31] But he really, it was cool seeing them use an orangutan again in order to kind of be the

[01:48:39] educator, be the sage, be the elder.

[01:48:42] Right, true.

[01:48:44] Yeah.

[01:48:45] So in the plot, we get a prologue that ties the films together.

[01:48:50] First of all, I have to ask you, when with your dad and brother who hadn't watched it,

[01:48:54] did they have any questions?

[01:48:56] Or could they, was the prologue enough for them to set the same stakes for the legacy

[01:49:02] of Caesar?

[01:49:04] Yeah, I think the prologue was enough.

[01:49:07] I mean, of course, they don't know the full background.

[01:49:10] But I mean, we see the burning of Caesar's corpse.

[01:49:14] Like we see them have the funeral for Caesar.

[01:49:18] Mm-hmm.

[01:49:19] It shows that they honored him enough to do that.

[01:49:24] Right.

[01:49:26] You know, and of course, it cuts kind of dramatically to years later.

[01:49:30] But it is a very nice prologue that kind of brings us right into these new films and shows

[01:49:41] like the apes of Caesar's time respected him enough.

[01:49:45] And then they moved into the future.

[01:49:47] And then they moved into the future, where Caesar is still respected hundreds of years

[01:49:52] after his death.

[01:49:54] But I noticed the prologue focuses especially on his more peaceful side.

[01:49:59] But of course, there was the aggressive side too.

[01:50:02] He did start an uprising and perpetuated it.

[01:50:06] Yeah, we definitely just see, you know, he's dead, but he's at peace.

[01:50:11] We don't get to see the angry Caesar, the one who was fighting against humans constantly.

[01:50:17] The ones who ripped away his basically adoptive father, the scientist, you know, and like

[01:50:26] all these things.

[01:50:27] But it really just shows the quote unquote good side of Caesar.

[01:50:36] And I have a feeling the more aggressive nature of Caesar is going to come back and bite some

[01:50:42] of these apes in the future films.

[01:50:46] I always think of it as, so my big pet peeve with these apes films, it dates back to the

[01:50:53] original book, is that they mis-stereotype them.

[01:50:57] So like the chimps are the most aggressive ones.

[01:51:00] And yeah, then and the gorillas should be, I don't know, like the political leaders.

[01:51:07] And yeah, the orangutans are the smart ones, they should be teachers.

[01:51:10] And then they have the bonobos who, when they show up, they make them the most evil

[01:51:16] villains.

[01:51:17] What is going on?

[01:51:18] The bonobos are the ones in real life who just like to have sex and hang out.

[01:51:25] Yeah, it's also very weird that like all these years later and we still don't see much

[01:51:31] variation in the apes.

[01:51:34] Like there are more than a handful of species of apes.

[01:51:38] What is going on here?

[01:51:39] This is true.

[01:51:40] Like why don't we ever have like baboons?

[01:51:43] Yeah.

[01:51:43] Like we could have, you know, a Planet of the Apes version of Rafiki from Lion King.

[01:51:51] Like we could have a crazy old ape.

[01:51:53] Well that was a plus of the Tim Burton one is there was a little more variety in the apes.

[01:52:01] Very, yeah, very much.

[01:52:03] Visually that movie was great.

[01:52:06] It was just, you know, it missed the point.

[01:52:08] Yeah.

[01:52:08] Okay, so I'm going to recap the film one section at a time with the help of an excellent writer

[01:52:17] from Wikipedia who saved me a lot of time and wrote this very well.

[01:52:21] Thank you so much.

[01:52:24] So and then we'll pause and discuss each portion of the plot.

[01:52:27] So many generations after Caesar's death, apes have established numerous clans while

[01:52:34] most humans have become feral and caveman-esque.

[01:52:37] Noah, a chimpanzee from a falconry practicing clan, prepares for a coming-of-age ceremony

[01:52:43] by collecting eagle eggs with his friends Ania and Suna.

[01:52:47] However, a human scavenger follows Noah home and inadvertently cracks his egg during a

[01:52:53] scuffle before fleeing.

[01:52:54] While searching for a replacement egg, Noah encounters a group of ape raiders using electric

[01:53:00] weapons.

[01:53:01] As Noah hides from them, the apes follow his horse back to his clan.

[01:53:06] Noah hurries home to find his village burning.

[01:53:09] The raider leader, Silva, kills Noah's father before dropping Noah from a high platform.

[01:53:14] So yeah.

[01:53:17] And that's all just within the first, like you said, village is burning at roughly 40

[01:53:22] minutes in.

[01:53:22] Like, that's rough.

[01:53:25] The egg breaking thing broke my heart and then it's like, well, the egg breaking thing,

[01:53:30] you realize that's nothing when suddenly the village is burning.

[01:53:32] Yes.

[01:53:33] Yes.

[01:53:36] The whole ritual of them showing that they have the ability to be independent, they're

[01:53:42] old enough, mature enough to go and protect life is something that I find kind of cool.

[01:53:49] It's like, you know, it's kind of this alternative to turning 18 here in the US.

[01:53:56] Like, you turn 18, you're considered an adult, you're able to become a legal guardian.

[01:54:03] Right.

[01:54:04] If you were to have a child and, you know, this kind of, it kind of parallels that sort

[01:54:10] of to the extent of these guys go get the eggs, they protect them, but they always leave

[01:54:16] one egg.

[01:54:17] Yes.

[01:54:17] I love that.

[01:54:18] They always leave one egg in order to keep the bird population going.

[01:54:23] And you can tell that they have like studied these birds.

[01:54:26] They're not just doing this willy nilly.

[01:54:28] They know how to protect the birds.

[01:54:30] They know how to train them at this point.

[01:54:33] And so it's really cool to see them kind of honor the birds while also using them in a

[01:54:41] way that didn't seem harmful at all.

[01:54:45] Like, it seemed like it was stuff the birds wanted to do.

[01:54:50] Yeah, no, exactly.

[01:54:51] The birds, as we could see from Eagle Sun, the birds very much have wills of their own.

[01:54:57] And I also like how they immediately, they get us feeling like, oh, we are the apes.

[01:55:02] The apes are our protagonists.

[01:55:04] And what's that filthy human doing breaking eggs?

[01:55:08] You know?

[01:55:11] But then of course we get our Mufasa moment.

[01:55:15] Yeah.

[01:55:17] As soon as, as soon as the fight started up, not yet before that, but as soon as Noah starts

[01:55:25] climbing, I knew his father was dead.

[01:55:29] And you can see it coming from a mile away, but you know what?

[01:55:33] Still heartbreaking.

[01:55:34] Yeah.

[01:55:34] It was also, I think both the parents were tropes, but they were elevated tropes.

[01:55:41] You know, they have real humanity.

[01:55:45] Very much.

[01:55:48] Anyway.

[01:55:49] Moving on.

[01:55:50] Left for dead, Noah awakens, discovering that his clan has been abducted.

[01:55:54] He buries his father and sets out to rescue his clan.

[01:55:57] On his journey, he is joined by Raka, an orangutan who tells Noah about Caesar's teachings.

[01:56:03] The apes notice they are being followed by the human scavenger.

[01:56:07] Raka offers her food and a blanket naming her Nova.

[01:56:11] When the trio encounters a group of feral humans, Silva's raiders suddenly attack.

[01:56:16] Silva's raiders suddenly attack.

[01:56:18] Noah and Raka rescue Nova, who to their surprise can speak.

[01:56:22] She reveals that her name is May and that the raiders took Noah's clan to a beachfront

[01:56:28] settlement outside an old human vault.

[01:56:31] As they cross a bridge on their way to the settlement, they are ambushed by Silva.

[01:56:36] In the ensuing fight, Raka saves May from drowning but is swept away by the rapids.

[01:56:42] Noah and May are captured and taken to the apes' settlement.

[01:56:47] So yeah, that rushes over quite a lot too.

[01:56:52] Do you think Raka is dead?

[01:56:58] That's a tough one.

[01:57:01] He was in the water for a while.

[01:57:03] He was in the water for a long while before he got swept away.

[01:57:09] I have a strange feeling he's not dead though.

[01:57:12] Did you hear the sound bite at the end of the credits?

[01:57:19] I did.

[01:57:23] I have a feeling he's going to return somehow.

[01:57:28] My hope is it's some random clan that has also been kind of worshipping Caesar

[01:57:36] and they kind of find Raka and they realize he has similar beliefs and

[01:57:41] they save him.

[01:57:43] Now, it would be fun weird sci-fi if we turned Raka into like a cyborg

[01:57:51] because he like, I don't know, broke an arm or something and lost it.

[01:57:55] Oh what if he's with the humans underground?

[01:57:58] That's also the other possibility.

[01:58:01] It wouldn't surprise me if we found a group of humans that are sympathetic to the apes.

[01:58:07] Mm-hmm.

[01:58:08] Yeah.

[01:58:09] Because like we see May slowly develop that over the film.

[01:58:12] Right.

[01:58:14] Kind of.

[01:58:16] There's some twists there but you do kind of see it that at times she is sympathetic to them,

[01:58:23] specifically Nova and Raka or Noah and Raka.

[01:58:27] But to see that as it played out, it worked.

[01:58:33] But I think it's totally possible Raka comes back.

[01:58:37] Okay.

[01:58:39] Yeah, I mean I think, yeah, it was kind of cruel to take Raka away but

[01:58:45] I liked how they handled the Nova naming thing, you know, where it's because we saw

[01:58:51] Nova get named in War of the Planet of the Apes because she had this Chevy Nova,

[01:59:00] what do you call the thing that you put on your car?

[01:59:03] The decal?

[01:59:04] No.

[01:59:05] Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:59:06] Anyway.

[01:59:07] The whatever it's called.

[01:59:10] No, spoiler is something else.

[01:59:11] Anyway, sorry, not a car person, don't own a car.

[01:59:16] But yeah and so this Raka says, yeah, we call her Nova because we call them all Nova.

[01:59:23] It's tradition.

[01:59:24] It's, yeah, and it's very funny that his comment there just kind of makes fun of the franchise

[01:59:31] as a whole.

[01:59:33] Because like how many living things have been called Nova in the history of the

[01:59:37] Planet of the Apes franchise?

[01:59:39] And that goes back to the original film.

[01:59:41] Right, you know what I find the most offensive use of Nova is the, not surprisingly, the Tim

[01:59:47] Burton film when they gave it, they gave Nova to an obnoxious ape who hated humans.

[01:59:53] Like what are you doing?

[01:59:55] You can't just like throw the name in there and it doesn't make sense.

[01:59:58] Yeah, and it like Nova in the original film is like meant to kind of be a strong woman

[02:00:09] who like, yes, she's not smart.

[02:00:16] But like she knows how to like kind of play the apes.

[02:00:22] And she got our protagonist on her side and like she has some smarts to her even though

[02:00:28] she can't speak.

[02:00:30] And like, you know, she may not have the scientific know-how of the app, but like she's still

[02:00:38] pretty smart.

[02:00:39] And then, you know, as she goes and then the future Novas we see all are pretty intelligent

[02:00:46] and strong people until Tim Burton.

[02:00:50] But yeah, in the book, in the book, his wife, his partner, whatever, she could speak or

[02:01:01] learn to speak.

[02:01:02] I haven't read the book yet.

[02:01:03] I have a copy now.

[02:01:06] Gonna do it eventually.

[02:01:08] The reading list is long.

[02:01:11] Same here.

[02:01:12] I loved that.

[02:01:14] I was thinking for a lot of the beginning of the movie like, oh, we're not going to

[02:01:18] get that scene that I assumed we were going to get where they chase down a pack of feral

[02:01:23] humans.

[02:01:24] And then we finally get it.

[02:01:26] But first we get there is such a cool random why not twist with the zebras there.

[02:01:33] Yes, but what I realized and it took me a couple days after watching Kingdom to realize

[02:01:41] this.

[02:01:43] They specifically show zebras in, I think, Rise and Dawn.

[02:01:52] So I really do think they were trying to allude to the fact that zebras were going to be part

[02:01:57] of the wild.

[02:02:00] Was that super intentional or did the writers of Kingdom find that and play off of it?

[02:02:06] I don't know.

[02:02:07] But it does connect now.

[02:02:09] I like that.

[02:02:10] Whether it was originally intended that way or not, but it does.

[02:02:14] I mean, we're going to talk later about another Easter egg that seems to have been planted

[02:02:18] that's got to pay off some point.

[02:02:21] OK, but moving on with the synopsis, Noah reunites with his clan and is introduced to

[02:02:26] the ape's self-proclaimed king, Proximus Caesar.

[02:02:30] Proximus has enslaved other clans, forcing them to work on opening the vault so he can

[02:02:35] access the human technology locked inside.

[02:02:38] Proximus invites Noah to dinner along with May and Trebathan, a human prisoner who's

[02:02:44] teaching Proximus about the old human world.

[02:02:47] Proximus believes that Noah's intelligence could help open the vault and warns him that

[02:02:52] May only has her own agenda.

[02:02:54] Noah confronts May, demanding the truth in exchange for his help.

[02:02:58] May discloses knowledge of a hidden entrance to the vault and says that a mysterious, quote

[02:03:04] unquote, book capable of restoring speech to humanity is inside.

[02:03:09] Noah agrees to help her enter the vault, hoping to destroy Proximus' settlement and lead

[02:03:14] his clan back home.

[02:03:16] Noah, May, Suna, and Aniah secretly plant explosives around the levee that surrounds

[02:03:21] the settlement.

[02:03:23] Trebathan catches them and intends to warn Proximus, but May kills him.

[02:03:29] Yeah, that was quite the move.

[02:03:31] Chilling to watch her do that, but also you're kind of rooting for it at the same time.

[02:03:36] Yeah, there was part of me that was thinking, oh, he's going to just stand there.

[02:03:41] He's going to crack some jokes and then he's going to join them.

[02:03:44] And then it became, I'm going to go tell Proximus.

[02:03:48] And we just see May take action and she does not hesitate.

[02:03:53] I mean, she kills him in cold blood right then and there.

[02:03:57] Yeah, she's a little assassin.

[02:03:59] It's really like, yeah, that kill was not expected.

[02:04:03] I figured she'd choke him a little bit and then throw him off the side.

[02:04:06] But no, she killed him with her bare hands and then they got rid of the body.

[02:04:11] And she's, well, I don't know how much smaller she is.

[02:04:15] She's clearly younger, but she just kind of latched onto him like a monkey, ironically.

[02:04:22] I did not, I mean, I recognized, of course, William H. Macy,

[02:04:28] but he looks so different with those fake teeth.

[02:04:31] Yes.

[02:04:32] He's one of those actors that just randomly pops up in things and you're like, oh, hey,

[02:04:38] it's that guy.

[02:04:40] And he's always around.

[02:04:41] It's funny.

[02:04:42] I was looking at his credits and he's got over 100 films and whatnot.

[02:04:46] Yeah.

[02:04:47] He was great.

[02:04:48] He's always great.

[02:04:50] It was a, did you feel like at all, like he was right in any way?

[02:04:57] How did you feel about him?

[02:04:59] It was complex.

[02:05:00] Yes and no.

[02:05:03] I mean, he had the humanity of self-preservation.

[02:05:10] I mean, you could tell he was like trying to help Mae, but at the end of the day,

[02:05:14] he didn't care about anybody but himself.

[02:05:17] He wanted to make sure he lived, that he lived long enough to escape Proximus.

[02:05:25] And it seemed like helping Proximus was the best way for him to eventually be

[02:05:31] released from imprisonment, basically.

[02:05:36] Yeah, exactly.

[02:05:37] So I kind of, it's easy to kind of empathize with that when he's just trying to protect himself.

[02:05:42] But at the same time, some of his actions were in opposition to the protagonists who

[02:05:49] we grew to love.

[02:05:50] And then he came, so he needed to die.

[02:05:54] I also, I love the idea that if Proximus came to our time and he would love the existence

[02:06:01] of the TikTok trend asking how often you think about the Roman Empire.

[02:06:06] Roman Empire?

[02:06:07] Just like, I'm never not thinking about it.

[02:06:10] It's so good.

[02:06:12] I mean, but it makes sense.

[02:06:13] And you can see how that is reflected in the type of society that he's building.

[02:06:19] Very clearly, yeah.

[02:06:21] So the group enters the vault, which is a military bunker housing a stockpile of weapons

[02:06:26] and Mae's quote unquote book, which is actually a deciphering key for a satellite.

[02:06:32] The apes discover old picture books depicting humans as the once dominant species in apes

[02:06:37] in cages at a zoo.

[02:06:39] As the group makes their way out of the bunker, they are confronted by Proximus and his tribe.

[02:06:45] One of Proximus' apes threatens to kill Suna, but Mae kills him with a gun she found.

[02:06:50] Proximus tells Mae that she can leave if she tells him where the other weapons are.

[02:06:56] Mae refuses and triggers the explosives, flooding the bunker with the apes inside.

[02:07:01] Mae flees the settlement while the apes climb to a higher ground through the bunker.

[02:07:06] Noah is pursued by Silva, but Noah traps and drowns him.

[02:07:10] Noah escapes the bunker with its clan, but Proximus attacks him.

[02:07:15] Noah leads his clan in summoning their eagles to attack Proximus and send him falling off

[02:07:20] a cliff into the sea.

[02:07:22] So Mae saves Suna, but then I thought for a minute that she had killed his mother because

[02:07:28] I didn't see his mother again for a while, and I was going to be like, no.

[02:07:33] But she killed all the apes.

[02:07:34] So where does that fall?

[02:07:36] Where does that leave her in ape accounting?

[02:07:39] I mean, I don't think in the eyes of Noah, I don't think they care as long as it's Proximus'

[02:07:47] apes.

[02:07:48] The ones loyal to Proximus, not the ones enslaved by him.

[02:07:53] At the same time, not much longer later, we watch Noah watch another ape drown.

[02:08:03] Right.

[02:08:03] Like Noah doesn't just like see he's trapped and walk away.

[02:08:06] No, Noah stands there and watches him drown.

[02:08:09] I mean, but if someone had killed your father and burned your village to the ground and

[02:08:15] you know, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, I'm not saying that it's the right thing

[02:08:19] to do, but it's...

[02:08:21] No.

[02:08:21] Yeah, but you see, that's kind of Caesar's legacy too.

[02:08:26] Yeah, it felt very personal and gruesome for Noah, but it seemed like he needed to

[02:08:33] see him die.

[02:08:34] And that, I think that death specifically lets him move on from the tragedy of the village

[02:08:43] burning.

[02:08:45] Like we see that kind of evolve a little later, but I think that was him kind of finally able

[02:08:49] to put that event to rest and move on.

[02:08:52] Right.

[02:08:53] I love how they build, like they built, because they took that time in the beginning to show

[02:09:00] us these people and their culture.

[02:09:02] It makes the payoff make more sense.

[02:09:03] Like nobody's calling these apes Mary Sue's, like they showed us they have control of these

[02:09:07] birds.

[02:09:08] So then it makes sense when the birds answer and start attacking, you know, they show us

[02:09:13] that they are great climbers.

[02:09:16] And so that comes in at the end, like climb my apes, climb.

[02:09:19] Mm hmm.

[02:09:20] Yeah, so I just, I love the buildup and payoff that this film gave me.

[02:09:27] Yes, there's actual stakes and you feel invested no matter what's happening.

[02:09:38] Yeah.

[02:09:40] Okay, so last part of the recap, as Noah's clan returns to build their home, May arrives

[02:09:46] to bid farewell to Noah.

[02:09:48] She explains that humans deserve another chance since they were once the dominant species,

[02:09:53] but Noah questions if apes and humans can coexist.

[02:09:58] As Noah takes Suna to look through a telescope he found on his journey, May travels to a

[02:10:03] human settlement at a satellite base, which is kept quarantined from the outside world.

[02:10:09] May delivers the decipher key, allowing the humans to reactivate the satellites and successfully

[02:10:15] contact other humans worldwide.

[02:10:18] So yeah, I got a little spoiled.

[02:10:22] Someone, because I made a joke somewhere about like, I hope there's humans underground because

[02:10:28] I want Beneath, you know, I want this series version of Beneath.

[02:10:33] But so and someone was like, oh, just watch this movie.

[02:10:36] And I was like, oh, there's going to be humans underground.

[02:10:37] So then I was waiting for the movie, where are the humans underground?

[02:10:40] They're in the vault.

[02:10:41] No, they're not in the vault.

[02:10:42] Yes, it's very, it's very unsurprising that there's still humans alive still clinging

[02:10:51] to the technological advances that they, you know, you know, created like the satellites.

[02:10:59] And yes, we see it for communication.

[02:11:02] But I have a feeling we're going to see militarized tech.

[02:11:05] Yeah.

[02:11:06] In a sequel.

[02:11:08] We're going to see the humans coming out of hiding and going back to war with the apes.

[02:11:15] But I do think before we see her return with the key, we see Meg go to Noah's village.

[02:11:25] And it very much seemed like she had the intention of killing him.

[02:11:29] Yeah, was she?

[02:11:30] Or she was ready to at least.

[02:11:33] Yes, it seemed in my eyes, it seemed that she was going there to kill a potential leader

[02:11:41] of these apes.

[02:11:44] Because she recognized what kind of threat he was.

[02:11:48] But then at the same time, her humanity stepped in and realized he hadn't done anything, you

[02:11:54] know, that she wouldn't have done that she did do.

[02:11:57] Yeah.

[02:11:58] And so we kind of see her walk away with that pistol hidden in, you know, in her shirt or

[02:12:04] whatever she had.

[02:12:04] Her like poncho or jacket.

[02:12:07] Yeah, whatever the heck that was.

[02:12:10] Yeah.

[02:12:13] I don't know that she was like, wanted to kill him.

[02:12:15] But I think she was ready if things went south because she didn't know how he would take

[02:12:20] you know what she did at the end with the blowing up of the.

[02:12:24] Yeah.

[02:12:24] But she was also right that it's good that because she did help them in a way because,

[02:12:29] you know, she killed off Proximus' apes.

[02:12:33] Yeah, I mean, she helped kill Proximus, she helped kill Silva.

[02:12:40] I mean, those were two big ones that plagued Noah.

[02:12:45] You know, she killed all of the apes that were loyal to him.

[02:12:49] And seemingly most of the enslaved apes left with Noah.

[02:12:54] Right.

[02:12:55] And decided to join the Eagle Clan.

[02:12:57] So like, it does seem like all of the tragedy of their village happened.

[02:13:08] They all grew as characters.

[02:13:11] But at the end of the day, their village was returned to what it was.

[02:13:17] Slightly, you know, there's, of course, people gone.

[02:13:20] But it's still a village.

[02:13:24] Right.

[02:13:25] Right. And it's, yeah, they have us questioning, like, do we want the humans to have

[02:13:33] more dominance again?

[02:13:35] And they have us rooting against our own kind.

[02:13:38] So just to run through the main cast really quick, we talked about most of these characters.

[02:13:45] But Noah was played by Owen Teague.

[02:13:48] And he's kind of, it seems like he's been in a lot of stuff, but nothing that I've watched.

[02:13:52] So I was kind of impressed by him not really knowing who he was.

[02:13:58] Yeah, I am in the same boat there.

[02:14:01] Yeah, I love Andy Serkis.

[02:14:03] And I get why people miss him.

[02:14:05] But, and this is probably a hot take, I kind of might be more into Noah as a protagonist.

[02:14:12] I'm actually in the same boat with you.

[02:14:15] Of all the protagonists in the series, Noah is my favorite.

[02:14:19] He feels the most real and the most, like, we don't know which way he's going to go.

[02:14:24] He's, yes, he's being formed.

[02:14:27] He comes from a good place.

[02:14:28] But he, you know, so he's got that support.

[02:14:32] But then at the same time, he keeps getting the rug ripped out from under him.

[02:14:36] And obviously, there's something coming again in the next movie.

[02:14:39] Well, and yeah, we're gonna see in the in the coming.

[02:14:42] I mean, they're calling it the Noah trilogy.

[02:14:44] So I'm gonna say the next two films, we're going to see either history repeat itself,

[02:14:52] where Noah turns into essentially a warlord like Caesar did.

[02:15:00] And Caesar did that in the original timeline too.

[02:15:03] Or we're going to see Noah kind of embrace the peaceful aspects that, you know,

[02:15:12] we've seen from other protagonists, but they always end up devolving into violence.

[02:15:18] And so I'm curious to see if Noah will continue that trend or if we'll finally see that trend

[02:15:23] broken.

[02:15:25] Yeah, I mean, it would be.

[02:15:26] Yeah, I mean, but that's the thing is they, they, it could go either way.

[02:15:30] And that's something they've set up well.

[02:15:32] Also, I love Eagle Sun.

[02:15:34] Eagle Sun was great comic relief and also an earned emotional payoff.

[02:15:41] I love that he got pecked in the face.

[02:15:43] And then you could see every day, I kept looking for that mark on his forehead,

[02:15:46] and it was there for the rest of the movie.

[02:15:49] I didn't even think to look for that.

[02:15:51] But yeah, I don't remember not seeing it.

[02:15:55] So yeah, that's impressive.

[02:15:59] So we've got a likable love interest, Suna played by Lydia Peckham and Anaya, their third friend

[02:16:06] played by Travis Jeffrey.

[02:16:08] Um, now do we think Anaya has feelings for Suna?

[02:16:15] I am not sure.

[02:16:19] Um, it's right now, it seems like we have Noah and Suna, who are going to be like,

[02:16:30] you know, the two in the trio that are in a relationship.

[02:16:34] And then it seems like Anaya is going to be the weird third friend.

[02:16:40] We're either because we start to kind of see Suna and Noah become a thing at the end,

[02:16:47] like they're on a horse together, they go to the planetarium together.

[02:16:52] And so either either Anaya is going to become a problem, or he's going to be

[02:17:01] super happy for his friends and, you know, just love them together.

[02:17:07] Or either I don't think there's going to be any middle ground there.

[02:17:10] I think it's going to be either he's in love with one of them and is pissed that they're

[02:17:15] together, or he's so happy for them and just glad to be around them.

[02:17:21] I was a little confused by his characterization because at times, it was like they were trying

[02:17:26] to classify him as the fuck up, but then I wasn't sure if that was a joke or...

[02:17:31] Yeah.

[02:17:32] So I'm afraid that he's gonna...

[02:17:34] He seems like a less mature, right?

[02:17:39] Like he's just, he's supposed to still be like, they're all teens, but like

[02:17:45] Noah and Suna are more grown up than him thing.

[02:17:50] It's kind of how I was thinking they were trying to portray it.

[02:17:53] Okay.

[02:17:54] I mean, I just feel like he's gonna mess things up somehow in the next movie and I don't want it.

[02:18:01] And so yeah, we had Noah's parents we talked about already, Dar and Kuro,

[02:18:04] Sarah Wiseman and Neil Sandilands.

[02:18:07] And then we have to talk a little bit more about Proximus Caesar,

[02:18:11] especially Kevin Durant's performance.

[02:18:14] He was so good, no?

[02:18:16] Yes, Proximus is the best villain in the most recent four films.

[02:18:27] I'd argue Proximus is one of the top villains of the franchise

[02:18:32] because he takes the ideas of Caesar again, but he takes them,

[02:18:39] he takes the bad parts and he corrupts them even further.

[02:18:43] And he kind of embodies everything that the apes hated about humanity,

[02:18:49] to the point of enslavement.

[02:18:50] Right.

[02:18:51] Like he's a very compelling villain and I'm honestly kind of surprised he was killed off.

[02:19:00] Yeah.

[02:19:00] I mean, I thought Kevin Durant was so good.

[02:19:03] Like when you can look up videos of him saying they, what was it?

[02:19:08] Saying they, what was it?

[02:19:12] Or whatever he said.

[02:19:14] Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

[02:19:16] And you can just see them when you look at the ape version of it, they really copied him.

[02:19:23] I don't know, he just portrayed it so well.

[02:19:25] I wouldn't even have known it was him.

[02:19:27] So I just, it's a shame that he's dead?

[02:19:34] He's another situation.

[02:19:36] Like Raka, we never saw a body.

[02:19:40] The first thing I thought when Proximus hit the water was he hit the water, not the rocks.

[02:19:47] Exactly.

[02:19:49] There is a huge possibility that he just survived the fell.

[02:19:52] Yeah.

[02:19:53] Survived the fell, survived the fall.

[02:19:56] And God, if Proximus Caesar comes back with a vengeance, oh, that could go bad.

[02:20:04] I know, I feel like he and Raka are kind of mirror images of each other in a way,

[02:20:08] because they are showing the two ways, well, this is a man who saw the quote unquote enemy

[02:20:17] and saw humanity in them and thought that we could live together.

[02:20:22] And I do think there's that added aspect of don't put them in a box where like, you know,

[02:20:32] the chimps in these films, you know, they typically have similar trends and behavior and

[02:20:42] even, you know, the way they speak and things.

[02:20:44] But at the end of the day, they are all different.

[02:20:50] Enough.

[02:20:51] Yeah.

[02:20:52] You know, the same way humans are all different.

[02:20:54] Like we do see some of those.

[02:20:58] Yeah.

[02:20:59] Yeah.

[02:21:00] And I do think it's helpful when you're looking at non-human

[02:21:04] characters, especially so many of them, that like, people don't think

[02:21:11] that writers can effectively show the humanity of them.

[02:21:18] And we do see that.

[02:21:20] I mean, we've always seen it in these films.

[02:21:24] I don't know.

[02:21:25] I think that's just a fun aspect of having the different ape species.

[02:21:29] Again, why I wish we had more.

[02:21:30] Yeah, no, I agree.

[02:21:31] They should lean into it.

[02:21:34] I got so mad though, by the way, back toward the beginning of the film.

[02:21:39] So we had Eka Darvill as Silva and Ross Samuel as Lightning.

[02:21:45] And they were, you know, Proximus's guys on the road.

[02:21:50] And when they attacked the village and then at the end of it,

[02:21:54] raised their arms and said,

[02:21:56] Poor Caesar.

[02:21:57] I got so mad.

[02:22:01] It kind of mirrors, and this is possibly a stretch, but in my eyes, it kind of mirrors

[02:22:09] the Crusades where like you saw a lot of fighting from Christians and they would say,

[02:22:19] For Christianity.

[02:22:20] And it was like, but they had twisted what that meant.

[02:22:25] And in this film, we kind of see them twist the words and actions of Caesar

[02:22:30] and do something absolutely heinous in his name.

[02:22:35] And like, does that mean I'm kind of equating Caesar to God here?

[02:22:39] Kind of.

[02:22:40] Well, they are.

[02:22:40] That's essentially how they see him.

[02:22:43] They see Caesar as a god.

[02:22:45] He was, you know, their version of Jesus.

[02:22:51] It's very interesting.

[02:22:52] Yeah.

[02:22:53] Okay.

[02:22:54] So we had Peter Makin played Raka, by the way.

[02:22:58] And of course, we have William H. Macy as Trevithan.

[02:23:02] Oh, I'm forgetting how it's pronounced.

[02:23:03] I still don't know how to say it.

[02:23:05] And that brings us, of course, to May played by Freya Allen,

[02:23:09] who I was racking my brain about where I knew her from.

[02:23:13] So anyone else doing that?

[02:23:14] She's Ciri from The Witcher.

[02:23:16] And I know she's done other stuff, but that's definitely what I know her for.

[02:23:20] Um, so yeah, complicated character.

[02:23:23] Did you want her to team up with Trevithan?

[02:23:28] Part of me did.

[02:23:30] The other part of me, because she had already showed how cynical she was,

[02:23:37] part of me expected her to kill him and take his place.

[02:23:41] I figured she would become the human at Proximus' side.

[02:23:44] Yeah.

[02:23:46] Um, you know, eventually I was, you know, I was right about half of that.

[02:23:49] She did kill him out of, you know, cold blood, but

[02:23:53] I really expected her to side with Proximus.

[02:23:58] And I do think it's cool that she didn't.

[02:24:01] But, you know, she was always wary of the apes.

[02:24:06] But that kind of showed she was also wary of humans.

[02:24:09] Yeah.

[02:24:11] Yeah.

[02:24:11] So what do you think?

[02:24:13] Okay, so there's this pendant that gets passed around the entire movie.

[02:24:17] And the pendant is actually, it's a sign of Caesar.

[02:24:21] It's a circle with this sort of like four-pointed star inside.

[02:24:26] And it was the shape of the window in the house where Caesar grew up

[02:24:32] that he always looked out of.

[02:24:33] And now it's being repeated everywhere, made into this pendant.

[02:24:37] And it gets passed around this particular movie by Ruckus,

[02:24:42] attaching the legacy of Caesar to it in the way he means in terms of coexistence.

[02:24:48] And he eventually, this pendant ends up with May and she takes it.

[02:24:56] Do you think that will sway her later?

[02:24:59] I hope so.

[02:25:01] Um, I would love her to look at that thing the same way that Rucka did and Noah did.

[02:25:09] But also I can see a cool parallel happening where we see May kind of like hold it up to

[02:25:16] the light type of thing and look through it.

[02:25:19] And I think if done right, it can mirror what we saw with Caesar in Rise.

[02:25:25] And I think it can show that like,

[02:25:28] Caesar was kind of trapped for a while.

[02:25:32] His hope, his symbol of hope was the shape of that window and like it became his thing.

[02:25:39] But like, I'm hoping it can become a thing for May too.

[02:25:44] That kind of represents similar ideas.

[02:25:48] But like she doesn't have to feel trapped by the other humans

[02:25:53] that are inevitably going to wage war on the apes.

[02:25:56] Right.

[02:25:58] Yeah, but what if she indeed plays the role of Caesar, the leading in Uprising?

[02:26:06] That's where I'm not sure.

[02:26:09] And I like that they left it with that ambiguity,

[02:26:12] but they have me rooting for her and Caesar to be on the same side.

[02:26:15] I mean, sorry for her and Noah to be on the same side.

[02:26:18] Yes, I want those two to be on the same side.

[02:26:22] But I could also see her playing a Caesar style leader for the humans.

[02:26:36] But I don't know.

[02:26:37] I really don't know.

[02:26:38] I think we could see her take a leadership role on either side of the coin.

[02:26:43] And that's weird.

[02:26:46] It's I think it's a very unique thing that the franchise hasn't really delved into before.

[02:26:52] Yeah.

[02:26:53] Yeah.

[02:26:53] And I also like that they so one thing that the Marvel comics

[02:26:58] attached to the Dawn of the Apes movie do well is that they show

[02:27:03] how this is something that's happening all over the world.

[02:27:06] And so they show there's like a terrorist organization that's trying to kill all the

[02:27:12] apes because they think they're making them sick and dying.

[02:27:15] There's you know, this is happening in France and there's a French speaking

[02:27:20] gorilla becomes a big deal called Pug.

[02:27:23] There's yeah, they show people coming from Africa to the US with their apes.

[02:27:31] So it just makes the whole world feel bigger.

[02:27:33] And that was kind of missing in the prequel trilogy for me.

[02:27:37] And now in this film, I really feel it.

[02:27:39] And I feel it also with world building details like the fact that Noah's clan

[02:27:45] calls the humans something else.

[02:27:47] They call them echoes.

[02:27:48] Did you know what it was right away?

[02:27:52] I personally had a feeling it was and then they kind of confirmed it.

[02:27:57] It kind of reminds me of what The Walking Dead has always done.

[02:28:02] They always called the zombies something.

[02:28:05] Yeah.

[02:28:05] They never use the word zombie.

[02:28:06] Yes.

[02:28:07] But they you know, they call them walkers.

[02:28:09] They call them hushes.

[02:28:10] They call them whatever.

[02:28:12] And it's cool to see that, you know, over hundreds of years, the apes have done the

[02:28:17] same thing in regards to the different human groups.

[02:28:19] Yeah.

[02:28:22] It's something that I really hope we see explored a little bit.

[02:28:26] Even if it's a subtle thing.

[02:28:28] Even if it becomes a joke where it's like, what do you mean?

[02:28:31] That's what you call those things?

[02:28:33] Like, you know, they're talking about humans and they're all like, you use that word for

[02:28:37] them.

[02:28:37] Yeah.

[02:28:38] But why do you think they use the word echo?

[02:28:40] Because they are echoes of the past?

[02:28:44] Either echoes of the past or that they like, the way they used to speak, at least, was

[02:28:56] that they were like, essentially parrots, where they just kind of seem to repeat the

[02:29:01] same thing.

[02:29:03] Um, because, you know, we know history repeats itself.

[02:29:07] So maybe the apes kind of picked up on that.

[02:29:09] And like, I don't know, I'm reaching here.

[02:29:12] Who knows?

[02:29:13] Okay.

[02:29:14] Um, all right.

[02:29:16] So just final highlights for the film.

[02:29:22] I'm going to go with, for one, the nuance.

[02:29:26] So like, just the question we've been talking about Caesar's legacy, like, is that, is it

[02:29:30] coexistence or domination?

[02:29:32] Which is Caesar's legacy.

[02:29:35] I think the intent was co-dominance.

[02:29:38] I think the reality was totalitarian, one is over the other.

[02:29:44] Um, because it seems that in this world, both groups are too stubborn to give up the power.

[02:29:52] Yeah.

[02:29:52] I, I think that jumping forward in, uh, history 300 years was an inspired choice.

[02:30:00] I'm glad they did that.

[02:30:02] Yeah.

[02:30:04] It felt nice to move on past modern technology and kind of go back to the roots of the franchise,

[02:30:12] where everything felt kind of Western-ish while also being, um, limited tech.

[02:30:19] Yeah.

[02:30:21] And I liked that it was really an apes versus apes movie, and we just kind of got like a

[02:30:26] human foil in the mix.

[02:30:28] Yes, very much.

[02:30:30] We always, we always have the ape versus ape conflict, but it always ends up turning back

[02:30:39] to humans versus apes.

[02:30:42] And like, I know that's coming, but like this film taking the time to showcase the apes

[02:30:51] fighting with each other and trying to figure out themselves before this war with the humans

[02:30:59] comes.

[02:31:00] Right.

[02:31:00] So then it shows how uncertain.

[02:31:02] It's going to add a lot of depth.

[02:31:04] Exactly.

[02:31:05] And I also, I love the music.

[02:31:07] So it was, um, the composer was John Apaisano who worked with Bob before in the Maze Runner

[02:31:13] trilogy.

[02:31:14] And he said that he wanted to, yeah, he incorporated the original themes from the 68 film by Jerry

[02:31:21] Goldsmith into the score as well.

[02:31:23] So I thought it was just a really nice mix of, yeah, making it sound cohesive and as part

[02:31:29] of the bigger brand, but also indeed exploring new directions.

[02:31:34] And I really respect that he didn't like just make a new thing.

[02:31:40] Like he honored what came before he included it.

[02:31:43] Like we've seen that, um, in Star Wars with, uh, Ludwig Garansson who, um, and I just butchered

[02:31:50] his name, but, um, but he, you know, he always included George Lucas's or sorry, John Williams

[02:31:59] work with the score and it showed.

[02:32:03] And you can, you can tell that, uh, Apaisano did the same.

[02:32:07] Like he incorporated everything that came from the original films in some fashion.

[02:32:14] Like you can, you can hear the riffs, um, subtle, but they're there.

[02:32:20] Any other highlights you want to shout out?

[02:32:23] I mean, it was just a great time.

[02:32:26] Probably one of the best big budget blockbusters I've seen in a while.

[02:32:33] Any lowlights you want to shout out?

[02:32:36] Anything you didn't like?

[02:32:39] Honestly with Kingdom.

[02:32:41] Nope.

[02:32:42] Yeah.

[02:32:42] That thing was so close to perfect.

[02:32:45] Yeah.

[02:32:45] I bitched about the Bonnevaux thing.

[02:32:47] That's it.

[02:32:49] Yeah.

[02:32:49] I mean, and like I said, I, I'm usually a person that if it's over two hours, you got to freaking

[02:32:55] justify it to me.

[02:32:57] Yeah.

[02:32:58] And this one, I, it felt like an hour had passed.

[02:33:02] Mm hmm.

[02:33:03] Like it, I was like, oh, it's over already.

[02:33:05] Like it, it did its job.

[02:33:08] It knew what it was doing from the start and it never hesitated.

[02:33:14] Yeah.

[02:33:14] I thought it was the right mix of honoring the original and, um, not, not falling into

[02:33:20] the traps of, you know, like the previous trilogy, they got a lot of the iconic lines.

[02:33:26] Every adaptation has to use out of the way, like get your stinking hands off me.

[02:33:30] And it's the madhouse.

[02:33:31] Um, so, and then they, they mixed it up.

[02:33:35] Like I said, with the chase, the facts, um, that they waited for it made it more exciting

[02:33:40] when it happened.

[02:33:41] And you can see that there like, so they're laying the groundwork to honor the original,

[02:33:48] uh, the original movies as an entire series in new ways.

[02:33:52] Like we can see that with the people underground.

[02:33:56] We'll see if we get some version of psychics or people wearing skin suits.

[02:34:01] I doubt it, but you know, we could start, you know, we could see some like mutated humans

[02:34:08] that like, you know, their, their physicality they're, they're different.

[02:34:13] They have, you know, I mean, we could see like a cyclops type thing, like who knows?

[02:34:18] Yeah.

[02:34:19] And the fact that they, um, cast, I'm going to butcher the pronunciation of her name,

[02:34:24] Deeshan Lockman as Corrina.

[02:34:26] Yes.

[02:34:27] So she's, I know her, especially from stuff like Dollhouse and Severance, but she's been

[02:34:32] very active actress for many years now.

[02:34:35] Yes.

[02:34:37] She was also in, I might have this wrong.

[02:34:41] I want to say she was in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

[02:34:43] Oh, yeah.

[02:34:43] Um, cause she was, yes, she was.

[02:34:47] She was like the leader of an inhuman clan.

[02:34:50] Right.

[02:34:51] And I don't remember if she was actually based on a comic character, but she was

[02:34:56] around.

[02:34:58] And that's probably where I first saw her.

[02:35:00] Okay.

[02:35:01] Um,

[02:35:02] Yeah, but she, you don't cast her for a throwaway character.

[02:35:07] So I'm guessing.

[02:35:08] No.

[02:35:08] She's going to play bigger role.

[02:35:10] I have a feeling her and May have some like deeper connection too.

[02:35:15] Yeah.

[02:35:15] Like there's something between the two of them that like they, you know, I don't know if it's

[02:35:19] like, you know, mother daughter type thing, but like, I have a feeling there's some sort

[02:35:23] of relationship there that like, we're going to see explored.

[02:35:26] Question though, because so when she came out to meet May, she was wearing like a hazmat suit.

[02:35:33] And then May is of course has been walking around with bare skin.

[02:35:37] So I guess that means May is immune and she's not, but does May, she went up to see the

[02:35:44] satellites turn, I guess, but can she, is she allowed inside or does she have to stay

[02:35:48] outside?

[02:35:48] Cause she might be a carrier.

[02:35:49] I don't know.

[02:35:50] That did feel a little weird.

[02:35:53] Um, it kind of reminded me of, um, I don't know if you know much about the fallout franchise.

[02:36:00] I mean, I'm learning more now because of the show.

[02:36:04] Yeah.

[02:36:04] And also there's a podcast on this network, uh, radioactive ramblings they are doing going

[02:36:10] through all the lore too.

[02:36:12] Oh, awesome.

[02:36:14] Yeah.

[02:36:14] I'm, I'm in the middle of the show myself, but, um, I had played a little bit of the

[02:36:19] games before and it kind of reminds me of like the vault where you've got these, you

[02:36:24] know, you've got these people that are hiding from the world because it's become a wasteland.

[02:36:30] And in the eyes of these humans and planet of the apes, like it is a wasteland out there.

[02:36:35] It's, it's run by apes and the apes hunt humans and.

[02:36:39] Yeah.

[02:36:39] But they might still be, what is the virus still potentially going to be?

[02:36:45] That's what, yeah.

[02:36:46] You know, fallout has the nuclear radiation, but does this world still have the same flu?

[02:36:51] Is it still going around?

[02:36:53] Like if you like fallout, have you watched a silo yet?

[02:36:57] I have not.

[02:36:58] Oh, you should, you should.

[02:36:59] Well, it's another one where they are stuck underground for reasons.

[02:37:03] It's people compared to fallout.

[02:37:04] I think that there's a lot of differences.

[02:37:07] Yeah.

[02:37:08] It's we're going to see some, we're going to see some stuff in the next eight films.

[02:37:13] Yeah.

[02:37:13] So how do you feel about, they want to do nine films.

[02:37:17] So that means five more.

[02:37:18] How do you feel about that?

[02:37:22] I'm a little worried.

[02:37:24] Don't get me wrong.

[02:37:25] Okay.

[02:37:26] But I think they can do it.

[02:37:28] All right.

[02:37:29] I mean, we've, we got the Caesar trilogy.

[02:37:31] We're going to get the Noah trilogy.

[02:37:33] And my guess is we're going to get another time jump.

[02:37:36] Yeah, I think so too.

[02:37:37] I think that's, I think that's going to be the best way for them to do it.

[02:37:40] And it'll allow them to use other forms of media to fill in the gaps if they want.

[02:37:45] They can tell stories in comics, you know, between them.

[02:37:48] They can write novels.

[02:37:49] They can, I mean, it's what Star Wars does.

[02:37:52] Star Trek does it too, where they, you know, they fill in gaps in timelines with other media

[02:37:58] for the diehard fans, but also, you know, the films can stand and do their own thing.

[02:38:04] And I have a feeling, I have a feeling we're going to see kind of the birth of a new

[02:38:11] person.

[02:38:12] Like we had the prologue in Kingdom where it shows the death of Caesar.

[02:38:16] But I have a feeling we're going to have an epilogue in the second trilogy that kind of

[02:38:21] introduces us to the next one.

[02:38:24] Okay.

[02:38:26] So yeah, this, this trilogy, this middle trilogy, I'm kind of thinking of it like playing the

[02:38:31] role of Battle for the Planet of the Apes in the original, where it's like the linking one

[02:38:37] between the two.

[02:38:38] Um, Ball said that this film was quote unquote set during the Dark Ages where apes rediscover

[02:38:45] lost items from the past.

[02:38:47] And so I'm wondering if this trilogy set in the Dark Ages, does this imply that the next

[02:38:54] trilogy would be set in the Apes Renaissance?

[02:38:57] Because I want to see that.

[02:38:59] That's, I have thought that as well.

[02:39:02] I do think there's a genuine possibility that at the end of the Noah trilogy here,

[02:39:10] we see the death of all humans.

[02:39:13] I think it would genuinely add such a unique spin.

[02:39:18] Except for the ones that went underground to become psychics.

[02:39:21] That would be cool.

[02:39:22] But I do think we will see a genuine like extinction level event.

[02:39:29] I guess we should say another extinction level event.

[02:39:32] That kills off the remainder of the humans.

[02:39:36] But is it possible or are we going to see them turn to human slavery?

[02:39:42] So when do we think that, yeah, I think we might see that actually.

[02:39:47] When do we think, um, so in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, there's an Easter egg in the

[02:39:52] background where there's a launch from Mars, but then the ship goes missing.

[02:39:59] Where, when do we think that ship's going to show back up?

[02:40:01] Do we think it's going to be in this trilogy or the next trilogy?

[02:40:05] My hope.

[02:40:07] My hope is the end of the Noah trilogy.

[02:40:09] Okay.

[02:40:10] As I mentioned, I hope there's like an epilogue type thing to tie into the next one.

[02:40:14] I think that would be it.

[02:40:16] It would not be surprising if, you know, if this trilogy ends and if Noah's living happily

[02:40:24] ever after he watches an asteroid crash and then that kind of like introduces something.

[02:40:29] Mm-hmm.

[02:40:30] And it's, you know, it's the rocket or Noah's dead and it's like his kid or something discovers

[02:40:36] this, you know, the rocket that's crashed.

[02:40:38] Right.

[02:40:39] But do we know was that rocket manned?

[02:40:43] Uh, I mean, I'm pretty sure that it was.

[02:40:48] See, that would be, I mean, that just ties it right back to the original then.

[02:40:54] I mean, I felt like it seems pointed that they just kind of showed it in the background

[02:40:59] several times, the story developing without pointing to it, you know, it seems pointed.

[02:41:05] They didn't point to it, but you know what I mean?

[02:41:06] It would.

[02:41:07] Yeah.

[02:41:08] It very much seems like they're prepping something.

[02:41:14] But what that something is, I don't know.

[02:41:17] I mean, are they going to reintroduce time travel?

[02:41:19] I mean, that would be nuts.

[02:41:22] I mean, yeah.

[02:41:23] Why not?

[02:41:23] I wouldn't be surprised if we saw them.

[02:41:26] I mean, we've got the whole world of the multiverse right now kind of going on in what seems like

[02:41:31] every other franchise.

[02:41:32] Like, yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some time, you know, time travel shenanigans

[02:41:37] where, I mean, maybe we even like go back to other films and see moments like we see Caesar

[02:41:44] again.

[02:41:45] We, I don't know.

[02:41:46] I hope they go forward.

[02:41:48] I want to see them go forward, but they can bring some humans forward from the past.

[02:41:52] It would, I think what I would find really cool with the Mars rocket thing, somehow,

[02:42:02] I don't know how, connect all of them.

[02:42:04] Make all the timelines connect somehow because as of right now, we've still got the weird

[02:42:10] two branches and then the weird third offshoot from the reboot.

[02:42:15] You mean in the overall IP with everything?

[02:42:18] Yes.

[02:42:19] In the overall IP.

[02:42:21] I would love to see the original five films, you know, in addition to the series that

[02:42:26] tie into them, kind of connect to these modern films.

[02:42:29] I don't know.

[02:42:32] I mean, it would be a nightmare.

[02:42:34] Don't get me wrong.

[02:42:36] But if they could do it effectively, it'd be fun.

[02:42:38] But what, okay, what if they actually like managed to build some sort of utopia and then

[02:42:45] the humans from the past show up and fuck it up?

[02:42:48] That's also a very real possibility.

[02:42:51] You see the, you know, Heston in the first film, he lands on another planet, which we

[02:42:58] later know is Earth, but he does essentially lead an uprising against the apes.

[02:43:04] Right.

[02:43:05] Kind of a minor one, but we do see it.

[02:43:09] I wouldn't be surprised if we see that mirrored.

[02:43:11] Yeah.

[02:43:12] Yeah.

[02:43:14] Some form of these underground people that are, you know, now in control of the satellites.

[02:43:20] Right.

[02:43:20] For communications.

[02:43:21] Yeah.

[02:43:22] Talking to other peoples.

[02:43:24] I liked that was another moment that, you know, made the world feel bigger.

[02:43:28] You know, they're talking to people somewhere else.

[02:43:31] And I do like the openness of, we don't know where those other people are.

[02:43:37] I mean, they could be in another place in the US or they could be across the world.

[02:43:41] Yeah.

[02:43:43] So I guess we're feeling quite bullish on the Disney era of the apes.

[02:43:49] Yeah.

[02:43:50] The box office is, it's doing okay.

[02:43:53] We're two weeks in now and it's approaching 250 million globally.

[02:43:57] The reported budget is 160 million and we all know reported budget is not real budget.

[02:44:05] Yeah.

[02:44:06] Especially when it comes to Disney, they do have a lot of their numbers until well past

[02:44:11] box office runs, but I do think that they're going to continue profiting.

[02:44:21] I did see an article and I don't know how reliable it was, but I did see something that

[02:44:29] indicated that the first three films of the modern era were getting increased streams on platforms.

[02:44:38] Yeah, definitely.

[02:44:39] Voodoo purchases for those three spiked way bigger than other films and franchises do.

[02:44:49] I'm seeing people going back now and watching the previous movies because

[02:44:53] there's good word of mouth and people are just talking about the IP as a whole.

[02:44:59] Yeah, you definitely see that more with this one than I would have expected.

[02:45:04] Mm-hmm.

[02:45:07] I won't lie, before I watched these films, I was always like,

[02:45:11] how do you get so in love with an ape? How do you fall in love with Andy Serkis playing Caesar?

[02:45:21] Then you see it and you're like, oh my God, duh, this is how.

[02:45:26] The writing is great and then the acting is great.

[02:45:29] I am worried because I want the films to obviously do very financially well because

[02:45:35] I want the other five. I am a little worried that it's going to be knocked out of first

[02:45:40] place by Furiosa this weekend as we're recording. We are in the middle of opening weekend for Furiosa.

[02:45:46] Yeah, I think so too. Furiosa has the added benefit of a star-studded cast.

[02:45:55] Mm-hmm.

[02:45:56] They have Anya Taylor-Joy and Chris Hemsworth who are big household names right now.

[02:46:01] Mm-hmm.

[02:46:02] Whereas Kingdom really doesn't have any big names.

[02:46:06] Yeah.

[02:46:07] Even if you did, you don't see them. You don't see their face.

[02:46:11] Right.

[02:46:14] I do think it's going to have a harder time, but I do think Apes is a more accessible film.

[02:46:22] For sure.

[02:46:22] Whereas my understanding is Furiosa and the other Mad Max films,

[02:46:27] because I've only seen the first one, are very brutalistic.

[02:46:31] I mean, yes, they are. They're very different types of film. I'm in the middle of re-watching

[02:46:39] them all before I go see it this weekend. It's spectacle over depth and then just

[02:46:50] ridiculousness for the sake of spectacle and amp it all up.

[02:46:56] That's fine. I do think that we're going to see that outplay Kingdom.

[02:47:06] Disney has this weird thing with longevity where sometimes they'll leave something in

[02:47:11] theaters for a long time and it'll start doing well at week seven.

[02:47:15] Yeah.

[02:47:16] And it's just timing and plus it's about the start of summer.

[02:47:21] Yeah, if they leave it up for seven weeks because they've been yanking these down so quickly.

[02:47:26] Yeah. My guess is Planet of the Apes is going to sit until... It'll probably sit about a month,

[02:47:32] month and a half. I think we'll see it towards the third week of June, maybe the fourth week of June.

[02:47:39] But after that, I think it's going to lose its wide release.

[02:47:43] Yeah. Well, everyone go see it while you can. It's definitely worth seeing on the big screen.

[02:47:50] It's quite the spectacle. Do you think that you'll read the book, Logan, or any of the

[02:47:57] comics or other books? Because there are actually, I don't think I even mentioned this, books tied

[02:48:01] into especially Dawn.

[02:48:05] Yeah. I have a couple of books on my list. I have a couple of comics on my list.

[02:48:13] I'm currently kind of on a Star Wars binge again. So I paused, but at some point I will

[02:48:21] probably slide over and get to some of the Apes stuff because I've always enjoyed

[02:48:28] the extra world building stuff of the non-screen media. I read a bunch of Alien comics and it just

[02:48:36] added a lot to the Xenomorphs and even the human companies of the Alien franchise. I love reading

[02:48:44] those tie-in things. So Apes is definitely a franchise that I know I will touch as much of

[02:48:54] the content as I can.

[02:48:56] Would you get any Apes merch? Because we learned in the documentary that this was kind of like

[02:49:04] the original merch machine even before Star Wars. So would you buy Apes merch and what

[02:49:09] merch would you get?

[02:49:11] Oh God. I mean, shirts, of course. I'd love to have a plain shirt that just has

[02:49:21] Bat Apes face on it or something stupid. These films are fun. You can take any fun moment and

[02:49:30] put it on something, or you can take the iconic moments of Caesar holding up a rifle

[02:49:36] and put it on things. But I do think that a shirt or even a hat or a sweatshirt would be able to

[02:49:47] have fun. I'm sure someone out there on Etsy or whatever has made some fun variation of

[02:49:55] those types of things and a certain beloved character or whatever.

[02:50:00] I went straight to Eagle Sun can opener.

[02:50:06] That would certainly do the trick.

[02:50:09] All right. Is there anything that we missed that you wanted to mention about this film or this IP?

[02:50:15] Oh, I mean, I just have to mention again Roddy McDonough.

[02:50:21] See, this is the legend.

[02:50:22] I'd say to people, if you don't want to watch the original series, watch the documentary and then let that sell you on watching the original series.

[02:50:30] Yes. Because Roddy is just great. He plays Cornelius very well. And then immediately he

[02:50:37] plays Cornelius's son Caesar. And then those two alone are so different. And then we get Galen in

[02:50:45] the show and Galen is just this sarcastic little jerk. But in the best ways. He's so sassy, I love it.

[02:50:55] He looks like the most fun to play. Yes, you have to love him. But you can tell Roddy just had fun.

[02:51:01] He didn't let anything hinder him. He dealt the weird prosthetics of the masks and he went with it.

[02:51:10] And I'd love to see him reprise something, even if he couldn't do the physicality anymore.

[02:51:18] I'd love to see him do the voice of something. Is he really?

[02:51:21] Yeah, he passed away.

[02:51:22] No, I'm so hurt.

[02:51:24] Yeah, I know.

[02:51:25] I know he did a small role in the Burton movie.

[02:51:29] Um, I thought he passed away shortly after the documentary.

[02:51:37] Oh, shoot. Maybe I'm way off here. I'm looking now because I have to go.

[02:51:43] Oh my God. Yeah, he died in 98.

[02:51:45] Yeah. So right after the documentary.

[02:51:46] What the heck?

[02:51:48] So maybe I was wondering if he made the documentary

[02:51:52] as you know, because he knew and he wanted to leave behind that legacy.

[02:51:55] Yeah, maybe it was his...

[02:51:57] Yeah.

[02:51:59] Yeah, we... Oh God, I totally thought he was still alive.

[02:52:03] I know, heartbreaking.

[02:52:05] That's crazy. And that's, I mean, he passed in 98. That was freaking... Okay,

[02:52:11] I'm not going to try and make you feel old here, but that's older than me. Like that was before I

[02:52:16] was born.

[02:52:16] It was not before I was born.

[02:52:20] But to be fair, he lived 70 years. That's a long time.

[02:52:24] Mm-hmm. Yeah, I mean, yeah, he had a... I would like a documentary about him.

[02:52:33] Yes. Because if you look at his credits, like he's been in a lot.

[02:52:38] Yeah. Yeah, I would have loved to have seen him on stage back in the day even.

[02:52:44] I can't imagine that. He had to be so fun on stage.

[02:52:48] Well, let's leave it on that note. Roddy McDowall is the best and the number one reason why you

[02:52:54] should watch the original series.

[02:52:56] Absolute legend. Yes.

[02:52:58] Thank you so much, Logan, for joining me. This was a lot of fun.

[02:53:02] Thank you for having me.

[02:53:03] Chalk up another victory for the human spirit.

[02:53:07] Take your sticking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!

[02:53:12] Thank you listeners for sticking around. Like Kingdom,

[02:53:15] this podcast will have an audio Easter egg after the credits.

[02:53:18] I'll make this quick, but just to shout out what's going on on the network.

[02:53:22] Amongst our affiliates, do check out the deep dives into Tolkien lore on rings and rituals.

[02:53:27] And properly Howard's Felonies and Fugazi season is wrapping up with a review of the original Rocky.

[02:53:33] Radioactive Ramblings is continuing to break down the factions and other entities of the

[02:53:37] Fallout universe, but they're also gearing up for weekly coverage of the new season of The Boys.

[02:53:42] We're just wrapping up season two of Beacon 23 on my own podcast,

[02:53:46] Woolshift Dust, and about to dive back into Dune.

[02:53:50] And Shift, the second book in the Silo series, is getting the deep dive analysis

[02:53:55] in three parts in the Woolshift Dust book club Patreon.

[02:53:58] While over in the Star Wars Canon Timeline podcast, we've just wrapped up a whirlwind

[02:54:03] tour of 25,000 years of Star Wars in-universe history with a final prep episode with everything

[02:54:08] you need to know going into the Acolyte, which Jon and I will then be covering weekly in

[02:54:12] crossover episodes appearing on both that feed and this one.

[02:54:17] Also in this feed, Jon and I are doing weekly breakdowns of the new Doctor Who episodes,

[02:54:21] plus David, Aaron from Radioactive Ramblings and I just recorded a high octane Furiosa one-shot.

[02:54:27] Watch out for one-shots on the bear, interview with a vampire,

[02:54:30] an alien retrospective and more to come, including episode by episode recaps of

[02:54:35] season one of House of the Dragon from David and Jon, you'll already find those in the feed,

[02:54:41] followed by, coming soon, weekly coverage of season two.

[02:54:44] And if you're not already a patron and you want access to just the early Hot D episodes

[02:54:49] and the separate show guide with all the character breakdowns,

[02:54:52] then check out the new Season Pass feature.

[02:54:54] Or join us on Patreon or even better Supercast, which is like a better version of Patreon built

[02:54:59] specifically for podcasts.

[02:55:01] Either way, you'll get early and ad-free access to all episodes and show guides,

[02:55:05] plus extras like behind the scenes peeks of the people who make this podcast and how that gets

[02:55:09] done, plus our new Elevenzies extra movie reviews.

[02:55:13] Next month patrons will vote on one of three selections from the Essential Alicia list.

[02:55:18] The choices are going to be the Fifth Element,

[02:55:20] the Princess Bride or Everything Everywhere All at Once.

[02:55:22] And as always a special shout out to our top supporters.

[02:55:25] First of all, thank you to our Discord server boosters who keep the social side and also

[02:55:30] frequently the technical side of the Lorehounds universe running.

[02:55:33] Those are Narls, Aaron K, Tiller the Thriller, Dork of the Ninjas, Dove71 and CaptainJinG56.

[02:55:41] And thank you especially to our Loremasters.

[02:55:43] These are top tier supporters and without you we would not be able to do this.

[02:55:47] Thank you Samartian, Michael G, Michelle E, David W, Brian P, Nick W, SC, Peter OH,

[02:55:55] Bettina W, Adam S, Nancy M, Dove71, Brian8063, Frederick H, Sarah L, Gareth C, Eric F, Matthew M,

[02:56:07] Sarah M, DJ Miwa, Andra B, Kuang Yu, JediJediBob, Nathan T, Alex V, Aaron T, Subzero, Aaron K,

[02:56:17] Dally V, Mothership61, Narls, and always last, Adrienne.

[02:56:23] Whether or not this extra stuff is for you, we really appreciate your ears and your continued

[02:56:28] support through your listens and especially shares and reviews that help others find us as well.

[02:56:33] Just overall, thank you for being a Lorehound.

[02:56:37] The Lorehounds Podcast is produced and published by the Lorehounds.

[02:56:40] You can send questions and feedback and voicemails at thelorehounds.com contact.

[02:56:46] Get early and ad-free access to all Lorehounds podcasts at patreon.com slash the Lorehounds.

[02:56:51] Any opinions stated are ours personally and do not reflect the opinion of or belong to any

[02:56:55] employers or other entities. Thanks for listening. Together, Lorehounds strong.

[02:57:10] Say goodbye to your credit card rewards. Greedy corporate megastores led by Walmart and Target

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