Director Rupert Wyatt sat down with
First Showing and talked about the upcoming
Apes prequel.
He had the following to say about how it compares to its predecessors:
“The original Planet of the Apes was made in 1968, that’s over 40 years ago. We’re telling a story that has never been told before in many ways, which is a real-world contemporary narrative set in 2011 about how the apes started the revolution. Now I know there has been a different take on how that happens with the earlier films, but this is actually setting up perhaps a more scientific approach to why that happened.”
The director also cited
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes as being “closest” in design to
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, saying that his approach with the prequel is similar to Christopher Nolan’s with
Batman Begins:
“… If you are able to offer something that has a fresh perspective and actually takes the subject matter seriously, if it takes the mythology seriously, then that’s giving it proper respect it deserves. I think it means nothing to replicate.”
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is the first in the franchise to create super-intelligent primates by the use of CGI and motion-capture technology. The originals used makeup and prosthetics. So why did Wyatt and his technical crew on the film choose to go that route instead of the latter?
“It was a narrative issue, frankly. Our story is an origin story. It takes place in the modern day. For the most part in the film it deals with real apes – real orangutans, real gorillas, real chimpanzees. The other films in the franchise don’t do that. They deal with humanoid apes, so therefore you can have a human play a chimpanzee in an ape suit. But that was just never the case. There was no way that we could ever physically achieve that because we’re talking about chimpanzees as we know them.”
The ape Caesar leads the revolution against his human captors; as Wyatt describes it, the evolution of Caesar is one of the most intriguing parts of the new
Apes movie:
“There were pivotal moments within our story where we had certain things happen to Caesar along the way as he’s growing up that change him fundamentally. I always looked to the story of John Merrick and ‘The Elephant Man’ for this in that he’s different from us and he has an innocence and an optimistic look upon the world. We deviate slightly from ‘The Elephant Man’ in that Caesar makes a transition to a darker personality, to a darker character, because he realizes that there is no way that he can rely upon human kindness and humanity itself to save him or to help him. He will always be the same as the rest of the other apes in this film, which is very much exploited. That’s what brings about the revolution; that is the seed.”
Wyatt is keeping quiet about specific details on how things will go down in
Rise of the Plant of the Apes, but he did mention the following:
“Is it an action movie? Is it not an action movie? Is it a drama? I mean, it’s everything. In many ways it’s a fairy tale. It’s a Bible story. If you’re talking about how many set pieces there are in this film, that doesn’t really interest me. The story is the payoff. But what I will say is that by the time the revolution starts, we are talking about a huge catalyst and a huge action set piece.”
Finally, if Wyatt and 20th Century Fox get their way, the
Apes prequel will be the first of several new installments in the franchise. Here’s what the director said about how his film lays the foundation for at least one more sequel:
“
Rise of the Planet of the Apes is about leveling the playing field in terms of if a revolution were to start in our day and age with a species that was looking to take on humanity, I think we could all safely say that it wouldn’t have a chance in hell. We are the alpha of our world. But if you were to take certain things away from us, whether it be numbers or technology or whatever you want to call it, of course there’s that chance.”
For the full interview, go to First Showing via the link at the bottom.
Rise of the Planet of the Apes comes to theaters on August 5th of this year.