So I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes

[cleolinda]

I have most of a linkspam ready to go, but since I'm running behind, we have to take these things in a different order. First things first:

@cleolinda: EARLY MOVIE IS EARLY. Going to see Rise of the Prequel of the Planet of the Apes shortly. #leavingthehouseomg

[Two or three hours later.]

@cleolinda: My sister is now afraid apes are going to

Comments

[randomdiversion]

Polydactyl kitties are working on that opposable thumbs thing. When they get it down, we're in trouble.

[drakyndra]

You mean they haven't already?

[eiremauve]

Oh my goddess, so that's where the gif of the kitty reading 'The Art of Military Strategy' comes from!

Btw, my cat can already open doors. Well, doors that have certain kind of doorknob anyway! O_O

[visionary_gleam]

That was AMAZING. Thank you for bringing that into my life.

[sun_star_n_moon]

sorry, cleo...this isnt related to this post at all, but I saw you talk the cat woman pic on twitter earlier and I wanted to let you know it was a fake!

http://www.hypable.com/batman/2011/08/06/character-poster-of-anne-hathaway-as-catwoman-in-the-dark-knight-rises-leaks/

[cleolinda]

Yeah, that one's definitely a fake; there are a few candid shots of her stunt double on set where you can see the full costume, and those are real.

[aerrin]

Saw this movie today. Loved it. Did not expect to agree with the 'can we give an Oscar nod to a guy who never actually shows up on screen' hype, but man. I mean. /Man/. Serkis was good. WETA was good. This whole movie-- like. Miles above what I thought it would be.

[cleolinda]

I never, ever would have thought that the umpteenth movie ABOUT APES RULING THE WORLD would be this good. Especially after we just had a crap remake relatively recently. I seriously do not even understand how this happened.

Of course, I wanted an Oscar nomination for Andy Serkis way back when he was playing Gollum/Smeagol, so.

You know, I remember how skittish actors were of this kind of digital effects work back when it first started--this underlying terror that actors would be "replaced" by computers. It would crack me up if, after all that fretting, it's how an actor got AWARDS.

[notemily]

If they give Serkis an oscar for this, I want them to give him a retroactive one for Gollum, because DUDE.

[randomdiversion]

I thought that they gave Serkis a special non-category 'honorary' Oscar for Gollum because it broke new ground in the field of acting.

I think--I hope--he gets the same level of respect as an Oscar recipient, because everyone knows how good he is.

He's played a few roles in his own face as well, and is just as talented. He's got leading-man talent but a supporting-actor face, so doing these motion-capture gigs lets him get the major roles he deserves but might not otherwise get.

[kahn]

Hello! I sort of skipped your post because I haven't seen Rise of the Planet of the Apes (which is a very long title when you have to type it out) and I sort of want to, so I'm trying not to be spoiled but ANYWAY, have you seen the vBlogs for The Hobbit? They're fun and I thought you might be interested so I thought to give you a head's up.

[cleolinda]

Yeah, I think I posted about the second or third one.

[kahn]

Whoops, sorry! Missed that. Probably should have checked your tags or something before hand. *sheepish* So now I will talk about something relative to your post! I am kind of blown away by the good reviews of RofPofA, because it should have been, by all accounts a bad movie. But I was already surprised by how much it didn't suck in the trailers, but trailers can make many a bad movie look watchable, so I was still wary. Still, dude, 600 lbs of angry gorilla walking down the street with his posse of chimps? That would terrify me even if they weren't bestowed with human intelligence.

[cleolinda]

For real. I seriously do not understand how this movie ended up good. The odds were totally against this movie being this good.

[leucocrystal]

After reading this (why yes, I do tend to spoil myself before seeing movies I'm only marginally interested in!), I think I may have to go for this one after all. My friend Scott, who's a very crotchety local critic who rarely seems to like much of anything, sort of broke his review embargo yesterday and was raving about it. (Though, to be fair, I have to agree with him that studios are highly unlikely to get pissy about embargoes being broken for the sake of positive buzz. He's also apparently far from the first to do so, in this case.) Since he does that so rarely, I was immediately intrigued. Hmm.