The biggest difference between the new “Planet of the Apes” prequel and the six previous films in the franchise comes down to zeroes and ones.
Actors once donned furry suits to play “those damn, dirty apes.”
“Rise of the Planet of the Apes,” opening Aug. 5, uses computers to render the apes destined to take over the planet. Will movie goers miss the latex and faux fur, or will they embrace the seamless quality of modern CGI?
Should the late, great Roddy McDowall be spinning in his grave or applauding the tech upgrade?
This critic has been swift to condemn the overuse of CGI, but the technology has proven remarkable at inserting digital characters into the scenery. “Star Wars” fans found Jar Jar Binks to be a near desecration of the franchise, but few argued the movie magic that created him in the first place wasn’t astounding. Andy Serkis, who provided the acting structure for Gollum in “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy via motion capture technology, proved the next step in this film evolution.
His Gollum didn’t just look impressive. He tugged at our emotions while creeping under our skin at the same time. It helps that Serkis “plays” Caesar, the lead ape in “Rise” courtesy of similar motion capture handiwork.
The trailer for “Rise” shows the creatures won’t trick anyone into thinking they used actual apes. The eyes remain difficult to mimic for movie animators, and not even the best trained apes could run amok as they do in the film snippets.
But those apes look as tangible as their “fellow” actors James Franco and Freida Pinto.
One reason why is the film shot the performance capture work on practical locations, not in the cozy confines of an enclosed stage. That likely helped the performance capture work mesh with the flesh and blood actors.
“Apes” also called upon Terry Notary, a former Cirque du Soleil artist, as a stunt coordinator and a guide for the other performance capture artists.
I’ll still miss actors like McDowell in the new “Apes” feature, but I won’t be distracted by the thought of how well they’re coping under all that heavy gear.
(Photo: A young chimp named Caesar, brought to life by motion capture technology, bonds with the ailing Charles (John Lithgow) in “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” Photo credit: WETA TM and © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation.)
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{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Really looking forward to this one… hope I’m not super disappointed!
Oops… also wanted to mention that I too hate the overuse of CGI, but I think the monkey suits would have been even more distracting. The fact is, Hollywood needs to find some smarter monkeys… there’s a double meaning in that.
Early reviews are very positive, Heidi … I’ll post mine early Friday morn.
Audiences are more sophisticated and harder to please today, so maybe monkey suits simply wouldn’t cut it.
I wouldn’t say that audiences today are more sophisticated; quite the opposite instead, actually. They’ll readily accept films with bad scripts if the special effects are spectacular and realistic enough, but will reject an intelligent, well-written film if they don’t consider the effects up to today’s par. People tend to forget that complaints about movies overdosing on special effects are nothing new (it was heard non-stop throughout the Eighties), or that long before we had bad CGI, we had bad prosthetic make-up, animatronics and practical effects (“bladder” effects to depict transformations were as overused and as frequently inept as some examples of “morphing” effects used today).
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I’m going to take the side of CGI here. Even in Tim Burton’s 2001 remake, the ape costumes were laughably unconvincing, with fake lips that barely moved when the actors talked (and you could hear their voices being muffled by their masks, a major distraction). Judging by the trailer for “Rise”, the CGI being used is top-notch, and light years ahead of, say, the cartoonish zombies from I Am Legend.
Once I heard Serkis “played” Caesar, I was in … so I guess I’m pro-CGI, though will always remain a huge fan of the original, every damn last dirty part.