Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: A Post-World Primer

The first thing I noticed about Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is that its opening sequence is eerily identical to the opening sequence of The Last of Us.

If you know how I feel about that game, then you know that it didn’t exactly get me hyped for the hours to come.  I mean, it’s like I was playing through it all over again.  Reports and news broadcasts over mostly-black graphics; talk of a spreading disease/virus/world-ending thingamajig; the info growing progressively direr as time goes on; the last broadcast effectively signaling the end of the world; it’s all there.  I pretty much went “Oh, great.  It’s one of these stories.”  It wasn’t, thankfully, but the fear was still there at the outset. 

In all honesty, it feels like a lot of the time I get too ahead of myself.  Like, I’m pretty sure there have been posts where I’ve said that certain models -- certain storytelling conceits and frameworks -- are “broken”, and need to take at least a break from the public consciousness.  Even then, I’m certain that my…distaste for “gritty” stories is well-documented.  So once again, let me make one thing clear: I don’t hate dark or gritty stories because they’re dark.  I hate them (and not even all of them) if/when they betray their central premises and quality just to give the people what they think they want.  And speaking in terms of stuff like The Last of Us and AMC’s The Walking Dead, the post-apocalypse is something that needs a lot more work and attention than it’s gotten…yet those two “bastions” haven’t delivered.  At least to me.

But this latest Apes movie has.  And now I’ll show you why.

As you can guess, there are going to be plenty of spoilers for Dawn, The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, and probably more.  So get ready for that hotness.

Also, as a side note: I tried the Destiny beta.  You can PROBABLY guess how I feel about that.  Post incoming (maybe), but in the meantime?  Just watch this and substitute “Transformers” with “Destiny”, “Michael Bay” with “Activision”, and “robots” with “guns”.  Well, just to start.

What Wins Out -- Smart or Stupid Stories?

Well, maybe not something as binary as “smart” and “stupid”, but you can’t beat that attention-grabbing terminology.

Coming off of Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (dat title), I’ve been thinking a lot about the movie and its particulars.  I didn’t expect it to be that good, but much like last year’s Pacific Rim, I was pleasantly surprised.  Of course I’d prefer not to speak for anyone else, but if you need a recommendation for Dawn, you’ve got it.  In a cultural climate where there have been four Transformers movies, it’s good to see that there are still films -- even summer films -- that put in the effort and absolutely kill it in execution.

But now that the movie’s taken a place inside my unreasonably-large head, I can’t help but consider it in light of other movies, video games, and stories in general.  Dawn may be a movie that has apes with machine guns (it’s as stupid as it sounds), but it’s an intelligent movie with the skill to put forth and examine its themes.  It’s a smart movie, all things considered.  Inherently smart, gunner-monkeys aside.  Even so, it doesn’t take away from any other high-quality stories out there.  Pacific Rim is inherently stupid, but it’s also got some juice to it.  It’s got high execution as well, and brains to go along with the metaphorical brawn.

So you know what that means.  I think it’s about time we try and sort this thing out.

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (and Gary Oldman)

There’s an episode of The Simpsons where Homer takes a break from helping Moe with insurance fraud to watch Hail to the Chimp in a drive-in theater.  It’s pretty much exactly how it sounds: a monkey is now the president -- no context needed for that, natch -- and apparently by the climax the monkey president has to dive out of a plane while wearing a parachute.  And a suit.  The president has to look good, after all.

I can’t help but think back to that when it comes to Dawn of the Planet of the Apes.  “Apes with machine guns” is, for me, the closest thing to a deal-breaker you can imagine.  You can’t have something like that unless you play it as a farce, and certainly can’t work that into a serious story and expect to keep a straight face.  So when I hear that the very same thing is in this latest movie, my hype meter pretty much hit the floor. 

Imagine my surprise, then, when I find out for myself that the movie is irresponsibly fantastic.  That probably has something to do with the movie keeping the simian gunslingers to a minimum…but you didn’t hear that from me.

GET READY FOR THE NEXT SPOILERS.

Ha.  Bet you thought this spoiler warning would have something to do with apes, didn’t you?  Well, too bad.  Tekken 7’s been officially announced, so look forward to that Death Fist goodness.

Also, how ‘bout that EVO 2K14? 

RE: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Great.  Here we go again.