The Planet of the Apes franchise took an interesting turn when Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came out: it got really good. Like, really, really good. Director Matt Reeves somehow turned a stale franchise into an emotionally powerful blockbuster. A lot of the credit goes to Andy Serkis’ incredible performance, but it was a surprise for all.
That’s why when Serkis and Reeves repeatedly tossed around the word dark at a special New York Comic Con event for the upcoming War for the Planet of the Apes I actually believe them. They know how to go dark and still be big, and War looks like it’s going to be really big.
At the event Reeves, Serkis and the series’ producer Dylan Clark talked a bit about the making of the new film (and the previous two) while showing off the first teaser and a seven minute, unfinished clip. The basic theme for the night though was that War is really big in every way possible. First it’s a war so it’s a much bigger film than the previous two in terms of scope, but more importantly for Reeves and Serkis it’s bigger in emotional power.
““It has been the most psychologically intense and physically challenging part of this arc,” Serkis said. That’s probably because Serkis’ character, Caesar, is going to go through some tough stuff this time around. The movie picks up two years after the last film and Caesar is steadily becoming more and more jaded thanks to the war with the humans and his guilt over not being able to stop it from starting. The filmmakers likened him to a much more vengeful Dirty Harry — a but more action and violent oriented.
In the clip we saw he and a few other apes from the past films come upon a house where they encounter a man. Caesar shoots the man after he attempts to pull a gun on them, but then finds out that he was simply a father trying to defend his daughter. Unlike in the previous films Casesar’s empathy is fading as he goes on a suicidal quest to kill off Woody Harrelson’s character.
It was actually really interesting seeing the unfinished product as animation moved in and out of the shots and the actors, in their dots and motion capture suit, popped in. A major focus of the event was applauding the performance of the mocap actors, especially Serkis. The mention of academy award nominations was once again brought up, but the reality of that happening is pretty slim still… even if it should.
Finally, we saw a teaser for the film. Oddly, after all three men spoke most of the event about how the movie was more emotional and about the apes not the humans the first teaser trailer was focused on the action and the humans. We saw a group of soldiers hunting in a cave before being taken out by Caesar and some other apes. Then a monologue by Harrelson’s character played over the rest of the film as apes and humans clashed. The end result is a trailer that plays up the action and battle and not the humanity. Hopefully the film itself is more like the event and less like the trailer.
