The missing link in the saga is one best left buried
While we count down the days until ‘Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes’, the stage of doing homework is also ending. Either to remember the spectacular recent trilogy (which although this new installment does not continue directly, it is the basis from which it starts), or to catch up from the beginning with the classic that is the original by Charlton Heston and his most or less inspired sequels. There is one movie, yes, that you can safely cross off the list before revisiting it: The 2001 reboot directed by Tim Burton.
Some viewers are still to this day scratching their heads at whatever the director was trying to do here. If the recent and successful Caesar trilogy wanted to be a realistic and grounded of the concept, without losing an iota of its ideological grip, the version starring Mark Wahlberg operated in a very different orbit. I wanted to be faithful to what the original told but also subvert the premise, maintaining the identity of many of its key elements, but updating the story in some way.
The result was something that did not fulfill either of its two purposes. The differences from the original felt superfluous. The more contemporary and eccentric look of the apes served no greater narrative purpose, and the new characters felt flat. It didn’t help to see a particularly thick Mark Whalberg, who wasn’t helped much by the script either. “It was an incredible experience working with Tim. But I think we set the franchise back a little bit.” the actor admitted in a 2011 interview.
Failing the spirit
When it wanted to look like the original it was also tremendously clumsy. Yes, there are lines of dialogue that are recovered as they are in another context, the character archetypes are similar and several of its scenes are very reminiscent of their counterpart in the 1968 film, but this reboot fails to understand what the thing that was really about was I was adapting.
There are no grays in this reimagination. When the original was released at the time, it was praised for being both a great work of entertainment and an allegorical, politically conscious tale of historical revisionism. That formula has been maintained in its sequels. In Burton’s film, however, morality feels idealistic and lazy, with villainous villains and simian rebels from minute one as if they were good and bad in panels from a Manichean comic.
But The reasons behind the existence of this world are not explored. nor is sociological discourse integrated in any way into the plot. A plot that also does not resonate emotionally in any way with its reactive protagonist. There was special, human meaning to the roles of Taylor (Charlton Heston) and Will (James Franco) in the original and the 2011 reboot, respectively. In 2001, Leo (Mark Whalberg) was just passing by.
In his two hours of worldbuildingadventure and even a third act that includes a war… Tim Burton signs a film that really doesn’t talk about anything. It takes the basic concept of the saga and turns it into a simple eccentricity. Here, of course, the scriptwriters are also guilty. The team made up of William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal had some shared experience in films such as ‘Superman IV’, ‘Apollo 13’ or ‘Castaway’, but they did not know how to put their skills together.
Not everything was bad, There are certain elements of this version that were rescued for the new reboot. One of them was the idea of integrating a pre-existing relationship between the protagonist and an ape (no matter how flat), something that would be the dramatic center of ‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’. The concept of introducing human weapons into the ape civilization was also something discussed above in the original that is quite important here, and would be even more important for Matt Reeves and company.
More important than all this, The film taught Fox what not to do in the future. By the time Amanda Silver and Rick Raffa took the reins of the new script that Rupert Wyatt would direct, the premise was precisely the opposite: cutting back on the most Martian aspect of the saga that Burton had exploited so much and introducing it little by little in a natural way, humanizing it. the way the universe and its characters.
Success at the box office, but at what price
Although the box office supported it, it was the only thing that did. The reboot had had a complicated production, with Burton ultimately had been relegated to the role of mercenary director. As had already happened in other great films adapted by authors (I’m looking at you, David Lynch’s Dune), the marriage had not gone too well.
“They didn’t have the script ready. They had a release window before anything had been shot. They were pushing and shoving him in the wrong direction. You have to let Tim do his thing,” said Whalberg in another interview. Among other complications, the costumes and makeup ended up being a logistical hell during filming, which forced them to shoot the scenes numerous times due to the actors’ difficulties in understanding each other. .
It is not surprising that, so many years later, it is a film that everyone wants to forget, including Burton who, in his statements in 2001, when asked if he would make a sequel, responded with complete honesty. “I’d rather jump out of a sale. I swear to God.”. The message resonated deeply with Fox, who would take ten years to dare to touch the franchise again. The missing link in this popular saga is an unfortunate and incomprehensible stumble that has barely left a mark on its history of triumphs.
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