Thursday, August 4, 2011

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes Review (Video)

Ugh. This one was a huge pain in the ass. For some reason, Youtube kept rejecting it because it violated Fox's copyright. Whatever. So I kept cutting it down and youtube kept rejecting it. So I posted it to Vimeo instead.

Anyway, here's my review of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. I hope this works:

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes Review from Donald Pfeffer on Vimeo.

4 comments:

Justin Garrett Blum said...

As nonsensical as these films got, they were still interesting. It does bother me, though, that we're meant to believe that by the 1990s, humans had accepted apes as a servant class--not least of which because if you really had that many apes in one place, they would absolutely destroy all humans. I mean, apes are ten times as strong as humans. Nobody would ever work in "Ape Management", because that would be the most dangerous job in the world.

I guess that's the point of this upcoming release, though...

Personally, I think they should have just had the balls to release Conquest with the apes taking over the world.

Mugato said...

I thought the original plot was that by the year 3,000 something apes have evolved and they take over Earth. So when Cornelius and Zira went back and time, they messed up history? They essentially sped up this evolution process by a thousand years or something. Very confusing

capt. dude said...

1000 years is hardly enough time for apes to evolve into a quasi human ape thing.
I figured the atomic war killed most humans and mutated apes into being fairly smart
or maybe Cesear from RISE created the super-ape race?
and what about gorilla grodd?

mdurwin said...

The reason apes are now slaves is discussed at the beginning of the movie. A virus wiped out dogs and cats, so humans started taking in apes and monkeys as pets. They soon found that because of their intelligence, they could be relied on to perform menial tasks more complicated than fetching the paper. It's historical human behavior to leverage inferior species. Dogs are used as bomb and mine sniffers, drug sniffers, guide dogs, teaching criminals and teens responsibility, pulling sleds in alaska, dog fighting, acting in movies. Dolphins are used as entertainment and were used to clear and plant mines by the Navy.
Is it that much of a stretch to think that if you replaced a dog with a higher-functioning animal that corporate America wouldn't see an opportunity? It is that much of a stretch to think corporate interests would use their wealth to change laws and sway public opinion, making ape ownership and servitude fashionable? Don't forget, not that long ago half the country was involved in slave ownership. We even fought a little war over it.
As for the strength of apes, I agree, it'a plot hole in all of the movies. Apes are stronger than humans but not by much. If I remember correctly, this is also addressed in Conquest in a discussion of how the most docile and intelligent apes are bred. Selective breeding could have brought apes to the point they are in Conquest, and it wasn't to much of a leap to teach them to speak. Apes may have been capable of speech, but it didn't occur to them to talk. Perhaps talking apes popped up every now and then but were killed. This would slow down a process that was happening very quickly, which then lept forward once they were freed from humans.
Apes do not mate for life. Apes that rose in the ranks because of their superior intelligence and speech ability would be more likely to be alpha males and breed more. Don't forget, in just a couple of hundred years American males have grown from 5'4" in the 1600s to 5'7" now, and gained 24 lbs just since the 70s. There are still humans born with tails. Imagine if only humans born with tails were allowed to bread. How long before all humans had tails?