Grim news from the critics about POTA

[Force Master Hunter]

Just dropped in on Rotten Tomatoes.... ewwwwww. It's looking very mixed.

I've got this feeling Shrek will win the summer.

[ReaperFett]

who cares what critics say? They are out to sell. Tomb Raider, Pearl Harbour, Planet of the Apes. They are all this years TPM. Everyone lines up to take a shot.



Besides, Jay and Silent Bob have yet to appear...:)

[DaBoSsNaStY]

I just read some high reviews about it...:)

[Jedi Master Carr]

The critics won't matter how it opens look at JP3 it got mixed reviews and made 80 million its first five days. What will matter with POTA is word of mouth, if word of mouth is bad then it will tank fast.

[JonathanLB]

Critics are not everything. The critics hated Patch Adams more than almost any other movie of that year, yet audiences did not just "like it," they absolutely loved it (because it WAS a great movie and that's that, the critics were WRONG).

Anyway, critics are moronic. It's like you take a look at the opinions of, say, 100 critics who are cynical and negative about most of the movies they see, even though EVERY ONE OF THEM should be entertained, at the very least, by movies like Pearl Harbor, Tomb Raider, etc. Instead, they are bitter, cynical little morons who wouldn't know a good movie if it ran up and bit them in the @$$. The opinions of 100 people do not matter to me. The opinions of the ten million people who will see this movie opening weekend matters MUCH more.

[ReaperFett]

Yeah!


And Patch Adams WAS great!

[CMJ]

The older I get the more I tend to agree with the critical consensus. Maybe I'm not one of the "normal" people anymore. Actually...talking to the avreage movie goer generally irritates me, because most really aren't knowledgeable.

As for POTA I see it in about an hour...so I'll tell ya what I think. :)

[Darth23]

Wow - the critics didn't like America's Sweethearts either.


I'd have to say that the critics WERE right about Dungeons and Dragons. :-|


I hoped/expected to hear better things from the critics for a Tim Burton movie - I'm not sure why.

[General Ceel]

Just got back from Planet of The Apes, it was a packed house. Wow the movie really impressed me.......especially the ending (wich the critics hate). 5 endings were filmed, or atleast written. They used the one i least expected......thats what made it fun. And as with all of Burtons work POTA was full great atmosphere. I think i'll go see it again tomorrow.

[Darth Snack]

I'll have to agree. I went to see POTA this afternoon, and it was a great film. Not many actually were in attendence to view it at that time. The ending confused the living heck out of me though, yet was good. :)

I'd more than likely go see it again.

[CMJ]

Yeah...it was great fun. A terrific ride. The ending is pretty bad though(IMO).

[JonathanLB]

Ending is pretty bad? Haha, no way. It was pretty cool/funny, I thought.

It was a great movie. I went with four other people and three of them thought it was one of the best movies they've seen recently, so they thought it was great. The other thought it was good summer fun, but nothing great. That's not bad, because add my opinion in and that's 4/5.

[General Ceel]

I think the ending actually helped the movie alot. Kind of a twist to leave you thinking a little bit after the film.

Oh, and i see that sequel rumors are already beginning fly, although there has of course been no official talk.

[CMJ]

I'll go off on the ending when more people have had a chance to see it. But....it makes no sense the way it is, so it was kind of irritating to me.

[Darth23]

Four score and seven years ago...

:P

[CMJ]

Yeah I have no problem with the apes themselves...but the statue opens a whole can of worms....

Sorry for being cryptic, but I'm gonna wait a few days before REALLY going into why it doesn't make sense. It's a major plothole that you can drive a truck through.

[Darth23]

You could just make a Spoilers Thread. :)

[General Ceel]

I don't see how you can call it a plot hole. For reasons that i can't say due to not wanting to spoil it in this thread for others. But everyone seems to think that they are so smart and all film makers dumb by saying "oh i found a plot hole" which in most cases is just the fact that the person does not understand what the film maker is saying, or in this case showing on film. People don't spend 100 million plus and leave plot holes.

[CMJ]

Okay Seel I take up the challenge. First off alot of films have plot holes(or problems) of varying sizes...they always have.

As far as the one at the end of POTA....
















How can Thade be immortalized on Earth? He could not have possibly gotten out of his 'cage' because the only one who could control the doors was Wahlberg's character. Then what would he fly off the planet? The ship Wahlberg crashed into the water with? But Apes can't to swim and are afraid of water in general. I could elaborate further if you wish....

[JonathanLB]

"But everyone seems to think that they are so smart and all film makers dumb by saying "oh i found a plot hole" which in most cases is just the fact that the person does not understand what the film maker is saying, or in this case showing on film. People don't spend 100 million plus and leave plot holes."

I agree totally with that. Well said. There is no GIANT plot hole in the end of POTA, ugg, whatever. Almost every plot hole is explainable too, unless it is one character being in two different places at the exact time (and not in a sci-fi movie, hehe). Seriously, every time someone points to a plot hole I can, without any problem, make up something to explain it. ALWAYS. Use your imagination, which is what the filmmakers intend anyway, and there are usually never plot holes in major films. Occassionally, you are asked to suspend your disbelief to such a degree that is just not realistic.

[CMJ]

Just wondering....I'll read your response later, I'm about to goto work.

[JonathanLB]

Ok I'm lazy and I feel like letting someone else explain this, so I'll just be lame:

It is an alternate world.

Anyway, from what you just asked, I think you are confused about the ending, like most people (myself included, to a degree).

[DaBoSsNaStY]

LOL!!

thats what I think as well, but some peoplo are not welling to take that kind of leap of faith in believe so.

What I thought that the space storm was some sort of time, space, multidimensional rifft.

when Leo when out to save his space monkey, one of the storms holes opened up to took him to a different plant and galaxy altogether. We see that from the extra moons it had.

As for the ending, Leo found that the space storm was still there. He took the chance to go back home, and he sort of did. But he was on a different earth, on a different time line altogether. He should have broght his monkey along to show him the right way home...

[General Ceel]

How can Thade be immortalized on Earth? He could not have possibly gotten out of his 'cage' because the only one who could control the doors was Wahlberg's character. Then what would he fly off the planet? The ship Wahlberg crashed into the water with? But Apes can't to swim and are afraid of water in general. I could elaborate further if you wish....

1. Thade was not in a cage, he was in the control center of the Oberon.
2.He did not fly off the planet. The Planet of the Apes is earth(according to a Wahlberg interview). When Wahlberg went home he was pushed back in time, just as he was pushed ahead in time to get there. And a well known Science Fiction fact is that what you do in the past effects the future. Obviously the humans did not take back the planet.....

[zoar]

And what you do in the future effects the past or so it seems. But you never know what your going to get when you mess with that space-time continuim thing. BTW did you notice that Charelton Heston has a cameo in the movie? He plays the ape general's father.

[General Ceel]

yeah. Kind of a strange role for him considering the nature of the conversation with the Gun and the fact that Heston is president of the NRA while the general dude is totally anti-guns in real life

[JonathanLB]

No official word on a sequel? No that is actually not true...

If you check Variety.com right now, apparently Fox had already planned to make this into a new franchise or series before this movie even arrived in theaters.

Read this:

"Planet of the sequels

Fox hopes "Apes" will give birth to a movie franchise as vital as the original, which produced four sequels after its release in 1968. Critical reviews for the newest "Apes" pic will bear watching, of course, but for the time being Fox execs were enthusiastic about its rollout prospects."

So, official word is already here, there will be sequels for sure. Especially given that opening.

[Darth23]

"And what you do in the future effects the past or so it seems. "

Hee hee

Of course this is exactly NOT the point of almost all time-travel in science fiction in general.

:)

[JonathanLB]

haha, ok whatever the ending was confusing, let's put it that way. I still enjoyed it, though. I can't wait for the sequel ;)

[Dutchy]

Who'd have thought I'd actually like, let alone LOVE this movie? Not me! But I did. The story was SO fascinating. Timetravelling is a fave movie theme of mine. A great story.

I absolutely loved the ending. It wasn't irritating, it wasn't confusing, all it said to me was: I wanna see the sequel NOW!! Obviously everything will be explained in part 2 (they'll need a GOOD explanations though). Can't wait to see it.


2.He did not fly off the planet. The Planet of the Apes is earth(according to a Wahlberg interview).

Seems odd to me. IMO Oberon landed on that planet thousands of years ago with the Oberon crew (apes and humans), from which all the apes and humans descended.


When Wahlberg went home he was pushed back in time, just as he was pushed ahead in time to get there.

Ahead in time, yes, but to another planet. Oberon got after him, but arrived way earlier.

Any thoughts? Or is this old news for you guys? It opened here today. :)

[Jedieb]

I came away from POTA thinking that Thade had somehow escaped from the Oberon and gotten into space by using the 3rd pod. At least I believe there was a 3rd pod, I think I remember seeing a 3rd pod somewhere during the movie. Thade then somehow goes back even further in time, travels to Earth and changes the timeline. I also think other seeds were planted for a sequel. When Leo first enters the time rift the Oberon is monitoring his communications. At one point, you see an elderly Leo warning the Oberon. To me that signifies an event that we'll be seeing in a future sequel.

I'm surprised that some people think Leo landed on Earth. I didn't think that was possible because of the shots of his spacecraft as it approached the ape planet. Maybe I was mistaken, but I thought I saw way too many moons for that planet to be Earth. Or maybe that shot came BEFORE he entered the time rift? I thought it came after, thus bringing a whole new planet into the POTA universe.

Either way, the original was better. :)

[Mu Satach 2]

ahhh... the original... can't beat the original. =)

[Atreyu]

I just saw it. Alright I guess, but I also prefer the original.

As for the whole ending part, well here's what Ebert had on his website:

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. (Spoiler warning!) I liked the ending because it was such an ironic twist, and to the degree I tried to explain it to myself, I assumed that Leo Davidson, the Mark Wahlberg character, had been flipped into another space-time continuum by the electromagnetic storm. Then I found a convincing explanation by Josh Daniel, on Slate.com. He writes: ''Before Davidson leaves the ape planet, there's a quick shot of Limbo, the orangutan slave trader, rummaging through his spaceship and slyly pocketing something. Evidently whatever he pockets contains the secret to space travel. (Maybe it's a manual: 'Space Travel So Easy, a Chimp Could Do It.') Thade, who's pointedly left alive at the end of the climactic battle, must have built a ship, flown into the time-warping electromagnetic storm, and landed on Earth at some point before Davidson returned. Then he led Earth's apes in a rebellion against humans, took over the Earth, and had the monument built for him. Of course, back on their home planet, the apes don't even have simple motors yet. So, whatever Limbo takes from the spaceship allows them to, in Thade's lifetime, master physics, build computers, design space suits, test spacecraft, and send the general into space while he's still young enough to conquer the Earth. Remember, we didn't say it was plausible.''

Yep. :)