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Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Homages on the Planet of the Apes

By now everyone who wanted to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes has probably seen it. As you can probably tell by now, Karen and I both loved it. Today we thought we'd take just a minute or two to tell some of the nods to the previous Apes incarnations that we spied while watching this very fun film. We'll list our suggestions, but it's certainly not to say that we didn't both catch things off of each list. What follows is actually an email exchange between us as we discussed how much we both enjoyed the movie. If we've missed anything that you caught, we'd certainly love to hear it!

Karen:
  • Did you see Caesar playing with a Statue of Liberty toy before John Lithgow had the confrontation with the neighbor?
  • References to the spaceflight of the Icarus, including the newspaper that read, "Lost in Space"?
  • The gorilla in the cage that Caesar releases is named Buck -like actor Buck Kartalian, who played Taylor's jailer Julius?
  • The father and son who ran the primate center were named Landon (name of the one of the POTA astronauts)? In fact, the son's first name was Dodge!
  • Caesar's mother was called 'Bright Eyes' -the same name Zira gave Taylor!
Doug:

  • "It's a mad house! It's a mad house!" the first time the apes get stirred up against the blond-haired keeper.
  • Ape names when the humans are in the primate house while on the double-date: Cornelia, and Maurice (ref. to Maurice Evans, Dr. Zaius)
  • "Get your hands off me you damned dirty ape!"
  • Fire hose used against Caesar was like the scene when Julius turned a fire hose on Taylor
  • Humans hunting apes at beginning echoed apes hunting humans at beginning of '68 film
  • "Jacobs", the name of the company financier, was a reference to Arthur Jacobs
  • Stacking test to test the chimps' intelligence was like what Zira had to do in "Escape"
  • Caesar on the horse foreshadowed gorillas on horses in POTA
  • The name "Caesar" itself refers to Escape/Conquest/Battle
  • In one of the first five films, either Cornelius or Caesar says that the first ape's first word was "no" -- Caesar's first word was "no"
So again, do you have others?



5 comments:

  1. Spotted most of them, but although I enjoyed it a lot, I was kind of gutted Ceasar didn't say: " Get your filthy hands off me, you damn dirty HUMAN!!! " That's the bit I was waiting for.

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  2. And, that would have been an homage to Burton's film, as Michael Clarke Duncan uttered that variation on the famous line of Heston's.

    My son saw the movie a second time, and said there was a scene shortly into or after the credits about the neighbor who had contracted the virus from Franco's lab asst? Did any of the rest of you see that? Certainly showed, from what I was told, how apes will get the upper hand in the next two films.

    Doug

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  3. Wasn't there a clip of an old Charleton Heston movie in the film? I remembered one of the characters -- I think it was one of the ape house managers -- watching it on television.

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  4. @ Doug: Yes, there was an "easter egg" of a sort; *SPOILER* - the "infected" neighbor, who was also a military officer had taken a plane to New York. Before he boards the plane, he sneezes...and a drop of his infected blood hits the airport floor. We then see a computerized map of how the virus was spread during some of the end credits; when the world is just about covered in travel lines, the computer winks out...

    @ Inkstained Wretch: I caught that scene as well; looked like it was a clip from "The Ten Commandments"...after all, wasn't Moses known as "The Lawgiver" (?)

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  5. Ah, that's a great catch on the Ten Commandments in the background. Very creative on the part of the filmmakers!

    Doug

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