Sci-Fi

Rise of the Planet of the Apes: What We Know

Here are the facts of this new piece of science fiction.

by Bryan Enk April 29, 2011

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The Pitch: Maybe it's not such a good idea to try to cure Alzheimer's.

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You remember when Charlton Heston crash-landed on a future Earth and was promptly taken prisoner by talking, intelligent apes, right? So how did apes get to be the dominant species on the planet, anyway?

Rise of the Planet of the Apes chronicles the beginning of our end with an origin story in which a scientist's (James Franco) radical brain experiments lead to the ape revolution. Details on the film are, of course, shrouded in secrecy, but here's what we do know about the film that opens in theaters on August 12, 2011.

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We Ain't Monkeyin' Around With No Reboot

Rise of the Planet of the Apes isn't a reboot, a remake, a re-imagining, whatever you want to call it. It's an origin story, one that gives homage to and foreshadows the movies that have come before (or rather, after) it (for example, rumor hath it that we'll be catching a glimpse of the Icarus, the spaceship piloted by Charlton Heston in the original film). The producers are hoping that this origin story prompts more sequels, which will eventually, in theory, lead us up chronologically to the events of Planet of the Apes (1968).

We're not sure how Tim Burton's 2001 reboot/remake/re-imagining fits into all of this, if at all. That film was praised for its top-notch makeup work and gothic production design but was deemed needlessly confusing, especially with that ending featuring the image of Tim Roth's General Thade in the place of the Lincoln Memorial. We might have to consider Burton's Planet of the Apes as a stand-alone "What If?" scenario... which might be for the best, actually.

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