Not any harder than a zombie movie, which is what the trailer reminded me of.
Zombieism spreads, so its kinda plausible you could have an army of zombies take over. But there aren’t that many apes in the world, compared to the number of humans. Its pretty hard to see how an army of monkeys is going to turn up and overwelm the presumably armed humans anywhere that isn’t immediately next to a jungle.
Of course, its just the trailer. Maybe they have some brilliant way to make it plausible in the movie, though I kinda doubt it.
These are SPECIAL apes, in some sort of SCIENCE place. The EVIL Corporate Scientists have done SCIENCE to them to make them more dangerous. Therefore – oh, look! Monkeys!
Ooh, look; you were wrong.
Monkeys: $54 Million
C America: $65 Million
I don’t know where you are getting these numbers since there is no cite but, you do realize that Captain America has been out for 17 days and Planet of the Apes has been out for 3.
A little more context with these numbers may help prove your point-- or not.
Did my own research because I was curious.
Captian America box office.
Opening weekend $65,058,524
Lifetime Domestic $143,182,000
Planet of the Apes box office.
Opening weekend $54,000,000
Lifetime Domestic $54,000,000
Looks like you got the same opening weekend numbers I did.
Well, I didn’t know they were opening weekend numbers until I looked it up. Context is everything.
I think the person for which these numbers were intended would have understood them without the unfitting convolution of additional context. Having said that, I appreciate your assistance in driving home my point to said poster by listing the specifics I apparently neglected. BTW, why so testy?
Have a good day.
Captian America had a bigger opening weekend than Planet of the Apes has been proven. The original claim :“I’ll bet it (Planet of the Apes) does better than Captain America” has not been proven neither right nor wrong.
I’m sorry if I’m being annoyingly pedantic. It’s just that a ‘haha, you’re so wrong!’ kinda post needs a little bit more backup than yours had.
P.S. In the commercials the CGI apes look far too uncanny valley for my taste.
Opening weekend numbers are one of the most prominently used barometers of success in the film industry. It’s what asserts a film into the record books or closes the book on a film’s ability to achieve a marketable position in the rental arena. Of course, we can look at next week’s numbers but one doesn’t need to look that far to see Captain America is still doing well. It’s beaten Harry Potter every week and still took in nearly 25% as much as Apes, considering ROTPOTA has been out for only 3 days and Captain America a whopping 17 days (your numbers). At this point in the game, saying it isn’t clear which film has done better is like saying the Denver Broncos were never out of Super Bowl XXIV. If your measuring stick is all-time gross then we just need to make a date to come back here in 5 years to see which movie has “done better.”
Until then:
Steve Rogers: 1
Dirty Apes: 0
PS: Uncanny Valley is the perfect description.
Personally, I got a clue from the title, the previous six movies, and the novel. 
The CGI itself is fine, I suppose. What takes me out is seeing apes act human-like with human facial expressions and actions. I know we’re pretty similar in genetics and looks, but it still feels weird and unsettling, and it takes me out of the movie.
Just got back from seeing Rise of the Planet of the Apes and we enjoyed it very much. The progression was interesting and the action was fine, not too overdone (with the exception of the helicopter bit). I like the way it explained the extinction event (not very original, but buyable) and existence of the astronauts.
Uncanny valley didn’t bother me a bit.
Looks like the Apes are closing the gap. Here’s the domestic totals as of 10/20:
Rise of the the Planet of the Apes: $175,394,199
Captain America: $176,262,652
I guess it should come as no surprise that foreigners care a lot less about Capt. America than apes tearing up SF:
Worldwide totals:
RotPotA: $430,794,199
CA: $365,762,652
And considering CA cost $47 million more than RotPotA, it’s harder to argue that it’s done better. At least at this point in time.
Sadly, The Smurfs seems to have surpassed both. Ugh.
Fascinating to me that people can see this so differently. I am watching the movie right now, on Blu-ray on a carefully calibrated 40" HDTV (1020p/24) and to me, the CGI looks awful. And I’m still in the scenes where the chimp is three years old, which the OP said “looks good”! I shudder to wonder what it will be like later. To me it is just so blatant that it looks like a Roger Rabbit or Space Jam style movie except with Curious George spliced in with real actors instead of the Looney Tunes gang (and that’s only a slight exaggeration). Avatar was much better done IMO.
After having watched about three fourths of it now, I would say there are moments when just one ape is shown in closeup, sitting quietly or moving slowly, that have realistic looking texture. But when there are multiple apes and/or rapid movement, it all breaks down and gets that glossy CGI sheen and starts looking like a video game.
Please.
Don’t bitch about the state of the art in visual effects, when live action apes, makeup/men-in-suits, stop animation or puppets couldn’t have done any better.
The CG was excellent.
Actually, state-of-the-art Men in Suits have gotten pretty damned good. I didn’t realize that many of the “gorillas” in Gorillas in the Mist were Rick Baker in Gorilla suits until I saw an outtake with them taking a suit off. His work in Tarzan: The Legend of Greystoke were awesome, too.
And he has every right to complain if the CGI he’s getting is suibstandard compared to CGI elsewhere.
This is true to an extent of what the screenplay calls for, in as much the action the characters need to display within the set-pieces of the film.
Also, Weta and ILM are world-class in visual effects. Weta did most of the effects for Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Of course budget and time are also factors, and post-production is where a lot of the compromise can happen if things are running over-budget or overdue.
Regardless, CGI isn’t perfect yet. Nor was any other method of visual effects prior to CG taking over 90% of visual effects filmmaking in general. There are still some old-school techniques that are superior than CG (e.g. I don’t think the sort of optical effects of films like Close Encounters can be simulated in CG nearly as well as the real thing). Continuity among myriad visuals and artists, from concept, workflow, pipeline, to completed shots are also a major factor.
It’s all a humongous balancing act in efficiency, skill, artistry, time, and of course, cost.
That said, I thought Rise of the Planet of the Apes was a great movie, visual effects notwithstanding.
Here’s an interesting featurette from Weta on the visual effects for this film.