If you look at the oriental aesthetics that I have been familiar with for generations, the most charming part of "Rise of the Apes 3: The Final Battle" is that Caesar single-handedly went to the Dragon Pond Tiger Cave to find a human colonel in order to avenge the murder of his wife and children. Then caught up by three generals, Luca the Gorilla offered advice: "The soldiers' camp is always moving, my guards know the location of the camp, let me go with you." Bonobo Rocket pleaded, "You need my help, please, I know what it's like to lose my son." But Caesar was adamant: "I may not come back." Morris, the orangutan, immediately responded, "That's why we're going to go together so you can come back." Just a few words of dialogue, showing the touching brotherhood between the apes. A group of four apes galloping in the magnificent scenery of the snowy forest sea and golden beach, quite a swordsman hero conquest of the jianghu taste.
This scene seems to be seen as a microcosm of the film, and the main line of the whole film is simply Caesar's front hard colonel. It is said that the "Rise of the Apes" trilogy is not as good as one, and from the perspective of vision and pattern, this is true, and the epic meaning of the three films is constantly shrinking. In the first part, Caesar's "No" is deafening, no less than the miracle of creation; in the second part, Caesar is seized by Koba, staging a "return of the king" and showing the inevitable decisive battle between humans and apes; in this part, the pattern is further reduced, becoming a drama of "revenge" and "prison escape", which is not the same as the first.
However, there are always two sides to things, and with the shrinking of the epic meaning, the legendary meaning of the entire series is expanding, the "ape nature" of Caesar is constantly explored, and the character modeling is becoming more and more full. If the first is Caesar's awakening, the second is his attempt, and the third is his introspection. In the first two films there are scenes of Caesar remembering or remembering his caretaker, Dr. Will Rodman. In the third part, the image of Dr. Rodman no longer appears, on the one hand, the film is not limited to the fate of an individual who is related to Caesar, and highlights the realism of the end times, on the other hand, it is more focused on Caesar's inner conflict, how to achieve its own reconciliation, so that the "ape nature" brilliance is sublimated again.
When watching the Rise of the Apes series or the old "Planet of the Apes" series, I often think about the question – as a human audience, why do you prefer Caesar and apes on a psychological level? In fact, this is one of the main thrusts of this series of efforts, and apes, although not human, are more human than humans. Caesar is the representative character. He is a hero, and he must have a tragic side. His tragedy lies in the fact that he was raised by a human family from an early age, established a relationship of mutual trust with humans, and then shouldered the mission of enlightening the ape tribe and leading the revolution when he arrived at the primate shelter. It is precisely because of the different living conditions of the two groups that he can look at the relationship between apes and humans more comprehensively, but it also leads to his contradictions, while thinking about the rise of apes, while also taking into account the peaceful coexistence with humans. This is fundamentally different from Coba's unilateral hatred of humanity.
On the contrary, the humanity of human beings in the series is gradually regressing. Dr. Rodman in the first part is a representative of goodness, and Malcolm in the second part is also looking for a way to coexist peacefully. In this one, humans not only lose their ability to speak a little bit, but even the villain doesn't even have a name, but is just called "Colonel". This image is so similar to Francis Coppola's Apocalypse Now, the "Colonel" here is the "Colonel Coates" over there, and Caesar witnesses the Colonel's suicide, which is equivalent to Colonel Coates over there using Willard's hand to complete the long-awaited death. So, will Caesar, or later the leader of an ape tribe, face the same desperate fate as the Colonel? Willard in Apocalypse Now chooses to board the ship and leave, while our Caesar leaves the question to the audience in a contented, fleeting manner.
The ancients wrote articles about the "crested pig's belly leopard tail", although "Rise of the Apes 3: The Ultimate Battle" has no lack of flaws, such as the process of the apes escaping from prison is quite dramatic and cannot withstand scrutiny, but the last twenty or thirty minutes can be called "leopard tail", completing a relatively perfect ending for the entire series. The drugs originally used to treat Alzheimer's disease unexpectedly became the deadly ape flu, exterminating 90% of the population of the earth, and the rest of the people slowly became dumb and stupid. The retreating human army broke through the boat and trapped the beasts, trying to eliminate the ape tribe, but unexpectedly encountered an avalanche at the moment of victory. This series ranges from mocking ambitions and cocooning themselves to lamenting that people are not as good as heaven, and fulfilling the fate of human annihilation.
Throughout the "Rise of the Apes" trilogy, to a certain extent, it inherits the philosophical core of the old "Planet of apes" series, that is, human degeneration into apes, apes evolve into humans, and human nature and ape nature continue to converge. But the difference is that the old version blamed the demise of mankind in a general way on the nuclear explosion, while the new version did not simply copy the framework of the old version, but adopted a more fashionable "virus" and explained the change of humans and apes in detail in a more realistic way. At the same time, today's science fiction movies tend to focus more on the analysis of human nature than on the presentation of the apocalyptic world. The same is true of the "Rise of the Apes" trilogy, which applies humanism to orangutans and portrays apes represented by Caesar in great depth.
Of course, in the end, we must not forget Andy Serkis and motion capture technology, which have made each other successful. The "Rise of the Apes" trilogy has witnessed the development of motion capture technology in more than a decade, there is no delicate and complex face capture, there is no humanism in orangutans, and even in the third part, even the blood in Andy's eyes when he is emotionally excited is recorded in Caesar's eyes. And Andy's ability to control the role and professionalism is also worthy of our hat-off salute, no one has ever been able to play a virtual role so well as he did. It can be said that "Caesar" is the most charismatic character in science fiction works in recent years, and it is also the greatest crystallization of acting and technology.
Duke of Castile
Author: Duke of Castile
https://www.bilibili.com/read/cv11315906?from=category_0
Source: bilibili