Although I had never seen it before tonight, The Rise of the Planet of the Apes (or more specifically its trailer) was one of the movies that inspired this blog. From the trailer alone, I could spot two critical errors which would make this film ridiculously stupid and stopped me from watching this movie earlier. (You don't often meet SAM six months before the movie is released.) And although there was a twist which almost cleared up these errors, they were still there and they made this film ridiculously stupid. Play along and see if you can find them.
The answers are it would be out of continuity with the original movie it was supposed to be a prequel of and there would be no realistic way that the apes could take over the world.
In The Planet of the Apes, we learn that the humans blew themselves up into near extinction after the astronauts blasted off during a still raging Cold War and in the absence of humans the apes evolved and took control, (That's not really how evolution works, but that's another rant.) but they are still not as smart as humans. Here is were the twist comes in and they release a deadly virus that opens up an opportunity for the apes. So, its not really The Rise of the Planet of the Apes so much as its The Rise of the Deadly Virus Accidentally Released by Unethical Biomedical Researchers Operating in Violation Safety Guidelines And I Almost Forgot There Were Some Monkeys, Too. The ending of The Planet of the Apes was to send a message that continued nuclear brinksmanship would inevitably lead to the destruction of mankind. But setting The Rise of the Planet of the Apes in the post-Cold War era leaves us with the unanswered question of why did we finally do it? Us maniacs! Why did we blow it up? Ah, damn us! God damn us all to hell!
The virus makes it a bit more realistic that the monkey revolution could have succeeded, but the concept still fall well short of the laugh test. The fact is humans have millions of years of experience and development into new and better ways to kill each other and a vast numerical advantage over the apes. We've got nukes, fighter planes, 7 billion soldiers, and Sun Tzu and the apes have feces throwing. (Our biowarfare programs are a bit further along.) The fact is the most realistic continuation of the story by the end of the credits the Air Force flies over the forest and ends the monkey threat. Unless the apes are Lawnmower Man smart, there is nothing they can do to stop that. (Evidence indicates the apes are around normal human intelligence and magic-powers-smart would be another strike against continuity.) There are between 170 and 300 thousand Common Chimpanzees left in the wild and even with a deadly virus outbreak, with a numerical advantage of more than 23,000:1, I think humanity has a good shot at taking out 300,000 Lawnmower Monkeys in an all out war.
P.S.-I know the difference between a monkey and an ape. I just don't care.
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