RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Director talks about a Sequel

Rise of the Planet of the Apes unexpectedly became one of the best movies of the year for me, and if you haven't seen it yet it's a must watch film! I'm already looking forward to seeing it a second time. As soon as the film ended, I wanted to see this vision of the story continue, and it looks like that might happen.

In a recent interview CBM the director of the film Rupert Wyatt discusses what he would like to be done in the sequel. For those of you who haven't seen the movie yet I suggest not to read this because there are spoilers. Here's what he had to say...

Our story is told in a microcosm, but we need to be aware of the world at large. To do that in such a way that in the next film you'll understand how things have changed.

So the great thing is you can have the next generation of apes who have grown up within the paradise they find [at the end of the first film]. You can have a new generation evolve who have inherited the genes, and they're the ones that are going into battle; they are the ones displaying real fear as young soldiers when they're going into battle. Think Full Metal Jacket... that kind of urban environment not dissimilar to Western forces going into Baghdad. Remember when the soldiers were finding gold telephones in Hussein's home? It would be the same way that the apes would understand our species through what we've created -- whether it be TV or cooking or whatever it may be. 

There's so much we can do, whereas the story of the first film plays out as a fairy tale, the next film will play out as a Shakespearean scifi drama where you'll have Caesar as the leader of this revolution, but Koba would be the one leading his own troops wanting to wipe out humans in a genocide. But Caesar is more conflicted, and maybe Caesar needs Koba's assistance in terms of the conflict. And Maurice is his advisor and he's telling him to combine forces. Caesar needs the allegiance of the two, although he doesn't believe in what Koba believes in, which is complete genocide.

 The question is where does Will Rodman fit into a sequel, if at all? The relationship between father and son is so strong, so it's a possibility. But you could always portray the human face through that of a resistance leader or the guy who is trying to find a cure for the virus [that's killing humans]. Maybe it's a little bit like 12 Monkeys, where every human has gone underground to avoid the virus, and when they come up to the surface they're wearing gas masks. In a way, that would de-humanize them and would make us really follow the apes. That's what interests me. This shouldn't be apes as our enemy, this should be about the idea of a whole new civilization coming into being. With the beauty of modern cinema, we, the audience, have an opportunity to witness that.

One thought that has to be kept in mind is that even in the original film series, the audience was pretty much cheerleaders on the side of the apes. "Well, they're a mirror to ourselves, and the mythology is so great. It's like a primal instinct in us to kind of look at them and think, 'Do they have a soul? Do they think like us? And if they do, what are they thinking?' This franchise, this story, tells us how they are thinking.

I love where he wants to take the story! This could be just as amazing as the film he just released taking the story and mythology to a whole new level of greatness. What do you think?