While it may seem odd to deal with both of these at the same time, when I realized they both came out within months of each other, as well as both dealing with Alien Space Invasions, well, it’s tough to resist doing a “compare and contrast” examination of Independence Day and Mars Attacks!, especially as there’s an incredible number of similarities in the way they approach that plot which is common betwixt them. Credits and trailers appear at the end of this post for both of them.

Independence Day (1996)

Directed by Roland Emmerich, purportedly because he wanted to blow-up the White House, Independence Day is the story of how America comes together to defend itself and the world from the attack and liebensraum-like occupation of an Alien Force. On the other hand, Tim Burton-directed Mars Attacks! (based on a series of Topps Trading Cards I actually recall from my youth) is the story of how the attack and liebensraum-like occupation of an Alien Force causes America to join comes together to defend itself and the world. See how different they are from each other? No?

Okay, they’re not. 

Looking at the two trailers below, you would get the sense that Independence Day is a doom-and-gloom-filed, dark, terrifying, thrill-ride of suspense and fear. However, when watching it, you realize it’s not at all, and is far closer to the tone of Mars Attacks! than depicted in the promotional material. They’re both light-hearted stylistically, but the latter one really works toward a comedy, while the other merely lets the comedy come from the reality of the characters with an even handed approach. Yes, there’s some really funny-looking stuff in Mars Attacks!, and there’s some really exciting explosions in Independence Day, and those are about the only things that distinguish the one movie from the other. No, really. It might be easier to argue that they’re re-makes of each other than to specify their distinctness-es.

Admittedly, there is some double-casting in Mars Attacks! which almost perfectly echoes Doctor Strangelove…, but this would rely on Peter Sellers having not broken a bone which prevented him getting into the bomber for his scenes, thus resulting in Slim Pickins taking the role of the pilot.

Mars Attacks! (1996)

Both films are filled with movie stars, and it may be due to the coming-of-age of the two film-makers, owing to all of the ‘movies of the week’ of the late-’70s being choc-a-bloc with Star Power in every scene; frequently it was the only reason to bother watching. In the case of these films, each actor seems to fit a template of the earlier films, as they provide a “standard character type” and check-off another in the list of “things to get in the film”: black hero, smart but funny guy, romantic interest, noble US President (plus wife), marginally corrupt government official, out-of-control military leader(s), long-shot fighting hero, kids in need of a strong example, and so on. It all works, however, and both of the films present them all with a wink, letting us know that they know we know they’re kidding about it all.

It’s not overtly done, but both are also satires of late-’50s and early-’60s SF films, and seeing clips of The Day the Earth Stood Still and The War of the Worlds show-up on the TV screens of characters or in the background of scenes is an obvious tip-off about it. That said, though, it seems far more of an homage to the earlier works than a mocking finger-pointing critique. The stakes don’t get much bigger than “if you / he / I get this done, the whole world will be saved!” do they? 

Honestly, these two ought to be watched together, and in this order, forever. There’s some common ground in their up-beat nature, but they satisfy distinct bits of your soul in the process of their storytelling. they even tell distinctly different jokes; with only one specific one being repeated, but the reasons for the joke being made is different in each of them. 

In the process of locating a trailer for Mars Attacks! a clip was located for one of my favourite moments in any film, and I wasn’t even trying to find the thing. It’s a study in how to 

WARNING: the link about to be presented to you counts as a massive spoiler of one of the best gags in the movie, to the point that over fifteen years later I recalled the punch-line but got most of the lead-up wrong. The President’s speech is available here for those who have already seen the film.

Independence Day (1996)
Centropolis Entertainment
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation

Director
Roland Emmerich

Written by
Dean Devlin & Roland Emmerich

Mars Attacks! (1996)
Tim Burton Productions
Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by
Tim Burton

Writing credits
screen story and screenplay both by Jonathan Gems
based on the trading card series by Len Brown & Woody Gelman & Wally Wood & Bob Powell & Norman Saunders

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

Tim Burton describes this as “not a re-make, it’s a re-imagining” and, as the director, he ought to know. To describe this as a “re-make” would be wrong, as would be calling it a “re-boot”. That last one remains to be used correctly for Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which came out last year and right now I have little desire to see, owing to having had more than my fair share of simian pictures in recent days.

Planet of the Apes (2001)

Anyway, the point here is that the film is not a remake, and very little of it is an echo of the 1968 film. There are a few bits of the original film which get us into the reality of the planet – landing in the future, confusion, mute humans, Ape Overlords, no technology – but that’s about it until we see some bits that reflect some points in the second film, and that’s all.

Apparently it’s far more faithful to the original novel’s events, but not having read it I haven’t an opinion here (Jennifer read it, but that was years ago). The intellectual pondering of questions of justice, or equality of all, or the notion that power doesn’t guarantee righteousness of action; none of these really gets the thoughtful consideration they’re due. they appear, certainly, but mostly in a scene around a table at a dinner party, and purely through the statement of opinions without any further development beyond these introduction of positions. If you’re hoping for a fresh run-through of the ‘Scopes “Monkey” Trial’ you better get that older film cued up, Cornelius.

Both Charlton Heston and Linda Harrison have cameos, so the rooting in the past is hardly ignored. Even the original film’s screenplay writers Rod Serling and Michael Wilson get “special thanks” in the credits for their adaptation. The world and the dynamics of the situation and plot are the same, but the way those are employed and juggled are far different.

In a large number of ways, the story is better here, with more surprises and plot development, yet the characters are more one-sided, and the shortage of intellectual contemplation mentioned earlier also contributes to the lack of meat. Yes, it’s a far different film, and expecting it to be “better than the original” is a foolish prejudice. This is ‘different’, not ‘better’ or ‘worse’; merely ‘different’. This is far more action-oriented, and far less dialogue-driven. This alone means that comparing it to the original is a specious approach.

The ending is, in many ways, superior to the original’s. Given how different the set-up to it is, it’s impossible to say more than “it provides far more questions than answers”. The whole film stays true to the notion of time travel’s rules regarding alteration of its details, the ending especially, and it would have been interesting to see what Burton and his team might have done as a follow-up tale to this; probably an adaptation of Escape from the Planet of the Apes, I suppose.

All in all, a good use of your time, even if the dialogue is thinner and the Important Questions getting short shrift.

Planet of the Apes (2001)
Twentieth Century Fox presents
Zanuck Company
Tim Burton Productions

Directed by
Tim Burton

Writing credits
from the novel La Planète des Singes by Pierre Boulle
screenplay by William Broyles Jr. and
Lawrence Konner & Mark Rosenthal

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

So, finally, we reach the end of the marathon of “Planet of the Apes” films in their formative generation. Given there are other sagas which cover an entire history of a story, it’s not too surprising that there are five of the things. Were they edited all together and re-divided, it’s probable that you could break them into a trilogy the same sort of length as the one for The Lord of the Rings; actually, this one would probably come in shorter than that one, even in its ‘theatre release version’.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

The final section is one of more violence. I’d be hesitant to say that it’s more of the same that we saw at the end of the previous film, as there’s more than that. Yes, there’s a great deal of military fighting – with a title like that, what else would one expect – but we’re seeing the beginnings of a new society, as well as the foundations of the connecting link back to the second reel in the original film of five years ago. 

Now in the year 2001, Caesar has founded a separate ‘nation’ of a sort, and the tribe consists of both apes and humans who are work as servants to their simian masters. The apes have already progressed to a complete and unique culture of their own, and have also progressed to the point that they are oblivious to the fact they are now the ‘owners’ of indentured servants, claiming “no, humans are separate, but equal” when challenged on the matter. This is rubbish, and the most senior human, MacDonald (played by Austin Stoker), presses home the soon-conceded point.

The above may be the greatest lesson of this film: to be truly intelligent, one must admit to mistakes, including the mistake of not realizing what one was mistaken about. Clearly, this is something that both Caesar is able to do as leader, as well as village intellectual Virgil (played by Paul Williams, who went on to play the role on the animated TV series which I recall watching as a young boy… very young, you understand). 

All is not entirely equal even within each of the two groups of beings, however; not all apes are created equal, even if they are treated as such. Looking at species-based divisions of capabilities is impossible not to do, as the gorillas are clearly physically larger, uniformly dense as a post, and prone to react to anything with force and probably a great deal of it as well. During a class of the ape young, everyone is getting ‘book learning’ from the human teacher, and it is clear that not only are the chimpanzees more capable of grammatically superior and cursive communication, the gorillas are, as a group, not only the least successful of the community, they have little if any regard for the acquisition of this skill. Hitting, riding horses, and beating the crap out of people from The Forbidden City is what they wish to do a great deal of, none of this “reading” foolishness!

BRIEF ASIDE: many high schools are filled with this internal dichotomy, which is why there are both football teams and student theatre productions. Oddly, the former option is often engaged upon by gorillas, in character, if not in fact. Planet of the Apes, you became real in my youth… [ahem] Right, back to the review. 

Thankfully, they don’t wear the outrageous purple trousers of the poster, but there are a few oddities which seem to have survived some sort of non-stop regression to the Age of Wood technologically. Automobiles may not be manufactured anymore, but a fair few of them are still operating, as we see some of them moving about at one point; albeit not very fast or reliably, for that matter.

Caesar has heard the legend of the fate of Ape-kind, as well as the planet, as relayed to the past by his parents from the future. Seeking confirmation of this – as well as the opportunity to finally see the faces of his father and mother – he, Virgil, and MacDonald head to The Forbidden City and locate the Archives where 1″ magnetic video tape has survived to mostly provide the footage of the evidence given to the investigative committee back in the mid-1970s. This investigation causes the two groups – country and city – to eventually come to a state of war; one which the gorillas predictably welcome.

Of all the films, this is oddly the most complex, owing mostly to the number of things being stated or examined in it. We have the apes creating within their own society not only the same structure that we despise in the human one of today – racial segregation and division based on genetic history – but they are also creating an actual separation of themselves from another species which is treated as a lower life form only to be used for un-thinking labour. Is this the ultimate fate for any society; to be divided and incapable of treating all as equal? Is this, instead, merely the beginning of self-awareness which itself leads to a better existence where all are treated the same? Do either of those possibilities rely on their existence out-lasting the taking of power by the ‘gorilla peoples’ who tend to bring-about the end of themselves and everyone else through the first of the horsemen? Does a people’s life inevitably down to absolute power corrupting absolutely, or is it actually possible to avoid this somehow; either by pushing beyond it to a better version or through active choice?

This sort of intellectual questioning is precisely the sort of thing that SF – good SF – is made of. The samples of simple simians can be successful in distracting the viewer from the fact that really big philosophical thoughts are being considered here. Looking past these things is worth the time, should one wish to do so.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
Twentieth Century Fox presents
an APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC.

Directed by
J. Lee Thompson

Writing credits
story by Paul Dehn
using characters by Pierre Boulle
screenplay by John William Corrington & Joyce Hooper Corrington

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

Another year, another Ape film. There must have been a group dedicated to the non-stop creation of these things in the Los Angeles area by this point. These days it’s tough to see a sequel or ‘next in the series’ in less than 18 months, so who knows how they got these done so quickly.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)

When we last saw our happy couple, they were dead, thus making them rather less than entirely joyful. They didn’ however, put one over on The Man and ensure their child wouldn’t be a victim of ignorance and bigotry. Yes, their offspring would be able to live free and develop his talents in a safe environment: a travelling circus operated by Ricardo Montalban. Yes, really.

While it’s dealt-with in one of the more blatant “let’s ask some questions about some back-story so the answers are given to the viewer”, the back story is true to what we’ve heard previously about how dogs and cats suddenly died off in 1983 (we’re in 1991 here), then apes became pets – probably partly owing to the arrival of Cornelius and Zira in the mid-1970s – and were soon after put to use as manual labour around the house and so on. The nation of the USA seems to have become a Big Brother-style police state at some point (I blame Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher), and the State of the California Republic (their actual name, by the way) has Governor who rules more like an Emperor than an elected official.

A quick word about the information download mentioned in the paragraph above. The only facts relayed there are about the pets, the adoption of apes, and the change to simian labour that is now beaten in the same way as slaves were a century before (the governmental character is merely shown, as apparently a Civics lecture might be too much for the boy). The fact that all of this happened less than a decade ago is key, as this makes our young chimpanzee somehow ignorant of what was going on around him for the most recent half of his life. Our lad is 19 years old here (in human years, at least), so how Armando the Circus Impresario kept his adopted son away from all information sources when the public had regular access to the boy’s part in the show as a horse-back rider, is something I find difficult to comprehend, especially as there’s already a public statue commemorating every dog and cat who are now dead, which seems equally impossible, given most of this kind of art requires more committee meetings than it takes to market a movie.

Anyway, one thing leads to another, and our young chimpanzee originally called “Milo” is now named “Cæsar”, and leaves the staff of the Governor in order to help with the filing in the local Important Central Control Place (so-called because I can’t remember the proper name of it, and it’s not anywhere to hand on the sites I’ve glanced at). He ends up leading a revolt against humanity, thus bringing to fruition the title.

The use of the conceit of “talking monkeys” continues to provide a structure upon which Very Important Questions might be considered. Here we – predictably – give some time to ‘why is someone good enough to carry your dry cleaning or bring you books not good enough to be treated like someone you respect?’ Seemingly, the nation is incapable of learning from the past about the importance of manumission, and the treatment of others as beings. Logically, any revolutionary force can be considered as being the equal of our simian forces here, or a group of homosexuals publicly demanding to be considered for elected positions / employment benefits without having to justify their equality, or even the whole Occupy Wall Street movement of late. Any group of like-minded individuals saying “there’s lots of us, so what’s your problem?” really. The fact they’re apes is merely a symbolic or metaphorical construct.

Again: excellent, intelligent, but try to ignore the low-rent costumes and set-pieces (some of the latter reminding me very much of both Simon Fraser University and bits of downtown Vancouver).

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
Twentieth Century Fox presents
an APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC.

Director:
J. Lee Thompson

Writers:
written by Paul Dehn
using characters created by Pierre Boulle

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

When we last saw the planet with apes on it, it wasn’t. At all. Not just ‘no apes’, but ‘no planet’ at all. Well, that’s put an end to that, you probably thought to yourself, along with Charlton Heston. 

Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong about the thing, trust me…

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

The first film exposed us to the planet, the second film revealed what was beneath the surface of it, and now we follow the happy couple Cornelius and Zira as they… well, Escape from the Planet of the Apes. The method of their leaving that place is that not only have they worked out how to rescue a crashed and damaged rocket from the bottom of a lake, they also were able to repair its engine and make it air-tight and get it working fully; then developed knowledge regarding not only internal combustion engine theories, but sufficient aeronautics for rocketry; then got the thing up into space to some safe distance from the planet’s immolation (without having any pre-knowledge of the event); then triggered the already re-designed time travelling procedures to follow the route Taylor followed, only in reverse; and all that is done without seeing any technology in either of the previous two films that’s more complicated than gunpowder employed in a bigger fashion than the un-controlled method of cannon-fire, never mind a steam engine.

Right. Sure. We’ll buy that.

As with the earlier films, this one Discusses Important Current Issues, but – as the upper case suggests – does so in a far more ardent fashion than we’ve previously seen. Don’t they just!

The ‘fish out of water’ theme being used as much as anything else, now we get the reverse of the first film, with scene after scene of humans being shocked at ‘talking simians’, followed by scene after scene of chimpanzees looking all cute when they wear human clothes [photo, below right] and get the celebrity treatment around town. During the process of this, we get Zira talking about Women’s Rights, Cornelius discussing rights for ‘the others’ that society shuts out, plus a host of others.

Cornelius, showing the lads how it’s done in his own tribute to the Webber musical “Joseph”

The logic employed by the Government investigative committee of “this evidence is so far from what we can understand that we cannot believe it” is matched in deliberate attempt to achieve bigotry by the scientific people who essentially focus on finding the flaw in Cornelius and Zira’s story, rather than investigating the information each side might offer the other. Sadly, this is all too believable, even now.

The notion of whether or not talking apes ‘should be permitted to breed’ may seem impossible, but after this film was released, those declared by Canadian provinces as being ‘mentally unfit’ were having enforced hysterectomies performed upon them without so much as being informed, never mind being asked permission. So, the question of “are these talking apes intelligent, or is it an act?” was only possibly odd due to the fact it was being asked about an ape.

Despite the “aren’t they adorable?” scenes, this is surprisingly quite intelligent in its story, and its examination of the oppressed minority, be it on the basis of race, religion, culture, sexuality, what hand they use, number of limbs, or whatever. The sets and cinematography could do with an up-grade, but other than that there’s little wrong with the story. There’s certainly more of it, and is more thoughtful with it, than many films in the genre since this. You merely have to look past the cutesy stuff, that’s all.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Twentieth Century Fox presents
APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC.

Director:
Don Taylor

Writers:
Paul Dehn (written by)
Pierre Boulle (characters’ creator)

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.