Far from the washed out greys and browns associated with millennial apocalyptic landscapes like Book of Eli or The Road or even I Am Legend, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is surprisingly colourful. Matt Reeves shoots Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as a spiritual successor to sixties end-of-the-world movies like Logan’s Run or Planet of the Apes. In fact, the movie’s only significant weakness is that Andy Serkis’ Caesar has to fight for space this time around.Īppropriately enough, given the source material, there is something very classical about this post-apocalyptic landscape. It is a movie that is much broader and larger than its direct predecessor. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes uses this structure to tell an exciting and compelling post-apocalyptic story. This framework is effective and shrewd, but it only provides a foundation for director Matt Reeves and writers Mark Bomback, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver. It turns out “damn dirty apes” is not PC terminology…Īgain, structure is only a tool. It’s a very clever structure, because it moves what should be the end of the film to around the half-way or two-third-way point, making the movie feel “bigger.” Instead, the film blows everything up in the middle of its runtime, allowing for drama and excitement as the cast scramble to pick up the pieces. However, it doesn’t place this climax in the third act, as people might expect. It builds towards what seems like a logical (and seemingly inevitable) conclusion for a film like this. There is a clear objective and goal, one that seems impossible, only for our heroes to somehow manage to accomplish it. The first half of the film is structured in a way that would make it the climax of any other feature. The world of the film is de-cluttered, bother literally and narratively. We don’t have no time for no monkey business…Īs with The Dark Knight, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes begins by extrapolating – rather than simply following on – from the ending to the last film. Bryan Singer used this approach for X-Men II and How to Train Your Dragon 2 also followed it. Using the trust established by the first film, the ensemble are split up to carry different strands of the plot, revealing scattered pieces of a larger whole, before reuniting for an epic finalé. Perhaps the structure of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back is the most obvious example. Navigating those potential problems and finding a way to meet (and even surpass) expectations without straying too far from the framework of the original film is difficult.Īs with making any movie, there are existing frameworks and structures that do a little help make navigating those problems a little easier. Producing a sequel comes with its own set of artistic risks and challenges, its own obstacles and hurdles. As with any aspect of filmmaking, building off an earlier film is a very difficult thing to do. It is something that requires a great deal of skill. Constructing a satisfying sequel is an artform unto itself.
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