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From the Oscar-winning visual effects team that brought to life the worlds of Avatar and Lord of the Rings comes revolutionary new ground – a CGI ape that delivers a dramatic performance of unprecedented emotion and intelligence and epic battles on which rest the upended destinies of man and primate: RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES
James Franco stars as Will Rodman, a neuroscientist living in San Francisco trying to develop a cure for Alzheimer’s disease by testing on chimpanzees, giving them a human level of intelligence. After a test subject’s baby, Caesar, is orphaned, Will decides to raise him at home on his own with his Alzheimer-stricken father, John Lithgow. What begins simply as a continuation of his experiment quickly turns into a problem for Will, as Caesar is taken away from him and forced to live in a primate facility. As Caesar’s intelligence continues to grow, he begins to stake his claim as the leader of his new primate counterparts, which will ultimately lead to the RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES.
Our Take: We watched this on Christmas Day as our downtime from all the excitement. This film is a prequel to the 2001 release of Planet of the Apes, which my kids have not seen. I remember seeing it only because Mark Wahlberg was in it! We remembered seeing commercials for Rise when it came out to the theater, but we never saw it or read any reviews on it. The visuals were amazing! The film was made using computer-generated imagery (CGI) to create the apes. Director Rupert Wyatt mandated that Rise of the Planet of the Apes not use any real apes during filming and worked with Weta Digital to create lifelike apes through revolutionary visual effects. This I thought was amazing because I thought some of the apes were actually real. I was a bit surprised at the ending, thinking this couldn’t be the end. My son looked at me and said, “that’s it?!?!” Now, I have come to find out that there is a sequel; it makes more sense. We are still mad since it was totally unexpected, but now we can’t wait to see the new movie!
The RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Blu-ray is loaded with bonus material, including deleted scenes, making-of featurettes commentaries, and more.
RISE OF THE PLANET OF THE APES Blu-ray + Digital Copy
- Feature Film
- Deleted Scenes
- Alpha Gets Shot
- Will’s Meeting with Lab Assistants
- Will Discovers Caesar Has Solved Puzzles
- Caesar Plays with Bicycle
- Caesar Questions His Identity
- Caesar Bites Off Neighbor’s Finger
- Will Ignores the Risks of an Airborne Mutated Virus
- Rodney Gives Caesar a Cookie
- Rocket Gets Hosted by Dodge
- Caesar Destroys the Lab and Koba’s Attempted Revenge on Jacobs
- Caesar Pushes Helicopter
- Koba with Shotgun
- Pre-vis for The Future
- Capturing Caesar – Script to Screen
- Studying the Genius of Andy Serkis
- Multi-Angle: Rocket Cookie Scene
- A New Generation of Apes
- Breaking Motion Capture Boundaries
- Breaking New Sound Barriers: The Music and Sound Design of Rise of the Planet of the Apes
- Ape Facts
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- Chimpanzee
- Gorilla
- Orangutan
- Audio Commentary by Director Rupert Wyatt
- Audio Commentary by Writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver
- Character Concept Art Gallery
- Three Theatrical Trailers
Stay Connected: Visit Rise of The Planet Of The Apes on Facebook to Create a Custom Poster and unlock a secret video clip!
Buy It: Rise of the Planet of the Apes (Two-Disc Edition Blu Ray + DVD/Digital Copy Combo) [Blu-ray]
Disclosure: I was provided with a product for this review. All views and opinions with regard to the products or the company are my own and were not influenced by the company
I am looking forward to see this one! It’s cool on how the use computer-generated imagery.
Thanks for sharing.