The Latest Planet of the Apes Movie Has Already Planned a Wild Blu-Ray Feature
Ready to see an Apes movie without the apes?
Other than a few real chimps here and there, the films in the sprawling Planet of the Apes franchise overwhelmingly feature humans playing simians. In the 1960s and ‘70s, this was accomplished with rubber masks and full-body costumes. But since the 2011 reboot, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, the intelligent primates have been brought to life by actors wearing motion-capture suits. The king of mo-cap, Andy Serkis — who played Caesar in the first three reboot films and was a consultant on the new movie, Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes — recently spoke about the difficulties of playing mo-cap characters.
“People associate this with just being able to mimic how a chimpanzee moves and so on,” Serkis told Virgin Radio. “It’s partially to do that, but actually is more about what you feel internally.” Now, it appears the full emotional range of the mo-cap performers will be revealed, in its rawest form, for the first time.
In conversation with the YouTube channel Ape Nation, the director of Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Wes Ball, revealed that the home release will contain a raw cut showcasing what the film looked like before CGI effects were added by VFX supplier Wētā Workshop.
“I’m doing a thing for the DVD, where you can watch the movie, the entire movie, with the raw dallies,” Ball said. “For geeks like us, it’s gonna be a first.”
Andy Serkis with Kingdom stars Freya Allan and Owen Teague.
This means that after Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes has its theatrical run, fans will be able to watch all the actors in their mo-cop suits prior to any effects being added. There was certainly no shortage of post-production work; elsewhere in the interview, Ball said that various scenes in Kingdom get close to “the Avatar side of things” insofar as many scenes contain only actors in mo-cap suits.
Ball also said he thinks “it’s some of the best CG work ever done in a movie,” and praised Andy Serkis’ contribution. Although Serkis doesn’t appear in Kingdom, Ball said the man who brought Caesar to life was a huge part of making the new film everything it could be.
“He was kinda our Ape Godfather,” Ball says. “All the actors had basically never done mo-cap before... I think Andy helped them understand, and know what it’s like.”
Fans can see the result of that hard work soon, and then see it again in a completely different light when the movie hits Blu-Ray.
