Katrina from The Gorgeous Geeks got the opportunity to talk to the writers of
Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver, who are also married to one another.
Katrina: Now you guys were the ones that originally pitched the idea of
Rise of the Planet of The Apes, correct?
Amanda: Yes! It was Rick’s idea and he had been cutting out magazine articles about Chimps being raised in homes and how it's sort of an inappropriate place to raise them and how eventually when the chimps become teenagers they get aggressive and end up being put in these horrible shelters. And he thought there’s a great movie in there like a thriller, some sort of movie in there. And then he realized, like a light bulb went off. He said, "Oh my God this is a great way to reboot
Planet of the Apes." And so we went to FOX and pitched the idea to them. And to our delight and shock, they weren’t already developing a movie to reboot the franchise so they hired us and we wrote it. That’s how it started.
Katrina: Is that what makes this film different from all the other
Planet of the Apes, the animal rights and animal testing?
Rick: Well that’s a part of it. We didn’t set out to make an animal rights movie, but while we were writing it we knew that if it were to get made that the animal rights and the animal lovers and so forth would really dig the message. That wasn’t our original intent, but in terms of the original series and so forth, we felt all along we had the same theme that the first movie had; meaning that man’s hubris can become his downfall and if man plays God it will come back to haunt him. Because our feeling about the original movie was that it was man’s hubris that got Col. Taylor on that beach at the very end of it. We had the same theme even though it's from a different source.
Amanda: But our movie starts in present day, so it’s like what would have to happen today, 2011, for the domino stack up system event to happen in such a way that the apes would take over.
Rick: Yeah, like what could really happen? So we tried to tell it in a very realistic way. Like what could really happen with stuff that’s really happening in our world today that if the right things were to connect then the apes could end up taking over?
Katrina: It seems like in every single one of them there’s a big shocker at the end of the movie. Is it going to be the same for this movie as well?
Rick: Well we made a very conscious decision not to compete with the Statue of Liberty. That’s probably one of the top if not the top great movie shockers of all time. And so we thought well lets not try to do that, lets not try to beat that. It does end in a way with kind of a twist and explanation at the same time. Early on in the development it was more like the whole movie was kind of building up to that twist, but overtime as the script changed and morphed that became less of an important element. It would be great if we did, but we made a conscious decision not to compete with that.
Katrina: Do you think that this film will please all the old
Planet of the Apes fans and also bring in a lot of new ones?
Amanda: Oh my gosh! You said that so well that’s exactly what we want. We showed it to our nephew last night at the premiere and he hasn’t seen any of the other ones.
Rick: He’s nine.
Amanda: He loved it. Like as a fan, as a brand new fan. Now he wants to see the other movies. He knew nothing about the
Planet of The Apes and he could 100% enjoyed the movie. But if you do know Planet of the Apes, there’s definitely a lot of respect paid to the mythology of the original and we wanted this one to fit in. Also, there are these things we call Easter eggs which are like little presents to the fans in the movie that you can find, like our inside jokes kind of.
Rick: Yeah, if you really know them you’ll go "oh my God." A lot of them are really obvious…character names and stuff. And then some of them are really, really obscure that I don't know if anyone is ever actually gonna figure it out, because they’re so obscure. But last night at the premiere, we had-like I said-our nephew, but also some grown ups came up to us and said, "I have to admit I never saw any of the
Planet of the Apes films and now I wanna go back and watch them. We basically took one bit of the mythology of the
Planet of the Apes movies and I’m not gonna tell you what that is. It’s a matter of incident and explanation and we pulled that out of one of the movies and then crafted the story around that moment. So if you are a big fan and you know that stuff then you’ll go "Oh my God! That’s where that came from.
Katrina: Now I’m like 10 times more excited to see this movie.
Rick: Good.
Katrina: Cool. Now I have to ask, are you guys already planning a sequel to
Rise of the Planet of The Apes?
Rick: Well, we would love to do a sequel and I think everyone’s hoping that there’s a sequel. I think at this point there hasn’t been any discussions, because I think everyone’s afraid to jinx it. So, I think ultimately it will depend on if the public really responds to this new way of telling the story. And if they do, I’m sure there will be a sequel and we would love it. We know we’ve got lots of thoughts and ideas, specific ideas about what that would be. But I think everyone’s kind of holding off talking about it, 'til we see how the movie does.
Katrina: Is there anything you guys would like to say to anybody out there who’s hesitant to see another
Planet of the Apes movie?
Rick: Yes! I’m really glad you asked that. The movie’s not what you think. It’s a surprise. It’s a fresh way to approach a great, great legacy and so I would encourage people to check it out.
Amanda: It’s a great ride. It’s got lots of action and fun, but it’s also a very tender, emotional story.
Rick: Very emotional. In the premiere last night, a lot of people were very moved, but it’s also very, very exciting.
For the rest of the interview, watch the video below or go to www.thegorgeousgeeks.com for their advice to break into the movies, some history about the writers, and more about
Rise of the Planet of the Apes.