Watched Dawn of the Planet of the Apes last night. Welcome and surprising change of pace from Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Almost every aspect of the movie was better than the first one.
Dawn had a more coherent message, minus one line that really counteracted the rest of the film, and it was significantly more visually interesting. A lot more attention was paid to the individual personalities of the ape characters, and I like that a lot since the apes are more interesting than the humans.
I wish a little more attention was paid to the humans obsession with "returning to normalcy." The leaders of the humans were unable to thrive because they could not live in the moment at all. They could only see the world as a "decline" from where they had been previously. Despite having superior medicine, weaponry, and nearly unlimited space, the leadership of the humans was blinded by their desire to "rebuild." Notably, they wanted to rebuild the very world that failed them in the first place.
The Apes, despite the perfidy of Koba and his loyals, lived in their world. They made the best of what they had and were able to articulate a thriving society, at least until war broke out.
Looking forward to the third film.
@DemonMama My favorite scene in the movie is when Caesar is inclined to give the humans access to the dam. "Let them do their human work."
And Koba points to a scar. "Human work."
He points to another. "Human work."
A third. "Human work."
I fucking LOVE that moment.
@gayfesh I LOVED that scene. I liked the care the film took to never belittle Koba's pain, instead focusing on his inability to deal with his fear and pain in any other way than violence and domination.
My personal favorite scene was the scene where Caesar revisits the attic he grew up in. Calling back to the first film, which was so drastically different, really sold home a previous scene between Caesar and Maurice, where they were discussing how distant and strange the past seemed since they left human society.
