T he Godfather II in 1974 could be considered the first prequel, telling how young Vito Andolini becomes Don Corleone. It was also a sequel as it follows Michael Corleone as he gets steeped (have been reading William Brown) in a life of crime. There was also the mother of all prequels, a trilogy actually, which told how Anakin Skywalker became the dreaded Darth Vader in the Star Wars universe. The trilogy — The Phantom Menace, The Attack of the Clones and The Revenge of Sith while boasting of mind-boggling special effects had none of the joy and sense of adventure of George Lucas’ Star Wars . Though there was Yoda providing weird syntax and Samuel L. Jackson for dollops of cool, Hayden Christensen as Anakin could not really compete with Harrison Ford’s piratical Han Solo. Yes, Natalie Portman was lovely as Padme, but she couldn’t compete with screen daughter Leia’s (Carrie Fisher’s) gold bikini.
Worse than the Star Wars prequels is The Hobbit trilogy. JRR Tolkien wrote The Hobbit before The Lord of the Rings . In Hollywood, however, The Hobbit followed Peter Jackson’s immensely successful LOTR trilogy. The unkindest cut was splitting the slim, charming Hobbit into a trilogy. Despite the presence of Benedict Cumberbatch as the voice of the dragon, Smaug and his Dr. Watson (Martin Freeman) playing Bilbo the movies ( An Unexpected Journey and The Desolation of the Smaug ) feel like a never-ending series of overheated LOTR leftovers.
Cumberbatch, however, was part of a spectacularly successful reboot — Star Trek: Into Darkness . JJ Abrams injected a healthy dose of adrenalin into his Star Trek reboot. The movie looks at how James T. Kirk becomes Captain Kirk and gets to lead the star ship Enterprise. By dealing with alternate timelines, the movie kept the path open for developing stories. The sequel, Into Darkness rejigged an earlier Star Trek episode ( Space Seed ) and also the second Star Trek movie — The Wrath of Khan (1982).
Casino Royale in 2006 was another successful prequel. Directed by Martin Campbell, the film looked at James Bond’s origin story. Going back to Ian Fleming’s first novel, the film looked at how Bond earned his licence to kill. Casino Royale also saw the introduction of a blond Bond in Daniel Craig. From the exhilarating parkour sequence to the watery climax, Craig was riveting, icy blue eyes, cruel pout and all.
X-Men First Class is another successful reboot which went back to the 60s to when Xavier and Magneto were young men and friends before all changed and they ended up on opposite sides. The sequel Days of Future Past which came out last month was great fun with Wolverine dashing back in time to change the future and what not.
Planet of the Apes originally came out in 1968 and was a huge success. Based on a French novel, the movie starred Charlton Heston as an astronaut (yes he traded his chariot for a spaceship) crashing into an unknown planet in the future where apes rule humans. The shock ending where Heston realises the planet is earth, has been extensively parodied. The movie’s success gave rise to four sequels and two TV shows.
In 2001, Tim Burton remade the film with Mark Wahlberg looking stunned as the astronaut and Helena Bonham Carter looking creepily like Michael Jackson as Ari, a chimpanzee. Like all Burton’s films, the movie had a sumptuous look and feel but was a complete washout.
Ten years later came Rise of the Planet of the Apes . Directed by Rupert Wyatt, starring James Franco and Freida Pinto, the film looked at what caused mankind’s downfall and the simian ascendancy. Franco plays a scientist, Will, working on gene therapy.
His experiments with drugs to cure brain disease create Caesar, an abnormally clever chimpanzee. Will realises too late that the drug while it develops the brains of simians, is harmful to humans. The movie ends with Caesar leading the apes to freedom while the virus spreads rapidly killing most of mankind. The movie worked thanks to its inventive story, and the genius of motion capture, which had Andy Serkis (a motion capture veteran after Gollum in LOTR ) play Caesar.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is set 10 years after the events of Rise . Caesar is the ruler now and has family — a mate and two children, while the humans are making their last stand. The film is directed by Matt Reeves and stars Jason Clarke as a survivor of the pandemic who believes peace between humans and apes is possible. On the other end of the spectrum is Gary Oldman who lost his family to the virus and wants to kill all apes as revenge. Serkis returns as Caesar.
Thanks to the new story, and the different strands left open in Rise, Dawn promises to be an interesting journey.
