Movies
Watch Andy Serkis Acting As Caesar Before ‘Apes’ CGI Is Applied!!!
David Harley and I don’t see eye-to-eye when it comes to Twentieth Century Fox’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Rupert Wyatt’s prequel to the 1968 masterpiece that spawned multiple sequels. Personally, I thought it was one of the best Fox films in nearly a decade, and was blown away by the extermination of CGI “dead eyes”. This was accomplished by sticking star Andy Serkis in a motion-capture suit and thus using his body language and actual eyes in the finished product.
Fox is rightfully campaigning to land Serkis a best supporting actor nomination for his role as Caesar, an ape with extreme intelligence who falls victim to the prejudices and fears of man. As Hitfix notes, if Serkis finds himself among the five nominees announced a week from Tuesday, it will make history as the first motion-capture performance recognized by the Academy (let alone any major awards organization).
There has been major debate as to whether or not Serkis should be recognized, considering you don’t actually see him on screen. The below video should put the argument to rest, unless of course you can’t stop laughing (it’s super weird and uncomfortable). It displays Serkis sans CGI acting as the lead ape. It’s supposed to be an emotional moment when James Franco, who played Caesar’s adoptive human father Will, leaves him behind after a public incident.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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