Really looking forward to
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes - huge Apes fan from way back, and really enjoyed
Rise of the POTA. I have a feeling this film may be even better, based on the trailers. Though the Apes looked great in
Rise, if anything they look even better here - the CGI is truly spectacular...
Most of the humans are presented as real tools. You are definitely more sympathetic towards the Apes, which is the whole point. It seems like the humans want to "get back" at the Apes because of the anti-Alzheimer's experimental drug that made them intelligent, which in turn caused the virus that wiped out many of the humans...even though humans created this virus in the first place. The Apes just want to be left alone & in peace, and the humans are clearly the aggressors & instigators here. Hopefully the humans will get their collective a$$e$ kicked...
I also like the fact that it doesn't appear that all of the Apes can speak easily; in
Rise only Caesar was able to speak, and in this
Dawn trailer I believe we only hear him speaking haltingly as well. This makes sense, since the Apes wouldn't need to actually talk to each other to communicate, and they've presumably been living isolated from humans since the beginning of the virus (as seen at the very end of Rise). This is a far cry from the original films; in
Conquest all of the Apes were mute except for Caesar - and then, in Battle (taking place 13 years after Conquest) most of the Apes can speak English fluently....despite the fact that in these original films, an explanation was never given as to why the Apes even became intelligent...Yeah, right...
Also, there are several scenes in one of the
Dawn trailers where the humans & Apes are looking at what appear to be operational I-phones, I-pads, etc. I wonder where they're getting the electricity to power these after the devastation. Presumably they must have emergency generators somewhere, or another form of power...
Also wanted to let my fellow Apes-fans know that recently the novel
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes: Firestorm was released. I haven't read it yet, but it's a prequel to the forthcoming film & apparently documents what happened between Rise & Dawn. Should be interesting.
Here's a review - note that spoilers are included here:
http://agentsofgeek.com/2014/05/dawn-of-the-planet-of-the-apes-firestorm-review/