Babineaux Planet of the Apes

http://www.metacritic.com/movie/planet-of-the-apes

 

 

 

Tim Burton’s Planet of the Apes is compacted with dualities. One of the most vital contrasts is the duality of education vs. illiteracy. The humans of this film are obviously the characters who are educated. This movie implies that the only reason why humans have superiority over apes are because of the power to think and reason. The humans have this thing called technology that allows them to have more power than other beings. They actually use monkeys to do the degrading or dangerous things that they do not want to do. The main character, Davidson, does not really care for the monkeys, especially not as much as the woman who takes care of the animals on the aircraft. That woman was much like Ari compassionately and sympathetically wise. This brings in a duality within another duality, one concerning gender and species. The women in this film were both obviously very intelligent. Maybe this had something to do with the aspect of their sympathy for the other species along with the fact that women are naturally more empathetic to living beings because of their motherly instincts. The scene where the animal woman tells Davidson not to tease the monkeys perfectly portrays how concerned she is of the monkey’s well-being. The scene where Ari protects Davidson is also a great depiction of her motherly instinct seeping through. Ari and Davidson use their intelligence and technology together in order to escape from the city. The apes in this film are not really smart. They surround their ways of life around using their strength. They are smart, but they know they have no way of achieving the technology of the humans. Thade definitely knew this which is why he wanted to kill Davidson before his use of technology overpowered his strength. This movie made many points about the society we live in today. Most of them were not good, but unfortunately they were indeed true. Tim Burton used his gift to critique Americans and let them know how seriously the problems of society were. This film opened people’s eyes to things they had never really seen before.



Babineaux Mars Attacks!

http://top50sf.wordpress.com/2011/08/07/33-mars-attacks/

 

 

             Tim Burton obviously satirizes the government, military, and many other attributes of America in his film Mars Attacks. Although he has many scenes that illustrate the parodies he tries to get across, there are two that I would like to write about. Those two are the scenes that show the president doing a whole bunch of nothing and the scene that shows how the general just wanted to kill everything from the beginning. The president in this film does absolutely nothing for the citizens of the country. People constantly look to him for direction and guidance, but he never really knows what to do. Instead, he asks everyone else what they think should be done. This is very different from the president in Independence Day. The president in that film is very strict and stern and is always taken seriously. Sometimes he is taken too seriously, which is why Burton makes a parody out of the president. Burton also shows that the president dies, but it really made no impact on the country at all. The people did not really even need him in the first place. The scene that shows the general shows how Americans mostly care about destruction. When the general found out the Martians were on planet earth, he immediately thought of using weapons in order to stop them. He did not care about the aliens or what they could have possibly wanted. This film is definitely one of science fiction, though it is not like the ones prior to it like Blade Runner and Alien. Mars Attacks is very comical and cartoonish compared to the other sci-fi films. A prime example that displays its cartoon traits is the way the Martians look. They are very vibrant and imaginative compared to the aliens of other movies like Independence Day for instance. The aliens in Mars Attacks also had no real reason to do what they were doing. They were quite the tricksters of this film because all they did was make chaos and destroy the world. They also made jokes out of everything. This film has many subsidiary points that are not so evident when they are not expected.



Babineaux Ed Wood

http://www.listal.com/viewimage/1039820

 

Ed Wood and Tim Burton's Parallels

With Ed Wood being notoriously known as “the worst director in history” and Tim Burton being known as a stylish genius, one would not think they have much in common. Ed Wood’s films are usually not mistaken as other people’s work, and Tim Burton’s films usually are not either. Both directors have distinct visions that most people do not quite grasp. They both strongly believe in their imagination, and they know what they want. Both artists are very passionate about their work. Wood’s excitement and determination just does not really have a purpose. For example in the film Wood was given a few movie clips that really had no meaning or purpose, but he just sort of threw them in his movies in sort of random places. Burton’s weird ambition is usually followed up with meaning, even if fans do not understand them at first. Ed Wood and Burton are both interested in peculiar topics, and not surprisingly they were both very fond of sci-fi. They are both interested in things such as monsters and outer-space. These subjects always seem to be more of thoughts in the subconscious rather than reality. Another thing that Wood and Burton have in common is them having prominent role models that they almost obsessively loved. Wood’s idol was Bela Lugosi. Lugosi was a famous actor in his time, and he was well-known as playing as Dracula. In his prime he was very popular, but over the years he became poor and unfortunately addicted to drugs. Burton’s idol was the legendary Vincent Price. Both Wood and Burton were able to meet and even work with their childhood stars. Wood actually became friends with Lugosi and put him in his not so prevalent films. Burton got the chance to do the same with Price after he got famous enough. Johnny Depp got a taste of all of those things by playing in Edward Scissorhands and by being Ed in Ed Wood. In the end, we realize that Wood and Burton are just about positivity and doing what they really believe in by forgetting everything society has to say and not taking no for an answer.