Myth Of Draco

Hail, Caesar

Unnecessary but not unenjoyable origin story doesn't embarrass itself. Elizabeth Kerr reports.

Another year, another "origin" story for a tried and true property. With forward momentum seemingly so difficult for so many film franchises, it's no wonder that producers resort to going back to the beginning, as it were, in order to generate progress. Sometimes it works, and sometimes it really doesn't. Wolverine could have been much more compelling, but the enigmatic fan favorite X-Man didn't really need his roots fleshed out in so many words: Wolverine was just fine as a character to be unraveled, interpreted, and re-interpreted. And the Predator, from, erm, Predator, and the Alien from, uh, Alien, certainly didn't need a convoluted and contrived explanation of their motivations under any circumstances. Bogeymen and superheroes just are, and they work like that just fine.

However, Batman Begins changed the rules of the game. Christopher Nolan's reboot of a tired classic told the backstory we all may or may not have known - accepted mythology be damned. In the process, he raised the angsty, complex icon to a level not seen on screen to that point (admit it, Spider-Man was basically a mopey teenager). Of course, comic book heroes aren't the only ones to be feted with pre-sequels of their own.

For Rise of the Planet of the Apes, writers Rick Jaffa and Amanda Silver go back to before the time of Pierre Boulle's original sci-fi novel, Monkey Planet, which of course is the source material for the classic Charlton Heston vehicle, Planet of the Apes. There are few children of the '70s who can't vividly recall the first time they saw that film and the shocking closing shot that demanded viewers rethink everything they'd just seen: PotA is a classic for a reason. We know it was hubris that brought the world of the original novel and film into being. Do we really need to know what went down every step of the way? Probably not. No one's been clamoring for a detailed description of what led to the death of Earth and the birth of Monkey Planet. But given that it's here, hey, why not? It's one of the few origin stories compelling enough to check out.

Of mice and men

Three cups of tea, one man's mission to fight terrorism and build nations-- one school at a time

Art of War

The elements of style

The origin of species by means of natural selection, or, The preservation of favoured races in the struggle for life