Caesar's skills.

I just caught a trailer for the upcoming addition to the "Planet of the Apes" saga. "Rise of The Planet of the Apes" opens on [date] and stars James Franco, a CGI monkey based on the movements of the Gollum guy, and [actor]. The trailer I watched, while making me wonder how good this movie might not end up being, also revealed to me how little film studios believe consumers are ever thinking. You hear the voice of James Franco saying, with quite a bit of gravity, "Caesar's skills far exceed that of a human." Then you see the hyperintelligent chimpanzee Caesar writing his name in all-caps block letters with his finger on a touchscreen tablet. Okay. I am pretty sure I could do that. Also, I could do it wearing clothes that I put on myself. Also, I could just tell you my name instead of fingerpainting it like a five year-old. At the very least I would have to say that a more accurate assertion for Mr. Franco's character to make would be that "Caesar's skills are on par with that of some humans." And a more grammatically correct assertion would be that "Caesar's skills are on par with those of some humans." Far exceed?! Yeah, maybe if the human is ten months old! All those people do is hit their heads on everything.

What's ironic about my denouncement of this studio's disrespect for our ability to focus on and process the information presented in a movie trailer is that I had to see the trailer like seven times before I noticed anything funny about what was happening. The somber tone of Mr. Franco's statement was enough for me to feel like what he was saying was very important in correlation with what Caesar was doing. He could have said, "I can't have too much of this delicious watermelon because it will give me diarrhea." And if he had said it in that tone, I would have thought, "Man, what an amazing thing, that this monkey is writing his name." So I guess I am exactly as smart as the studio thinks I am. Unless you show me the trailer seven times in a row. "Jeez, this thing again? Hold on a second... aha! Gotcha, studio!"