Canon-Strike XIX: Planet of the Apes

[Neon Ignition]

The penultimate strike lands with a turn to a long running franchise that spreads three key incarnations, itself born from an adaptation of a 1963 French novel that imagines a world where humanity is almost wiped out and apes take root as the dominant species on the planet.





Film 01 - Planet of the Apes
The survivors of a light speed space voyage land on a planet to discover it ruled by Apes. Their crashed ship registers the year as being 3978 before they are taken captive and must work to escape the Ape City and hope that this is not their world. The film cost nearly $6m to produce and made $33m back recieving critical acclaim for its storytelling and message opening the way to a decades long establishment of the brand in film and TV history.

A Classic or Do You Curse Those Damned Dirty Apes?

[CMcK]

Absolute classic. Takes a mirror to our society and shows us some uncomfortable truths. Plus I really like that whole era of great SF movies.

[Brad]

Probably my favourite movie of all time. It's utter perfection.

[Travesty]

Fantastic movie, I've seen it many times on tv and once from the screen of my Game Gear using the TV-tuner during a summer when my mom rented a summer cottage that did not have a tv.

[Dogg Thang]

It’s a true classic and for good reason. I do find it a little funny now watching Heston hamming it up. It was a different acting style back then. He’s great though and the movie still packs a punch.

[Baseley09]

Certainly one of the greatest science fiction stories, had it on only yesterday. What a golden period for Heston with Soylent & Omega Man.

[CMcK]

Certainly one of the greatest science fiction stories, had it on only yesterday. What a golden period for Heston with Soylent & Omega Man.

He did seem to be the go to guy for dystopian SF. Although the Omega Man does go a bit bonkers. I’d like to see a faithful adaptation of the novel one of these days.

[Finsbury Girl]

It gave us possibly the GOAT Simpsons episode

[Neon Ignition]

Film 02 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Worked on within weeks of the success of the first film, the sequel sees a second spacecraft crash land on Earth with its pilot setting out to track down Hesten's character. His journey sees him meet telepathic beings descended from the humans who survived mankinds nuclear fallout. This meeting brings him to Hesten and together they uncover a bomb capable of destroying the entire planet and thereby possibly giving the two astronauts an option to end the Planet of the Apes. The film launched to mixed reviews but despite this the good will of the original saw it still turn a healthy profit for the studio and despite the storyline a third film was very quickly put into discussion stages.




A worthwhile enough continuation of the original films plot?

[Neon Ignition]

Film 03 - Escape from the Planet of the Apes
The third film side steps the ending of the prior film by following a trio of Apes who fix Taylor's crashed ship and escape Earth before its destruction. The explosion creates a time warp that flings them back to 1973 where they find themselves faced with mankind and the burden of knowing the future whilst hiding their own involvement in it. The film was well recieved and is considered to be the best of the original lines sequels.




Is this third film the best sequel of the original canon?

[Neon Ignition]

Film 04 - Conqest of the Planet of the Apes
Following the improved response the third film recieved, the studio was happy to move forward with a fourth film and settled on this entry which sees the surviving son of the apes from the prior films growing up in secret as mankind endures a plague. As the events mankind were warned of in the last film begin to unfold, the son Ape called Caesar undergoes experiences that will form him into being a leader to his own kind. The writer of the film said that he mapped out a timeline for the franchise and believing that this would be the final installment he wrote it to show the beginning of the Ape uprising in order to close the loop to the events of the original film. The film easily made the least of the four so far but was none the less profitable for the studio.




Perhaps the closest to how the modern films were plotted, did this successfully continue the original story?

[Dogg Thang]

I seem to remember that one being really good. It was darker and more serious. In terms of the previous two, the first sequel is too much like a remake of the original. It has some fun but it’s almost already redundant because the first exists. I remember Escape being a lot of fun.

[Neon Ignition]

Unless that similarity is throwing me off I don't think I've seen the second film, I know I've seen the first but it was a very long time ago. My memories are most vivid of the third film and not being that into it. The idea of inverting the set up makes sense but I remember it as being a fairly pedestrian film because it involved so much talking and lacked interesting visuals. The fourth one I've definitely not seen but it's interesting how much it sounds like it's the one Rise lifted from.

[Dogg Thang]

Yeah, I’d say the fourth is definitely worth a watch, even if you don’t catch up with the rest of them.

[Travesty]

The second movie was always a disappointment for me. Third movie I enjoyed when I first saw it, but it does feel a bit bland after how good the first and how weird the second movie was. Fourth was absolutely better than third.