Time-travel week marches ahead at Screened in anticipation of Source Code, so I've thusly decided to examine another movie series that’s all up in those chronal loops. I looked at the Terminator movies for my unofficial time travel week, so the Planet of the Apes saga felt mighty appropriate as a subject for this official time-travel week. It actually forms a much tighter “cycle of causality," you know. The movies' timeline is circular, with the last one feeding into the first one, and so on, and so on.
Anyway, fling your own waste away and pick this all up with your opposable thumbs...
Planet of the Apes (1968) Dir. Franklin J. Schaffner
As a label, "science fiction” gets thrown rather indiscriminately at the picture house, so it bears noting that this is one of the truly seminal films in the sci-fi tradition. You don’t have to look too far past the campy novelty of the man/monkey switcheroo to see that there’s real, controversial satire and biting social commentary here. Charlton Heston may be better known today all the parodies and impersonations of him, but I'd go as far to say that his earnest lead performance is what really anchors this movie. The trademark gravitas gives this a seriousness and respectability that would've been simply absent with your run-of-the-mill "leading man."
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) Dir. Ted Post
Nobody should ever complain about how excessive sequels are a modern nuisance...
There ain't too many places you can go after discovering the statue of liberty, but this flick sure reaches hard by introducing a Heston look-a-like who’s been sent after the marooned humans of the first on a rescue mission. After many long, drawn out scenes going over the same beats of the first movie, we're introduced to a cult of mutated humans surviving underground who worship an A-Bomb. Go figure.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) Dir. Don Taylor
One of these days, I’m going to do a Welcome to Weird on this. Imagine a charming, Mary Tyler Moore-style sitcom that just happens to star intelligent apes who've been sent back to the 70's by a world destroying nuke. Bizarre, right? Yet, somehow, it works.
Roddy McDowall becomes the real star of the series, here, and you can't help but feel elated by the lighthearted middle portion of the movie where Cornelius and Zira basically become America's "It" couple. The tone does become tragic eventually, of course, but the shift suits the plot and it makes for one chilling final line. While it's not as out-and-out amazing as T2 and Aliens, I'd still include in a list of worthwhile sequels that brilliantly flip the switch on their predecessors.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) Dir. J. Lee Thompson
It gets raw in this one. Real raw. Out of all the sequels, this is the one I can recommend you watching without seeing any of the others. It stands alone as more of a lurid, button-pressing grindhouse flick than any of the more stately science fiction we’d seen up until this point. Cornelius and Zira's son, Caesar, fulfills the prophecy of ape supremacy by leading a violent uprising that reaches an intense fever pitch with one fiery rallying speech at the end.
I suppose Rise of the Apes will technically be a remake of this, but I don't suspect there will be too many similarities beyond some familiar names. Like Escape, this sequel's commendable for continuing the story properly while still finding something genuinely new to do within the form.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) Dir. J. Lee Thompson
Watching this is like watching the tires wear down and the battery slowly die on your Studebaker. The lavish sets of the previous movies had been replaced with bare bones, state park locations and the once impressive make-up often looks like Party City gorilla masks by this point. It’s basically about the diplomatic relations between humans and apes, with seeds of dissent getting sewn between the two camps, so… yeah. There's more serious "speculative" politicking and less ghoulishly grotesque fun. Still, it's ultimately a satisfying transition from "chimpan-A to chimpan-Z" with a fittingly unsettling and ambiguous ending to top off the saga and star the cycle over.
Planet of the Apes (2001) Dir. Tim Burton
This was the first time the “re-imagining” doublespeak term was coined and it’s a case of style over substance. Strip the satire and social commentary entirely from this story and what do you have? Cool creature effects. That's it. Though, that shouldn't be understated, actually. This is Rick Baker’s show. He designs and executes some absolutely phenomenal make-up work that brilliantly manages to transform actors into much more credible creatures while still keeping their personalities recognizable. Tim Roth, in particular, gives an excellent performance as the insidious General Thade.
There was an exciting rumor for a while that this would actually be the new future created by Battle, with the humans' new capacity for speech being a result of their long co-existence with the apes. Sadly, that was just a rumor and the only time-line related surprise we got concerned monkey Abe Lincoln.
Previously-profiled series...
As well as a rather hilarious subplot in the host segments for an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
I agree with you except Beneath was really just good not great. The 2001 one Tim Burton crapfest was another example of Tim Burton applying his nonsense where it didn't belong. He is at his best when he is doing something light hearted and a bit childish like Willie Wonka but out of his element when he tries to inject silliness into where it does not belong (Batman, Apes). His version of Apes was really tone deaf, script less and completely without a focus or a point. Tim Roth and Mark are about the only enjoyable things in the movie. Sadly it was not enough to keep that train wreck from coming off the rails.
I really love this series, not a huge nerd, but I do own them (except Burton's) on Blu-ray cause I found it for cheap. But for me the series goes from best to worst:
And yes, that includes the modern one.
It should be noted there was also a short-lived live-action Planet of the Apes TV series which aired in late 1974. The series starred Roddy McDowall from the films. Lalo Shifrin, a jazz artist also known for composing the Mission Impossible theme also did the music for the PotA TV show. It's quite funky! And there was a cartoon series called Return to the Planet of the Apes that ran from 1975 through 1976. It was about as good as the Star Trek cartoon from the early 70's if you know that one.