Planet Of The Apes movie series - Classic or Dud

Weren't these just holograms or something similar set up by the remaining degenerate humans to scare the dumb apes and deter them from venturing any further towards their otherwise undefended bunker or whatever it was?

oh but there is Homer in the astronaut episode:

journo: question for the barbecue cheef, dont you think there is an inherent danger in sending ordinary civilians into space?
Homer: the only danger is if they send us to that terrible planet of the apes! wait a minute....statue of liberty....THAT WAS OUR PLANET!'

i conclude that the Tim Burton re-imagining from 2001 is BETTER than the original...i dont suppose they're doing a sequel for that tho eh?

The animated TV series impressed me when I was younger. I think there is a lot to be said for making the apes a bit more hi-tech rather than just having them live on the ruins of human civilisation.

The Tim Burton film is the worst film I have ever seen.

Maybe I misunderstood it but in the original films (I've not seen the remake), the technology the apes have isn't copied from humans but reflects their being in an earlier phase of development. They have muskets and things like that which I always thought they'd invented themselves.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is classic for having been shot on the campus of UC Irvine, but also because it works as satire, probably on purpose

i also think the new twist was pretty cool, certainly tolerable - and it would be daft to say it ruined the film

What is thius nonsense about showing Beneath... at three in the morning. I remember watching it when I was seven on ITV on a Staurday afternoon (after the Wrestling). I was shit scared of it.

Oh yeah.

The explaination in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes as to why the apes reach their ascendancy is pure brilliance. Its all due to a virus which wipes out cats and dogs....(If anyone else can finish this off I'd be most grateful, I cannot type it due to laughing too much).

"Battle" is def the worst though. Can we have a thread on "On the buses" movies now? Did anybody tape "mutiny", please please please

When the POTA tv show was briefly popular in the UK they re-released the first and third movies on a double bill. At the screening I went to all the kids couldn't stop laughing at Chuck Heston's bare bottom.

well it makes sense in that whats happened - possibly - is that rather than travel back to his Earth, Wahlberg had ended up on the Apes planet far in the future, where Thade used the computer in the room he was trapped in to learn more about human civilisation and then managed to escape he led the apes in advancing further and mimicking the achievements of men on Earth, literally....perhaps this was never the intention of Burton but its plausible in the context of the film. another idea was that Thade had escaped, travelled back in time to Wahlberg's Earth and changed the course of history, perhaps even preventing cro-magnons from emerging leaving apes to evolve to Thade's level but develop the intelligence of humans, consequently developing in exactly the same way apart from the obvious physical differences...scientifically illogical of course but then this IS planet of the apes we're talking about

And is still legendary around here to this day.

Never have seen any of the films, nothing sparked my interest. I know the catchphrases used in MST3K by heart, though.

I watched the original yesterday for the first time ever. Have to say I really enjoyed it, even though I knew how it ended.

Want to watch the sequels but from the sounds of things, I'd probably regret it.

don't be a fule, the sequels are great! the most bizarro franchise in hollywood history, you will not believe your eyes. and they don't get unwatchably dodgy until the 5th film.

my babble about the sequel from The 1970's Science Fiction Movie Poll :

I just watched beneath the planet of the apes the other night. the scene where the ape city army marching through the desert encounters a field of squirming apes crucified upside-down in flames while in the background an enormous statue of the lawgiver begins bleeding from his eyes is like a halfstep from jodorowsky-level wtf.

http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y176/edwardiii/beneath-the-planet-of-the-apes.jpg

and I know I've gone on about conquest for the planet of the apes around here somewhere, the prequel that depicts the rise of the apes as a 60s watts-style race riot. o_O

There was one that was set in one shopping preecinct, presumably one of the dodgy sequels.

I see the box set is cheap in HMV right now.

I went for the "likey Lads" one instead.

the second one is hysterically awful, the third one (when the apes come to present day earth?) is great

for a serious apprec of the race angle, read this:

http://server40136.uk2net.com/~wpower/images/product_images/9780786426638.jpg

I first consumed Beneath the Planet of the Apes as a Marvel comic book, and as that it was classic. Watching the movie was a slight let-down as a kid. But the whole nuclear thing made a big impact on me. I was pretty much obsessed with Planet of the Apes until Star Wars came along.

http://www.populationstatistic.com/images/vegas_zaius.jpg

Nope. Try again.

? is yr browser older than the Sacred Scrolls?

In the last few weeks I've made it all the way to Conquest and had a pretty good time. For some reason I can't yet pull the trigger on Battle.

it's pretty uninspired even with the presence of Severn Darden and Paul Williams.

That one was big letdown.

obv Fox cut the budget to the bone, but I liked the school buses.

it's pretty uninspired even with the presence of Severn Darden and Paul Williams.

not to mention john huston and john landis, what a bizarro cast

Landis?

The Tim Burton film is the worst film I have ever seen.

I don't even remember very much about the film...but ^^^^ this.

It was among the few times in my life when the movie is so bad that you actually come out of the experience semi-angry. I have not seen a new Tim Burton movie since, and possibly never will.

c'mon, filmmakers fuck up. He did well turning Sweeney Todd into a horror musical.

yeah but there's a difference between an artistic stumble and a piece of art that's *so* actively bad that you immediately have to really wonder whether or not that person has anything of worth say to the world and whether or not should be making things to begin with...and I remember the remake being one of those.

err:

'of worth to say to the world and whether or not they should be'

i've always wondered if the nuclear-bomb cult of mutants and their hymns in beneath the planet of the apes was at least partly the inspiration for the holy hand grenade sketch from monty python and the holy grail

The "Planet of The Apes" series is reportedly getting an origin story with James Franco .

According to Variety, the actor has signed on to star in a prequel to the series.

A mag source said James had a great meeting with director Rupert Wyatt over the weekend about the movie, that will be set in the present day and chronicle how genetic engineering gave the animals intelligence. The actor will reportedly play an important scientist in the midst of the war between man and ape.

The effects team WETA Digital, who wowed moviegoers with their work on "Avatar," will reportedly use photo-realistic apes and not actors in costumes for the movie.

The "Apes" prequel is slated to start filming in July and will hit theaters on June 24, 2011.

Didn't know about this til Franco interview in NYT (in which he rolled his eyes over it, bet the producers loved that).

Plot basically seems to sort of redo the 4th film in the original series, w/ Andy Serkis Gollumizing Roddy McDowall's Caesar:

http://www.filmjunk.com/2010/06/30/andy-serkis-to-play-caesar-in-rise-of-the-apes/

'Return' is just bizarre in the way it carries on straight after the first and mirrors it in many ways - but its pretty confusing in that no-one bothers to explain WHY the Forbidden Zone has a wall of fire and stupid lightning bolts, or why the apes see the mirage of burning apes when they cross the threshold - the worst part is the underground humans singing choir during their bomb-worshipping sermon...needlessly drawn out, implausible and it sounds awful!

rong on so many levels

do you get befuddled by jump cuts too

they were over here, now they're over there! WHAT IS HAPPPENING

I kept thinking of "Monkey Shines" (which was s'ok).

What are the odds that this movie ends with a shot of an ape perched on the Statue of Liberty? Because, you know ... get it!?!?

cgi apes look like crap

when that one jumps off the railing at the helicopter it's like oh noes attack of the panda

It also looks like a prequel to "Congo"

Well, now I want to see it more than ever:

It plays out like an escape movie, says director Rupert Wyatt, as Caesar the chimp leads his fellow imprisoned apes to escape the research facility where they're imprisoned. Caesar enlists the aid of Maurice, an orangutan who knows sign language, and a big bruiser of a chimp named Rocket. It's an "A-Team of apes," says Wyatt.

Assuming they're playing this for laughs.

wait are we supposed to root for the ape-team or be terrified of them

Saw the Burton POTA in the theater with friends when it came out and actually had a blast watching it. I've paid good money to see movies that were far more dreadful and dull.

visually it was pretty cool! if only the script had been worth a damn.

Isn't that every Burton movie?

Burton's always been hit or miss but I don't think at that point he had made anything as joyless and uninspired as Planet

Robert Wyatt directed this new Apes? Oh, wait...

Where are the orangutans?

Watching the original again, was struck by how much of a quisling Cornelius is, for a heretic! Nearly shits himself whenever Dr Zaius is around. If they ever closely remake it they'll probably cast Jesse Eisenberg.

also,

orangutans = WASPS (administer the place, sittin pretty)

chimpanzees = Jews (scientists, liberals, just had an employment "quota" abolished)

gorillas = warriors + menials, exploited classes of color

I guess those classses resemble the US demographics and segregation mid-20th-century

I love the original movie series. After the first one, the best is Escape from the Planet of the Apes, followed probably by Conquest, Beneath, then Battle. Battle for the Planet of the Apes is pretty bad but I do love the very ending with the statue.

As a child I loved the tv series too.

The Tim Burton remake was irredeemably terrible.

Anyone seen this?

The title of this film translates to something like “the bumbling ones on the plateau of the apes”; indeed the film is but one of many in the 30+ title O TRAPALHAOES saga, which can be taken to mean “pranks”, “shenanigans” or “pratfalls” – in essence, anything that isn’t helping. Starring legendary Brazilian comedians Dedé Santana, Mussum and Didi Mocó, O TRAPALHAO NO PLANALTO DOS MACACOS’ is a surprisingly earnest (and indefatigably goofy) recreation of the original PLANET, wherein a band of idiot heroes end up “liberating” a simian populace that hates them – save for one comely philosopher-queen chimpanzee...

http://www.spectacletheater.com/missing-links/#otrap

The first film premiered in New York 50 years ago today.

Rod Serling's original draft, which featured the Pierre Boulle book's modern ape civilization (and no doubt even more Cold War liberal speechifying), is being adapted for a graphic novel.

http://www.slashfilm.com/rod-serling-planet-of-the-apes-script-graphic-novel/

the 70s series is a treat.

the newest one is good but taking 300+ years after Caesar's death makes me question the plausibility of a lot of what the humans do.

i keep reading these long articles about how amazing the trilogy is before the new one. and also the new one. who knew? the cgi ape faces just looked so dumb in ads and trailers to me i figured they were like nu-kong or any other new okay-to-bad reboot. now i have to watch them? i was always a fan of those originals. even the really bad last one from 1973 or whenever.
like, they are calling them classic epic sci-fi! i didn't get the memo. they are on disney+ except for the new one. maybe i will try them.

I found them enjoyable but find the 70s ones deserved more love.

watching Conquest of the Planet of the Apes rn. amazing that in 18 short years they've enslaved apes and are still paranoid of one singular talking ape toppling them all. some real John Connor shit here

was quite a bit prescient about how labor would be devalued by capitalism in the 21st century though

Hated all three of the recent movies. The CGI apes looked terrible at all times, and even worse than that, the first one had James Franco in it. I still love the first two and the fourth from the original series, though. The second one, when the mutants peel their faces off, was a primal childhood terror moment for me.

Caesar from 70s movies > Caesar of new trilogy

Nu-Caesar is a watered down revolutionary meant to appease to centrist audiences, 70s Caesar basically a Fred Hampton style revolutionary

why are people stanning so hard in, like, WaPo and NYT for the new ones?? they are think-pieces even! are they in cahoots with big ape?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/movies/2024/05/10/kingdom-planet-apes-greatest-franchise/

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/15/movies/planet-of-the-apes-appeal.html?searchResultPosition=1

I remember loving the Planet of the Apes TV show marathons that WGN ran over a few evenings when I was a kid. They did some with the old Flash Gordon serials too.

i must have seen those original films dozens of times over the years when i was a kid. they played them a lot. i never got tired of them.

I didn't know this until tonight, because I have an old DVD set of the first five movies from 2006, but in 2008 they put out a Blu-Ray of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes that includes the original ending where Caesar lets the other apes murder the humans. I'm gonna buy one on eBay.

The CGI apes looked terrible at all times

Really? I think this still looks brilliant

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MB4XrhYLQ4A

Somewhat off-topic but the comedian Dana Gould's Hanging With Dr. Z. schtick in which he portrays Dr. Zaius as a gossipy gadfly of Old Hollywood cracks me up.

I really like the new series. as far as ongoing 'franchise' sf films it's probably the best one outside of Dune.

i've now seen all ten ape movies and I enjoy them all...to varying degrees....except for the Burton one, fuck that one.

oh and Battle for the Planet of the Apes really sucks

Kingdom is pretty good but obviously not as good as the 2017 reboot kickoff or Dawn. I think maybe I like it as much as the last one but I'm actually a little fuzzy on that film.

I am a little bleery as to how equipment that has stayed unused and dormant for over 300 years magically still works when booted up, i.e. the satellites at the end

yeah that's the sort of inanity you sometimes just have to go with

one thing that bugged me: given how many fucking guns there are in this country, you'd think they would still be around and plentiful even 300 years in the future.

cyrus and i watched the first two of the new trilogy last night. gonna watch War tonight or tomorrow. we liked them. you get used to the weird look of all the apes. it is its own reality. cool action scenes. i will never get used to that impossibly-fast-movement thing of CGI though. where everyone scrambles up a building in two seconds. i liked that final battle on the building in the second one. all the metal flying everywhere. it looked cool. can imagine it being very cool on a big screen.

War's really good.

what I appreciate the most about the new one is the obvious allegory to early Christianity, where in the mere 300 years after Caesar died, he's been forgotten by some, fondly remembered by a few, wildly misinterpreted by most

i should rewatch War.

there was every reason this one could have really sucked (no Matt Reeves, no Andy Serkis) and I'm glad it didn't, even if some of it seemed like a slight rehash. I don't suppose we'll ever get some weirdo remake of Escape from in this series.

One.can dream

No monkey sex scenes in this one, I know, I’m disappointed too

i loved the other three remakes a lot but i found Kingdom to be a total snorefest. i turned it off after an hour of eggs and birds and whatever the fuck zz

I liked the first two, despite James Franco, but then gave up less than halfway through the third one because I didn't really want to look at extended scenes of apes keeping each other in POW camps, thanks. But I quite liked the recent one. Once it got to the point, it clipped along pretty well.

yeah but the new one is like 50% apes keeps each other in POW camps

keeping

Maybe I'm a much meaner person now.

I bought the Blu-Ray of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes that I mentioned upthread and the ape revolution ending is fucking amazing. Apes piling up pyramids of dead cops in the street! Zero conciliation from Caesar! It's fantastic. Highly recommended.

i liked the first three remakes but have no desire to watch the newest one for some reason even though it stares at me from hulu every day. maybe i've had enough. that remake trilogy though, really surprised by how entertaining they were. i think i just assumed they would be lame.

I thought it was a cool idea that the bad apes were worshipers of Caesar

yeah the allegory there was...quite blunt