Planet of the apes movies.

[Svengoolie 3]

Anyone ever discuss the PotA movies here?

They were  the original SF series of movies. Not too heavy on the science in any case. I mean, OK a writer kinda knew about time dilation,  but not really a lot about it.

Different people saw the movie in different ways. Many saw it as a war about what might happen after a nuclear war.

Others saw it as a racist  film warning about how apes (non whites)  would take over the human (white)  world and reduce humans (whites)  to slaves. I don't  buy this line as rod serling wrote the screen play and was pretty anti racist.

The series should have needed at film 2, because the idea of the apes salvaging a starship and launching it and time dilation working in reverse was just too much dksebelief to suspend but the audience apparently could accept it.


This was an early example of Hollywood merchandizing a movie to the gills,  with toys,  comics,  models, a tv series, a cartoon series, ad infinitum. It really helped them prepare for the stars wars craze that happened just after PotA mania ended.

Can't say a lot for the remakes. The one abortive remake scores one point for having Charlton Heston in his last role playing an ape.  OK,  I had to give it a point for that.

The next remake about a bioagent killing most humans and elevating ape intelligence,  meh. Did nothing for me.


But for a few years PotA was virtually an industry unto itself and did establish science fiction as a moneymaker at the box office and beyond.

That's mostly my take on PotA,  so what's yours?

[RCMerchant]

The first one has a nostalgic place in my heart as it was the very first film I saw in a theater.
The rest are hit and miss. BATTLE really sucked.
But I watched the TV show anyway.....

[bob]

I really, really like the original from 1968

the remake of the original from 2001 is hot garbage

I also enjoyed all the more recent Ape films

[Archivist]

The Apes movies always left a bad taste in my mouth. As a kid, the notion of suddenly being placed in a hostile environment, filled with irrational bias and prejudice, was frightening. The scene where one of the astronauts is revealed to have been rendered a semi-vegetable through brain surgery was also frightening. So perhaps the only Apes movie I liked was Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, where a group of mutated humans with mind powers fend off the apes and wipe out everyone (and themselves) with a planet busting nuclear device.

In fact, I have the comic adaptation and audio record in my collection of this film. Kind of surprising that my parents bought it for me, but they bought me comic adaptations to many film in the 70s and 80s.

[The Burgomaster]

The original is a classic. Most of the rest of the series is decent, except "Battle," which is silly and dull.

Didn't like the Tim Burton version.

I like the current franchise (although, "War for the Planet of the Apes" had a misleading title . . . it was more of a skirmish).

[RCMerchant]

I liked BENEATH, because of the mutants, and ESCAPE because of the novelty, CONQUEST-eh. BATTLE-bleh! The Tim Burton one- ARGH! The new ones- I like 'em well enough....

[Allhallowsday]

I liked BENEATH, because of the mutants, and ESCAPE because of the novelty, CONQUEST-eh. BATTLE-bleh! The Tim Burton one- ARGH! The new ones- I like 'em well enough....

I have fond memories of seeing ESCAPE in the movies.