FRANCHISE ME: PLANET OF THE APES

Great write up man.

I showed this flick to my wife recently (who had somehow never seen it), she loved the hell out of it.  Bizarrely though she telegraphed the twist at the end not through any great leap of logic, but because she had seen Spaceballs.

Your final shot is of Nova from Beneath, where for my money she's exponentially sexier and less prone to retard-girl criticisms.

I agree. For one thing, her hair is amazing in BENEATH.

It's actually kind of impressive that they got the same actress back for the part.  Continuity wasn't exactly a prime consideration in those days...

Josh, I remember seeing an interview with Dick Zanuck years ago where he claimed that Planet of the Apes was basically (as he put it) "the forerunner of the sequel trend" (i.e., a sequel to a high-grossing movie wasn't necessarily a foregone conclusion back in the pre-Apes days, I guess).  Do you plan on addressing that in your review of the franchise at all?

From what I recall, the 1998 AMC documentary and the book Planet of the Apes Revisited (both of which are excellent) bring up the "sequel-trend" thing, with Zanuck having some comments regarding the Apes series' "parentage" of future mega-franchises like Star Wars.

In those days, other than the James Bond flicks, there weren't too many genre franchises getting pumped out by the major studios on a regular basis, much less retaining as many of the behind-the-scenes creative personnel as the Apes franchise actually managed to do.

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Originally Posted by TonyB79 

It's actually kind of impressive that they got the same actress back for the part.  Continuity wasn't exactly a prime consideration in those days...

Linda Harrison was dating the head of the studio at the time. That was primarily why she got the job and why they got her back for the sequel. Or at least that's what they said in the Planet of the Apes Revisited book.

I'll have to look into this birth of the sequels claim. But that doesn't really make any sense to me. Franchises had been well and alive for decades by that point. The THIN MAN series. THE SAINT series predated Bond. All the Universal Monsters' franchises. Charlie Chan. The Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series. Etc, etc, etc.

I must say I find your flippant dismissal of the novel's brilliant ending to be in poor taste.

Yup!

More than any thing, I just love the first third of the movie before Heston even meet any apes. The Lake Powell scenery is absolutely beautiful and Heston hamming it up is just so much fun to watch.

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Originally Posted by Phil 

Your final shot is of Nova from Beneath, where for my money she's exponentially sexier and less prone to retard-girl criticisms.

My brother watched this the other day, pretty much for the first time, and his only complaint about the film was the character of Nova and her portrayal.  I told him he'd be a lot happier with her in Beneath.  BTW, he has been following the Franchise Me articles, just as I have.  He was already acquainted with most of the previous franchises, but had previously only seen the Burton remake of Apes.  Your series of articles (along with the impending new entry to the series) have inspired him to delve into this franchise.  Congratulations sir!  I thank you!

Also, this is the first time in this series of articles that I can actually watch along with you from start to finish.  While I own all four Phantasm films, a couple of them were loaned out while you were covering them.  I haven't actually watched either TV show from start to finish, so I'm looking forward to exploring them with you.  Now if you will excuse me, I'm off to watch the first two Apes so that I can catch up....

I'd also like to make a request.  I'm sure you were planning on doing it this way anyway, but when you review Rise of the Planet of the Apes........................PLEASE do it as a Franchise Me article and in the same style.  I love the format and am looking forward to seeing you cover the new entry in such a way.

Keep up the excellent work, Josh!

Great write-up to a film that I love.  This, the first, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes have always been my favorites.  Looking forward to reading the rest the entries!  (Especially anxious to see what you have to say about the third entry.)

Planet is an all time classic but I also admire Beneath for it's nihilistic ending.

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Originally Posted by Joshua Miller 

I'll have to look into this birth of the sequels claim. But that doesn't really make any sense to me. Franchises had been well and alive for decades by that point. The THIN MAN series. THE SAINT series predated Bond. All the Universal Monsters' franchises. Charlie Chan. The Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series. Etc, etc, etc.

Not like there's a prize for it or anything, but I think the idea was that POTA was a rare (at the time) example of an A-list film that was made as a standalone picture, with no specific intention of creating a franchise, spawning a sequel (and series). And POTA was arguably the first such film made outside the financial and logistical security of the old studio system.

Of the list you cite, probably only The Thin Man would fall into the same category, as most of the others were adapted from source material that were series already; and maybe the Universal monster films, though I don't know how many of those sequels would have qualified as "major" releases.

As for POTA itself, I was 13 when it opened, and I saw it at a huge domed theatre, and it just floored me. Interestingly, I ran across it on cable again the other night, and watched it for the first time in many years and was pleased just how well it holds up; in particular (as the article cites), the amazing score, and Heston's portrayal of Taylor as an absolute prick.

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

I must say I find your flippant dismissal of the novel's brilliant ending to be in poor taste.

I suspect it must work better in the original French, though, because when I read it (granted, after having seen the movie), it just felt like a bad one-liner.

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Originally Posted by Joshua Miller 

I'll have to look into this birth of the sequels claim. But that doesn't really make any sense to me. Franchises had been well and alive for decades by that point. The THIN MAN series. THE SAINT series predated Bond. All the Universal Monsters' franchises. Charlie Chan. The Rathbone Sherlock Holmes series. Etc, etc, etc.

This is what I was getting at -- other than Bond, the Apes flicks are still largely considered to be the first "modern-day" studio tentpole franchise in history (coming many decades after The Thin Man, Sherlock Holmes, etc.). Big-budget SF studio movie franchises weren't really all that commonplace back in the late '60s.

It's highly amusing when you watch the documentaries or read the behind-the-scenes books, regarding the utter lack of sequel-planning with the original, and the mental gymnastics Arthur Jacobs and Paul Dehn had to put themselves through to make the series (retroactively) sequel-friendly. Yet, most of what they came up with for films 3-5 still holds up quite strongly today.

And it's probably no coincidence that James Cameron would not only adopt the series' whole "time-loop" conceit for his Terminator films, but would also damn-near reboot the Apes franchise for Fox himself back in the mid-'90s.

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Originally Posted by Sebastian OB 

I must say I find your flippant dismissal of the novel's brilliant ending to be in poor taste.

I must say I find the novel's flippant ending a brilliant dismissal of my poor taste... wait... uh... shut up.
 

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Originally Posted by S.D. Bob Plissken 

I'd also like to make a request.  I'm sure you were planning on doing it this way anyway, but when you review Rise of the Planet of the Apes........................PLEASE do it as a Franchise Me article and in the same style.  I love the format and am looking forward to seeing you cover the new entry in such a way.

 

Keep up the excellent work, Josh!

 

Yup. That's the plan!

 

 

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Originally Posted by Jeb 

Not like there's a prize for it or anything, but I think the idea was that POTA was a rare (at the time) example of an A-list film that was made as a standalone picture, with no specific intention of creating a franchise, spawning a sequel (and series). And POTA was arguably the first such film made outside the financial and logistical security of the old studio system.

 

Of the list you cite, probably only The Thin Man would fall into the same category, as most of the others were adapted from source material that were series already; and maybe the Universal monster films, though I don't know how many of those sequels would have qualified as "major" releases.

 

As for POTA itself, I was 13 when it opened, and I saw it at a huge domed theatre, and it just floored me. Interestingly, I ran across it on cable again the other night, and watched it for the first time in many years and was pleased just how well it holds up; in particular (as the article cites), the amazing score, and Heston's portrayal of Taylor as an absolute prick.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Leto II 

This is what I was getting at -- other than Bond, the Apes flicks are still largely considered to be the first "modern-day" studio tentpole franchise in history (coming many decades after The Thin Man, Sherlock Holmes, etc.). Big-budget SF studio movie franchises weren't really all that commonplace back in the late '60s.

 

Well, Bond doesn't really work in this area either, if films based on book series don't count. But rethinking the APES peeps' statements, I think that possibly APES re-ignited sequels. This was after all the post-television era, and TV really killed the need for endless film series and serials.

Quote:

Originally Posted by S.D. Bob Plissken 

I'd also like to make a request.  I'm sure you were planning on doing it this way anyway, but when you review Rise of the Planet of the Apes........................PLEASE do it as a Franchise Me article and in the same style. 

But you can only do it after writing up the live action series, the cartoon, the weird "Old-age chimp" intros McDowall filmed for the live-action re-edits into tv movies, and the Burton film.
 

It's all happening Phillip. It's all happening.

Don't punk out, Miller. This shit right here? ARTICLE.

Zira...............the WOMAN scientist.  Haha!

Also, never knew that Galen was supposed to be Caesar's son?!?!?!
 

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Originally Posted by Phil 

 

....the weird "Old-age chimp" intros McDowall filmed for the live-action re-edits into tv movies...

 

Say what?!?!?
 

Galen's not Caesar's son. I think the TV series is set before the movie (not that anyone was hung up on continuity). 

Onion did a retrospective today:

http://www.avclub.com/philadelphia/articles/the-original-planet-of-the-apes-films,59154/

Found the videos:

http://potatv.kassidyrae.com/Aged_Galen.wmv

I didn't even know the ending to the novel until I read this article, and i have to say it really appeals to my love of the absurd. It also is kind of similar to Burton's ending, which raises the question: if Burton was looking at the book for inspiration, why did he choose to "ape" the original film in regards to the ape's primitive society?

He didn't, really. Burton aped the tv series, where the humans are just downtrodden dimwits. And doing a riff on the original novel's ending would have been one thing; he created a nonsensical finale where Ape Time Roth somehow got to earth's past and effed up Earth's timeline.

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Originally Posted by Phil 

Galen's not Caesar's son. I think the TV series is set before the movie (not that anyone was hung up on continuity). 

 

Onion did a retrospective today:

 

http://www.avclub.com/philadelphia/articles/the-original-planet-of-the-apes-films,59154/

While obviously not canon, I'm pretty damn sure that the toy ad that you posted referred to Galen as the grandson of Cornelius........................which could presumably make Galen the second son of Caesar.  Who knows really, considering how the timeline was altered by the events in Escape.

As for where the TV show fits, I always viewed it as taking place after Battle..........considering humans are at least somewhat smarter than they were in the "original" timeline.  Maybe Caesar was overthrown and what resulted was a society slightly more tolerant of humans than the original one that Taylor encountered?  With Galen sent into hiding as a baby, perhaps?
 

Timeline-wise, it's all right there in the TV show's opening credits, re: the exact year -- 3075 A.D. for the show; 3985 A.D. for the Heston film. This works pretty well in explaining away the "smarter" humans, by taking place centuries before they completely lost their intelligence.

Interestingly, during the episode where the two astronauts venture into the underground San Francisco ruins, a 26th Century advertisement on a BART tunnel wall seems to place the show in the "original," pre-Caesar timeline, with the ape rebellion taking place far later into the future at that point.

Got nothing to add, just wanted to say that you're doing an incredible job with these, Joshua. I always look forward to more.

Love these films.

Which version of Conquest are you going watch?  I've gotten quite attached to the darker, more final edit that's on the Blu-ray.

Agreed. After watching the new cut, the original ending just sticks out so bad. Roddy McDowall's added dub sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom. 

I just realized that the reason I can't take Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes seriously is because despite the evidently terrific cast and production values, I'm unable to view it as anything but a very polished Chimpanzee Holocaust.   Thanks a lot, Josh.

Also, I'm inordinately bothered by a title that has both "of" and "the" in it twice.  And without even a colon to break things up.  Plus, how does a planet of something "rise" anyway?  I mean all planets sort of rise every day, if you...ah, never mind.

Blame the series for that. Conquest OF THE Planet OF THE Apes. 

To be fair, there was an attempt to conquer the Planet of the Apes. 

As fantastic as the CGI looks in the trailers and spots for Rise, I still wish they had gone practical with make-up and prosthetic effects.  Hell, the make-up in the Burton remake was absolutely stellar and is practically the only thing about that film that is perfect.

Yeah, but they never looked like real apes.  As awesome as Tim Roth looked, would you buy him in that get-up as Caesar who's played as an actual chimp?

Every Ape movie except the first has had two prepositions in it.

Josh, the criticisms about the amount of time spent retreading stuff in Beneath is valid, but has to be metered against the context of when the films were released. No home video, they hadn't aired on TV yet - everyone who saw Beneath hadn't seen an Apes movie in two years. And as has been mentioned, these sequels were mostly G-rated affairs increasingly aimed at kids, not obsessive adult nerds who knew their Ape mythology up and down. There are whole (and increasingly warranted0 scenes in every sequel re-explaining the shit out of what's come before. Or about to happen. Time travel's a motherfucker.

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Originally Posted by Phil 

Every Ape movie except the first has had two prepositions in it.

 

Josh, the criticisms about the amount of time spent retreading stuff in Beneath is valid, but has to be metered against the context of when the films were released. No home video, they hadn't aired on TV yet - everyone who saw Beneath hadn't seen an Apes movie in two years. And as has been mentioned, these sequels were mostly G-rated affairs increasingly aimed at kids, not obsessive adult nerds who knew their Ape mythology up and down. There are whole (and increasingly warranted0 scenes in every sequel re-explaining the shit out of what's come before. Or about to happen. Time travel's a motherfucker.

I am a fan of a good ol' fashioned recap prologue (first three FRIDAY 13 sequels, in particular). But I draw the line at actual story retread. Draw the line, I say!

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Originally Posted by The Dark Shape 

Love these films.

Which version of Conquest are you going watch?  I've gotten quite attached to the darker, more final edit that's on the Blu-ray.

This. When the BD set came out a couple years back, I watched the unrated version of Conquest for the very first time, and couldn't believe how violent and blood-soaked the last 25 or so minutes were in the original cut. Though it's incongruous with the theatrical version and the fifth film in terms of continuity, it's the only version I watch now.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil 

Every Ape movie except the first has had two prepositions in it.

 

Josh, the criticisms about the amount of time spent retreading stuff in Beneath is valid, but has to be metered against the context of when the films were released. No home video, they hadn't aired on TV yet - everyone who saw Beneath hadn't seen an Apes movie in two years. And as has been mentioned, these sequels were mostly G-rated affairs increasingly aimed at kids, not obsessive adult nerds who knew their Ape mythology up and down. There are whole (and increasingly warranted0 scenes in every sequel re-explaining the shit out of what's come before. Or about to happen. Time travel's a motherfucker.

Also this. At the very beginning of Battle, in the first five fucking minutes, no less, there's no fewer than two long-winded explanations concerning why humans are forbidden from using the word "NO" to apes any longer. As Phil points out, the early '70s were a bitch for audiences of ongoing franchises.

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Originally Posted by The Dark Shape 

Yeah, but they never looked like real apes.  As awesome as Tim Roth looked, would you buy him in that get-up as Caesar who's played as an actual chimp?

I certainly didn't have a problem with it in Conquest, so why would I have a problem with it in the new one?  Hell, you could have even used Cap-style CGI to make him look a little smaller if you wanted.  I just don't think they look as imposing (barring the gorillas) when they are all smaller than the humans.  Don't get me wrong, I am excited to see Rise.  That said, I just can't picture sequels to it with an all CG ape cast turning out well.  Who knows, Rise might very well change my opinion in that regard.  This is likely moot since I don't think it will do well enough to kickstart the franchise again, but it's still something I think about.  Push comes to shove though, I almost ALWAYS prefer practical effects over CGI in any given scenario.
 

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Originally Posted by Leto II 

Timeline-wise, it's all right there in the TV show's opening credits, re: the exact year -- 3075 A.D. for the show; 3985 A.D. for the Heston film. This works pretty well in explaining away the "smarter" humans, by taking place centuries before they completely lost their intelligence.

With the TV show taking place 900 years before the Heston film, how is the presence of Dr. Zaius accounted for?  An ancestor who happens to act the same way?  Bad writing/continuity hiccup?  Altered timeline due to the events of the preceding films?  Also, is Galen of the TV show intended to be the same character as Dr. Galen in the Heston film?  And if the TV show does take place in the altered timeline and Galen is indeed the son of Caesar, wouldn't that mean Zira is working alongside her own grandson who is actually physically older than her?

My brain hurts!!!

(Agreed...it's enough to make your brain melt.)

According to various interviews (including, from what I recall, by Rod Serling, who developed the TV show), the TV version of "Dr. Zaius" is an ancestor of the movie one, but the producers went with the name as a familiar element for the movie fans to latch onto. It still takes place centuries before the first two films, but evidently the name "Zaius" is the ape equivalent of "Steve" or "Tony."

The "Galen, grandson of Cornelius" is still messing with my head.  That means that Galen could potentially be both a descendant AND an ancestor of Cornelius and/or Zira!

I knew incest would appear in this franchise at some point...

Serling wrote two discarded scripts for the TV show, but had nothing to do with the actual series.

S.D., it's a TOY COMMERCIAL! They weren't fact checking. Galen (and Zaius) have zero connection to the film continuity. I can also find you a Mego toy commercial that explains Mr. Fantastic's super power is invisibility, and that Human Torch's power is being faster than the speed of light: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVZndY598xM

I know, but it is just fun to actually try and contemplate the possibility of it.  You gotta love time travel paradoxes and insanity!

     Quote:

Originally Posted by Phil 

Serling wrote two discarded scripts for the TV show, but had nothing to do with the actual series.

Like I mentioned, Serling developed the TV show; it was Art Wallace who took over as lead showrunner down the road, after Serling left the project. Joe Russo's book goes into some pretty good detail about the show's history, which makes for a nice contrast with the production history of the features.

(Fun trivia-factoid: The episode "The Legacy" features an 11-year-old Jackie Earle Haley as the street urchin who accompanies the astronauts during the storyline.)