Multi-part review of the Classic "Planet of the Apes" films (1968-1973) on Blu-ray (2 Viewers)

[BobO'Link]

I have the big blu-ray set from ages ago. Personally I would love to see the first movie on 4k. It's a time-honored classic and deserves the royal treatment. But the rest are just...sequels. And don't have a lot of replay-ability for me, and sounds like a lot of other forum members.

We'll see what happens. The movies are from Fox, therefore Disney, therefore...Sony?

No Sony... they just do manufacturing/distribution. Disney will still decide *what* gets releases so, essentially, nothing's truly changed. I'd not look for/expect any Fox titles outside Star Wars or MCU.

I've seen the first three films. The first is pretty good. I just wish it had a bigger budget to more convincingly carry out its ambitions. The second is like a slightly less competent retread of the first, but does have an exciting climax. I didn't care much for the third - feels less scifi and more like a fish out of water comedy like Star Trek IV or Crocodile Dundee.

I'm disheartened to read the negative assessment of Conquest, because the chance to watch the start of the ape revolt and the crumbling of human civilization sounds really interesting.

IMHO, Conquest is little more than a below average made-for-TV movie of those years. It's pretty bad.

 

[Walter P. Thatcher]

I've read that Rod Serling devised the twist ending of the 1968 POTA a la "Twilight Zone" while eating at a diner that was decorated with Statue of Liberty wallpaper. This ending was helpful because the proposed film budget could not adequately create the Ape world that Boulle described in his source novel which is very different from the finished movie. Boulle's Ape world was not Earth but an entirely different planet in which evolution took a different path. I think even in 1968 20th Century-Fox suffered poor fiscal health because of the financial drain of CLEOPATRA, so a primitive looking Ape world was cheaper to film. I think the expensive ape prosthetics by John Chambers were an exception that survived the cost-effective production design. The producer, APJAC (Arthur P. Jacobs), had budget overruns on the film made just before POTA, DOCTOR DOLITTLE, which I think affected the studio's monitoring the budget. Ironically (?) the success of the 1968 POTA came as a surprise to the studio. Even so, the budgets were skimpier in the latter films, which used very few Chambers style articulated masks. Most background actors wear pullover masks. Aside from Heston not really wanting to make any sequel, Roddy McDowall didn't reprise his role in the first sequel, but was "convinced" to return for the rest of the series, and the TV series. Natalie Trundy was married to Jacobs, and Linda Harrison (Nova) was soon to become Richard Zanuck's second wife, which explains Trundy's and Harrison's appearances in the original movies.