I finally saw all of the "Planet of the Apes" movies recently and really enjoyed them, though some more than others. The reboot era has been fun, but I prefer the original five films for their thoughtfulness, their daring, and their willingness to occasionally get very silly. I may do a ranking of the reboot series some time in the future, but I expect it would be difficult to do a ranking of all the films together, because there's such a difference between the ones made in the '60s-'70s and the ones made after 2010. And I try not to think about the Tim Burton movie.
From best to least, here are my rankings of the original "Planet of the Apes" film series.
Planet of the Apes (1968) - The undisputed classic. The twist ending, created by Rod Serling, gets all the press, but there are so many great visuals and interesting ideas in play here. Even the early scenes of the three astronauts exploring the planet are engrossing, and the shock of the sight of a gorilla on horseback is just the prelude to the disturbing revelations we'll learn about the ape civilization. The makeup and prosthetics work is still impressive to this day, and ironically I feel it's Charlton Heston's performance which has aged the most poorly. Taylor comes across as so arrogant and unlikeable, it's hard to sympathize with him at times.
Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971) - This is my favorite of the "Apes" sequels because it promotes Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zira (Kim Hunter) to leads, and they're easily my favorite characters of the series. Inverting the original premise, the intelligent apes are brought back in time to Earth in 1973, where the truth about them is gradually revealed. There's a lot of humor and a lot of wit on display as the writing pokes fun at American society and the pompous men in charge. However, the ending is harrowing stuff, a pointed piece of social commentary that perfectly leads into the next installment of the series.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) - McDowall returns to play Caesar, the chimpanzee revolutionary in a then-future 1983 where chimps are a subjugated underclass and the human government is a Fascist police state. The fourth film in the series, the budget was pretty meager by this point, but the filmmakers were still able to put together a pretty impressive dystopia, and a climactic ending where the apes organize, militarize, and finally overthrow their masters. "Conquest" originally had a more violent ending, which was toned down, and has the most direct parallels to the ongoing racial unrest of the era.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) - The last of the original "Planet of the Apes" movies is often counted as the worst, but the premise is decent and at it least moves the franchise into a different time period and status quo. Caesar putting down a challenge to his leadership, while facing a new human threat, could have been handled better, but the themes and conflicts are a natural extension of what we saw in the previous films - and greatly informed the reboot series. I think the film's biggest blunder is having Paul Williams and John Huston in what are essentially celebrity cameos, which breaks some of the immersion.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) - I like the cinematography and some of the action sequences, but subbing in James Franciscus for Charlton Heston and retreading so much of the original's story makes this sequel feel derivative in the extreme. I respect the downer ending, even though it meant writing the franchise into a narrative dead end, but the goofy mutant cult was a bad idea, and the execution has aged particularly badly. It's nice to have a few scenes with Cornelius and Zira, but otherwise this is the least interesting installment of the "Apes" franchise.
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