It's Andy Fish!

Q- I was interested in your opinion on STAR TREK– like you I can’t get into any of the convoluted universe’s of the sequels and spin-offs. What’s your feel on PLANET OF THE APES? I’m guessing from your bio we’re around the same age, so surely you were into this series as well.

A- First, wow that is quite a poster isn’t it? They don’t make ’em like that anymore.

I was a giant APES Fan as a kid, loved the original five films. As an adult they all hold up to different levels but my favorites remain the first two- PLANET OF THE APES (1968) and BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES (1970).

The original is a genuine classic, the first sequel is more B-Movie but it’s a lot of fun and very well done plus it features my favorite character in the entire series, General Ursus paired with Dr Zaius.

The rest of the original sequels are a little bit of a mixed bag, but all of them are entertaining.

A TV Series followed the original series and aired on CBS-TV in the Fall of 1974– I know I was excited but then they put it up against SANFORD & SON and even an eight year old kid knew that show was funny- so I’d tune in for the second half. The show got lousy ratings and was cancelled after 14 episodes which is a shame because the producers were working on ways to get the ratings up– first by bringing in Star Trek’s Gene Roddenberry and then to consider changing the series setting back to 3955 so they can bring back popular characters from the original films like Zira and Cornelius but CBS cancelled before these changes could be made.

It’s a shame because its a solid show if not a bit confusing to a kid– first of all every human could talk– the explanation given today is that its set 100 years past BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES which was the final film in the original series where humans could talk, but then one of the characters in the show was Dr Zaius who was in the first two films so that didn’t make sense. Today it’s explained in some of the APES Wiki pages that this was a descendent of the original Zaius, but back in 1974 without the internet there was no way to know this.

The show was arguably better than the final three sequels, but the plots were repetitive usually finding one of the protagonists captured and the other two figuring out ways to free them.

After that was a cartoon series on Saturday mornings which featured some stylish animation but once again confusion reigned as the apes now drove cars and helicopters (something that was in the original books but to a kid in 1975 who’d never read the books it didn’t make any sense). The action was limited and the show was pretty slow paced and it too only lasted one season.

I’d neglected to mention back in the STAR TREK post that I liked the animated series that followed the original show– so in the case of the APES series I was onboard with other adaptions up to this animated version.

Then along came Tim Burton and the less said about that movie the better. I’ll give him this; at least he opted to use ape makeup on real actors like the originals, because after that came the series follow up which was essentially a reboot but now with all CGI Apes who looked more realistic but lacked the character of the originals as well as the charm.

I’ve not really given them much of a chance but I own them and I plan to watch them eventually.

So to answer your question– I still prefer the originals to any follow ups (and by originals I mean 1968-1975) but I won’t rule out the possibility of the CGI films being good despite my utter disdain for the method.