History of the Planet of the Apes

This week’s release Rise of the Planet of the Apes has delivered on its promise to inject new life into the four decades-old franchise and bring it into the 21st century.

The franchise started life as La Planète des Singes, a science-fiction novel written by French author Pierre Boulle. La Planète des Singes was originally published in the UK as Monkey Planet, with a translation by Xan Fielding.

A thought-provoking, intelligent and satirical revolutionary take on the theory of evolution, the novel is considered a seminal classic. It was very well-received on publication, and went on to earn international recognition thanks to a film adaptation in 1968, which gave it its now better-known English name, Planet of the Apes.

The 1968 film spawned four sequels between 1970 and 1973; a 2001 remake, two short-lived TV shows – one live-action, the other animated – and this year’s ‘reboot’. Save for the latest foray, none of these lived up to the by far superior original.

Starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter, the first Planet of the Apes film tells the story of group of astronauts that crash-land on a strange planet in the distant future. The planet is inhabited by a civilisation of apes which have evolved into human-like beings of astonishing intelligence, while humans themselves are treated as lower species.

The film was a critical and commercial success, and like its source novel, is now a revered classic. It has been selected for preservation in the US National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”.

The same can’t be said of any of its sequels. Made in quick succession to cash in on the first’s success, for the most part these went down the same ignominious path of many sequels with the overall quality diminishing with the release of each one.

1970s Beneath the Planet of the Apes was about the discovery of an underground city populated by mutant humans who worship a nuclear bomb, a plot point no doubt meant to reflect the Cold War paranoia prevalent at the time.

Critics did not think much of it; but it made money, paving the way for Escape from the Planet of the Apes which was released the next year. This used ape-sized plot loopholes and time-travel shenanigans to bring back some of the main characters who apparently perished in the previous film and plant them in modern-day US.

Take three was actually pretty well-received, considering, but by the time parts four and five – Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes – came around in 1972 and 1973 critics and audiences had had enough. Time Out magazine succinctly described the former as “dismally lurid stuff, ham-fistedly directed and low on credibility”; while Roger Ebert seems to have summed up the overall reaction to the fifth and final entry – in this series at least – when he said that “anyone who hasn’t had enough apes after the first four in the series has probably, by now, gone ape all by himself”.

Evidently, it wasn’t enough. The franchise made its bow on the small screen with both a live-action and animated series in 1974 and 1975 respectively, and yet neither could muster enough interest to last beyond one season.

Storylines exhausted, the franchise seemed to have finally been laid to rest, until the late 1980s, when 20th Century Fox, the studio behind all the previous films, began to develop a remake. Many writers, directors and actors were attached at various stages until finally filming began on a script by William Broyles Jr, Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal under the direction of Tim Burton with Mark Wahlberg and Helena Bonham Carter headlining.

Although the ‘reimagined’ Planet of the Apes was a commercial success, earning $362 million worldwide, critical reaction was mixed, the consensus on Rotten Tomatoes being that it “can’t compare to the original in some critics’ mind, but the striking visuals and B-movie charms may win you over.”

Burton’s ambiguous ending and the box office success screamed sequel, but this never happened until pre-production on Rise of the Planet of the Apes.

Taking as its source elements from Conquest – although the producers are at pains to point out it is not a remake – Rise is completely an origin story, which explores the point at which the relationship between man and primates went completely awry, bringing the story full circle... and heralding the start of a new franchise.