The domestication of War for the Planet of the Apes

What was lost when the Planet of the Apes series got good

War for the Planet of the Apes.

The original Planet of the Apes series was a franchise before the Age of Franchises. During its five-year run, a new film appeared almost annually from 1968 through 1973, and, as was typical in their time period, the sequels became progressively cheaper and hastier to produce. By contrast, the new Apes series, which comes to a conclusion this week with War for the Planet of the Apes, is a statelier affair: The special effects that bring the ape characters to life get even more detailed, convincing, and gorgeous; the ongoing story deepens and expands; and the reviews get better and better.

Yet this new Apes trilogy very much takes its cues from two of the cheaper and less well-regarded earlier entries: 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (part four), and 1973's Battle for the Planet of the Apes (part five). It's a canny mining of the series' past that avoids remaking the classic 1968 original. Tim Burton did a kinda-sorta remake back in 2001 that made a lot of money and frustrated a lot of moviegoers, sending the series into a 10-year stasis before Fox started over with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. The new movies resemble prequels, but they aren't intended to lead into the 1968 film. They're more like prequels building toward a remake that hasn't yet been made (and hopefully doesn't need to be).

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Jesse Hassenger

Jesse Hassenger's film and culture criticism has appeared in The Onion's A.V. Club, Brooklyn Magazine, and Men's Journal online, among others. He lives in Brooklyn, where he also writes fiction, edits textbooks, and helps run SportsAlcohol.com, a pop culture blog and podcast.