So get your stinking paws off me 
As a kid Planet of the Apes week was one of my favorite 4:30 Movie theme weeks. Only second to Monster Week. The movie is still great today.
“You maniacs! You blew it up!”
Now I officially feel old. I remember getting my dad to take me to see it when I was about 11. I didn’t completely understand it until later though. My favorite bit was when Taylor said, “Get your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!” I thought that was pretty funny. And I knew that Roddy McDowall played Cornelius. I remembered him as the Bookworm on Batman.
It’s a MADHOUSE!
I loved the movie as a kid, but I sure thought the astronauts were stupid to not know where they were. The whole handwaving the navigation error was stupid. Other than that, quite a fun movie.
I group it as one of the trilogy of Charleton Heston dystopian films, along with The Omega Man and Soylent “you know what it is” Green.
Still one of my favorite movies and franchises, as long as we all agree that it ended before Tim Burton. ENDED, I say.
The last scene still creeps me the hell out. The SoL kind of creeps me out anyway, and in that context it really disturbed me the first time I saw it. Not really because of the truth it revealed, but literally due to the visual. What can I say, statues freak me out.
Today I can see all the holes in the logic and whatnot, but it was really powerful to my young self and I still get a kick out of it when I run across it every so often (and still disturbed by the image of the SoL)
The remake is probably the worst movie I’ve ever seen at the theater.
How do you feel about the Spaceballs parody?
I’m probably being overcautious, but I’ll spoiler this as NVSFW.
DON’T BLINK!
whatever you do -
DON’T BLINK!
And there were originally only two movies. The Earth got blowed up real good at the second one so there obviously couldn’t be any sequels. There were no movies until the series reboot with the CGI apes began a few years ago.
Apropos of nothing, when the Disney-Fox merger happened a few weeks back, I was expecting somebody to parody that scene with large statue of Mickey Mouse. (“Damn you all to hell!”)
Great Film,
I was about 12 or 13 when I it came out, and we thought it was the coolest film, ever!!! I even read the book a few years later. The Tim Burton fiasco needs to be wiped from the history books, but I think the recent reboot franchise is pretty damn good.
The guy who wrote the book (Pierre Boulle) also wrote the book for The Bridge over the River Kwai
Brian
It’s also a really good Novel. Worth seeking out and reading.
Other sort of trivia: it’s often forgotten the movie was written by Rod Serling of Twilight Zone fame.
Who added the whole (um, spoiler alert?) “That’s the Statue of Liberty - holy shit, this is Earth!” ending.
That was Mr. Serling’s contribution.
I saw it on the giant screen when it was released and thought the ape outfits were pretty stupid, a weak movie relying on a surprise ending. But I can’t get enough of Heston in a loincloth, they ought to have a Charlton Heston in a loin cloth film festival, Ben Hur the climactic epic, of course.
Planet of the Apes lets me appreciate how bad an actor Charlton Heston was. Every actor under the ape makeup was ten times better, and they had to emote like crazy under there.
Also, as a side note, it was really convenient he ran into the Statue of Liberty at the end. What if it had been some unrecognisable thing like the O2 Arena or some anonymous skyscraper.
Or Ape-raham Lincoln sitting in his monument? Sheesh! :rolleyes::rolleyes:
Plot: astronaut doesn’t like his orang-e-tang.
Yet, they managed to turn it into a memorable movie.
I didn’t know that, but it could not be more obvious.
On July 4, 1974, a local theater showed all five of the original POTA movies, one right after the other. It started at 10:00AM and ended when? I expected it to be dark outside but it wasn’t.
I enjoyed it immensely. In addition to the regular lobby snacks the theater was selling bananas.
You and I must be almost exactly the same age. I was twelve the summer of 1967.
I disagree with your views on Heston. If his character isn’t believable then the movie fails. I now he isn’t the most subtle of actors. But he gave his all for the film including full frontal nudity (for the ape actors.)