Why I love Planet of the Apes

Hello Readers, I’m sorry I didn’t post on Monday like I promised, but it was Memorial Day, and I had my hands full celebrating with friends and family. I Promise that next week will be on schedule.

I love the Planet of the Apes franchise. I’ve seen all the movies. I wouldn’t say I’m an expert by any means, but I know a fair bit about it. I was wondering why this franchise is so striking to me and what makes it so appealing. I first started liking the apes in the 2011 film. I didn’t get to watch the movie when it first came out because I was ten at the time, and it was a PG-13, and I wasn’t that interested in the movie. I can’t tell you when I first watched it. It was probably playing on some TV channel interrupted by commercials and all that. And I liked the movie, it was good. But I wasn’t Obsessed with it. The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes came out, and I was in love. The construction of the ape society and the high drama with characters that could barely speak it was amazing.

Now, the vision of an Ape Planet floated in my head. I liked it so much because it explored a simple idea to the greatest extent. It was, “Okay, we have a planet with intelligent apes. What does that look like?” It gave us something that wasn’t human and let us connect with and explore the world. From then on I have been fascinated with taking ideas and exploring them as much as possible. I started imagining how else this ape world might develop and grow.

But my love for the Apes movies stagnated. I liked War for the Planet of the Apes, but it just didn’t move me like the first did. For years, I didn’t really care about the Apes movies. I liked them, and I would occasionally do a rewatch, but I didn’t think about them much. Then, one night, while hanging out with my friends, we watched the first movie for laughs and giggles. I knew most of the main beats. You can’t really get through life without it being spoiled for you at some point. But knowing the ending didn’t hamper my enjoyment of it in the least. It was what I loved about Rise all over again, seeing the full exploration of the concept, but it had a different conclusion.

               Then I kept thinking about it and talking about it with my friends. Honestly, that is what cements me into loving something is when I keep talking about it, and people listen. I now own all the movies. I’ve seen them all, and I’ve loved them all. I might talk about what I think about them later, but this post is just about what I love about the franchise as a whole. I think that there are three things that I really love about it. These reasons are equal really and I think if other series share these things I will probably like them.

               I love a high concept and the exploration of it. It’s a reason I don’t watch or read stuff that takes place in the real world because the concept, to me, just isn’t that appealing. This is a problem on my side, which I’m trying to change by reading more nonfiction. But if a story has a high concept, I am immediately more interested and more likely to like it. So, Planet of the Apes obviously has it. But if it has too many high concepts introduced too quickly, I log out. I call this a buy. I can buy a world with vampires, but I can’t buy a world with vampires and aliens. I think there are plenty of stories like this where they start to include more than one connected concept, and soon the audience isn’t likely to buy it. However, after some time, a story can offer you another buy. For example, if the Disney Spider-Man movies introduced the multiverse in the first movie, we wouldn’t buy it, but since it’s the third movie, we can buy it. There are also associated buys. If there is a world with vampires, we can also buy that there are werewolves because we have seen movies with vampires and werewolves. Planet of the Apes has time travel, space travel, mutants, and intelligent apes, which is a lot of buys, and if you told me that a series introduced four buys, I would be weary, but a lot of these are associated buys. Space travel and time travel are associated, and since it is future travel, the other two can be added to the four-for-one deal.

               Dramatic characters. I am a sucker for monologues, tragic stories, and dramatic faces. The fact that this was pulled off with CGI characters is astounding to me. Andy Circus is an extraordinary actor, and the people at Weta Digital did an incredible job. I also find that there has been a decrease in this high drama recently, especially in comic book movies. As I read more and more comics, it becomes obvious that these characters are being drawn from very dramatic characters who monologue and have tragic stories and do dramatic stuff. Comic book movies today are too afraid to be serious movies to deal with real stuff. They’re too busy cutting themselves down with bad humor and preventing the director's vision from being fulfilled. Planet of the Apes isn’t afraid of what it is and sharing it.

               The final thing I love about these movies is that they are malleable. When people hear that there is going to be a new Planet of the Apes movie, we don’t know what we are going to get in a good way. I think the best-lasting franchises are like this, where you just need the basic elements of the world, but the story can be anything the creators want. Which is the best thing you can do when you are world-building.

               So yeah, I love The Planet of the Apes.