h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I'm glad there's an entry on The Planet of the Apes as I am a big fan of the original and, to a lesser extent, it's follow-ups. I have a couple of suggestions, though. First off, I believe the man's name is Rod Serling (creator of The Twilight Zone). More importantly, what's here is mainly plot summary. It would be nice if there were a little more critique. Also, to make the article more complete, there could be a little more information on the original book and Tim Burton's "re-imagining," though since the original series pretty much stands on it's own apart from these, leaving them out isn't that big of a deal. More importantly, while the entry does mention the apes' treatment of humans, it seems to ignore the underlying theme of racial tension that is present throughout the series. Of course, delving deep into the complete Planet of the Apes series could be quite time-consuming and possibly produce a rather massive entry. Considering this, I think this entry is definately a good starting point, though I for one would very much like to see it expanded at some point in the future.

While I certainly don't have the nerve to try so daunting a task, I'd like to point out some of the continuity errors in the movie. If someone does feel the urge to expand on this, they may be useful.

One of the biggest leaps of logic has to do with Brent. Supposedly, he was on a rescue mission to find Taylor. The problem with this is that Taylor's ship was the first to reach light speed. Thus, according to scientific theory the ship would not return to earth for a couple of thousand years, at which time Taylor and his team would hardly have aged at all. So, if Taylor was supposed to be gone for thousands of years, why did they feel the need to send a rescue mission after so short a time? I know humans are impatient, but this feels like a bit of a stretch.

Secondly, while the first movie makes it clear that the sacred scrolls spoke of no intelligent civilization preceding the apes', in Escape, Cornelius and Zira talk about the section of the scrolls which speaks of the cat/dog virus and humans taking apes as slaves.

Also in Escape, Cornelius, Zira, and Milo are supposed to have traveled through time in Taylor's ship. At the beginning of the first movie, of course, Taylor's ship had sunken into the ocean. It seems unlikely that the apes would have the technology to find and raise such a ship. Even assuming it were possible, it is a much bigger leap of logic to believe that a small group of three apes would be able to do so. On top of this, the ship would have been much too heavy to wash onto shore naturally. Thus, a better explanation may have been that they had used Brent's ship, which was damaged but might theoretically have been repaired. Again, this is a bit of a leap in logic, but it seems more reasonable than the given explanation.

While this next point may not be a continuity error in the strictest sense, Battle ends with the possibilty of peace between apes and humans. Now, different movies tend to portray time travel in two different ways. Firstly, there is the possibilty of multiple dimensions, where someone can go back in time and change the future. The second is the sort where attempting to change the future always fails, because the past has already happened and cannot be changed. The Planet of the Apes series seems to take place in a universe where the second is true. After all, the apes take over because they were led by Caesar, who was only there, because Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo had traveled back in time. Thus, pondering the possibility of peace seems pointless as we've already seen the future and peace was not part of it.

Perhaps one of the biggest disappointments was the explanation for the apes' rise to power given in the last three movies. The original, while not explicitly saying so, seemed to insinuate that humans had ravaged the planet at war with themselves. After destroying their own civilization, the apes then would have picked up the pieces and started a new civilization to replace the one which had been destroyed by humans. This possibility is very bleak and says a lot about the nature of man. In the following films, however, it is explained that the conflict was actually started by apes. Granted, the apes only started the conflict because of their mistreatment by humans, but this is still not as effective as the ideas hinted at in the original. Despite its lack of effectiveness, however, this does not actually contradict anything, so is not really a continuity error, but it is worth mentioning.

"Also, to make the article more complete, there could be a little more information on the original book and Tim Burton's "re-imagining," though since the original series pretty much stands on it's own apart from these, leaving them out isn't that big of a deal."

You might be interested to see this entry then.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A661673

I think they should have been linked, so people didn't miss out when the work was split over more than one entry. I'll look into that.

"Also, to make the article more complete, there could be a little more information on the original book and Tim Burton's "re-imagining," though since the original series pretty much stands on it's own apart from these, leaving them out isn't that big of a deal."

You might be interested to see this entry then.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/h2g2/guide/A661673

I think they should have been linked, so people didn't miss out when the work was split over more than one entry. I'll look into that.

Very cool. Thanks for that link.

Arthbard, you beat me to it - I was going to suggest that it was "Serling" too...

Ha ha! You're pedantic punctuation was beaten by my......My ability to spell "Serling!"

yeah I just checked it is serling,

one of the reasons I wrote this entry is because there wasn't one, and the differences between the book and films interested me, at first it was just going to be the films and the book, the I had to include the tv series then I learnt about the cartoon, and it ended up much more than I had intended, since it even got split into two entries.

the thing that interested me most was the plot differences, so a entry dealing with the issues of racial tension would be good to accompany the entries, but as you say it would be a long and daunting to write.

as for the continuety errors, the problem is that they didn't account for a sequel, so it doesn't follow so well, .

the way thy uesd taylors ship to escape, is a bit sloppy, how would they get it working and such as you say.

there is a also the hole in whihc brent finds the underground station, since it was so close to the town how come it had never been discovered?

as for the end of battle, well it seems to be a paradox, in escape zira and cornelius say that apes became slaves and it was one ape that spoke and said 'no', which does happen the girl ape says no to ceasar, which could be just history taking its course which leads up to the plant being distroyed, but as ceaser has become a part of history, he averts the course of history so that the planet isn't destroyed.

The problem of how the apes came to power is because of the way it was adapted from the original novel, if the movie haddn't done quite so well there wouldn't have been a sequel, but since there was it seemed they expanded on the ideas in the book.

so there you go, a few more entries on the subject in the making...

It's also interesting that the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes was suggested by Charlton Heston, because he wanted to avoid any more sequels. After all, if there's no Planet of the Apes, how could there be another Planet of the Apes movie? I suppose when money's at stake, someone will find a way. Though, as contrived as Escape was, I must admit it's probably my favorite of the sequels.

I liked Troy McLure in "Planet of the Apes - the Musical!" on the Simpsons...

Rock Me, Doctor Zaius!

So did I.

I hate every ape I see, from chimpan-A to chimpan-Z

have tio say that i didn't care for escape so much, conquest I prefered.

I'd put Conquest in a close second (not counting the original, of course).

of course

weel we're here what did you think of the new version?

It wasn't as good as the original, but then I never really expected it to be. I enjoyed it purely as a sci-fi/action flick. One thing I liked about it was that it wasn't just a remake. A remake would have very little chance of standing up to the original, so I think it was probably a good idea to do something different that was based on the same concept. I'm still not quite sure what to make of the ending, though. I like movies with a nice, little surprise twist, but this one didn't make a lot of sense. I could buy the idea that earth had also been taken over by apes (after all, you could argue that it was just time for apes to evolve), but if this was earth, then where did the statue of General Thade come from?

the end was too fast and never made sence, i heard that he entered into a alternative universe where the apes had invaded earth, but I never got this from the film and so if thats the case then the film didn't do its job very well.

the plot wasn't up to much, its been done soo many times, but its nice to see new planet of the apes stuff, i would have liked something more entirely new though, but I did enjoy it

a remake would have been ,more than pointless,

I'll probably get the dvd when it comes out hopefully it'll explain the end a bit

I have that dvd, though I haven't had a chance to look at all of the special features and everything, so an explanation may be in there somewhere.

I've just picked up all the films on dvd and am about to spend the rest of sunday watching the lot, and not worrying too much about the timeline errors or continuity problems. It's one of the best series of films ever produced.

good for you, I got the video box set a coule of years ago I'd love the dvd version, any extra's?.

The DVD box set (the American version, anyway) has an bonus disc with the 2-hour documenary, "Behind the Planet of the Apes." Unfortunately, there's not much else besides theatrical trailers, but the documentary is good. Fairly recently, this documentary was re-released as a two-disc set, but as I don't have it (yet), I'm not sure what else is included.

I remember seeing a documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes on tv a while ago which was one of the reasons I read the book.