Click on the image or this link to view video.
The Planet of the Apes films have to be one of the single greatest film franchises ever. Out of the five films made, all but one were solid and compelling in their own way (that one being the last, Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)). Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) was a favorite amongst critics, but outside of the original, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) is certainly next in line for me. The whole theme of revolution and Caesar a prodigy of the future—which is actually a continuation of the plot line of Escape from the Planet of the Apes—witnessing his fellow apes abused and enslaved is nothing short of genius. Caesar ultimately incites a rebellion in which the apes over power their human oppressors marking the moment when the shift in earth’s dominant species from human to ape begins. You gotta love that, and you also have to love the depiction of humans as fascists and racists—in many ways it is a terribly violent and misanthropic film.
You will get a sense of both the violence and fascism in the scene linked to above, wherein Caesar (Roddy McDowall) actually speak in public for the first time after being outraged by the brutal treatment of a fellow ape at the hands of humans. His “lousy human bastards” is a throwback and inversion of Heston’s “damned dirty apes” line. And, as an aside, it must be said that Ricardo Montalban was made for this role, he plays the perfect compassionate human. The evolution of this series is really brilliant, and watching Cornelius training and mobilizing the other apes is brilliant—and when they get armed and revolt, I was nothing but transfixed. One other thing I really enjoy about Conquest is the way it uses the built environment of Los Angeles to convey a very convincing and memorable futuristic set. Most of the outside scenes were shot in LA’s Century City Mall, which is featured nicely in the above clip, highlighting the ubiquitous stairways of this outside mall leading from store to store. Pretty remarkable these used an LA mall to frame the dystopic/fascist vision of the future. Conquest may possibly be the best sequel in terms of plot, action, and horrific subtext that may be the only other film in the series that comes even remotely close to the genius of the original.
Oh man, I was such an PotA fan (I just made up the acronym). Escape was always my favorite, but nothing could really replace the first viewing of the original for the surprise factor.
The endorphins form the flashback are blinding me!
I never saw the movies until about 1997, but was super-hooked. I do recall kids playing with PotA action figures (not dolls, nosirree) back in the ’70s, though.
Another place some of the scenes were filmed was UC Irvine, or at least according to UCI they were. Funny, considering that one idea is that the campus was explicitly designed (during the ’60s) to discourage mass organized gatherings.
IMO, the flicks get better as they move away from the Heston one, but that’s not to say that Chuck doesn’t do his usual fantastic job.
@Cogdog,
I agree the first is the first, it is like Star Wars in that way, I loved Empire and it may even be a better movie, but it’s not because it didn’t start the fire in my belly!
@Tk,
I have to agree with you, Escape and Conquest are great films on their own, but the intertextuality of all of them is another really strong point of the franchise, along with the fact that they didn’t make people wait years on end. It was 1970, 71, 72, 73 for those four sequels and the story held together pretty tightly through most of them despite how rushed they were.
As another note: I conflated Cornelius with Caesar in the first draft of this post and have corrected it, how come Roddy McDowall had to play every chimp? It confuses a simple mind like mine.
I need a squeegee to get rid of those flashback endorphins, @cogdog.
I was a huge fan as a kid. Saw every movie, watched every episode of the tv show, had a bunch of figures, read Boulle’s novel. _Beneath_ is the one that terrified me the most, between the mutant faces and that apocalyptic finale.