At the beginning of the year we listed Dawn of the Planet of the Apes as one of the movies to see in 2014. The Planet of the Apes is as classic a sci-fi franchise as you can find. Written by Pierre Boulle, who also wrote Bridge Over the River Kwai, the original novel is a great read, and the subsequent novels are fun reads, too, including Battle for the Planet of the Apes by David Gerrold.
It seems incredible that this franchise keeps churning out new movies. What makes readers and movie-watchers keep coming back for more? Is it because we feel so close to our biped cousins of the animal kingdom? Is it because we just completely dig seeing apes riding horseback?
The newest film, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, is the tenth visual incarnation of the apes outsmarting humans story, following the classic original, Charlton Heston’s Planet of the Apes (1968), Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), Ricardo Montalban’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), Planet of the Apes (TV series with Mark Lenard) (1974), Return to the Planet of the Apes (animated) (1975), Mark Wahlberg’s Planet of the Apes (2001 remake), and James Franco’s Rise of the Planet of the Apes (2011 reboot).
