Double Review - Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Since I may be seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in a couple of days I decided to do some preparation. Seeing as the Tim Burton film is trash and not even considered "canon" I decided to watch the two films from the original series that featured the ape king Caesar. I figure this will provide a template against which to compare films.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is the first film and stars Roddy McDowell as Caesar and Ricardo Montalban (in yet another strong performance) as Armando, the human circus keeper who hid him as a baby in the previous movie (Caesar is the child of the intelligent apes Cornelius and Zira who traveled back in time from the future of the first two "apes" films) and has raised him like his own son.

Basically, Conquest is set in a dystopian future where all dogs and cats were killed by a virus that came to Earth from space. Humans wanting companionship started with pet chimpanzees and over time this evolved into them using apes as menial labor - like a slave class. However, the same virus that killed off dogs and cats is also affecting simians by increasing their intelligence. Into this unstable environment step Caesar and Armando. After Armando is murdered by the government because they want to find and kill Caesar out of fear that as the talking ape he is a danger to humanity, Caesar hides among the ape slaves and indeed winds up in the service of the governor of the city. From this vantage point Caesar, grief stricken over the death of Armando, plots his rebellion.

Conquest is easily the darkest film in the whole series. The humans for the most part are unpleasant people and you wind up rooting for the apes. On their side, however, they are no longer the buffoonish characters from the first two films but an armed (with cleavers, machetes, guns, anything they can find) and extremely violent insurgent gang. The revolt is a bloody mess and it is shown exactly like that - in a film made in 1972 no less.

Acting in this film is simply superb. I already mentioned Ricardo Montalban gave a strong performance but the show was stolen by Roddy McDowell. No longer playing the very civilized Dr. Cornelius he took the chains off as Caesar and gave him a very textured portrayal of a lower key veneer that wears off over the course of the film exposing a fierce revolutionary leader. And he did this under a ton of latex and still was authentic. His two speeches at the end of the film are amazing work. Don Murray also does fine work as the ape hating Governor Breck - you almost want him killed but when Caesar spares him you also understand why.

Add in good direction, pacing and a great musical score and this is a strong science fiction film in its own right.
 

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
The other film I watched is the last film in the original series - Battle for the Planet of the Apes. I won't go into a lot of plot detail on this one but rather just hit on some high notes.

Roddy McDowell was again superb as Caesar, now king of the community of apes and humans he led out from the nuclear war ravaged cities to start a new life. Severn Darden is the leader of the mutants who try to destroy Caesar's community and plays the part perfectly with an ironic sense of humor. Claude Akins is Aldo, a gorilla leader who has designs on Caesar's throne and also wants to kill all humans.

Of note in this film is that the whole Planet of the Apes series here potentially takes a huge turn when Caesar sees tapes of interviews Cornelius and Zira (his parents from the far future) where they detail how apes ultimately cause Earth to be destroyed. This information causes him to ultimately restructure the community to have humans and apes living side by side as equals - thus potentially completely altering the future. And the last scene of the movies drops a pretty strong hint that all history has been changed and he did indeed succeed in his endeavor (yes I know there is also the opinion that the tear means he failed but I'm going with the more optimistic view as the evidence is equal either way).

This film is also well worth the watching as the acting is good, writing is good and it throws a great curve ball at the viewer.
 

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
Since I may be seeing Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in a couple of days I decided to do some preparation. Seeing as the Tim Burton film is trash and not even considered "canon" I decided to watch the two films from the original series that featured the ape king Caesar. I figure this will provide a template against which to compare films.

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is the first film and stars Roddy McDowell as Caesar and Ricardo Montalban (in yet another strong performance) as Armando, the human circus keeper who hid him as a baby in the previous movie (Caesar is the child of the intelligent apes Cornelius and Zira who traveled back in time from the future of the first two "apes" films) and has raised him like his own son.

Basically, Conquest is set in a dystopian future where all dogs and cats were killed by a virus that came to Earth from space. Humans wanting companionship started with pet chimpanzees and over time this evolved into them using apes as menial labor - like a slave class. However, the same virus that killed off dogs and cats is also affecting simians by increasing their intelligence. Into this unstable environment step Caesar and Armando. After Armando is murdered by the government because they want to find and kill Caesar out of fear that as the talking ape he is a danger to humanity, Caesar hides among the ape slaves and indeed winds up in the service of the governor of the city. From this vantage point Caesar, grief stricken over the death of Armando, plots his rebellion.

Conquest is easily the darkest film in the whole series. The humans for the most part are unpleasant people and you wind up rooting for the apes. On their side, however, they are no longer the buffoonish characters from the first two films but an armed (with cleavers, machetes, guns, anything they can find) and extremely violent insurgent gang. The revolt is a bloody mess and it is shown exactly like that - in a film made in 1972 no less.

Acting in this film is simply superb. I already mentioned Ricardo Montalban gave a strong performance but the show was stolen by Roddy McDowell. No longer playing the very civilized Dr. Cornelius he took the chains off as Caesar and gave him a very textured portrayal of a lower key veneer that wears off over the course of the film exposing a fierce revolutionary leader. And he did this under a ton of latex and still was authentic. His two speeches at the end of the film are amazing work. Don Murray also does fine work as the ape hating Governor Breck - you almost want him killed but when Caesar spares him you also understand why.

Add in good direction, pacing and a great musical score and this is a strong science fiction film in its own right.

In the original 1972 film, Breck was killed by the apes under Caesar's order. The BluRay release has the original ending. :) But every theatrical release since the premieres had the alternate ending with Breck being spared.
 

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Which is an issue with the BluRay release. The original ending was dropped on purpose before the release of the film and the new ending filmed partly because of extremely bad focus group reaction and partly because the script for Battle was already basically done and it had the more hopeful tone which would not link properly with such a grim ending.
 

Overmind One

GateFans Gatemaster
Staff member
Which is an issue with the BluRay release. The original ending was dropped on purpose before the release of the film and the new ending filmed partly because of extremely bad focus group reaction and partly because the script for Battle was already basically done and it had the more hopeful tone which would not link properly with such a grim ending.

I think there were some ratings issues as well. The original ending seems more appropriate to the story IMO. I saw them all on premiere night except Battle for the Planet of the Apes. My dad was a huge fan. :)
 

Joelist

What ship is this?
Staff member
Not to me. It had Caesar stepping out of character in being THAT vicious. The second speech they added on was much more in line with his character and in line with his conversation with MacDonald just before the revolt. The revised ending added a very nice aspect to the plot and to Caesar where he was set to step into that abyss (mass murder) but Lisa's saying "No" brought him back from the edge.
 
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