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Return to the Planet of the Apes / Animated Series : 3 of 5
1.08.2007 11:31 PM \| Link	I can barely remember seeing an episode or two of this show during Saturday morning cartoons, but since I'm officially an Apes fan, I got this two DVD set for Christmas. This show definitely falls into the "so bad it's good" category, but I really enjoyed watching all 13 episodes (which is how far the show got before cancellation). The interesting thing about the series is that for the most part, the stories are really good! The plot features a new group of astronauts and a much more advanced Ape City, and has some nice twists such as the Underdwellers (the Forbidden Zone folks from Beneath the Planet of the Apes) worshipping Judy (the girl astronaut) and calling her "Oo-sa" since they found a statue of her labeled "USA". There's also several episodes involving a restored World War II fighter plane as the apes and humans fight for control. However, it's amazing how low budget the animation is - the drawings aren't horrendous, but 90% of the scenes are frozen poses with moving mouths, or incredibly long pans across static backgrounds! There's plenty of bad puns of course, like "William Apespeare", and often the apes themselves refer to the place they live as "the Planet of the Apes", which is hilarious! Oh, and since this is Saturday morning, they had to throw in a giant dragon creature, plus a King Kong for it to battle with! Regardless of the silliness, I really had a blast watching this show, and I wish there were more episodes for me to see! Labels: apes, dvds
Top Ten reasons Planet of the Apes is cool
1.05.2007 10:51 PM \| Link	I recently read that blog posts with any kind of Top Ten list get lots of web traffic, so I thought I would start making up some Top Tens of my own. It's kind of a fun way to talk about stuff, and if Letterman can get away with it every night, WEBmikey can give it a shot every now and then! So, here's my Top Ten reasons that I'm an ape fan. Five awesome movies make a great marathon viewing session! The original Planet of the Apes is certainly the best, then Beneath the Planet of the Apes gets really freaky, then Escape from the Planet of the Apes introduces some comedy, then Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is a little chilling, and finally Battle for the Planet of the Apes is full of great low-budget action. In addition to the movies, there's the TV series (which used to be on just before my bedtime), the animated series (which I'm watching on DVD), and several comic books, too. Oh yeah, there was also the Tim Burton movie, but I'm not counting it! For 1969, the make-up was absolutely amazing! I've seen the movies many, many times, and I still think it's a great design. Where else can you see bloody violence, half-naked people, and hear Charlton Heston say "Damn you all to hell!" in a Rated G movie? It's true - Planet of the Apes is Rated G, just like the Disney animated features! Speaking of half-naked people, Nova definitely knows how to wear an animal skin! My favorite scene in Escape from the Planet of the Apes is when Zera gets drunk on champagne, which she calls "grape juice plus". The classic Mego action figures were so much fun! I had lots of apes and some playsets that definitely saw a lot of action. When I was growing up, my parents and I would go to a restaurant/arcade that had one of the original movie props outside. It was a huge wagon that the apes used to capture humans, and I thought it was amazing to see it in person! Seeing the half-buried Statue of Liberty (suggested by Rod Sterling) is a twist ending that no other film will ever top! Any saga that contains a time loop paradox is totally cool! Cornelius and Zera travel back in time and give birth to Caesar, who starts the ape rebellion in the first place. Pure genius! Labels: apes, life
Free comics and apes, too
5.07.2006 10:52 PM \| Link	Wow, this weekend went by fast! I usually try to fit too many "chores" into my weekends, but these week I spent more time having fun, which was nice. The whole weekend is too much to talk about in one post, so I'll just start by saying I hope everyone had a nice Free Comic Book Day! I went to two different comic book shops (Dragon's Lair and Thor's Hammer), since they sometimes have a limit on the number of free titles you can pick up, but by the time I got to the second store, most everything was gone, so I didn't get the manga samplers this year. But that's OK, since I still got five cool comics for free (I've only read the Superman/Batman story so far, and it was excellent, so I'm going to start checking out that title!). Speaking of comics, I also got the latest issue of Revolution on the Planet of the Apes, which is an incredible new mini-series published by a Mr. Comics in Canada. The plot is fantastic, taking place right after Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (the 4th film), and it's stirred up my ape-mania once again. I especially like the idea that Caesar has a "conflicted timeline", since he was conceived in the future and born in the past - cool stuff! Labels: apes, comics, life
Going ape
1.04.2004 3:30 PM \| Link	Yesterday and today I got to relive one of my favorite childhood pastimes - enjoying classic "book and record sets" of the Planet of the Apes stories! These cheesy dramatizations were produced by Power Records in the 70's (I think), and I used to have a ton of them - Star Trek, Space 1999, Spider Man, and of course, Planet of the Apes. I found a website that had MP3s of the records (each about 12 minutes long), plus PDFs of the accompanying comic books - scanned in excellent detail in full color. I listened to all of them and followed along with the book just like I was eight years old again. It was a blast! Labels: apes, life
Planet of the Apes Revisited / Joe Russo : 5 of 5
1.17.2003 11:56 PM \| Link	A gift from my good pal Dae, this book had been on my wish list for quite a while. It tells the complete story of the making of the Planet of the Apes movies (and I've been an Apes fan forever!), all the way up to the disappointing remake. It includes great photos and extensive background material, such as summarizing each plot as it became refined into a script - the storylines that were abandoned are amazing! There's tons of information about the makeup, the actors, and just about anything else you can imagine - once I started reading, I couldn't put this book down! Labels: apes, books
Planet of the Apes: The Complete TV Series : 4 of 5
1.07.2002 7:54 AM \| Link	Way back when my bedtime was 9:00 PM, I always loved the last TV show before I had to hit the hay. I had two 8:00-9:00 favorites - the Logan's Run series, and Planet of the Apes! Now the entire Apes series is available on DVD, and I got it for Christmas. Wow, this was so much fun to watch! The overall plot plays havoc with the time line of the movies, but fans have figured out a way to reconcile the two. Each episode involves two humans and a chimp named Galen (Roddy McDowell yet again) going from town to town helping people - very Kung Fu. The makeup effects are so-so, but the cheeseball action is wonderful. Labels: apes, dvds
Planet of the Apes / Pierre Boulle : 4 of 5
8.29.2001 12:15 AM \| Link	After seeing the so-so remake, I thought I should reread the original novel, since its so different from the plot of both movies of the same name. It's a great story, told in the first person of the "Taylor" character (who is French in the story), as he becomes a part of ape society over many years. However, that society has their own language and the technology for cars and airplanes (not just kooky looking caves and guns). The end of the book is a total Twilight Zone ending (much like the remake), but it doesn't take away from the clever, if slow moving, plot. Labels: apes, books
Planet of the Apes : 3 of 5
7.27.2001 6:54 PM \| Link	I took a lot of flak from friends for liking this movie when I first saw it - now I think I liked it mostly because I wanted to like it. I'm a great fan of the Apes series (I own all the DVDs and I've even had an Ape watching party), so I really wanted something special. I don't really have a problem with the campiness, or even the wacked out ending (I knew it was going to be "Ape Lincoln" as soon as he landed in DC), it's just that there was no spirit there. The story is very cool, and the movie just doesn't realize that, I guess. Besides the lack of respect for the material, it was still fun to watch. Labels: apes, movies


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