Planet of the Apes. In the year 3978A.D. a spaceship with a crew of 4 crashes down on a distant planet. One of the crew members had died in space and the other 3 head out to explore the planet. They soon learn that the planet is much like their own. They then find the planet is inhabited by intelligent apes. One of the men is shot and killed and the others are taken to the apes' city. There, one undergoes brain surgery and is put into a state of living death. The other befriends some of the apes but is feared by most. After being put through ape trial he escapes with a female human native to the planet. After helping his ape friends escape a religious heresy trial he escapes out into the wilderness with the female. There he learns the planet might not be so distant after all.
Stars. =>-Charlton Heston. =>-Roddy McDowall.
Director. =>-Franklin J. Schaffner.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes. In an effort to find the missing astronaut Taylor, Brent goes on a rescue mission to the planet of the apes. Using the information he receives from the ape village that Taylor escaped from, Brent locates him in an underground fortress in the forbidden zone guarded by telepathic humans.
Stars. =>-James Franciscus. =>-Kim Hunter.
Director. =>-Ted Post.
Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Cornelius and Zira, the simian ape couple from the first two ape films, flee from their doomed planet (after the events in Beneath...) in the same spaceship used by Taylor in the first film, and travel back through the same space/time porthole and land on late 20th Century Earth where they are received with fascination and fear from the people they meet.
Stars. =>-Roddy McDowall. =>-Kim Hunter.
Director. =>-Don Taylor.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Fourth feature in the simian series has apes domesticated and turned into work slaves in the near future. Along comes Ceasar, son of Cornelius and Zira who died in the third film, who leads his chimp brothers in rebellion against the human oppressors, thus creating the time loop that leads to the first film.
Stars. =>-Roddy McDowall. =>-Don Murray.
Director. =>-J. Lee Thompson.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes. After conquering the oppressive humans in "Conquest for the Planet of the Apes" Caesar must now keep the peace among the humans and apes. Gorilla General Aldo views things differently, and tries to cause an ape civil war. In the meantime, other human survivors learn of the ape city, and decide they want to take back civilization for themselves, thus setting the stage of warring ape factions and humans.
Stars. =>-Roddy McDowall. =>-Claude Akins.
Director. =>-J. Lee Thompson.
Planet of the Apes. It is the year 2029: Astronaut Leo Davidson boards a pod cruiser on a Space Station for a "routine" reconnaissance mission. But an abrupt detour through a space time wormhole lands him on a strange planet where talking apes rule over the human race. With the help of a sympathetic chimpanzee activist named Ari and a small band of human rebels, Leo leads the effort to evade the advancing Gorilla Army led by General Thade and his most trusted warrior Attar. Now the race is on to reach a sacred temple within the planet's Forbidden Zone to discover the shocking secrets of mankind's past - and the key to its future.
Stars. =>-Mark Wahlberg. =>-Helena Bonham Carter.
Director. =>-Tim Burton.
At the story's heart is Caesar (Andy Serkis), a chimpanzee who gains human-like intelligence and emotions from an experimental drug. Raised like a child by the drug's creator, Will Rodman (James Franco) and a primatologist Caroline Aranha (Freida Pinto), Caesar ultimately finds himself taken from the humans he loves and imprisoned in an ape sanctuary in San Bruno. Seeking justice for his fellow inmates, Caesar gives the fellow apes the same drug that he inherited. He then assembles a simian army and escapes the sanctuary - putting man and ape on a collision course that could change the planet forever.
