Planet of the Apes: 5-Movie Collector's Edition [Blu-ray] [1968]

I LIKE THE FILMS

This region A box set wisely omits the Burton missfire and gives us a spectacular presentations of the five original movies.Planet of the Apes.Heston's cynical nihilsist performance, McDowall, Hunter and Evans incredibly nuanced acting through layers of John Chambers groundbreaking make-ups, Jerry Goldsmith's weird and beautiful soundtrack and one of the greatest endings in cinema history. Planet is one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time and still stands up well today.The disc comes loaded with far too many extras to list here both archive and new.Beneath the Planet of the Apes.The first sequel is good but lacks focus. James Fransiscus arrives on what we now know to be future Earth looking for Taylor but discovering an ape army and the last mutated survivors of the human race who worship total destruction. Heston appears bookending the movie and making sure mankind goes out with a bang in a downer of an ending for everyone. Knock a star off for the abscence of McDowall and the obvious drop in budget.The disc features an isolated score, a good featurette and loads of stills and behind the scenes materialEscape from the Planet of the Apes.Three Hairy survivors from the apocalypse crash in modern day, (OK 70's) California. One is accidentaly killed leaving Cornelius and Zira, (McDowall and Hunter) to become the toast of Hollywood until the truth about the fate of mankind comes out when Zira is on the grape juice plus. Essentially a backwards reworking of the original with the apes becoming fugitives from the oppressive government forces the movie starts off light and frothy but the ending is grim and brutal. I must admit this is my least favourite as it loses the sci-fi setting of the other movies and only has three apes but McDowall and Hunter have real chemistry and the ending packs an emotional punch.Extras similar to Beneath with some archive footage of Don Taylor directing.Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.Presented here in the far superior original cut that Fox extensively edited for the ratings board, Conquest is a revelation . Dark, oppressive and filmed in a hand held documentary style this is strong allegorical stuff. Detailing the revolution of the apes lead by Ceasar, (McDowall playing his son from the previous film) against thier tyranical human masters. Conquest packs a wallop that far exceeded what Fox executives were expecting. McDowalls performance in this movie is incredible. Even more so considering the thick latex that covers his face. Featuring extensvely more violence and blood than the theatrical version and the original hope destroying ending this movie is the suprise trump card of the set. There is evidence of extreme penny-piching however but the film is powerful and unrelenting.The usual slew of exras. The featurette is very interesting as it details the censorship problems and also the theatrical cut which is a bit redundant after seeing the unrated version.Battle for the Planet of the Apes.Last time out for the original films and Battle also is presented in an unrated version but fails to keep the impetus of Conquest as Fox were wary of losing the child audience so mortified by the tone of the last film. This can really be blamed on the drastic scaling down of the budget with each film costing substantially less than the previous until veteran director J. Lee Thompson (who also helmed Conquest) had the budget of a T.V. movie to portray man vs ape's final showdown. Shots of trees and cars exploding are filmed from multiple angles and replayed through the final battle scenes to give prodiction value but it's a dated trick that never really convinces. Still McDowall is his dependable self and Claude Akins nasty gorrila General Aldo is good fun, especially when he knocks Ceasar's son out of a tree and kills him which leads to his final undoing. Ape shall never kill ape!It all ends with an unprobable harmonious finale and some fine ham from the Lawgiver (John Huston).Battle also has similar extras to Conquest including the theatrical cut.The set comes in a slip case with a very nicely produced book that features lots of information. My only critcism would be that the book is more or less verbatim from the featurettes but it's a very minor quibble.The UK blu-ray set is a fraction of the price of this US couterpart but is cheap looking and has no book and most importantly does not contain the unrated versions of Conquest or Battle. So if you intend to go ape and have region A plaback (please note this will NOT play in a standard UK player) this is the only way to go.

Great

Excellent product

So how do you give a star rating to a film series of such varying quality? Well the films almost speak for themselves. Chances are you have seen at least some of them before... If you have, then be prepared to see them as spruced up as possible, with some genually informative extras.. if not, prepare for one of the most unique movie franchises out there.. in fact, the franchise that really set a trend in having merchandising and tie-ins, before Star Wars came along and ran with the concept. What's fascinating now watching these, along with the short documentaries accompanying each movie, is the discussion around the issues of the day which influenced, and maybe even spawned, the movies themselves. The writers of the screenplays wanted to use a fantasy world to explore issues of race and civil unrest that they might not otherwise get to tell... so while you can take these movies as adventure fantasies or action movies on one level, it's looking at them obliquely that one gets the roundest experience of them.That said, the quality of the movies is most definitely variable. Planet of the Apes (*****) is the classic one here even if the effects and style have somewhat dated, and comes with a plethora of extras in the form of stills, trailers, the 2 hour documentary narrated by Roddy MacDowall which explores the whole world of Planet of the Apes through all the movies and TV series, games, vintage documentaries and more. Charlton Heston plays the astronaut who was happy to go on a long term mission since he is cynical about Earth's chances of survival anyway, only to find himself on a world where the social order is upside down - apes are the intelligent species.. man (and not forgetting Linda Harrison as woman) is mute and the inferior species. The commentary however comes more often than not through the ape hierarchy and how they treat each other, than how they treat man. Certainly, watching it again will remind you what an ill conceived exercise Tim Burton's remake was. Beneath the Planet of the Apes (**) benefits from at least a cameo from Charlton Heston, with James Franciscus gamely trying to hold his own, against a script which falls woefully short of the first one, eschewing the subtleties of message for a blatant anti war tone. Its tale of a weird society of mutant humans worshipping an atomic bomb, climaxes in a nihilistic ending which fails to shock or involve in anything like the way the first did. Charlton Heston adds the only element of class in the exercise. By the time of Escape from Planet of the Apes (***) came along the following year, the production values were a shadow of their former glories, but despite an uneven tone moving from broad humour in the first half through to serious and bleak in the second half this story works surprisingly well, as Roddy MacDowell and Kim Hunter return from the first movie, having escaped the planet in Heston's spacecraft (some of the ideas are best just accepted rather than thought about too hard..) and gone back in time to `current day'. The change to ape being the odd one out in a human society adds a needed fresh twist. Ricardo Montalban in a small role is a treat. Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (***) suffers from lowest of all the budgets, and darkest least family friendly in its levels of violence as we chart the beginning of the Apes rise to supremacy as they start revolution. However, given the budget they had, they did a good job, with MacDowell giving arguably his best performance in the series, and the alternative directors cut here not only restores some of the cuts made for violence (don't expect too much, it's just more tomato ketchup on display), but restores the original bleaker ending, which fits the tone of the movie and indeed the movie series much better than the studio enforced more hopeful ending in the theatrical version. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (**) at least brings the story full circle, but is so watered down and lacking a coherent narrative drive or underpinning idea, it is the weakest of the series, and it is probably good they stopped where they did - on the big screen at least. The second * is based on goodwill carried over from the previous movies more than anything. Look out for a cameo from John Huston, if you can recognise him. And if nothing else, it's fun debating the meaning of that final shot...All in all, as a package this is not as `must see' as it once was, but good entertainment with enough issues woven in to give it an additional dimension. There's a nice 20 minute to half an hour documentary exploring personalities and themes of each movie on each disc. Worth capturing at the bargain price it is currently available at. Go Ape, and treat yourself..

Whilst I sympathise with some of the hardcore fans not getting the full package that the US got...all I`m bothered about are the films. These are the best they`ve ever looked and at this current price an absolute steal.The set comes in a normal blu-ray case, slightly fatter than normal to house all 5 discs. Personally I`ll take this any day over some fancy packaging that takes up half my shelf. The first film remains an absolute classic and the transfer is beautiful. The other 4 don`t come close but are all fun to watch and there are bags of extras for each.So yeah, no book, no fancy case and just the deleted scenes for Battle instead of an extra cut. Sure it would have been nice to get all that, and it sucks we`ve been short changed compared to the States...but I`m reviewing what I`ve got...not what I haven`t. £23 for all 5 films on blu-ray? That`s worth 5 stars.

I purchased this as an upgrade to the DVD box set.. I have been waiting for the price to come down and at 17.98GBP you can't go wrong even with all the reviews about Battle for not being the extended version..I have done a quick check on all the discs and it is worth the upgrade, the picture is clearer, sharper and more vivid than the previous DVD's.. one thing to mention which nobody else has is that Conquest has 2 versions to choose from, the Theatrical or Extended version..Battle For runs at 86 Minutes rather than the old DVD version at 83 Minutes, so I am assuming it's got extra footage..All in all at this price go for it!

The package arrived promptly and shrink wrapped. The digital mastered DVDs were in pristine condition and played flawlessly. Of course the current remake of the Planet of the Apes is much better, however it was a lot of fun seeing these original 5 movies and seeing how the current remakes have some nods to these original films.

A classic movie series. Delivered in a timely manner.

Alle Filme sind klasse , der letzte schwächelt , aber zum anschauen bevor es an die neuen Filme 🍿 geht , ein muss 👌

Great!

It's an Special edition but besides the documentary dvd there's not much special in there. Every disc contains the trailers for the whole saga,so you're not gonna watch them in every disc.The good thing about this special edition box is to have the whole saga in the same pack.The movies are great. The first movie is a classic and a master piece but the other four are pretty good too. You'll enjoy them as science fiction movies but if you go deeper they'll make you think as they raise many questions and moral dilemas. Darwin would love them!