Here Comes That Planet Of The Apes Prequel You Never Asked For
Do you find that Planet Of The Apes, its four movie sequels, movie remake, TV series, cartoon show and books haven’t left you satisfied?
Do you often get irritated because, even though you could literally drown in all the different versions of Planet Of The Apes that have been made over the years, nobody’s ever bothered to tell you what happened on the planet almost 2,000 years before the events of the original movie?
If you do, we have two pieces of advice for you – 1) hold onto your hat, because Fox is apparently very close to starting production on that exact Planet Of The Apes prequel, entitled Genesis: Apes, set 1,969 years before the original movie, and 2) stop wasting your life, you friendless nincompoop.
Aside from inexplicably continuing to give Vin Diesel work, Hollywood loves nothing more than overloading a hot trend until its wheels fall off. And the hottest trend of the moment would appear to be the utterly needless prequel.
Looking at the production schedules, we can see that there’s a Wolverine prequel coming out soon, plus a Star Trek prequel, the prequel to Lord Of The Rings and a Terminator movie that’s a sort of prequel but not really. But that’s nothing, because there’s a Planet Of The Apes prequel coming out, and if you judge a prequel’s quality on the space of time between the setting of the prequel and the original, then it’s going to be the best prequel ever made.
The original Planet Of The Apes was set in the year 3978, but if you want to trace back to the exact moment which set off the chain of events that ended up with Charlton Heston wailing around on his knees like a sandy bellend, you need to go back 1,969 years to – oh, this is a coincidence – 2009.
That’s apparently the plot of new Planet Of The Apes prequel Genesis: Apes. And to prove we’re not making any of this up, here’s a quote about it from Fox’s Tom Rothman, as found on CHUD:
We are very close at Fox on a new Apes script- this one a kind of prequel story before the first story, with a return to the social thematics that mark the first one, but with an entirely contemporary setting – Earth 2009.
So, just to make this clear, the new Planet Of The Apes sequel won’t be set on the ape planet as we know it, nor will it feature very many clever monkeys. Maybe there’ll be a chimpanzee with a metal colander on its head who can talk through a machine, but apart from that there’ll be a bunch of grumpy humans listening to Katy Perry and not much else.
Who knows why Planet Of The Apes is getting this prequel. Maybe it’s because strong sales of Planet Of The Apes DVDs proves that demand for the new movie is there. Or maybe someone at Fox is friends with Tim Burton and deliberately wants to make a Planet Of The Apes movie that’ll make Tim’s 2001 remake look less crap in comparison. Or maybe people just think they’ll get rich if they cynically knock out a massively unnecessary Planet Of The Apes prequel without putting much thought in.
Let’s hope the last one isn’t the case, because if Genesis: Apes is successful then we’re going to be overloaded with prequels set thousands of years before the original. And a trend that logically concludes with a Four Christmases prequel where Vince Vaughn’s great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather hits Reese Witherpoon’s great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandmother over the head with a club and then insincerely marvels at the invention of fire is not a good trend at all.
The TV series isn’t very well known but it’s quite good – if you like old school Star Trek you should like it. As for the 5 movies, the original is best, followed by #3 (Escape). #2 (Beneath) was weird but interesting, and #4 (Conquest) is there to tell you how it all happened, but #5 (Battle) didn’t do anything for me.
Never heard of the cartoon series, and have mixed feelings about the 2001 remake.
So yeah, that’s my 2 cents
thank you so much
Most younger folks don’t know that the entire ’sequel’ thing in big name brand movies really got it’s modern day rebirth with the Planet of the Apes series….it revived the old 20’s+30’s remake game
Wasn’t there already 2 movies where they explain what happened?
One, the apes from the future went back in time.. time,, died,, and left their baby there alive.
and the other Show the apes being used slaves and then show them rise up.
Is this NEW prequel supposed to take place between those? Or are they pretending these didn’t exist?
[...] How many times has a prequel actually been a good idea? Anyways, here’s more on this from HecklerSpray.com: Do you often get irritated because, even though you could literally drown in all the different [...]
I know the Apes timeline is confusing. But except for the first two- the other three are prequels.
One is set in present day LA (1973)- after the 72′ launch date from the ‘68 movie. The next is set in ‘future’ 1991 (at least when the film was made) that told of a plague upon household pets. Most likely brought on from the Apes in LA from ‘73. This explains the Apes rise to human-level intelligence. The third is set about 800 or so years before the first two movies. That one explains the last war between the mutants and the Apes in Ape City; when humans and Apes lived as brothers… You know before we de-evolved and the Apes ruled the world.
Of course this new prequel could be anywhere. My guess is one of two thoughts:
1) It’s a prequel to TB’s POTA.
or
2) It’s in 2009 but set in original universe which chronicles the Apes rise to dominance.
I actually don’t want to see a prequel because it’d probably mess up the canon needlessly.
What I’d like to see is reboot/a new version of POTA as if Burton’s did not exist… BUT that’s not gonna happen.
[...] (Vía Hecklerspray) [...]
This is just another vehicle for Diddy, since the Bond thing
isn’t quite panning out. Yes, I know how that sounds, but
just remember: this is the brand that made Roddy McDowell famous.
Finally we’ll get to see why the Statue of Liberty sat on the beach for 2000 years without anyape stripping it for copper.
Awesome I love POTA and the video game was good too.
thank you so much dude
Did you get raped by ã prequel or something? You don’t have to watch every movie that comes out. You sound like one of those whiny girls that shits on everything cause its all you know how to do. I dubb this blog Planet of whiny bitches.
This is just another vehicle for Diddy, since the Bond thing
isn’t quite panning out.
Did anyone …
Has anyone at any point…wished for this movie?
Now available from Hasslein Books…
Timeline of the Planet of the Apes: The Definitive Chronology, by Rich Handley
322 pages–covering the entire Planet of the Apes saga, including the films, TV series, cartoons, novels, comics and other tales, and even a number of unpublished works.
http://www.hassleinbooks.com
Awesome I love POTA and the video game was good too..
thank you so much dude.
I want to watch planet of the apes 2..would like to know what hapend between the space travels..lol..does any1 knw wen its coming out??
thank you so much +1 ;}