Planet of the Apes 35th Anniversary
Widescreen DTS Set
Picture:
B Sound: B Extras: B Film: A-
Between
the recent, disastrous Tim Burton remake and Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (released the
same year in 1968), the original Planet of
the Apes has become a bit more lost and trivialized than it should be. Charlton Heston got attacked for his
politics, making the politically correct crowd ignore all of his great films,
and idiotic misinterpretations of what the original films were about have
further damaged their reputation.
Fox has
always taken the films seriously, first with a THX certified release on VHS and
LaserDisc a few years back, than a DVD boxed set of all the film a few years
ago from basically the same materials.
With the arrival of digital High Definition and need to rebuild the
franchise’s credibility, this impressive new DVD set for the film’s 35th
Anniversary is here and it is bound to bring new respect to one of the greatest
film series ever made.
This is
not to say it always stayed great, but it was aggressive all the way in effort
and no franchise today that has reached five films can claim that. As a matter of fact, only the new wave of
Batman films are about to reach five, but that is after a big gap and huge changes. Franchises these days burn out quickly, which
speaks volumes about their shallowness.
If you think Planet of the Apes
did not deserve a reissue, read on.
Of
course, everyone knows that the story has three surviving astronauts crash
landing on a planet that turns out to have oxygen. Eventually, it turns out evolution turned out
to be different, with upright apemen (who happen to all speak English) run
things and the human species is grossly underdeveloped. The only problems with this have been 1) that
they happen to speak the exact same language as the astronauts and 2) the
astronauts never consider that it is earth to begin with. Michael Wilson and Rod Serling co-wrote the
screenplay based on Pierre Boulle’s Monkey
Planet (La Planete des Singes from
1963), but Serling made a similar mistake with astronauts in an episode of his
classic TV series The Twilight Zone. Getting past that, the screenplay took on
social issues with a new boldness that cinematic Science Fiction was just
starting to find with films like Francois Truffaut’s version of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 (1966).
This is
the key factor that drove the original films, as well as the live action and
animated TV series, yet totally absent in Burton’s supposedly thought out
“rethinking” as it was touted. I would
laugh if it was not so tragic. I will
watch this set several times over just to hopefully weed out the damage
watching that film caused.
Looking
at it again, director Franklin J. Schaffner deserves more credit than he has
received over the years. Going directly
on to handle the 70mm epic Patton
right after this film, he was a strong journeyman director of exceptional
skills and talent. There would not be a
franchise so great without his initial work here.
The
anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image is the best the film has looked since
the early years of its release. You can
compare this to the letterboxed image from the Behind the Planet of the Apes (1998) documentary and see the
improvement in color, depth, gain in frame area and definition. The Deluxe color has the warmer look it was
famous for at the time to begin with, and this print is the cleanest in decades,
though the color on the older DVD was not bad.
Video Black is about the same as that DVD. This was a groundbreaking use of Panavision
soon after the Bond films began using the superior anamorphic lenses for their
epics. This DVD has some detail limits, and
the framing is sometimes not totally 2.35 X 1, but those moments are brief and
nominal. Leon Shamroy, A.S.C., creates
some of the most memorable images in Science Fiction history and his
exceptional camera work is the greatest beneficiary of this new DVD set. The point-of-view shots that he and Schaffner
get are often brilliant in putting the viewer in harm’s way, which is exactly
what it takes to create the suspense and tension this film needed. This is also a very good looking film, but even
the previous print and transfer did not capture this as well as it should
have. This also makes the matte painting
work look relatively more seamless, the way the visual effects department
intended in the first place. Does this
look any worse than most of the mostly terrible digital effects we get now? No, it looks decent, but the substantial film
work by Shamroy soars above it all and can finally be appreciated by future
generations.
The
soundtrack has been greatly improved from the last DVD and LaserDisc
releases. The first 5.1 mix was a Dolby
Digital AC-3 version introduced on the THX-certified 12” LaserDisc. It was not bad for its time, but the PCM CD
Stereo Pro Logic tracks from that same disc had some warmth and fullness the
Dolby Digital lacked. The 5.1 was
recycled for the first DVD and it was not as good as either LaserDisc
soundtrack. With this new DVD set, a new
5.1 mix has been made. The second Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix here is better than the previous versions, but the DTS 5.1 mix
is even more impressive.
The move
to preserve and restore film music and sound has paid off. In between the first Dolby 5.1 mix and this
newer mix, the music label Varese Sarabande released a CD of the Jerry
Goldsmith that went over exceptionally well with fans, taking the original
music masters and remixing them into an impressive presentation. The original 4-track-magnetic stereo master
of Planet of the Apes has been
missing for years, but this new mix does a great job of delivering Goldsmith’s
amazing score and making dialogue and sound effects clearer than they have been
in decades. In some respects, this may
be the best the film ever sounded.
Taking those presentation aspects together, digital High Definition and
the D-VHS edition should be amazing too.
The
extras are terrific, including a DVD-ROM-only feature that offers stills and
facts that give a fine basic explanation of the first 35 years of Planet of the Apes. DVD 1 has the two audio commentary tracks,
and a set of text notes in one of the subtitle streams (ala the Star Trek DVD double sets) by Apes scholar Eric Greene. The one with composer Jerry Goldsmith is sadly
not non-stop, proving once again why it is so important to have interviewers on
hand. His comments are great, wise and
informative, which is why it is a shame there is not much more. It is
also too bad his comments are not at least denoted by chapter stops, which is
not on the menu or the paper foldout inside the cover. The text subtitles are good, and even when
they overlap with other supplements, know that the hearing impaired can find
this especially useful. For all viewers,
it can pinpoint actors that items in a separate supplement cannot. This is still uncommon, but is bound to
become a more common feature in future DVDs.
The other audio commentary is of the non-stop nature and includes Roddy
McDowall, Kim Hunter, Natalie Trundy, and make-up innovator John Chambers
DVD 2 includes
the 1998 documentary Behind the Planet of
the Apes (2 hours, 6 minutes, 42 seconds), a 2:14 promo for it, 20 minutes
of Roddy McDowall’s silent home movies from the set, 19:40 length of dailies
and outtakes from the production, a 4:35 featurette of the film from 1968, some
of which shows up in the 13:35 A Look
Behind The Planet of the Apes, the great 9:26 make-up test/screen test from
1966 of the potential of the film with Edward G. Robinson to sell the film to
Fox (Robinson bowed out of the film, but later worked with Heston on Richard
Fleischer’s Soylent Green, with both the CD soundtrack and
DVD-Video reviewed elsewhere on this site), a 10:25 1967 presentation reel for
the National Association of Theater Owners (N.A.T.O.), a 7:27 piece on Don
Taylor directing Escape from the Planet
of the Apes, a 1:27 piece on J. Lee Thompson directing Conquest of Planet of the Apes, the teaser trailer for this film
joins the five main theatrical trailers for the five films not grouped together
since the earliest letterboxed 12” LaserDiscs from years ago, a section of
seven theatrical posters from worldwide release (the U.S. and Italy have 2
each, while France, Spain, and Belgium round out the selection), text reviews
from Life and The Hollywood Reporter magazines at the time of the first release,
10 Morton Haack sketch designs and 17 other stills in the Image Gallery, and
brief segments in the Apes Phenomenon section on Merchandise (consumer toys)
and Collections (actual items from the set).
There is
an Easter Egg (hidden extra) note here, because it goes back to previous wishes
to see even more about the memorabilia bonanza that accompanied the popularity
of the Apes franchise. It seemed to me that the excellent DVD boxed
set of the live action Planet of the
Apes TV series would have been a great opportunity to show the
still-impressive Mego toys and ads that were part of the mania for the films
and TV shows in the 1970s. Not thinking Planet of the Apes would be reissued on
DVD again so soon, the one Apes
title that has never been issued on DVD is the animated series Return to the Planet of the Apes. It is an impressive show and we can only hope
Fox does this sometime soon. Now with
this re-release, Fox is addressing the remarkable action figures of the time. There are at least six ads we know of from
the now-defunct Mego Toys Company for their incredible Planet of the Apes toys line that we know of. Sixty companies did Apes merchandise, but Mego topped them all. In the menu for The Apes Phenomenon, you can
go to the “Main Menu” text at the bottom of the screen, then use the right
cursor and you will highlight a silhouette of what looks like Zira. Press “Enter” and you will get a Mego ad (1:19) we’ll call The Beginning, which features the popular Village and Tree House
playsets, plus the amusing Action Stallion. It is one of those six ads from a famous VHS
collection issued by a big Mego fan and collector of nothing but early ads from
their groundbreaking TV campaigns. They
were really done for the advent of the TV series, but did everything to conjure
the feature films. The first ad was an
initial launch ad before the series came out.
Then came a 1975 launch for tie-ins to the series, including the new
astronaut figures from the live-action series.
After The Beginning, the three
other ads had to do with playsets for the 8” action figures as follows: The Fortress with Sun Reflector, The
Forbidden Zone with secret trap, and the Catapult & Wagon set. There were even more toys, like the U.K.-only
Rock Launcher, Throne, stand-alone Jail, Battering Ram and Lost Continent
set. There were even six 5” Bend N’ Flex figures made of rubber,
with wiring inside that allowed you to pose them, until the wire broke. Whether we will see any additional ads
uncovered is unknown, but the ad on this DVD comes from that same famous
collector’s VHS tape, optical sound warping, flutter and all. We can only hope Fox will put the other ads
on future Apes DVDs, and uncover
others, even for other toy companies.
How about some print ads?
That is a
great set of extras, though there are more to see and ways Fox can go farther
in the next sets. This is a classic film
that deserves to have all these extras and this is all both very archival and
terrific.
We should
also make a very special note about the late, great Roddy McDowall. He a huge motion picture and still
photography fan, his contribution to the legends of this franchise and the
genres of Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror are monumental. He helped bring an intelligence and cache to
the Apes and these genres they still
did not have at the time. Already a star
of some previous Twilight Zone
episodes and like shows, McDowall brought everything he appeared in to a higher
level with more challenge than it would have had otherwise. He was not afraid to be self-deprecating and
had excellent taste in what he chose. You
can see how prominent he is in the extras in this set. 2001
had Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke, but Planet
of the Apes had Schaffner, Serling, Wilson, and McDowall for starters, so
it really was of the same caliber.
So now
you can see why this film deserved and needed a reissue. Planet
of the Apes is a classic that should have never been even passively
remade. Fox realizes this, but knows the
Burton version will still have its
fans. This is far from the end of this
franchise and this set can only inspire new interest and hopefully better
storytelling. If this set is as wildly
successful as it deserves to be, Fox should and likely will give the next films
the same treatment. Beneath the Planet of the Apes is a most underrated sequel, which
also has a great CD soundtrack out (see my review elsewhere on this site) and
that would be very welcome indeed.
- Nicholas Sheffo
