what is the appeal of the Planet of the Apes concept anyway? can someone explain it to me?

[edenfalling]

Apropos of nothing in particular:

I realized just now that when I summarized my reactions to the trailers I saw yesterday -- for Green Lantern, the new Transformers flick, the travesty claiming to be Mr. Popper's Penguins, and the American remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo -- I completely forgot that there was a fifth trailer. It fell clean through my mind leaving almost no impression behind.

This is because I find the whole Planet of the Apes saga baffling. I just don't get what people find interesting about it, so much that there have been sequels and remakes and now a prequel. I mean, if I want stories about humans giving great apes human-style intelligence, I will be over here reading David Brin's Uplift saga, okay? Because that universe is a story about humans doing something awesome that works out and creates potential equals for us to be friends with, instead of a story about humans being stupid, shortsighted, bigoted assholes who create a race of "monsters" who hate and destroy us. I choose to think that both humanity and any potential intelligent apes are... human enough, I guess, to find a compromise instead of going right to genocide.

...

Obviously that is just my opinion, since those sequels, remakes, and now prequel do exist. Fortunately, I don't have to watch them. :-)

Comments

[joisbishmyoga.livejournal.com]

I suppose the interest is solely from the twist at the end of the first movie -- the 'alien' planet is Earth, omg. All the rest of it is people who don't know when to leave a story be. Which is perhaps one of the most hypocritical a/o ironic things a fanauthor can ever say, but there you go. Sometimes the questions need to go unanswered and the possibilities left unfulfilled.

[edenfalling]

Or, alternatively, the rest of the saga should have stayed as somebody's fanfic continuation of the movie instead of getting made into actual films of their own. :-)

I see what you mean, though. A twist ending is neat and makes you think, but it's not necessarily something that needs to be explored in depth -- its power is mostly in its surprise, and details remove that jolt effect.