Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6467 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-10-08
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Number of discs: 6
• Formats: PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 6
• Running time: 582 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
The five films in the Planet of the Apes series are enjoyable as pure entertainment and yet substantial enough to have inspired academic studies about the film's broader political themes. Loosely adapted from the novel by French author Pierre Boulle, Planet of the Apes was released at the height of racial and political unrest in America, adding resonance to its story of a NASA astronaut (Charlton Heston) stranded on a planet where superior apes dominate inferior human slaves. The film's final image--in which a horrified Heston realises the fate of humankind--remains one of the most indelible in all of science-fiction cinema.

Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970) continues the original's distant future scenario, pitting militant apes against mutant humans dwelling in the subterranean ruins of New York City. Its phenomenal success spawned Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), in which simian scientists Cornelius and Zira (Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter, reprising their roles from Planet) travel backward in time, setting the stage for the ape supremacy of the first two films. McDowall returned in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) as Caesar, the son of Cornelius, leading an ape revolution that bridges the historical gap of the previous films. Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973) ended the five-film cycle with McDowall again playing the chimpanzee leader Caesar, defeating gorillas and human mutants to establish the hierarchy introduced in the original film.

The Apes films present a classic what-if scenario that hasn't lost a bit of its potency. As if to prove its cultural endurance, the cycle returned to its origins with director Tim Burton's remake of Planet of the Apes in 2001. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com

On the DVD: A glorious indulgence for diehard fans of the series, this handsomely packaged six-disc set contains all five original" Apes" movies, from the wonderful 1967 original to 1973's low-budget Battle. It all look as good as possible in widescreen anamorphic transfers, the first movie's starkly wonderful cinematography in particular is a treat to see on DVD. Planet has been remixed in vivid Dolby 5.1, highlighting the bold sound design and JerryGoldsmith's masterful avant-garde score. The others are good Dolby stereo, with the odd exception of Escape, which is mono. There are trailers on each disc, but no commentaries sadly. The sixth bonus disc consists of a relatively new two-hour documentary hosted by Roddy McDowall which takes us through the entire saga in detail, pointing out the series' daring social commentary and the increasing difficulties of working with progressively smaller budgets. Sensibly, the documentary spends about an hour on the first movie and then an hour discussing all the rest. Overall, this is a very attractive package. --Mark Walker

DVD Description
DVD Special Features:

Planet of the Apes:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic 16:9
Sound: 5.1 Surround
Photo Gallery
Original Theatrical Trailers
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish

Beneath the Planet of the Apes:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic 16:9
Sound: 2.0 Surround
Photo Gallery
Cast Page
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish.

Escape from Planet of the Apes:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic 16:9
Sound: 2.0 Mono
Cast Page
Original Theatrical Trailers
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish

Conquest of the Planet of the Apes:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic 16:9
Sound: 2.0 Surround
Original Theatrical Trailers
Cast Page
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish

Battle for the Planet of the Apes:
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1 anamorphic 16:9
Sound: 2.0 Surround
Original Theatrical Trailers
Cast Page
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish

Behind the Planet of the Apes: (two-hour documentary disc) Aspect ratio:1.33:1 (4:3)
Sound: 2.0 Stereo
TV Spots
Original Theatrical Trailers
Language: English
Subtitles: Hard of hearing English, Czech, Danish, Finnish, Hungarian, Icelandic, Hebrew, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Swedish

Synopsis
This collection features the five PLANET OF THE APES movies, beginning with the 1968 original (starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, and Kim Hunter), in which a group of astronauts find themselves stranded on a world where apes evolved from humans, only to learn the shocking surprise about humanity's future.
BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES, the second installment in the PLANET OF THE APES series, finds another astronaut (James Franciscus) following in his predecessor's time-wandering footsteps to the planet ruled by highly evolved apes. There he encounters a group of nuclear holocaust survivors living in Grand Central Station and worshipping the very atomic warhead that destroyed their world.
ESCAPE FROM PLANET OF THE APES, the third chapter in the series, finds ape heroes Cornelius (McDowall) and Zira (Hunter) in 1970s Los Angeles. They have traveled back in time, but soon find that they have enemies in the past as well as the present.
In CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES, an intelligent ape (McDowall, playing the son of his other APES character, Cornelius) from the far future leads an army of simian servants in a revolt against their human masters. This fourth film features the most explosive subtext of any in the series, along with a sleek, futuristic production design.
The fifth and final episode, BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, features a community of intelligent apes living in harmony with a group of humans after the collapse of human civilization. However, a band of mutants who reside beneath a destroyed city try to conquer those they perceive as enemies.

Customer Reviews

A good collection, but not as good as it could have been
Franklin J. Schaffner's original Planet of the Apes is in a class of its own - superb, serious filmmaking with an incredibly strong script which manages to encompass everything from the creationist/evolutionist debate to the Hollywood blacklist (all five films feature heavy presences from blacklist victims both in front of and behind the cameras). And John Chambers' make-up is still quite miraculous, convincingly simian while still retaining much of the identity of the players underneath the masks. Unfortunately, the edition in this 6-disc boxed set misses the excellent extras from the later 2-disc DVD edition.

Unlike the Star Trek films, this is one franchise where the odd `numbered' films are better than the `evens.' Beneath the Planet of the Apes suffers heavily from the loss of writers Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, and perhaps more so from Schaffner's replacement with talented but often uninspired journeyman Ted Post. The first half hour is a rushed recap of the first film, with Charlton Heston-lite James Franciscus taking the lead to little effect. There are interesting jabs at Vietnam era America - peace protesting chimps, militaristic rabble rousing gorillas - and civil rights - Thomas Gomez's prayer is actually a KKK blessing - but it lacks the wit, character or detail of its predecessor. Heston's insistence on no more sequels (or so he thought) also adds a somewhat needlessly nihilistic ending.

Much better by far is Escape From the Planet of the Apes, which is when Paul Dehn really took over the series by proxy and created the mythology which would see it through to the short-lived TV series. Roddy McDowall may get top billing, but it's actually Kim Hunter who easily dominates the film, and it's a wonderfully imaginative and witty inversion of the original. Funky score by Jerry Goldsmith too, a million miles from his savage primitive work on the original but still recognizably the same musical universe.

The quality drops again with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Despite some interesting plays on slavery and race relations - the final carnage is based closely on the Watts riots - it's mildly uninvolving, not helped by a poor DVD transfer that makes the scenes shot in Century City even duller than they were meant to be. Don Murray's hysterical overacting doesn't help - at times the film cuts away from him to inanimate objects as if embarrassed to linger on his performance.

Battle for the Planet of the Apes is easily the least ambitious, toning down the violence for what the producers admitted was just `a kid's film.' Yet on its own terms its extremely well made, often dryly amusing and particularly well shot, with J. Lee Thompson showing a good eye for the Scope frame that's almost completely absent in Conquest. It's a shame that Dehn's much, much darker take - in which Caesar's attempts to build a world where apes and men can live in peace leads to his murder and the birth of the hardline regime of the original film - was abandoned, but it's a surprisingly enjoyable movie in a cowboys and Indians, or rather, apes and mutants kind of way. And where else can you see John Landis playing horsey for a young ape? Unfortunately, the version in this boxed set is quite heavily cut - for the uncut version you need to pick up the 2006 DVD reissue on NTSC.

Aside from the poor Conquest, the 2.35:1 widescreen transfers are good but not outstanding, with extras limited to the excellent two-hour documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes and the original trailers for the films.

It's a madhouse!!! A madhouse!!!
Don't be put off by Burton's dire 're-imagining' - this is a top quality film. It's worth buying for the crash sequence and the shots of the stranded ship in the lake alone - stunning.

Charlton Heston hams it all up superbly, and the film as a whole just succeeds on so many levels. The melodramatic scripting adds to the experience if you don't take it too seriously, and the whole thing adds up to a fantastic film, which is superior to any of the sequels and remakes, although it is rather overshadowed by the glorious Simpsons musical version, 'Stop the Planet of the Apes, I want to get off!'.

Unfortunately the DVD has virtually no extras, but the beautiful widescreen print is so worth your money.

The greatest Sci-Fi saga ever made.
It is a blessing that the Planet of the Apes films have finally come to DVD, and all the more satisfying that they have been released as a whole boxset. Now all five films can be watched one after the other with a clear picture and improved sound quality.

PLANET OF THE APES is teh pinnacle of the whole series. While being the best of the series, it is also (in my opinion) one of the greates sci-fi tales ever told, and far more advanced than any other sci-fi film of the time. Charlton Heston is flawless as Taylor, and is performance his at all times convincing. For anyone who has yet to see this film (and for anyone who hasn't seen the spolier front cover of the DVD) the ending is a shocker - far better than the ending in the Tim Burton remake.

BENEATH THE PLANET OF THE APES is an excellent sequal, with a perfect cast to boot. The story is more direct in the politiacl, social and moral issues that were raised in the first, but still allows for a thoroughly entertaining film. Again, another great ending is included.

ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES is a welcome variation from the previous two films, this time allowing us to watch a film where it is the apes in an alien world instead of the humans. It's interesting to see how the roles of the two species have been reversed. I thought that the ending in this film was perfect and very realistic.

I felt that CONQUEST OF THE PLANET OF THE APES was a bit of a let down. Comparing it to the first three films, the story seems to be rushed, without enough emphasis on the uprising of the apes. But after you get past the rushed story of the first half of the film, the second half more than makes up for it. Again, a spectacular ending created by Ceaser's riveting speech.

The last of the series, BATTLE FOR THE PLANET OF THE APES, was again inferior to the first three, and in my opinion the worst of the five films. The film is entertaining though, although I felt that the ending was a bit of a letdown, directly contrasting with the morbid endings of the first four films.

Included is an extra disk with a two hour documentary, hosted by Roddy McDowell. This is excellently compiled and is very informative, giving the viewer fascinating insights into the whole creation process.

A definite classic series, one that must be bought.