When I was little my father showed me the 1968 version of Planet of the Apes with Charlton Heston saying the iconic line (“Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!) and that chill-inducing conclusion when we see the Statue of Liberty jutting half-buried from decades of sand on the horizon. That last shot still haunts me.

Then, eight years ago, my father took me and my sister to see The Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in theaters. I watched it, I didn’t like it, and I forgot 98% of the movie.

Fast forward to 2017 and War for the Planet of the Apes has come out and is getting a bunch of rave reviews. Curious, we bought it on Prime Video and were absolutely gobsmacked by how good it was. It became my favorite film of 2017 and is a film I still watch every once in a while to this day.

However, there was always this notion in the back of my mind that it was the only good Planet of the Apes movie. Especially when I knew there was a film that had Mark Wahlberg (I thought it was the first of the new era of Planet of the Apes movies) and I knew people didn’t like it. Then I saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes and I was changed.

Continue reading Why Didn’t Anyone Tell Me How Good the ‘Planet of the Apes’ Trilogy Is? →