Planet of the Apes: Movie Adaptation

by Scott Allie, Davidé Fabbri

In the year 2029, astronaut/pilot Leo Davidson is in for an adventure -- and a nightmare -- unlike anything else. While conducting vital research in space on apes enhanced with human DNA, the crew of the starship Oberon investigates a strange anomaly. Pericles -- one of the genetically enhanced chimps trained as a pilot by Leo -- is given the task of investigating the odd occurrence in a prototype space pod. When Pericles disappears, Leo disregards all orders and heads out to find his friend. Once caught in the grip of the anomaly, Leo is pulled into a time and place that he could never imagine...the PLANET OF THE APES! What he experiences there is almost beyond his a world where gorillas and chimps are the dominant species... a world where humans struggle to survive in the wild beneath the heel of ape rule. With the help of a sympathetic chimpanzee activist named Ari, Leo leads the effort to evade the advancing gorilla army led by the sinister Thade. And maybe, just maybe, Leo will make it back home...if he survives the war he's started.

Genres: Graphic Novels, Comics, Science Fiction

56 pages, Comic

First published July 10, 2001

About the author

Scott Allie is an American comics writer and editor, best known as an editor and executive at Dark Horse Comics from 1994 to 2017.

Reviews

[Duncan · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are problems w/the story and the telling of it and I don't think it was Scott Allie's fault so much as it was the fault of a confusing movie plot and then the re-telling in comix form was abbreviated to fit this all in one short 50 page comic. The art it is fine but not top-notch. I could tell pretty much what was happening panel-to-panel but some of the ape characters were hard to keep straight, not using the great Ape names of the original movies but made up names like Attar and Thade and so-on. Again, the movie's fault not Allie's fault. (His name was so familiar because he wrote a lot of Dark Horse titles back in the day that I've read like Hellboy, Buffy & Solomon Kane - good, fine adventure comix writing but nothing that really grabs one's imagination and think, man, I got to start following this guy more!)
An okay book but forgettable, I got it in a dollar bin at Paradox comics last week though, so I made my sit down and read it before I go out and buy more comix(ha, I've bought more comix).

[Matthew · Rating 3 out of 5]

This does a decent job with the Tim Burton movie of which not so many were fond.

[Wolverinefactor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don’t even know what I just read. It’s like a weird fever dream. I’ve blocked the remake from my brain so none of this felt familiar.

[Ian · Rating 1 out of 5]

The comic book adaptation of the Tim Burton reboot movie.
In a world where humans are enslaved by apes a man appears who isn't afraid to defy the ape overlords. Leo Davidson is an astronaut who is attempting to find his way back to his crashed ship and return to Earth, as well as solving the riddle of how the ape-dominated society arose.

It is generally accepted that Tim Burton's reboot of the Planet of the Apes franchise was garbage. It had a horribly miscast Mark Wahlberg as the lead, a weird human-ape-human love triangle, somehow totally managed to miss the social commentary that made the original a classic and had a ridiculous twist ending that made no sense in the context of the film (some may point out that the ending is more in keeping with Pierre Boulle's original novel, but without the inclusion of time-dilation it's nonsense here).

This then, is a speed-run of that terrible film which seems to just drop scenes and dialogue from the movie onto the page regardless of whether it serves the overall narrative of the story. Rather than an adaptation, this is more of a 'here's some bits of the movie, work the rest out yourself'. I can only imagine that if you hadn't seen the film and yet tried reading this, you'd be completely lost by the end of the first page.

Garbage movie. Garbage adaptation. Garbage.

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[Jeff B. · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmm. I'm on a Planet of the Apes kick and found this at a local comic store. This wasn't great. This is a comic adaptation of the Planet of the Apes (2001) directed by Tim Burton and staring Mark Wahlberg. I recently watched all nine Planet of the Ape movies and this was one of the worst. The make-up was great, but weird choices were made like having the humans being able to talk. We lost the big moments from the original (and 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes) like when they can't believe their ears when the animal speaks. Overall, it had its moments, but was pretty boring.

That brings us to this graphic novel adaptation. It's really short - like 55 pages for a two hour movie. It starts and Marky Mark's character is already on the planet. I don't think you would understand the story at all if you didn't see the movie. They left out lots of somewhat important parts like the beginning, lots of middle parts, and the end. A lot of people didn't like the twist ending of the movie. I thought it was fun and probably the most memorable thing about the movie. It would of been cool as a comic, but is totally left out. I have two competing theories as to why it was left out. My first theory is that these graphic novels are based on the script so they can be release in conjunction with each other. Maybe this was added later and wasn't in the original script. I don't know. My other theory is they thought it was such a great ending, they wanted to save it for the movie and didn't want spoilers from people reading the comic.

You can probably skip this one unless you're a super-fan of 2001's Planet of the Apes. Even then, you'll probably look thru it once.