Battle for the Planet of the Apes

Read this as like ten or eleven and thought it was THE GREATEST PIECE OF LITERATURE EVER CREATED! Included here because the memory is so funny to me.

A quick easy anti-war/discrimination read

Is there ever a good day on the planet of the apes? What would a Planet of the Apes holiday special be like?

Despite the brutal story I couldn’t stop reading this book and it made me think a lot about conflict—who do you side with and why, choices one makes in a crisis and status between people and animals. All from a 150 page movie novelization.

I found this book at Title Wave Books in Anchorage, AK. A lucky fund since someone recommended it to me recently and there it was!

Good read when I was a kid

A fairly miserable and again just like 'Beneath' fairly badly written entry into the Planet of the Apes movie novelizations. I never read these when I was younger, probably would've enjoyed them more but trying to enjoy them now as a jaded adult was a little more than I could achieve. I dig the comix and shall be reading more of them from time to time, but I think my deep dive into the POTA universe has come up in the shallow end. Lucky I didn't hit my head on the concrete. Thank you.

Taken on it's own terms, it's a pretty good post-apocalyptic adventure story. The benevolent ape leader Caesar faces the difficulty challenge of maintaining a peaceful and secure village after a nuclear war has destroyed most of the dominant human society. Vengeful mutants boil out of a devastated city, bent on revenge against the idyllic ape/human settlement. Caesar must summon all his strength and leadership abilities to repel their attack. He must also confront his peoples' and his own prejudices against the humans.

However, as a novelization of the movie Battle of the Planet of the Apes, this book shares the same major flaw as the movie. Namely, it's a absolutely terrible sequel to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. At the end of Conquest, Caesar had successfully led an uprising to free domesticated slave apes from their brutal and authoritarian human masters. The pitiless human governor Breck feared Caesar because he was the only ape capable of speech, abstract thought and strategy. Caesar proved his fears correct by striking a blow that destabilized society and eventually lead humanity to destroy itself in a nuclear war. Now, nine years later, Battle shows us a society where all apes speak, are intelligent, and have their own functioning society and culture. How the apes acquired vocal systems capable of speech and how their brains developed in nine short years is left completely unexplained! If the reader can get past this frustrating lack of explanation for a major plot point, the book is enjoyable enough otherwise.

I know. You're looking at those five stars and thinking, "What the #$%@!" And I completely understand. It would appear I have gone mental. So here's the breakdown of why the five stars. Just so we're all clear.

★: The nostalgia factor is overwhelming for me with this one. I was a little too young to watch these movies in the theatre, but they were massive when I was a little kid and the apes were everywhere. We've sort of rewritten film history a bit to believe that Star Wars started the summer blockbuster and merchandising explosion, but I had a Dr. Zaius doll and remember one of my friends having a Planet of the Apes t-shirt. I even played Battle for the Planet of the Apes with my friend Duane (the same one Thomas and I chatted about in the comment thread) after our all day summer tv marathon. So when I saw this at the local used book store and passed over my shekels, it had already earned that first star simply based on my childhood flashbacks.

+★: There are things to be said, positive things, about movie-tie-ins. I know the prevailing wisdom is that they are the trashiest of the trashy, and that may very well be true, but there are two things about them I love. First, as a longtime screenwriter, I appreciate the cinematic quality that can't be avoided. These sorts of books are almost always based on a screenplay for the film (occassionally, though, they'll be based on a treatment), so the pace, the action, the dialogue is driven by the movie, and while I would rather read the actual screenplay, a movie-tie-in is an enjoyable (though diminished) alternative. Second, directors can change the work of screenwriters however they want, so it's nice to see a different take on a screenwriter's work and feel a little closer (even if this is illusory) to what their work was all about.

+★: Sometimes, as in this case where the movie was pretty pathetic, a movie-tie-in can be better than its on-screen counterpart. The film was saddled with poor effects (even the ape costumes had become less impressive, with so many apes needed to fill Ape City only the costumes of the stars were well done), poor performances, and an excruciating pace. But the books has effects imagined by me, performances imagined by me and a pace that was as fast as I wanted to make it. I can see now, having read the book, why this particular script would have been given the greenlight. It could have been good. Really.

-★: That being said, the big battle between the Mutants and the Apes went on way too long, even here in the book.

+★: And since I mentioned them already: nuclear fallout Mutants! Again, much cooler here than on-screen.

+★★: Last but certainly not least is the author David Gerrold (one of the great Hackosaurids). He cracked me up, and this exchange between Mutant leader Mr. Kolp and his "love interest" Mutant Alma contains his best insertion into the story (I know it's long, but I think it is worth repeating in its entirety)

"Do you know what that is?"

"Of course, Mr. Kolp. it's our nuclear missile."

Kolp went up to it and stroked its shaft. "It's operational. Did you know that?" He gestured to her, and she approached timidly. He kept stroking the shaft of the missile as he reached out and took her hand. Her heart skipped a beat.

"Come closer, Alma," he whispered. She did so. "Touch it," he commanded. She extended her other hand and pressed her fingertips against the cold metal surface, then her whole palm. She began stroking the weapon in time with Kolp. The smooth steel felt so clean and strong.

"If the impossible should happen, Alma," Kolp said. "If we're defeated by the apes, I will not surrender to animals. He squeezed her hand and held it tighter. "Neither will my soldiers. If retreat seems necessary, I shall send you a coded radio signal. Fifteen minutes after you receive it, you will range this missile on Ape City and activate it."

Alma breathed throatily, "Yes, Mr. Kolp, I will. I can do it from the main control console. What will the signal be?"

Kolp looked at her carefully. "Alpha and Omega," he said slowly.

Alma repeated, "Alpha and Omega."

He nodded. "You're a good girl, Alma."

She looked at him adoringly.

And at last he noticed her. "And a pretty one too."

They were still stroking the missile. Their hands moved together across its steel skin. neither seemed to notice it any more, though. Kolp leaved forward, closer and closer, and kissed her. She kissed him back. Deeply. She stepped closer and slid her arms around his wide frame. "Alpha and Omega," she breathed. "I will be your tool."

Then and only then did Kolp take his slowly moving hand off his weapon. He pulled Alma close against him and kissed her again. And again.

It seriously called it "his weapon." Not "the weapon" but "his weapon." That has to be one of the silliest uses of a phallic symbol I've ever read. Just awesome!

So there you go. Is it crappy? Kind of, but crappy in all the ways I wanted it to be, and it was so much darn fun that I think I am going to start hunting down movie-tie-ins to all the movies I loved as a kid. Come to think of it, I think I have a copy of the original Battlestar Galactica tie-in lying around. That's moving to the top of my pile right now. ... There!

Start raiding your used book stores for trash like this, my friends. You won't regret it.

★+★+★-★+★+★★= 5 ★s

I went thru a huge Planet of the Apes phase when I was a kid in the 70’s. Couldn’t get enough - comic books, board games, TV shows, movies, books, action figures - if there was anything to do with the talking apes universe, I had to have it. I honestly don’t remember if this book was well written, but it was based on the movie and had the apes on the cover so I bought it, I read it, and I still have it. Fun Fact: My favorite week on The 4:30 Movie was Planet of the Apes Week. I’d RUN home from school everyday that week to watch butchered 60 minute versions of all the movies. Could. Not. Get. Enough.