Tim Burtons’ 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes was a misfire for the director but, in its own strange way, it also helped to set the stage for the much more successful franchise to follow in the 2010s. The various movies of the rebooted franchise have been remarkably successful, earning both critical praise and box office success. This isn’t very surprising, however, given the longevity of the series as a whole. The idea of a planet ruled over by apes was and remains an exciting one, and even the original 1968 movie spawned four sequels, a live-action TV series, and even an animated children’s show.
On the surface, Burton’s Planet of the Apes was very similar to its namesake; among other things, they both followed a similar narrative trajectory. However, Burton’s version explored different issues than the original movie, in particular avoiding the charged racial allegory that was at the heart of the 1968 Apes. Despite its built-in appeal, the movie didn’t land with quite as much impact as one might expect and, though it made quite a lot of money at the box office, it has mostly become a footnote in the franchise’s history rather than the first of a new series.
Tim Burton's Planet Of The Apes Failure Saved The Franchise
In his reboot of the beloved series, Tim Burton took quite a few risks with his reimagining of Planet of the Apes with its cliffhanger ending that made almost no sense. Indeed, it’s precisely because he decided to put his own quirky stamp on the property that it failed to meet the expectations of those who wanted to see more adherence to the established lore. In a curious twist of fate, it was precisely the failure of Burton’s movie that enabled the franchise to continue. Its demise gave subsequent creators the chance to start over with a blank slate, without having to adhere to the story as laid out in Burton’s version.
In fact, the rebooted Planet of the Apes movies wisely avoided addressing Burton’s version at all, preferring instead to provide a spiritual prequel to the original movie. Doing so allowed Planet of the Apes to show the ape Caesar, who - having been genetically modified - led his fellow simians to rebel against their human tormentors, eventually establishing their own commune while the human world collapsed in the wake of a global pandemic. The fact that Burton’s version failed meant that audiences were more willing to accept a new interpretation of the material, if only to wipe away the memory of the 2001 misfire.
Planet Of The Apes' Reboot Avoids Burton's Biggest 2001 Problems
The rebooted Planet of the Apes trilogy was tonally very different from Burton’s effort. It grounded itself in the world of science and genetics and, rather than using makeup and prosthetics - which delivered mixed results in the Burton outing-the reboot relied on sophisticated motion capture technology to bring its apes to visual life. Paradoxically, this gave them a stronger sense of realism, largely eschewing the rather cartoonish and broad humor which was one of the drawbacks of the 2001 Planet of the Apes.
Furthermore, the new Planet of the Apes movies were more firmly grounded in the mythology established in the original series, focusing on the character of Caesar and his leading of the ape revolution (and subsequent establishment of ape society). Just as importantly, however, they were more serious in tone than Burton’s version, grounded by Andy Serkis’ somber performance as Caesar. Despite not being human, his character was still someone whom the audience was invited to cheer for and to sympathize with, even if his journey culminated with humanity’s ultimate demise.
