Planet of the Apes

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Planet of the Apes was a series of sci-fi movies adapted from a 1960s novel that came out in the 1970s and etched themselves deep into pop culture, especially the nerdy strain. The basic plot revolves around a conflict between humans and apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans, specifically) on a world where ape is the dominant species and man is little more than a beast.

The Book

Written in 1963 by French author Pierre Boulle, "La Planète des singes" revolves a couple casually flying their spaceship on their honeymoon when they discover a long-lost recording. Reading it, they discover the tale of a man who undertook a trip through space to the distant planet of Soror, where he discovered a world populated by humans with the intellects of animals and a society of civilized apes. Captured as a lab specimen, he narrowly avoids death by revealing his ability to talk, reason and debate, proving himself the intellectual equal of the apes around him. Cautiously welcomed into their society, he discovers that Soror was once home to an advanced civilization of humans, but they fell into decadence, unwittingly handing over the reigns of power to the apes they had uplifted as a servitor species and finally devolving into the beasts-in-human-shape that exist today. Spooked by this revelation, the author reclaims his spaceship and flies back to Earth, only to discover that, thanks to time dilation, the same thing has happened on Earth; humanity has degenerated to beasthood and the apes have inherited the Earth. The story ends with the framework couple, revealed to be apes themselves, scoffing at the idea of an intelligent human.

The OG Films

The first film adaptation of Pierre Boulle's novel came out in 1968, and was a smash hit. Making some pragmatic adaptations, largely by avoiding the traveling between planets angle and instead revealing that the "alien" world is in fact a post-apocalyptic Earth, it still seared its place into pop culture.

The Planet of the Apes as depicted in this film is a roughly Iron Age world, with a few anachronistic pieces of higher technology, largely in the form of rifles and pistols. Chimpanzees are peaceful workers and scientists, gorillas are brutish military and police enforcers, and orangutans are the secular and spiritual authorities, whilst humans are little more than animals - mute and with maybe a Stone Age level of technology.

A sequel, Beneath The Planet of the Apes, followed in 1970, and despite ending with the world officially being blown up, three more films followed in each of the subsequent three years; Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971) set up a time travel loop, with chimp scientists Cornelius and Zira using a human spaceship to flee before Earth exploded and somehow traveling through time to Earth. 1972's Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and 1973's Battle for the Planet of the Apes continue from Escape and set things up for the rise of apes as the dominant species, as well as engendering a never ending debate on whether or not these three films created a time loop or an alternate universe.

Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes

In 2001, a remake of Planet of the Apes was produced by director Tim Burton. This version was highly controversial, both for the major plot changes - setting the Planet of the Apes on an actual alien world that had been occupied by the mutated descendants of a crashed space colony, first and foremost, followed by presenting humans as intelligent but enslaved - and for the bizarrely sexual depiction of the female apes, with many complaining that there was more romantic subtext between the human lead Leo and the female ape Ari than there is between him and female human lead Daena. Now, the alien planet bit and even the hinted interspecies attraction actually stems from the books, but not many people remember the books because the original 1968 film overshadowed them.

The end result was that this film bombed and it killed off interest in a continued Planet of the Apes... until...

The Revived Films

A second revival of the Planet of the Apes films occurred during the 2010s, starting with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011. These films went with an entirely new angle, ditching the space travel element and instead being a mid-apocalypse film showcasing how the apes rise up and take over the planet from humanity. In this case, genetic engineering and one extremely fucking stupid bastard not only creates a way to uplift apes to full human-level sapience, but also unleashes a deadly plague that first devastates humanity, then mutates into a new strain that, whilst not lethal, leaves the victims mute and with lowered cognitive intelligence.

Followed by sequels Dawn of the Planet of the Apes in 2014 and War for the Planet of the Apes in 2017, this revival was actually quite well received, with particular praise for the relatively realistic apes and the lack of the goofier elements of the previous, more "soft" sci-fi continuities.

Apes in Other Media

The popularity of apes in the 1970s was so high that they got their own TV series in 1974 (titled, simply, Planet of the Apes) and a cartoon in 1975 (Return to the Planet of the Apes), both set on their own iteration of the original 1968 film's world, with Return also borrowing some elements from Beneath.

Marvel Comics put out two separate lines of Planet of the Apes comics in between 1974 and 1977. Malibu Comics followed with eight different distinct comics between 1990 and 1993. Dark Horse Comics did several small comics between 2001 and 2002. And then BOOM! Comics had over 17 different comics, including crossovers with King Kong, Tarzan, Pellucidar and Star Trek, in between 2011 and 2018.

There have also been a handful of Apes videogames, with the 2001 movie's licensed tie-in on the Playstation being considered infamously terrible.

/tg/ Relativity

There have been several different board games set on the Planet of the Apes.

Terra Primate by Eden Studios uses the Unisystem to offer what is almost literally the Planet of the Apes Roleplaying Game.