Has anyone read the book?


Sometimes I think I could buy it.

reply

Yes
It's very different

reply

Thank you for your answer.
Would you recommend reading this book?

reply

I read it about a month ago. It is worth the read. And it is relatively quick and easy to do so - it's not long at all.

reply

Thank you for the answer. I think I will buy the book in order to read it.

reply

Yes.
It's a good read. It's interesting to compare the movie to it. It's easy to understand why they (movie makers) had to go a different way, but the essence is still there.

reply

Thank you for the answer. I think I will buy the book in order to read it.

reply

You're welcome

reply

So, in a week I will get the book….let see.

reply

Enjoy

reply

So, I have read the book.

I have enjoyed it. It ´s a pity that it is not a long one!!.

I think, anyway, that the book could have been adapted just as it is in the first movie in 1968, obviously without showing at the beginning the identity of the two "space tourists". Having said that, I must recognise that to see Charlon Heston at the end of the movie on his knees in front of the Statue of Liberty ist almost "unbeatable".

reply

The trouble with adapting the novel was the apes had a modern society with cars, helicopters and TV. This would have been far too expensive on the budget that AP Jacops had. It cost almost $1m dollars just for the apes make up.

reply

Hi Wearsalan,

I am not sure if these factors, to recreate a society with cars, helicopters and TV (e.g.), would have been so expensive taking account that we are speaking about standard subjects which can be seen in almost every movie.

However, I like also a lot the stating of the Planet of the Apes as it is.

reply

It was in the original script and they had to cut it back. They did so by having the apes in a less technologically advanced society.

reply

Both book and first movie (1968) are very good anyway!!

reply

Agreed

reply

Yeah, and wasn't impressed. Maybe it's because the first movie was actually better than the book, a rare occurrence, or maybe because I had a crappy translation from the French.

Because yeah, the original book by Pierre Boulle was written in French.

reply

You can recognize that the book was written by a french at: " Nova was extremely beautiful and she was totally nude" :-)

reply

I often wondered if the ending for Beneath the Planet of the Apes was inspired by the ending of the movie adaption of Boulles novel Bridge on the River Kwai.

reply

I can not give you here an answer…. but Happy New Year anyway!!!!

reply

Happy New Year to you too

reply

You keep asking this question. It had nothing to do with Bridge on River Kwai. It was Hestons idea to destroy the planet because he didn't want to be pressured into doing another sequel. As it stood, he was barely in this for that reason

reply

A dying man practically falling on the detonation mechanism..very similar. Plus Heston had read the book as well after reading Boulles Planet of the Apes novel.

reply

Its been well documented that Taylor was talked into doing a sequel but asked if his charater could be killed off in the beginning. He agreed to be killed off at the end and because he wanted to stop the sequels, it was his idea to blow up the planet after seeing the script with the bomb at the end. The original draft never had that bomb going off. I guess its possible he was inspired by Bridge on River Kwai but I doubt it

reply

I guess its possible he was inspired by Bridge on River Kwai but I doubt it

But it's possible

reply

He was indeed. He even mentioned that movie when he pushed the idea to blow up the world at the end of Beneath. I can't cite a source, but it was either in a Heston biography or a magazine article on Planet of the Apes.

reply

Another reason why I hate books. What good is having Nova nude if its only in a book?

reply

Well, that is an argument!! 😅

reply

Nah, books are boring.

reply

A good book is never boring 😉

reply

Reading a book requires using your imagination. I rather watch the movie and see it thru the directors vision

reply

While I love movies and enjoy seeing how a script comes together from a director, experiencing a book through your own imagination is far more rewarding. It helps your own mental acuity and flexibility. A book can also delve far more deeply into its characters, locations, and plot than any film can. That isn't a criticism of film; it is just a limitation to a product that is necessarily limited by time and budget.

Author of the Sodality Universe
The Road from Antioch
In the Markets of Tyre
Flight to Lystra
The Theater at Epehsus (coming soon)
The Council on Jerusalem (coming 2023)

reply

I don't have an imagination so reading a book is hard for me

reply

That is not surprising.

Author of the Sodality Universe
The Road from Antioch
In the Markets of Tyre
Flight to Lystra
The Theater at Epehsus (coming soon)
The Council on Jerusalem (coming 2023)

reply

I've read it.

Pretty good but not as good as Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake. If you've only got the time to read one book, out of the two I'd certainly choose that one.

reply

OK, thank you for your comments.

reply

No worries, thanks 👍

I didn't appreciate your OP was from four years ago! Did you read it in the end?

reply

Yes, I have read the book, it was fine. Now I do not have to choose between both books 😉😉

reply

I read it. Decent read. Much different than the film.

reply

The film retains some of the social critique and satire of the book. I think it's no coincidence that the story is similar to the section of Gulliver's Travels, in which the Houyhnhnms, a race of talking horses, are the rulers while the deformed creatures that resemble human beings are called Yahoos.

reply

Yeah, i did. Back in the day ... I forget most of it.

reply

I read the book back around 1967...before the movie came out. Then I saw the movie.

A big deal was made at the time that the book was written by the same author(French) of The Bridge on the River Kwai. The Bridge on the River Kwai was shown on ABC TV in 1967 and got the highest ratings of any movie broadcast on TV til that time.

So -- oddly enough -- Planet of the Apes was promoted very much in connection with the Kwai movie.

All I remember of the book is that it did NOT have the "Statue of Liberty" twist at the end. It had a different twist which, I believe, Tim Burton put on his remake at the end.

In the Boulle book, somehow the Heston character manages to take a spacecraft BACK to earth -- but time has passed -- and: the military jeep that comes out to meet him is driven by an ape.

reply

Sounds familiar. For the kid that I was back then I preferred the movie. After all for silly shock value the book was a bit of an effort.

reply

I don’t think so, I’m a bit nerdy so I read lots of stuff but I don’t recall this one. Very good movie though!

reply