Saga Of The Apes

I've watched ~20 fanedits without leaving any reviews, but this edit has motivated me to finally say something. I loved it that much. I probably never would have watched the apes movies again. I liked the first one fine and watch a few minutes of it when I channel surf and come across it. But I'll probably never be in the mood to actually pop in the dvds and watch them all again. This edit though - I will watch it again.

There were a few things that bugged me. The end of part 1 and beginning of part 2 used some repeat footage. The scenes belonged in both places, but when watching the two parts back to back, it was a bit confusing. Also, though the split screen generally worked great, there were a few spots that it didn't. Generally, it worked well when scenes from different movies were shown on the different screens. It didn't work well a few times when you just used the split screen to show a single movie and just turn it into slo mo. But, the pros far outweigh the cons in this edit, my notes here are just nitpicks.

Enjoyment: 10
Original: 8 (Planet of the Apes), 4-6 for the other three movies.
Combining, trimming, and playing the events out side by side was an extremely creative way to provide a new viewing experience, one that for me is remarkably improved over the original sequels.

Bionic Bob has taken the two best sequels, which had great ideas executed poorly, and has made them a meaningful expansion of the original.


For this review, I'm going to break down each Volume SEPARATELY , since they're essentially separate films.
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VOL. 1 is framed around Escape from the Planet of the Apes, the best sequel. So it's no wonder it's the better Volume. The greatest strength of Escape was ironically also its greatest weakness, in that it was an ironic reversal of the first film narratively...
which is great... if you've seen the first film. A sequel must stand on its own weight, and the fact you can't watch it without the original as context means the ironic reversal would fly over a viewer's head. By basically taking Escape and cutting it together with the original film, you can now compare and contrast the two narratives as they play out together! You can see the similarities! Now you don't miss that ironic reversal. The only major problem with it is fixed, elevating it from an average film to a great one.
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VOL. 2 is framed around Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Essentially it is a suspense thriller, because we know what the lead characters are doing will cause the future destruction of the second film... but they don't know that...
which is great... if you've seen the second film. But if you haven't then the suspense would completely fly over your head, and you'd have no reason to be worried! So he simply cross-cuts between the second film and this one. It heightens the suspense! We see the future they're trying to prevent! We're afraid when we see them causing it!


The Planet of the Apes saga was always one I enjoyed the idea of, but it was always too poor in execution to enjoy. Having each Volume cut together two movies also gives him the ability to cut out the worst parts of both AND STILL have a feature length runtime. So you ADD missing exposition and LOSE bad scenes.
I now like to think this forms a nice little trilogy (Planet of the Apes, Saga of the Apes: Vol. 1, Saga of the Apes: Vol. 2)
Which serves as a companion to the prequel trilogy (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, War for the Planet of the Apes).

Bravo, Bionic Bob.
~Silver Screen Samurai~
(PS some have said you need to see the original versions to understand this... not really, you only need to have seen the first one)

What an experience this one was! The multi-cam / picture worked very well indeed and radically alters the viewing experience of watching these films. Love the synergy between the struggles of man and apes told simultaneously from different perspectives. Notably the torture sequence of Caesar and Brent. It was very impactful! The captioning of the chapters is another great touch. Over all this if such a cleaver edit, It must have taken Bob an age to put this one together. Excellent work, thank you for creating something very unique and very enjoyable to watch.

I scored the narrative as a 9 because I tended to focus on one of the sequences when the multi-cam was in play and there was an action scene in progress.. Especially the riot sequences. I felt I missed some important imagery from the story being played out on the cam I wasn’t focusing on.

“Glory be to the bomb and the holy fallout!”

While I wasn't a fan of the multi cam the way Bob pared up the movies was inspiring! Movies that I didn't enjoy before I was able to get a new appreciation for them here.

I now have a way to watch the original series in a way that I can digest because he also kept the run times low for these without feeling like we were missing anything. That is quite a feat.

This was the first movie from this editor that I have watched and I'm sure it will not be the last.

The movies are in SD format but I didn't knock any points off here for that.

Overdue review from moi, but necessary.

This is quite an achievement both technically and narrative-wise. It elevate my enjoyment of these films to a new level, especially with the removal of poor material and adding the new. The use of split screens is great, and it is a form of storytelling that seems to have fallen by the wayside, so thank for shining a light on that too.

Overall, Highly recommended and a breath of fresh air frankly!