I just put down my copy of Pierre Boulle’s 1963 opus, Planet of the Apes, as translated by Xan Fielding. “Put down” may not be the most accurate phrasing here — I closed the app on my phone and proceeded to do some web surfing for a while. That was primarily to verify the number of  movies spun off of this relatively slender volume: seven films and two television series, at least one video game and several supporting documentaries and behind-the-scenes projects shot up on the IMDB site in short order. At first blush, these varied projects, most of which I have seen, bare little resemblance to the book used as their source material beyond the conceit that apes somehow supplant man as the dominant species of their planet. Continue reading →