Farewell to the Planet of the Apes

The last of the made-for-TV films in the PLANET OF THE APES series, which were made simply by stringing together two episodes from the short-lived TV series. At least this one is a lot better than the previous instalment, the deathly dull LIFE, LIBERTY & PURSUIT ON THE PLANET OF THE APES. That's purely because the two TV episodes chosen here are more fun.

Not that they have much in common. The first half involves humans being thrown into shark-infested waters by the apes; it's just about passable, although the story seems oddly light and irrelevant. The second half is better, as it involves humans and apes teaming up to create a hang-glider which will allow the humans to escape their captors. At least this has plenty of incident and some imagination to keep it going. Saying that, these films are still rather pointless as simply watching the TV series would be a better bet instead.

Farewell to the Planet of the Apes was the final of five TV movies that was made by combining episodes of the 'Planet of the Apes' TV series together. This one featured the instalments 'Tomorrow's Tide' and 'Up Above the World So High'. In the first half our human protagonists are captured (again) by apes who run a forced labour camp where men are made to fish in shark infested waters. In the second part our heroes assist a man who has built a hand-glider and wishes to discover the secrets of flight.

I suppose the two episodes used in this final TV movie are reasonably distinctive when set along-side most of the others. Fishing and hand-gliding aren't the most predictable subjects for this series to base its material around. In this respect the film is to be commended but in almost all respects it's as poor as the others in this series of films. It lacks decent characters beyond Roddy McDowell's Galen and some of the apes and the plots are never played out to very much dramatic effect. While, like all the others, this is essentially two separate episodes stuck together somewhat randomly and so it has two half-hearted story arcs as opposed to one decent one. In summary, these TV movies are no more than a curiosity. Their appeal is very limited, as any enthusiasts of all things 'Apes' would really be better simply watching the series rather than these clumsily constructed films. They're more worthy of a footnote in 'Apes' history rather than something that needs to be seen.