Saga Of The Apes

A bold, bold fanediting idea pulled off with tremendous skill - both narratively and technically.

I thought the multi-screen idea was going to be a bit of a headache to be honest, but once I started watching I understood it almost straight away. And the technique, while used often, wasn't overused.

I've seen 3 of 4 original films - many, many years ago - but I'm no Apes purist. This was very entertaining a very different fanedit experience.

Technically, the editing is clean, the video/audio quality good considering the sources, and the audio is generally well mixed. I did notice interlacing in some footage but it wasn't too distracting.

I watched the DVD version. One suggestion: the editor might offer viewers an MP4/MKV option - a slow 2-pass x264 encode at around 2000kbps to give his fanedit the best possible video quality. Work like this deserves it.

Congrats Bob.

Finally got around to watching this edit and it is just a super cool way to watch the whole darn Planet of the Apes saga in one sitting. (except Battle for the POTA, which is a fairly irrelevant and pointless sequel anyways) BionicBob is rapidly becoming one of my favorite editors. He has a real instinct for storytelling and maintaining the flow. The use of multiple scenes on the screen was remarkably effective in telling the dual stories simultaneously.

I still haven't been able to answer the question I raised in the forum, which was whether the story as it is cut could be made sense of by a novice to the POTA. I tried to get my 15 year old son to sit and watch it, but to no avail. He has only seen this 21st century versions and I wanted to see if he could follow it. If I get this done, I will report back.

This is a short review because I really don't have any nitpicks with the edit. Any nitpicks would be with the source material, outside the control of the editor.

Great job Bob and congratulations. Your creativity and technical acumen are outstanding.

Another keeper!

What an excellent edit! What a labor of love! This is my new favorite way to revisit one of my favorite movie franchises of all the time. I get the complexity of your narrative, particularly on the first half. You made the much inferior "Beneath the Planet... " so much better and deeper on the second half.

The use of multiple screens is powerful and effective. The only constructive criticism I am going to share is in the audio editing department. There were some missed opportunities during the multiple screens sequences where overlapping soundtracks could have made the experience more powerful...but that's about it.

Overall for me this rates 10 out of 10.

This was long, but held my interest throughout.
BBob's editing choices were always inventive, often uncanny.
Excellent pacing, and the sprawling narrative was generally clean.

Saga Of The Apes presupposes the viewer has a working familiarity with the chimp flicks.
(FE stipulates viewers possess the originals.)
Fair enough. Were you going into this cold - you would be going out confused.
Third act seemed helter skelter - that could have been me.

Not a fan of split screen. Often confusing.
The screens themselves seemed smallish.

Audio fine. No jarring cuts or volume spikes.
Video was nice. No editing errors to my eyes.
(Note: I love The Carpenters. The shopping and the song? No no no.)

Highly recommended.
Great job, BBob

What I always like about the ape films is how the sequels become prequels, making each new ape film both different in how they looked and in storytelling. Bionic bob takes the first four films and tells the story of how man was conquered by ape in a non-linear style spread over two 90mins films.


Volume 1 blends my two favourite entries in the ape series with planet of the apes and escape from the planet of the apes. The split screen technique works well in moving the edit along without ever getting bogged down with dialogue. What impressed me was how the two stories worked well with one another, the split screen often showing what was being explained to great effect with the carpenters song being the highlight of the edit.


The non-linear style of storytelling also works wonders and kept me interested throughout it's 90mins, slowly the story unravels it self before all the dots are joined up. elements of volume 2 are inter-cut throughout in black and white to great effect. it is both a fresh new way in viewing these two films and I can't recall any fanedit being done in this way so this too felt very original.


volume 2 however didn't all together work for me, while the two films on volume one compliment each over rather well in terms of telling the story of how ape conquered man, volume 2 suffers as both films battle to try and tell their own separate story. the split screen technique didn't work as effectively, I felt that I’d missed something from either film as I tried to follow them. Maybe these could have been made into two separate films instead.


overall I wouldn't consider volume 2 essential viewing as for me the brief snippets I saw in volume 1 work far more effectively than in it's more expanded feature length presentation, Volume 1 however i'd give a perfect 10/10. While it's style of storytelling may not be to everyone’s liking for me I came away from the edit with the feeling that I saw something very original.