The Planet Of The Apes Series And The Oscars

The Planet of the Apes movies and the Oscars have a fairly contentious relationship, understandably so, as the only ones that are taken seriously are the original and the most recent franchise reprisal series. The franchise as a whole has not received the respect it deserves from the Academy. Let’s look at it.

The first film came out in 1968 and was an instant classic, receiving Oscar nominations for the Original Score and the Costume Design. What is most interesting is that the film also received an honorary Oscar for the makeup work from the legend, John Chambers. There would not be an actual makeup category at the Oscars until 1981. 

Like all famous science fiction hits, there was then an onslaught of sequels that were lower in quality and much less memorable. None of these films received Oscars and were nothing more than cult hits for die hard fans of the series. They were all released from 1970-1973, before the potential Best Makeup Oscar, so even if they were good enough to be nominated for that award… no dice. 

The next time Hollywood was introduced to a Planet of the Apes movie was Tim Burton’s reimagining of the series, a critical flop, and so it's understandable why it did not receive any Oscar Nominations. It was, however, incredibly surprising that Rick Baker did not get a makeup nomination. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring deservedly won the award in the year, but the other two nominations were A Beautiful Mind and Moulin Rouge!; both are fine films, but nowhere near the level of makeup of Planet of the Apes. Even though those two films and many others that year were objectively better overall, the makeup category famously does not care about the quality of the film. 

The Planet of the Apes franchise had the ultimate resurgence with the modern trilogy of films that some consider to be better than the original. Rise of the Planet of the Apes, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes made for a tremendous resurgence where instead of revolutions in makeup they featured some of the finest advances in visual effects and motion capture performances through Weta Digital. Each film deservedly was nominated for Best Visual Effects, but each film also lost to Hugo, Interstellar, and Blade Runner 2049 respectively. These three winners have spectacular effects and deserved their Oscars, but it seems like such a shame and a true lapse in logic that at least one of these new Planet of the Apes movies has not won. 

This brings us to this year’s Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. The most recent installment will definitely get nominated for Best Visual Effects; there is no doubting that. However, it is most likely going to result in a loss for the series again due to Dune: Part Two. There is a narrative where none of the new Apes movies have received the Visual Effects Oscar and the Dune franchise already has, so that may play in its favor. Another interesting aspect is that the three previous Apes films all lost the Visual Effects Oscar to films that had effects that focused more on their various different production designs with an emphasis on the setting more than just character design, which could build the case Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Dune: Part Two. 

It’s obviously too early to determine the winner now and narratives always have the potential to shift, but it seems clear that it will be down to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and Dune: Part Two with the potential for a Planet of the Apes film to finally win a competitive Oscar.

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