 This weekend, audiences will swing into theaters to see Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, a Planet of the Apes film that does not have James Franco in it. It does, however, have Gary Oldman and Andy Serkis, presumably playing an ape, and it's directed by Matt Reeves, who helmed Cloverfield in the vastly underrated kid vampire movie Let Me In. It is, of course, a sequel to 2011's Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which was in turn a reboot of the series, but not the first reboot. The latest film is the eighth Planet of the Apes movie, and I'm not even counting two failed TV shows. The series has a long history with major highs and some seriously disappointing lows that span more than 50 years. Before I go any further, I should say there are many spoilers in this video, and if you haven't watched at least the original five Planet of the Apes films, you're doing yourself and humanity a disservice by listening any further. Here's what I wanna say about the first five Planet of the Apes films. They are a perfect circle. They are complete in every way, shape, and form. They paint a shocking, striking, upsetting picture of a world gone horribly wrong. Let's break it down. The movies never would have gotten their start without the original source material, a French novel aptly titled Planet of the Apes that was published in 1963. 20th Century Fox eventually greenlit the movie with the first draft of the script written by The Twilight Zone's Rod Serling. Unfortunately, Serling's version was scrapped, but the producers did keep his original ending, which has become, well, rather iconic. The finished script focused on a group of astronauts, including the very sexy Charlton Heston, who crash land on a planet run by talking apes. Several of the astronauts are killed, a handful are captured, shut up, you freak! And eventually they learn the shocking truth about the Planet of the Apes. It was Earth all along, a post-apocalyptic Earth. The film was released in 1968 to critical acclaim and is considered one of the greatest films of all time. The sequels, perhaps even better. In 1970, there was Beneath the Planet of the Apes, my personal favorite Planet of the Apes film, about, yes, another astronaut that crash lands on the Planet of the Apes. This astronaut's actually looking for Charlton Heston, but what he finds is a beautiful woman, telepathic humans, nuclear bombs, and Queensborough Plaza. A year later, we got Escape from the Planet of the Apes, which is possibly the campiest of all of the Planet of the Apes films, and yet it has the darkest ending. Without giving away too many plot points, let's just say that three of the apes from the Planet of the Apes, that's Earth in the future, escape using a rocket ship and fly back to the past, which is Earth in the 90s, although the film was made in the 70s. And they sort of become celebrities. I don't wanna say anymore, but it's got a very, again, very, very dark ending. In 72, people were treated to Conquest of the Planet of the Apes, which takes a look at how the apes eventually overthrew humanity. 2011's James Franco reboot most closely follows this film's story, and aside from a brief appearance as a baby in the last film, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, Conquest is the first major appearance of Caesar, the leader of the ape revolution. Battle for the Planet of the Apes was the last film in the original series, and it's clearly inspiration for the latest, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. Battle has Caesar and his army of apes going head to head with a decimated human population. In the end, the apes realize they're treating the humans just as bad as the humans were treating them, and the film ends with the humans and apes coexisting in the world and living happily ever after. After Battle, there was a live action Planet of the Apes TV show in 1974 that only lasted 14 episodes. It did, however, feature a very young, very handsome Jacky Earl Haley. And a year later, there was an animated show called Return to the Planet of the Apes that lasted for a mere 13 episodes. Those TV shows are something of a footnote in the film series, which largely laid dormant until 2001, when Tim Burton made what is largely considered the worst in the series. After sitting in development hell for two decades and bouncing between directors like Oliver Stone, Chris Columbus, and even Michael Bay, Tim Burton eventually rebooted the series with Marky Mark Wahlberg. I'm guessing the film would have been measurably better if they had gone with their original casting choice, Arnold Schwarzenegger. Either way, the movie is kind of terrible, and let's not talk about the confusing, very forced twist ending. It would be another 10 years before the series would get the proper reboot it deserves. Rise of the Planet of the Apes was both a critical and financial success, thanks in large to fantastic visual effects and a mind-blowing performance from Andy Serkis as Caesar. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes is expected to attack the box office, and critics are saying that it's one of the best films in the series. So we can all expect many more years of apes battling humans. In fact, the next film is already scheduled for July 2016, with Matt Reeves returning to direct. There isn't a title yet, so for now, let's just call it the sequel to the sequel to the loose remake of the conquest of the Planet of the Apes.