Planet of the Apes in The Twilight Zone
 

I've always held Planet of the Apes to be the true Twilight Zone: The Movie. I know it's based upon a novel, but it was Rod Serling who wrote the movie, and anyone who's familiar with The Twilight Zone can see a lot of the same kind of themes.

Had it ever spun off into a movie series back in the day, I think this would have been a good way to go, feature length stories written by the Twillight Zone greats.

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Some bright spark a few years ago decided to edit Planet of the Apes down into the format of an original series Twilight Zone episode. And it works really well!

YouTube - PLANET OF THE APES. PART 1

YouTube - PLANETS OF THE APES. PART 2

YouTube - PLANET OF THE APES. PART 3

Now that was good. I wonder what else would work well as a TZ episode?

Hmmm I can't think of anything that would fit quite as well, but maybe Night of the Living Dead?

Maybe a bit more violent and bloody than your average twilight zone, but there's probably a lot that could be trimmed down to get it to TZ length. And then there's that ending, a sting in the tail if ever there was one.

Good call Stephen, it'll be interesting hearing any others that come up.

The Omega Man would work well - most stories by Richard Matheson tended to have a decent Twilight Zone feel to it. Did you read the Shock! anthologies by Matheson? Short stories with twist endings - most were excellent and would have fitted well in the TZ mythos.

I loved the original Omega Man, and the ending really affected me back in the late 70s when I saw it for the first time...

Interesting that both this and NOTLD are based on the same source material.

I've been meaning to buy some Matheson books as ive not read his stuff but looking at the book list he looks essential to explore.

I love Planet of the Apes. Obviously the ending is very similar to "I Shot an Arrow" from Season 1, but it also shares a plot device used in Season 2's "The Rip Van Winkle Case" (sleeping chamber breaking and leaking in time leading to death). As Tom said, it's the "true" Twilight Zone episode.

A film that would have worked well within in the Zone was Dead and Buried:

YouTube - Dead & Buried (1981) Trailer

But perhaps less gory...

And even more recent films such as Limitless or The Invention of Lying. The latter of which, the writer admitted that he wrote the script after watching a weekend marathon of The Twilight Zone.

I finally watched the Planet of the Apes "episode" of TZ and was very impressed. A few lapses in narrative obviously caused by the collapsed format, but a very worthwhile project to demonstrate how well this would have worked within the confines of the show.

I'd love to see Beneath and Escape done the same way.

I reckon The Omen and Don't Look Now would work well in the Twilight Zone format, though obviously they'd have to be toned down a bit to fit the 1950s American sensibilities. They have the right mixture of weird goings-on combined with a twist ending.

M. Night Shayamalan's films spring to mind, especially Sixth Sense and The Village. And there's Dead End, a film starring Ray Wise. It definitely doffs a cap to TZ

How about The Truman show?

There was an episode of the 1990s incarnation of The Outer Limits that was very similar to The Truman Show. In fact, whoever wrote Truman Show must have seen it! A guy discovers he is the subject of a reality show when he accidentally finds a camera behind his bathroom mirror, and a repair man suddenly walks in to fix it. It was very funny, and predated the movie by at least a few years.

I think alot of philip k dick stories would have worked well, especially things like Imposter or Blade runner (do androids dream of electric sheep) if they had been edited down to rhe raw premise. Man believes one thing, discovers the opposite is true.

F:S