I just think Serling’s vision is inferior to the ultimate vision the filmmakers went with. And the reasons are the same defects we see in Twilight Zone - too literal, too obvious, and not much creativity.
For Serling, the apes had to be almost exactly like us. I think that’s a terrible creative choice.
There’s some controversy over the ending and who gets credit. Admittedly, it’s a totally Rod Serling ending, and it’s powerful. But the imagery isn’t even original, having been used in a 50s SF magazine, I think. I don’t think anyone stole it (Serling, Jacobs, or others), but it’s not original, either.
And I think it’s a great idea and a shame that Hollywood continues to pay for an idea that they can never be bothered to use. The apes are SUPPOSED to be exactly like us, that’s the whole point of the novel.
Hitting somebody adapting a novel into a movie for not being original is kind of silly. The job handed to him was not to be original, it was to adapt a work to a different media. Which he did, well. With some tweaking and good directing it could have been a good movie, very different from the POTA series we got. The biggest difference really would have been the commentary. The Boulle novel’s commentary is about hubris and man’s assumption that we’re the top of the evolutionary ladder, while the movies have all been commenting on racism and white man’s assumption to being on top. Maybe Boulle’s message doesn’t connect well enough to get 9 movies and 2 TV shows but it’s still a good story.