Rise of the Planet of the Apes vs. Dawn of the Planet of the Apes- Which film was better?

There is gonna be spoilers for these two movies discussed below, and if you haven't seen these movies I would definitely recommend them before reading.

First, just to straighten things up since I see it happen everywhere, Rise of the Planet of the Apes takes place BEFORE Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I state that since all the time people switch them around since the names can be misleading. That being said, I felt like discussing which movie was better.

I first watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes on TV. I hadn't ever seen a Planet of the Apes movie, but I had heard of the movies. I was bored, so I still watched it. And I loved it when I watched it, and the whole concept of our fellow ape-relatives taking over the planet interested me. I'll never forget my reaction when Caesar said "no" for the first time in the movie. My eyes widened and my jaw actually dropped a bit. Whenever I re-watch that scene, from a YouTube clip to the whole movie myself, I always still feel the tension of Draco Malfoy (honestly it was the same character to me, just a different name...) insulting Caesar, and quoting the original film, and how Caesar slowly gets up to show his refusal to obey his opressor.

Not to mention the CGI is impressive. The finale in the San Francisco Bridge was also epic and sad when the gorilla (Buck I think was his name) died. The movie then ends, showing the plague beginning to spread.

Then when Dawn of the Planet of the Apes first came out, it was claimed almost everywhere I went to possibly be the greatest entry in the whole Planet of the Apes franchise. When I watched it for the first time in the theatre, I too thought it was great, greater than Rise, though I still thought the original was better in my opinion.

However when I watched Dawn again, I noticed that it was a bit slow, and the reason I enjoyed the movie so much is that I, along with others, a lot of time think a movie is extremely great but don't think about the flaws of it. When I first saw Jurassic World, first example, I thought it was incredibly great despite some flaws, and now I think it was good but not great with numerous flaws having re-watched it and thought about it.

And now having watched Dawn about four times, I still love the movie but I found it to be a bit slow at times, while also feeling too long, similar to The Revenant for those of you who saw it. I think those two are great movies, but they felt too long despite having action and interesting moments.

And although I felt the idea of a chimp with 2 rifles in his hand firing at humans while riding a horse overtaking a tank was a bit ridiculous and looked like an early internet meme, it does not change the fact that it was still awesome.

I also really felt the moment when Caesar chooses to go back to his original home with Will, and how he mentions that he was a "good man." I was hoping the whole time to see if Will would somehow be mentioned or discussed, and I was perfectly happy with how the movie handled it.

The scenes when the apes would talk was cool, such as when Koba as a last attempt said "Ape... not... kill... ape.", along when Caesar would talk like Batman from The Dark Knight.

But despite all the great things about Dawn, and all the reviews that came right after it came out praising the movie endlessly, including me, after watching it and thinking about, was it really that great? Is it really better than the 1968 classic? And my main question is was it better than its predecessor?

I've talked with some friends and most of them liked Rise better, mainly because of the acting done by James Franco, the story, and that it was fast-paced, at least more fast-paced than Dawn.

Personally, I like Rise better than Dawn. I found Rise to be more fast-paced, I like the relationship developed between Will and Caesar, I appreciated the (for the most part) reasonable science fiction behind the movie, the scene where Caesar says "no" is to me a good reason of why Rise is better, and also l felt the emotion seeing Will strugglign to want to keep his father alive, but in the end having to accept that there comes a time when all of us must come to our final resting moment.

I still love Dawn, almost just as much as Rise, but I still thought Rise was the better movie. As a side note, I would like to mention one final time that the original movie is my favorite. And if you like reading, I recommend the original Planet of the Apes book. I enjoyed the movie and the book equally. Seriously why do people always say the book is better...? Like yeah the book gives more detail, but that doesn't mean the book's better... OH and I recommend watching the Planet of the Apes live action TV show, it only got half a season (14 episodes) since it didn't get as much ratings as the more popular show when it was released, but I thought it was really good, thought-provoking, it had excellent satire in many episodes, and I was surprised how some episodes, one specifically, made me really sad.

Well what's your opinion? As a fan of the Planet of the Apes franchise I would love to discuss about which reboot was better. (Definitely not yours, Tim Burton...)