In recent years, movie going audiences have been treated to stories of science gone amok and the consequences mankind faces in the wake of their own arrogance. I’m referring to the recent Planet of the Apes series. This recent foray into the world of talking monkies has garnered quite a bit of praise even if it hasn’t commanded the level of fanfare that say, a new Marvel film would. Still, it’s been great to see this universe and the ideas attached to it back on the big screen. As good as that is though, many will forget that Planet of the Apes has a rich history that stretches way back to the good old day of when the original Star Trek was on the air. Well, maybe not. Most older folks probably recall that there was a Planet of the Apes film released in 1968. I can’t vouch for the younger generation, but hopefully, most of you reading this at least know this much. However, far fewer are probably aware that Apes was a huge deal. The 1968 film was only the first in a series of five movies, and that movie in particular was the first movie ever in history to extensively employ a merchandising campaign related to the film. There were books, comics, records, lunch boxes, a live action spin off series, a Saturday morning cartoon, and a whole slew of other merchandise related to this movie and the masses ate it up. Of course, there was bound to be a sequel, but no one could have predicted four. Yes, Planet of the Apes was the Fast and Furious of its day. It made an interesting mark on history, and just because I related it to a franchise known for awkward dialog, fast cars and big explosions, don’t assume that the formula behind the Apes series was anywhere near as shallow. Indeed, the series did some great analogizing, and its overall structure is unlike that of any series that had come before, or that has come since so let’s look at these movies and maybe I will blow your mind along the way, and if it isn’t terribly clear based on the subject matter, this will probably a pretty long read...
Planet of the Apes: 1968
It probably goes without saying that the original Apes film is considered a cinematic masterpiece. Most people who have watched it are able to recognize the depth of both the plot and themes being presented. Some may not know that because of these two things, getting the movie off the ground in the first place took two years, and required the backing of Charlton Heston, who thought the script was brilliant. There were a couple of firsts involved in this film. It was the first movie to make extensive use of prosthetic makeup, the first to use an extensive tie-in merchandising campaign, it was one of the first really cerebral science fiction movies to be released as more than just a B movie, and it was the first movie ever to include a score that was written atonally. What that last one means is that the music didn’t conform to any set chord progression, but instead used random and unrelated chords to create a great deal of dissonance. That will be important later. The movie had a star studded cast for its day. Charlton Heston led, but Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Maurice Evans also lent their star power to the film. These are all actors who had done some high profile work before and who were well respected in the industry, and because such accomplished actors took on the project, the acting is second to none.
Let’s talk about the story and the setting. I love older films because they know how to take their time telling a story. It’s less about downloading as much information as possible within the running time, and more about making sure that the quality of the information being presented is top notch, and Apes does this incredibly well. The premise is that Charlton Heston’s character Taylor and a small crew had launched from Earth in 1972 on a trip to the vast reaches of the cosmos. It’s never made clear where they’re supposed to be going so the idea is probably that they fly through space in suspended animation until their ship finds a habitable world and then they land and explore. Something goes wrong and instead of soft landing, they crash into a lake. In the scramble to abandon a sinking ship, the only concrete information they’re able to get is that the atmosphere won’t kill them and the year, according to their chronometer, is 3579. The structure of the film is really easy to follow as there’s a pretty straightforward three act deal going on. The first act is meant to be extremely disorienting to the viewer and it does a superb job there. As such, we’re given very little information about the situation. We do get some background on our characters, but there’s no real indication of where they are, or what’s really going on. There’s not even an effort made to keep the viewer up with how long they’ve been where they are so you’re just left guessing the whole time, but that really gets you into the story. After some wandering in the desert, Taylor and crew discover a civilization where apes are the dominant species and humans can’t speak. The entire setting turns what we know of our world completely on its ear, and it’s not shy about it. This is one of the things that makes the original Apes series so fascinating to watch. No one involved was shy about shocking the audience. The apes have a barbaric quality to them. They experiment on and dissect live humans, they lock said humans in caged for entertainment, and they wholeheartedly believe in their absolute superiority over humans. No measure is spared to make the setting as unfamiliar and disturbing as possible. This is where the score comes in. The music, which is composed by Jerry Goldsmith, plays a huge role in solidifying the unease that the viewer is supposed to be feeling and takes the movie up to the level of a full blown experience. At the point where one starts to see the apes as representing humans is where we start to get into the metaphorical realm a bit.
The apes are a metaphor for humans. They, and by extension we, are being portrayed as barbaric and parasitic. The writer is essentially saying that we have no regard for the environment in which we live. Beyond that, there are themes of anti-war sentiment, there’s a pretty strong warning about the mishandling of nuclear weapons, there are pretty blatant comments on racism and social stratification, and there’s some great commentary dealing with religion versus science, as well as the separation of church and state. There’s even a little bit of commentary on the counter culture movement that was taking place at the time. Most people get the cautionary tale of the misuse of nukes, but like any great film, this movie is incredibly layered.
Eventually, we learn that the scientific leadership of the apes knew that humans had been a technological and intelligent species, and that they had hid that from the masses. There’s one final struggle before Taylor takes his horse, his gun and his girl and rides off into the unknown. The ending to the movie is totally iconic as Charlton Heston rides up on the head of the Statue of Liberty and we’re made to realize that mankind nuked himself into near oblivion. He curses us all and the film just ends. There’s no real happy ending here and I really have to commend that. There’s also no effort made to tie up any of the questions that we may have by the end of the movie, and again, I commend that. The end of the movie leaves the viewer to try and digest and analyze what they just saw. It invites the audience to really think about all of the commentary that’s been made. It really is intelligent cinema at its best. I can’t praise this film enough! If for some tragic reason, you haven’t seen it, get a copy however you can and give it a watch. It should be on everyone’s must see list!
Beneath the Planet of the Apes: 1970
Originally, no one expected the first Apes to be very successful, let alone for it to become a runaway success. The ending, ambiguous though it may have been, left very little opening for a continuation. Charlton Heston was well known for his staunch anti-sequel stance, and as such, he refused to come back for another film at first. However, he eventually relented, and Beneath was made. This movie takes many of the same approaches that made the first movie successful. There’s another crew who crash land on the same planet, and at roughly the same point in time as Taylor and his late crew. It’s just far enough in the future for some progress to be shown. There’s a very brief recap for all those squares who missed out on the first movie (remember these were the days before home movie entertainment). Then we just jump straight into things. The new main character, Brent, goes through much the same process as Taylor did in the first movie, except condensed to the first act. He finds Taylor via Taylor’s partner, Nova, played by the lovely Linda Harrison, and brought back from the first film. Kim Hunter’s Zira, and Roddy McDowall’s Cornelius come back, although Cornelius is played by David Watson as McDowall was unavailable, but you really wouldn’t be able to tell, unless it was pointed out to you. Sorry? Once again, the audience is meant to be somewhat disoriented as they watch. That same backwards society that made us uneasy during the first movie is back in full swing, only this time it’s the militant gorillas who are driving the wagon.
The gorillas believe that there are humans in their ‘forbidden zone’ abducting and killing apes. They naturally want to track down these humans and exterminate them. This really opens up some new dialog metaphorically. Sure there’s still the racism theme going on, but layered on top of that are themes of the over extension of the police/military, ignorance for the good of the people, the illusion of safety through the promise of mutually assured destruction, and some Vietnam war commentary. It’s all handled very well, and once again, it forces the viewer to really think about what is being presented.
In this movie, Brent and Nova learn that there is a colony of human survivors from the nuclear holocaust living below ground who have developed the ability of telepathy over the millennia. They’ve remained alive because they’re able to use their abilities to trick their enemies out of encroaching on their territory. They’re not presented as inherently violent, but we do learn that they’ll resort to violence if backed into a corner. They’re last resort is a leftover nuclear device, which they worship as a deity. The film climaxes as Brent and Nova finally track down Tayler. They’re all held captive, but escape just in time to get caught up in a battle between the apes and the troglodytes. In the final scenes, Taylor and Nova are killed, which was one of Heston’s conditions for returning. Brent dies as well, and at the very end, Taylor uses his dying breath to activate the nuke and incinerate the whole planet. That was an addition to the script that was made by Heston as he didn’t want any chance of yet another sequel.
I really have to give respect to a franchise that was willing to literally nuke its own universe. Yet again, this movie really doesn’t end on a happy note. However, it uses part of the formula that would become a staple for the series and drops the audience out of the story very abruptly so as to encourage reflection on what has just been seen. While this movie definitely isn’t one of the stronger films, it does take the series in the most obvious logical direction. I personally wanted to see more of this dystopia after watching the first movie. I wanted to understand it a bit more and see more of the effects that time had had on our world in this universe. This movie does that. It may seem a little silly at first, but bear in mind that we’re made to know that these humans lived unoppressed for two thousand years. Who knows where we could be in that time? I’ll admit that things aren’t ironclad, but they’re not completely nuts either. The movie does have a lot of strengths. The sets and the lighting are incredible and really add to the atmosphere of this fallen world. The makeup for the troglodytes is creepy, but not completely foreign,which makes it unsettling, but also relatable. In all, this is another movie that I can highly recommend. The only question you may have now is, “How did they come back from that?” Find out the answer to that question… Right now!
Escape from the Planet of the Apes: 1971
I didn’t really think that I would take very much away from this movie as it appears deceptively light in tone, and therefore, a little bit of a departure from the series usual mode. Don’t be fooled. This film is pretty dark and just a little disturbing, more so because it appears to be a lighter movie. Thus, I took nearly as many notes for this movie as I did for the original, and rightly so. There’s a ton of metaphor and commentary going on! First, let me get out of the way that for obvious reasons, there’s a great deal of retcon going on in this film. It had to be so because they literally nuked their setting in the last movie. However, a decent job is done mending the mythology, as it were, and so long as you can get past the knee jerk desire to roll your eyes out of their sockets, it winds up being a really solid film.
Once again, there’s an effort made to keep the viewer a little disoriented, and in order to accomplish that at the beginning, a little bait and switch is employed. A spacecraft just like the ones in the previous two movies lands in the ocean. The military goes to recover the craft expecting human astronauts, but are surprised to find that the craft was staffed by chimpanzees instead. We’re kind of dropped into the middle of the story again, but I think I’ve been getting that impression because the methods of storytelling have evolved quite a bit in the intervening decades. There’s very little pretext involved in these films. They just kind of start going and that’s it. The movie follows Cornelius and Zira from the first film as they attempt to fit into human society, and endure the rigors of a presidential board of inquiry. It sounds boring on the surface, and it does lack in action, but if you’re a cerebral sci-fi guy like me, you’ll eat it up. Eventually, Zira lets slip that apes are going to usurp humans as the dominant species and steps are taken to stop the two apes from breeding (Zira is already pregnant). This set up of having the apes thrust into human culture works extremely well with this story because it lends commentary toward how we as humans might react when faced with the potential of being dethroned from the top of the food chain. If you like your commentary sugar coated, these movies aren’t for you. They’re extremely curt in what they have to say, and they don’t pull punches. Anyway, by the end of the movie, Cornelius and Zira are murdered, but their newborn is clandestinely spirited away to live with Ricardo Montalban at the circus, thus leaving the door open for a potential sequel, but not blatantly so, which drives me crazy about most films today, but that’s a topic for another post altogether. It should be mentioned that in order to keep the audience engaged, there’s some fantastic cat and mouse play throughout the third act, and as has become a staple of this series, everything just kind of ends without any lead out.
The plot is pretty straightforward, but the commentary more than makes up for that here. There’s a little sidebar about women’s equality going on, we see some thoughts on the predilection of the military to exploit and pervert the efforts of science, and there’s great debate over religious morality versus secular morality. Probably the best bit of commentary comes from the Hasslein character, played by Eric Braeden. He spearheads the presidential inquiry concerning the apes and gets rather involved in the news media as a result. Great efforts are made to show a progressive oversaturation of news pundit organizations, and Hasslein’s metamorphosis into a social justice warrior. True the term wouldn’t be invented for 40 more years, but the behavior and demeanor are exactly the same, even if the methods were crude. What blew me away about the series, but specifically about this film is how it felt like I was watching something that was geared towards today’s audiences. Update the wardrobe, and the setting using exactly the same script, and it wouldn’t exactly feel out of place, but we’ll get to that later.
In all, it’s a really good film, and a solid entry into a great franchise. I’d say this one more than any of the others, paces pretty slowly, but it’s really worth sitting through just to experience, but also to get yourself thinking about some of the issues that the movie points out. As with the previous two movies, and as with all of them really, it’s worth watching at least once.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes 1972:
This is the entry in the series that I typically consider to be my favorite other than the original. The interesting thing about this film is that on the 40th anniversary blu-ray, there’s an unrated version. I was not aware that such a thing even existed until I bought the set, but now it’s the only version I ever watch. This movie sticks to the formula pretty well. The action just starts without pretense, and it gets back to that blatantly dark tone. This movie represents a turning point in the mythology because it’s the movie where the apes rise up against the humans. The primary character is Caesar, played by Roddy McDowall, and he really plays it to the hilt in this movie. The most important thing to note here is that the metaphor being relied on for this film is the civil rights movement. Because of that, this can also be a really hard film to watch as it’s brutally honest about the state of things. But I will attempt to tread lightly because I know that the subject is at the forefront of our social consciousness.
Caesar finds himself sold into slavery after Ricardo Montalban gets taken in for Gitmo style interrogation from the governor of I think New York City. Even though it’s been twenty years movie time since the previous series of events, the human government still remembers that there was a talking ape child potentially born and they’re ever vigilant in rooting out this potential evil in order to squash it before it becomes too large of a problem. Caesar, confronted with the life of menial forced servitude that his fellow apes endure, concocts a revolution, and all of the apes storm the city. They take down the government leaders, and declare that they’re the future, and that humans will now learn what it means to be made subservients.
The themes… The themes are tough to swallow at times, and sometimes a little vague so you have to really think hard about what’s presented here. However, the whole movie is a cautionary tale. The human population have enslaved the ape population to do all of the menial tasks that they don’t want to do anymore. But as with any evolution in human society, laws need to be made, and oversight needs to be employed in order to govern the continued sustainability of the status quo. So much like the technology that we enjoy today, the ape slaves kind of play to a metaphor that with major breakthroughs, humans give away their freedoms by degrees in order to keep up with recent developments. It’s much the same way that we allow corporations to monitor our comings and goings via GPS in order to get credits for free stuff, or more blatantly, the Patriot Act. But is that stuff really free in a world where the government might use that information against if it becomes ‘necessary’? It’s these types of questions that really make this series great! Words like ‘conditioned’ get thrown around in order to further drive the point home. We’re all conditioned by small degrees to accept a little more and a little more before, eventually, like in this movie, we’re living on the brink of a totalitarian government. It’s not quite 1984, but if that book had a prequel, Conquest would be that prequel. It definitely attempts to demonstrate the dangers inherent in putting too much control in the hands of big government due to things like dangerous agendas, and big business gaming the system. Interestingly, there are subtle themes of government overreach in the pursuit of terrorists. The leadership in the film go to hugely excessive lengths to track down Caesar and his cohorts. There is an unsettling warning at the end of the movie cautioning us that answering hate and violence with more hate and violence only begets more hate and violence, or put more simply, no one can ever expect a positive outcome to a social dilemma by trying to violently and forcibly sway the issue in any direction. I found that particularly poignant in light of recent events in the country, and certain people’s responses to those events. And just to put a cherry on top of the civil rights movement metaphor, there’s also a very clear power struggle between the rich (the humans) and the poor (the apes).
This movie… This is a gory and excessively violent film! It’s an extremely visceral experience! Especially for 1972. I’m referring specifically to the unrated version, which was edited in order to avoid an ‘R’ rating back in the day. There’s excessive use of blood, detailed portrayals of violent acts, rioting in the streets, and a speech at the end that can freeze the blood in your veins. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it does bring to light issues that we still struggle with forty years later. If you must have a ‘happy’ ending, the theatrical cut does end on a slightly higher note, and most of the gratuitous violence has been removed so it’s better, but it still got a ‘PG’ rating, which is the highest of any of the movies. It’s extremely thought provoking, terribly unsettling, and tremendously poignant. Give it a watch!
Battle for the Planet of the Apes 1973:
Once again, I found out once I picked up the 40th anniversary box set that there’s an extended version of this film. I’m going to save you a little trouble here and say that the extended version actually doesn’t add very much to the movie, and I think that the theatrical version is actually the stronger of the two versions. This movie sees the apes living in a community that could easily serve as the prototype for what we see in the 68 film. They’re mingling with humans, and the apes have all acquired the power of speech at this point, which is supposed to be about 20 years after the previous film. Caesar is feeling the burdens of leadership and musing that he wishes he could get some wisdom from his parents. His aide, a human named McDonald, tells him that tapes exist of his parents being interviewed. So Caesar, McDonald, and another of the apes make the dangerous journey to the old city to see if they can’t find these recordings. We find out that the old city has been incinerated by a nuclear warhead, and is therefore irradiated. The trio find the tapes, but alert a small group of humans still living in the underground portions of the city to their existence. This leads said humans to plot to destroy the apes in a final act of vengeance, because some men just want to watch the world burn, literally, and these irradiated humans put together a pretty well equipped militia. Meanwhile, Caesar is dealing with internal strifes via a gorilla named Aldo. Aldo believes that might is right and that he should lead the apes. All of this power struggling culminates in Aldo killing Caesar’s son the night before the city humans attack the ape village. There’s a battle, as promised in the title. The humans living with the apes are locked up by the gorillas and have to sit said battle out. In the end, the apes drive the city dwellers off to go learn telepathy. Aldo is confronted by Caesar concerning his (Aldo’s) breaking the first law that ape shall never kill ape. Aldo attempts to flee, falls from a tree and dies. The humans are released, and there’s a speech decrying the need for true equality. We then flash forward a thousand years where an ape adept is teaching a class of humans and apes, insinuating that there was a time of peace and equality between the two groups. It all appears very optimistic.
I feel like this might be the weakest of all of the movies. There was an end that was being worked towards, and I think the production staff could see it and were kind of in a hurry to get there. It’s still a pretty thoughtful, and thought provoking film, just not to the same degree as the previous entries. That said, some of the themes that it does present are really fascinating. It philosophizes about the double edged nature of knowledge, where gaining it can empower a being, but misusing it can lead to a being’s destruction. That idea that prudence is wise is seen throughout the film. There’s also a really interesting idea that confronting and learning to accept our darker nature is a necessary step in healthy societal evolution. It’s an interesting concept, and one that really makes you pause and think. The movie takes time to caution us that we can very quickly fall back into self-destructive habits if steps are not taken to avoid doing so. The theme of conscience and its role in our development also plays a part in the movie because the film tries to show that good things can be perverted into bad things and vice versa. So it’s not completely devoid of thematic layers, but by comparison to the meat available in the previous films, it is lacking a little.
It is a weaker film by comparison, but it has some stellar redeeming qualities. First, we’re back to that great set design that we see in the second film. All of the post-apocalyptic scenery is well designed and creepy. The acting is still top notch, as it all the films. There’s a great deal more action in this movie than in the other films as well. It boils down to an enjoyable watch, and as we’ll get to, it serves a really important purpose.
The Whole Picture:
Okay so we’ve looked at each film. Now let’s look at the broad strokes for a second. The series on the whole is a great series. The films are like a great book; you always pick up on something new each time you watch for the most part. The themes are still relevant even after 40 years, which in my opinion is a hallmark of great science fiction. The special effects have aged reasonably well over the years because they were used sparingly in the first place. The acting is second to none, and the stories are entertaining even if you’re just looking at the surface. There’s a reason that these films have endured. There’s one thing to consider though. Most people will view the series like this:
However, the series was actually designed to be watched like this:
See, once the second movie was done, and Heston had left the franchise, the production team had to look for a way to make the entire series interesting sans their huge star power. Thus, scheme was concocted the likes of which had never been tried before! Paul Dehn, the primary writer for the last four movies, decided to try and make the story cyclical. As such, you could start with any movie in the series and then watch the other four in the order shown above, and the story would still make sense at the ‘end’. It’s extremely mind boggling, and it does get a little dicey at times, but overall, it works.
Thematically, you can’t beat these movies. It amazes just how much commentary they lend. But that makes sense in context of the times. The 70s were still a painful period of growth for our nation. There were senseless acts of terrorism frequently, civil rights had not completely been worked out yet, women were working towards more representation in a lot of arenas, but most prevalently, the work force, and we were still in Vietnam so news outlets were starting to cover global happenings more fiercely, and as a result, the world started to look more bleak. With the Nixon scandal, there was a measure of distrust towards the government as well. It’s all captured in these five films like they’re some sort of time capsule. The disturbing thing about them is how easily their themes fit in the climate of today’s world. The more we think we advance as a species, the more we just spin our wheels at times, The most interesting things about these movies thematically is that they don’t attempt to offer any answers. This is another mark of great science fiction. These films bring the issues to your attention, but then they let you draw your own conclusions, leaving the commentary very open ended.
Absolutely give this entire series a watch. Don’t bother with Tim Burton’s film and wait a while until I do a review of the most recent reboot series to get my thought there, but watch these ones! I can guarantee that you’ll be thoroughly entertained and that you’ll be happy you watched them!
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