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Planet of the Apes is a 1968 science fiction film in which an astronaut finds himself more than 2,000 years in the future stranded on an Earth-like planet, in which humans are enslaved by apes. The film is based on the novel by Pierre Boulle.

Plot details

Astronauts Taylor, Landon and Dodge are in deep hibernation when their spaceship crash lands in a lake on an unknown planet in 3978 A.D. They awaken to find a fourth astronaut, Stewart, has died in space and their ship has started to sink. They use the inflatable raft from the ship to safely reach shore. Once on shore, Dodge performs a soil test and pronounces the soil incapable of sustaining life.

The three astronauts set off through the desert, finding first a single plant and then others. They find an oasis at the edge of the desert where they decide to take a swim. While swimming, their clothes are stolen by unknowns. Pursuing the unknowns, the astronauts find that humans, who are apparently mute, had stolen their clothes. But shortly, the astronauts and other humans are being pursued by gorillas on horseback, hunting the humans for sport and capture. Dodge is shot and killed during the pursuit while Taylor and Landon are captured; Taylor is shot in the throat, an injury that prevents him from talking to the apes for some time. The captives are taken back to Ape City, where Taylor is thrown into a cage with a woman who was captured on the same hunt, the beautiful Nova.

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are in control and are divided into three classes: gorilla police and military, orangutan administrators and politicians, and chimpanzee intellectuals and workers. Humans, who cannot talk, are wild animals, hunted or used for scientific experimentation. This latter fact is illustrated when Taylor eventually finds Landon, who has been lobotomized after revealing his speaking ability. Taylor had already found Dodge in a museum, stuffed as an exhibit (as Dodge is of African descent, and dark-skinned, he is an anomaly in a world of Caucasian light-skinned humans. Therefore, the apes put him on display).

Cornelius and Zira are scientists who take an interest in Taylor because of his lip movements that resemble talking. In one scene, Taylor writes in the dirt and attempts to call Cornelius and Zira's attention to it, but he becomes frustrated when they do not notice the writing. Dr. Zaius sees some letters on the dirt and realizes that Taylor possesses verbal intelligence. Taylor's voice eventually heals sufficiently that he can talk to Cornelius and Zira, who take a liking to him.

The political leader, Dr. Zaius, soon discovers Taylor's ability to talk and puts him on trial when he tries to escape. But Cornelius and Zira execute a plan (with the help of Zira's nephew) to free Taylor, who insist that Nova be brought along. The five of them flee to the Forbidden Zone, where Cornelius (an archeologist) had, a year earlier, discovered a cave with artifacts of human technology. Zaius and a band of gorillas manage to find them and after a brief battle, Taylor and Nova are allowed to escape on horseback. Zaius lets them go without further confrontation as he thinks it best for everyone if Taylor and Nova both just disappear.

But his experiences so far still do not give Taylor the "why" on how apes became intelligent, talking creatures and humans the slaves (a question we eventually would find the answer to throughout the film series). Soon after his escape, however, in probably the most well-known scene from the film, Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty half buried in the sand on a beach. He realizes that he's really back on Earth (albeit in the far distant future) and that mankind has finally destroyed civilization by a nuclear war.

This scene frequently makes 'best moments in film' and 'best endings' lists. In its few seconds length, it turns the viewer's whole concept of the film completely on its head (it is only retrospectively that the many clues throughout the film as to how it shall end become apparent). Dr Zaius' increasingly obvious motives for deliberately keeping the population ignorant of his findings and knowledge turn out to be benign, not malignant ones, and Taylor's ego and arrogance are shattered in a second as he comes across the ruined Statue of Liberty, the signal that his race - which up to that point he had always assumed superior to the apes - had managed to destroy its own planet.

Credits and awards

The movie was adapted by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling from the novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner.

Academy Awards

Award Person
Honorary Award for outstanding achievement in Makeup in the movie John Chambers
Nominated:
Best Costume Design Morton Haack
Best Score Jerry Goldsmith

It won an honorary Academy Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement. It was nominated for Best Costume Design (Morton Haack) and Best Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical).

In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Themes

The film uses the depiction of ape society to attack notions of human superiority. In particular, the apes' prejudice against humans, based on religion, can be seen as an attack both on creationism (Taylor's trial bearing some resemblance to the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial, and the apes' religious texts to the King James Version of the Bible) and on the idea of an "evolutionary ladder" with humans at the top. This reaches its dramatic climax near the end of the movie when Cornelius reads directly from the Sacred Scrolls at the now-captured Dr. Zaius' request:

  • Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil's pawn. Alone among God's primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother's land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him! Drive him back to his jungle lair,for he is the harbinger of death.

The contrast between the mute and primitive humans and the cultured apes echoes the relationship between the Yahoos and the Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels. Both the apes and Swift's Houyhnhnms possess reason and speech, and use those capabilities to oppress a more primitive humanoid population; both works satirize human-centric biases by having the speaking creatures commit "reasonable" acts which the audience can perceive as blatantly immoral (the apes' lobotomizing of Landon, the Houyhnhnms' hunting of Yahoos).

Sequels

Planet of the Apes was followed by four sequels:

and two television series:

The movie was 'reimagined' in 2001 - see Planet of the Apes (2001 movie).

Modifications from the novel

There have been modifications from the original French novel:
  • The hero is not a French journalist named Ulysse Mérou anymore, but an American astronaut called Taylor (Col. George Taylor).
  • The apes speak perfect English, while they spoke a wholly different alien language in the book. Ulysse has to learn it to get acquainted, while in the movie, Taylor has a throat wound which prevents him from speaking at first.
  • The Planet of the Apes is indeed Earth, although in the original novel it is a different planet that is very similar.
  • The humans wear primitive clothing, although they were naked in the novel.
  • The technology and general settings of the apes' towns are more primitive compared to the original descriptions by Pierre Boulle. (This was a deliberate decision, to make the production design and construction simpler—and cheaper. Cave cities were studied, and elements used to make Ape City.)

Famous quotes

  • Taylor: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"
  • Taylor: "Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye." Zira: "Well, all right... but you're so damn ugly!"
  • Taylor: "This is a madhouse! ...A madhouse!"
  • Taylor: "You did it! You cut up his brain, you bloody baboon!"
  • Julius: "You know the saying, 'Human see, human do.'"
  • Zaius: "Don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find."
  • Taylor (as the last line of the film): "Oh my God. I'm back... I'm home. All the time, it was... we really, finally did it!! You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God... damn you all to hell!"

Influence in other works

References in The Simpsons

  • There are references to the film throughout The Simpsons - it is possibly the most referred to film in the whole series - a sure indicator of its importance in contemporary culture.

  • In The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" Homer is chosen to be an astronaut and in a press interview, is asked about the dangers of space. He replies that "The only danger is if they send us to that terrible Planet of the Apes". He then remembers - and finally understands - the film's ending and breaks down like Taylor, aping his ground-beating actions and words exactly.

  • Another Simpsons episode, "A Fish Called Selma," features Stop The Planet Of The Apes, I Want To Get Off!, a musical version of the film with the big numbers, "Dr. Zaius" (set to the tune of Falco's "Rock Me Amadeus") and "You'll Never Make A Monkey Out Of Me" ("I hate every ape I see / From chimpan-A to chimpanzee"). When Troy McClure's agent asked him if he wanted the part, he asked him "Do you know 'Planet of the Apes'?" to which Troy responds "The movie...or the planet?"

  • In yet another episode of The Simpsons, "Bart's Girlfriend," the parents are trying to get their kids to come back inside from playing to get ready for church. The end result is the kids being rounded up by their parents in a manner similar to the apes rounding up the humans in the beginning of the first Planet of the Apes movie.

  • Another Simpsons episode (Rosebud) in which Mr Burns tries to reclaim his long lost teddy bear Bobo, ends in a scene set in a strange desert future where apes in cloths ride in wagons pulled along by mute Homer clones who when cracked on the head by the ape's multi-stringed whips exclaim 'doh!'

  • A fifth reference from The Simpsons ("Who Shot Mr. Burns?") begins with a dream sequence of Homer Simpson on trial for eating half the population of the "Planet of the Donuts." His fate is sealed when, while his donut lawyer makes a case for mercy, Homer takes a bite out of the donut's side, then flatly denies it.

  • A sixth Simpsons reference comes from (Make Room for Lisa), when Lisa says "Get your stinky paw off me!"

  • A seventh Simpsons reference comes from (Saddlesore Galactica), when an announcer says "Could this be the start of a horrible Planet of the Horses?"

  • An eighth Simpsons reference comes from (Pygmoelian), when a flashback scene to Moe's acting days when a producer says "I wanted Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island" ugly, not Cornelius on "Planet of the Apes" ugly!

  • A ninth Simpsons reference comes from (Future-Drama), where in that time Apes are trying to get the right to vote. A sign can be seen that says "Give Apes the vote. You won't regret it."

  • An episode of Itchy and Scratchy, The Simpsons' cartoon-within-the-cartoon, is entitled Planet of the Aches, although the episode does not otherwise reference the film in any way.

Other references

  • At the end of the science-fiction comedy Spaceballs, part of Mega Maid, the transformed version of the giant spaceship Spaceball One, crash-lands on a beach, sticking out of the sand (like the Statue of Liberty). Two apes ride up on horseback. One, using a pair of binoculars, spies Dark Helmet, President Skroob and Colonel Sandurz climbing out of the Maid's nose. When he announces that they are Spaceballs, the other ape says "Oh, shit! There goes the planet!"

  • In the Futurama episode "Future Stock," Fry is watching an Ape Fight and one of the apes throws a tricycle at Calculon. Calculon then yells "Get your stinking trike off me, you damned dirty ape!"

  • In the computer-animated movie Madagascar, Alex builds a signal beacon in the shape of the Statue of Liberty and copies Taylor when it all goes up in flames: "You maniac! You burned it up! Darn you! Darn you all to heck!" (Simple censoring for family audiences of the famous last line.)

  • In the 2004 Will Ferrell movie The Legend of Ron Burgundy, during the gang fight between the various news teams, reporter Brian Fantana is captured in a net by two horsemen in an obvious homage to the apes rounding up the humans in the beginning of the first Planet of the Apes movie.

  • In the episode "Bad Bob" of the television show ReBoot, an unnamed character, wearing similar clothes to Taylor when he is on the Ape planet, says "They finally really did it, the maniacs! They blew it up" after seeing a Mad Max-esque scene.

  • Punk Rock group The Misfits have a song called The Forbidden Zone that is based on the movie.

  • Punk Rock group NOFX have a song called "Idiots Taken Over" that contains the lyrics

''"Im startin to feel a lot like Charlton Heston stranded on a primate planet apes and orangutans that ran it to the ground with generals and the armies that obeyed them followers following fables philosophies that enable them to rule without regard..."''

  • Rock band Clutch has a song called "Escape From The Prison Planet" which contains the lyrics:

''"Escape From the Planet of the Apes. Go forth, ad infinitum. Return the relics to the Elephant. And Atlantis rises.''

Trivia

  • Dr. Zaius was originally to have been played by Edward G. Robinson, but he backed out due to the heavy make-up required. (He would later make his final film, Soylent Green opposite his one-time Ten Commandments co-star Heston.)
  • In order to convince the Fox Studio that a Planet of the Apes film was possible to be made, the producers shot a brief test scene using early versions of the ape make-up. Charlton Heston appeared as an early version of Taylor (though the character had a different name), Edward G. Robinson appeared as Zaius, while then-unknown actors James Brolin and Linda Harrison played Cornelius and Zira. Harrison, who was married to the head of the studio at the time, would later play Nova in the final film and its first sequel, and have a cameo in the Tim Burton remake more than 30 years later. This test footage is included on several DVD releases of the film, as well as the 1998 documentary Behind the Planet of the Apes.
  • Shooting began on May 21, 1967, and ended on August 10, 1967.
  • The series was one of the first to have a large-scale merchandising tie-in. The movies were popular with children and teens, and numerous licenses were granted to produce related merchandise. Among the best sellers were several lines of toys and collectibles (including two sets of action figures from Mego Corporation), picture and story books, trading-card sets, book-and-record sets from Peter Pan Records, comic books, and a Marvel Comics series of graphic novels, which both serialised the movies and featured its own running Apes stories.
  • Except for the ending credits, Taylor's first name is never mentioned. He is referred to throughout the film simply as "Taylor", and in sequels as "Colonel Taylor".

Cast

External links

Planet of the Apes | 1968 films | Dystopian films | Post-apocalyptic science fiction films | Film series | Cult science fiction films | Films based on science fiction books | United States National Film Registry | New York City in fiction | American films | English-language films

El planeta de los simios (1968) | La Planète des singes (1968) | Il pianeta delle scimmie (film 1968) | Apornas Planet (1968)

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Planet of the Apes (1968 film)".

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