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Planet of the Apes is a 2001 science fiction film in which an astronaut finds himself on a planet where humans are enslaved by apes. It stars Mark Wahlberg, Tim Roth, Helena Bonham Carter, Michael Clarke Duncan, Paul Giamatti, Estella Warren, Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, David Warner and Kris Kristofferson and was released on Friday, July 27, 2001. Charlton Heston, star of the 1968 version, also makes a cameo appearance, as does Linda Harrison.
The movie was adapted by William Broyles Jr., Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal from the novel La planète des singes by Pierre Boulle and the earlier film adaptation. It was directed by Tim Burton. It was panned by critics and attracted much derision from many fans of the older Ape films. In particular, the film attempted to imitate its earlier namesake by revealing a plot twist at the end. This twist resembles the one featured at the end of the original Boulle novel, and also is similar to the types of twists Rod Serling (writer of the original film) liked to use to end episodes of his famous TV series The Twilight Zone. However, this remained largely obscure and was considered by many to be a (perhaps deliberate) non sequitur. Burton's DVD commentary suggests that the ending was intended as a cliffhanger rather than a twist, to be explained and resolved in a sequel which, due to the film's poor reception, never materialized.
Prior to the film's release, Tim Burton indicated his desire to "reimagine" the other films in the Apes movie series. This may have also been one of the reasons he enlisted the help of soundtrack composer Danny Elfman. Elfman produced a powerful Planet of the Apes soundtrack for Tim Burton, spearheaded by resounding brass that highlighted the barbaric nature of the Apes and their planet.
Unlike the original 1968 [[Planet of the Apes (1968 film) | Planet of the Apes]] film, the end of the film does not feature the Statue of Liberty buried in the sand. Instead, it has Daniel Chester French's sculpture of Abraham Lincoln at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC replaced by a similar monument to the ape General Thade.
In his comic book Chasing Dogma, independent/cult film director Kevin Smith included a parody of the original Planet of the Apes, wherein the character Jay imagines the Earth after it has been taken over by monkeys. One of the images seen is the Lincoln Memorial's Abraham Lincoln statue being outfitted with a new ape head.
Since the comic predated the film adaptation, many claimed Burton had stolen the idea from Smith's work. While Smith himself was honored, he nevertheless jokingly told his publicist that he was angered over the film and was considering legal action. The publicist misunderstood Smith's tone and stated his words as fact, prompting Burton to publicly lambast Smith, claiming that he "would never watch one of (Smith's) movies."
Plot synopsis
After crash-landing on an unknown planet, brash astronaut Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg) finds himself trapped in a savage world where talking apes dominate the human race. Desperate to find a way home, Leo must evade the invincible gorilla army led by ruthless General Thade (Tim Roth), who pursues the astronaut to a sacred temple that may hold the secrets of mankind's past.
Extended plot summary
In the year 2029, onboard the Oberon space station we are introduced to a young astronaut, Leo Davidson (Mark Wahlberg), who works closely with primates who are trained for dangerous space missions. His favorite simian co-worker is a chimpanzee named Pericles.
Suddenly an alert sounds - an enormous electromagnetic storm is approaching the station. The Oberon's commander decides to send out a small space going pod, piloted by Pericles, to probe the storm.
Pericles' pod heads into the storm and disappears. Distraught, and against his orders, Leo steals a second pod and goes in pursuit of Pericles. Entering the storm, Leo loses contact with the Oberon and his ship tumbles through a vortex finally arriving in orbit over a strange world. Leo takes his vehicle planetside, crashing it in a dense jungle.
Emerging from his damaged vessel, Leo sees the nearby brush rustling. Suddenly, a group of primitive humans emerge fleeing in terror. They are being pursued by large humanoid apes on horseback, who speak in human tongue. The humans, including Leo, are rounded up and hauled back to the Ape City where they are to be sold off as slaves.
In the city Leo meets Limbo, (Paul Giamatti) an orangutan who trades in human slaves. In Limbo's building a chimpanzee female named Ari (Helena Bonham Carter) shows up to protest the treatment of the humans. Taking an interest in Leo, Ari decides to buy him and a female slave named Daena (Estella Warren), and have them work as servants in the house of Ari's father (David Warner).
After serving at a dinner party at Ari's father's home where we meet General Thade (Tim Roth) the leader of Ape military forces, and Attar (Michael Clarke Duncan), the noble ape soldier, Leo determines that he must leave. Enlisting the other human servants, Leo and his new allies are in the midst of escaping when Ari spots them. Leo manages to convince Ari to join their cause and she accompanies the escapees along with her protector Krall (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa).
Thade believes that Ari was kidnapped by the humans, and makes use of this situation to gain absolute power as dictator of Ape City. Thade then marches Ape armies in pursuit of the renegade humans.
Leo and the others flee to the temple of Semos, a forbidden but holy site for the apes. Once there, Leo discovers the holy temple is in fact the Oberon, his former space station, which has crashed on the planet's surface and looks ancient. According to the computer logs, the station has been there for thousands of years (yet it still has power and all the equipment still functions). Leo deduces that when he entered the vortex he was pushed forward in time, while the Oberon searching after him was not - and it crashed on the planet long before he did.
The Oberon's log reveals that the apes onboard organized a mutiny and took control of the vessel after it crashed. The human and ape survivors of the struggle left the ship and their descendants are the people Leo has encountered since landing.
Thade's forces arrive at the Oberon, and begin their advance. Leo ignites the fuel inside the ship which knocks back the first wave of ape warriors, gaining a temporary reprieve. Then the apes regroup to battle the humans anew.
In the middle of the battle, a familiar vehicle descends from the sky. It is the pod piloted by Pericles, the chimp astronaut. Apparently, Pericles got pushed forward in time just like Leo and has just now found his way to the planet. When Pericles lands, the apes interpret his landing as the arrival of Semos, the first chimpanzee, who is their god. They bow, and hostilities between humans and apes immediately cease.
General Thade chases Pericles into the Oberon, but Thade gets trapped in a small room and is unable to escape. With the ape leader defeated, Leo decides it is time for him to leave the Planet of the Apes.
Leo gets aboard Pericles' pod, which is undamaged, and uses it to travel back in time. Leo crashes on what appears to be Earth, in Washington DC. He looks up to see the Lincoln Memorial is now a monument in honor of General Thade. As a swarm of ape police officers descend on Leo, he (and the audience) wonder just what has happened to his world. Presumably, part of the plot twist is that rather than being thrown forward in time, Leo was thrown back in time somewhere ahead of the Oberon, thus making his return from the 'future' an actual return from an alternate-timeline past of Earth.
It is still unknown what happens between Leo and Thade in their final battle, if there even was one.
It should be noted that the remake's ending is actually closer to that of the book on which the original films were based. In the book, the protagonist returns to Earth from the planet of the apes only to find that the apes have out-raced him to it and conquered the planet. The famous Statue of Liberty ending revealing that the ape planet was really a post-nuclear war Earth was an alteration made in the original movie.
External link
Planet of the Apes | 2001 films | American films | English-language films | Dystopian films | Post-apocalyptic science fiction films | Film remakes | Films based on science fiction books | Films directed by Tim Burton
Planet der Affen (2001) | La Planète des singes (film, 2001) | Il pianeta delle scimmie (film 2001) | 猿の惑星 | Apornas planet (2001)
"Planet of the Apes (2001 film)"