I.A.M. Musing About…

When we last saw the planet with apes on it, it wasn’t. At all. Not just ‘no apes’, but ‘no planet’ at all. Well, that’s put an end to that, you probably thought to yourself, along with Charlton Heston.

Oh, you couldn’t be more wrong about the thing, trust me…

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

The first film exposed us to the planet, the second film revealed what was beneath the surface of it, and now we follow the happy couple Cornelius and Zira as they… well, Escape from the Planet of the Apes. The method of their leaving that place is that not only have they worked out how to rescue a crashed and damaged rocket from the bottom of a lake, they also were able to repair its engine and make it air-tight and get it working fully; then developed knowledge regarding not only internal combustion engine theories, but sufficient aeronautics for rocketry; then got the thing up into space to some safe distance from the planet’s immolation (without having any pre-knowledge of the event); then triggered the already re-designed time travelling procedures to follow the route Taylor followed, only in reverse; and all that is done without seeing any technology in either of the previous two films that’s more complicated than gunpowder employed in a bigger fashion than the un-controlled method of cannon-fire, never mind a steam engine.

Right. Sure. We’ll buy that.

As with the earlier films, this one Discusses Important Current Issues, but – as the upper case suggests – does so in a far more ardent fashion than we’ve previously seen. Don’t they just!

The ‘fish out of water’ theme being used as much as anything else, now we get the reverse of the first film, with scene after scene of humans being shocked at ‘talking simians’, followed by scene after scene of chimpanzees looking all cute when they wear human clothes [photo, below right] and get the celebrity treatment around town. During the process of this, we get Zira talking about Women’s Rights, Cornelius discussing rights for ‘the others’ that society shuts out, plus a host of others.

Cornelius, showing the lads how it’s done in his own tribute to the Webber musical “Joseph”

The logic employed by the Government investigative committee of “this evidence is so far from what we can understand that we cannot believe it” is matched in deliberate attempt to achieve bigotry by the scientific people who essentially focus on finding the flaw in Cornelius and Zira’s story, rather than investigating the information each side might offer the other. Sadly, this is all too believable, even now.

The notion of whether or not talking apes ‘should be permitted to breed’ may seem impossible, but after this film was released, those declared by Canadian provinces as being ‘mentally unfit’ were having enforced hysterectomies performed upon them without so much as being informed, never mind being asked permission. So, the question of “are these talking apes intelligent, or is it an act?” was only possibly odd due to the fact it was being asked about an ape.

Despite the “aren’t they adorable?” scenes, this is surprisingly quite intelligent in its story, and its examination of the oppressed minority, be it on the basis of race, religion, culture, sexuality, what hand they use, number of limbs, or whatever. The sets and cinematography could do with an up-grade, but other than that there’s little wrong with the story. There’s certainly more of it, and is more thoughtful with it, than many films in the genre since this. You merely have to look past the cutesy stuff, that’s all.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
Twentieth Century Fox presents
APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC.

Director:
Don Taylor

Writers:
Paul Dehn (written by)
Pierre Boulle (characters’ creator)

This year, I’ve been watching DVDs from the library for a number of reasons, mostly to do with a combination of “filling in the gaps in my ‘pop culture’ knowledge”, as well as a concerted effort to better understand story editing by both watching a film and then re-watching listening to people who have studied that particular movie for years in order to better appreciate the themes, plot construction, symbolism, and so on.

The process would be nothing without the secondary audio tracks. Sometimes it’s like having actually been through the film-making process with the people involved.

This entry was posted on Monday, December 12th, 2011 at 3:01 pm and is filed under movies, Personal, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.