So, finally, we reach the end of the marathon of “Planet of the Apes” films in their formative generation. Given there are other sagas which cover an entire history of a story, it’s not too surprising that there are five of the things. Were they edited all together and re-divided, it’s probable that you could break them into a trilogy the same sort of length as the one for The Lord of the Rings; actually, this one would probably come in shorter than that one, even in its ‘theatre release version’.
Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)
The final section is one of more violence. I’d be hesitant to say that it’s more of the same that we saw at the end of the previous film, as there’s more than that. Yes, there’s a great deal of military fighting – with a title like that, what else would one expect – but we’re seeing the beginnings of a new society, as well as the foundations of the connecting link back to the second reel in the original film of five years ago.
Now in the year 2001, Caesar has founded a separate ‘nation’ of a sort, and the tribe consists of both apes and humans who are work as servants to their simian masters. The apes have already progressed to a complete and unique culture of their own, and have also progressed to the point that they are oblivious to the fact they are now the ‘owners’ of indentured servants, claiming “no, humans are separate, but equal” when challenged on the matter. This is rubbish, and the most senior human, MacDonald (played by Austin Stoker), presses home the soon-conceded point.
The above may be the greatest lesson of this film: to be truly intelligent, one must admit to mistakes, including the mistake of not realizing what one was mistaken about. Clearly, this is something that both Caesar is able to do as leader, as well as village intellectual Virgil (played by Paul Williams, who went on to play the role on the animated TV series which I recall watching as a young boy… very young, you understand).
All is not entirely equal even within each of the two groups of beings, however; not all apes are created equal, even if they are treated as such. Looking at species-based divisions of capabilities is impossible not to do, as the gorillas are clearly physically larger, uniformly dense as a post, and prone to react to anything with force and probably a great deal of it as well. During a class of the ape young, everyone is getting ‘book learning’ from the human teacher, and it is clear that not only are the chimpanzees more capable of grammatically superior and cursive communication, the gorillas are, as a group, not only the least successful of the community, they have little if any regard for the acquisition of this skill. Hitting, riding horses, and beating the crap out of people from The Forbidden City is what they wish to do a great deal of, none of this “reading” foolishness!
BRIEFASIDE: many high schools are filled with this internal dichotomy, which is why there are both football teams and student theatre productions. Oddly, the former option is often engaged upon by gorillas, in character, if not in fact. Planet of the Apes, you became real in my youth… [ahem] Right, back to the review.
Thankfully, they don’t wear the outrageous purple trousers of the poster, but there are a few oddities which seem to have survived some sort of non-stop regression to the Age of Wood technologically. Automobiles may not be manufactured anymore, but a fair few of them are still operating, as we see some of them moving about at one point; albeit not very fast or reliably, for that matter.
Caesar has heard the legend of the fate of Ape-kind, as well as the planet, as relayed to the past by his parents from the future. Seeking confirmation of this – as well as the opportunity to finally see the faces of his father and mother – he, Virgil, and MacDonald head to The Forbidden City and locate the Archives where 1″ magnetic video tape has survived to mostly provide the footage of the evidence given to the investigative committee back in the mid-1970s. This investigation causes the two groups – country and city – to eventually come to a state of war; one which the gorillas predictably welcome.
Of all the films, this is oddly the most complex, owing mostly to the number of things being stated or examined in it. We have the apes creating within their own society not only the same structure that we despise in the human one of today – racial segregation and division based on genetic history – but they are also creating an actual separation of themselves from another species which is treated as a lower life form only to be used for un-thinking labour. Is this the ultimate fate for any society; to be divided and incapable of treating all as equal? Is this, instead, merely the beginning of self-awareness which itself leads to a better existence where all are treated the same? Do either of those possibilities rely on their existence out-lasting the taking of power by the ‘gorilla peoples’ who tend to bring-about the end of themselves and everyone else through the first of the horsemen? Does a people’s life inevitably down to absolute power corrupting absolutely, or is it actually possible to avoid this somehow; either by pushing beyond it to a better version or through active choice?
This sort of intellectual questioning is precisely the sort of thing that SF – good SF – is made of. The samples of simple simians can be successful in distracting the viewer from the fact that really big philosophical thoughts are being considered here. Looking past these things is worth the time, should one wish to do so.
Writing credits story by Paul Dehn using characters by Pierre Boulle screenplay by John William Corrington&Joyce Hooper Corrington
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.
Another year, another Ape film. There must have been a group dedicated to the non-stop creation of these things in the Los Angeles area by this point. These days it’s tough to see a sequel or ‘next in the series’ in less than 18 months, so who knows how they got these done so quickly.
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
When we last saw our happy couple, they were dead, thus making them rather less than entirely joyful. They didn’ however, put one over on The Man and ensure their child wouldn’t be a victim of ignorance and bigotry. Yes, their offspring would be able to live free and develop his talents in a safe environment: a travelling circus operated by Ricardo Montalban. Yes, really.
While it’s dealt-with in one of the more blatant “let’s ask some questions about some back-story so the answers are given to the viewer”, the back story is true to what we’ve heard previously about how dogs and cats suddenly died off in 1983 (we’re in 1991 here), then apes became pets – probably partly owing to the arrival of Cornelius and Zira in the mid-1970s – and were soon after put to use as manual labour around the house and so on. The nation of the USA seems to have become a Big Brother-style police state at some point (I blame Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher), and the State of the California Republic (their actual name, by the way) has Governor who rules more like an Emperor than an elected official.
A quick word about the information download mentioned in the paragraph above. The only facts relayed there are about the pets, the adoption of apes, and the change to simian labour that is now beaten in the same way as slaves were a century before (the governmental character is merely shown, as apparently a Civics lecture might be too much for the boy). The fact that all of this happened less than a decade ago is key, as this makes our young chimpanzee somehow ignorant of what was going on around him for the most recent half of his life. Our lad is 19 years old here (in human years, at least), so how Armando the Circus Impresario kept his adopted son away from all information sources when the public had regular access to the boy’s part in the show as a horse-back rider, is something I find difficult to comprehend, especially as there’s already a public statue commemorating every dog and cat who are now dead, which seems equally impossible, given most of this kind of art requires more committee meetings than it takes to market a movie.
Anyway, one thing leads to another, and our young chimpanzee originally called “Milo” is now named “Cæsar”, and leaves the staff of the Governor in order to help with the filing in the local Important Central Control Place (so-called because I can’t remember the proper name of it, and it’s not anywhere to hand on the sites I’ve glanced at). He ends up leading a revolt against humanity, thus bringing to fruition the title.
The use of the conceit of “talking monkeys” continues to provide a structure upon which Very Important Questions might be considered. Here we – predictably – give some time to ‘why is someone good enough to carry your dry cleaning or bring you books not good enough to be treated like someone you respect?’ Seemingly, the nation is incapable of learning from the past about the importance of manumission, and the treatment of others as beings. Logically, any revolutionary force can be considered as being the equal of our simian forces here, or a group of homosexuals publicly demanding to be considered for elected positions / employment benefits without having to justify their equality, or even the whole Occupy Wall Street movement of late. Any group of like-minded individuals saying “there’s lots of us, so what’s your problem?” really. The fact they’re apes is merely a symbolic or metaphorical construct.
Again: excellent, intelligent, but try to ignore the low-rent costumes and set-pieces (some of the latter reminding me very much of both Simon Fraser University and bits of downtown Vancouver).
Writers: written by Paul Dehn using characters created by Pierre Boulle
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.
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.
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.
For some reason – and this is something that Hollywood has done since the year dot – the decision was was made to follow Planet of the Apes with another film, probably owing to some shouting “look at those box office receipts!” Thus was begat Beneath the Planet of the Apes two years later.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Sadly predictable, this initially trod the same ground in its plot that the last one did: man lands in future, discovers Ape Planet, is confused, seeks escape from anarchic reality of simian over-lords. The difference here is that our lad “Brent” (played by the surprisingly good James Franciscus) has followed the exact co-ordinates followed by “Taylor” (played by Charlton Heston) and thus seeks the answer to whither the earlier mission. As the poster indicates, he ends up in the city which was once New York buried under a great deal of rubble. There he discovers the people who still live there, two millennium after the apocalyptic events which spawned the world we now see.
The chief good thing this film does is provide a conclusion to the arc which began in the first film: does intelligence and sentience breed a greater respect for life, or does it bring with it every other possibility; including fear of others and greed for what one already has, as well as a blind willingness to violently protect oneself from anyone, including the “pre-emptive strike” or “mutually assured destruction” techniques developed as defence strategies by the US military in the early-1960s? Is our own fate somehow pre-destined for us? In the first film, Taylor declares his hatred of fate, for it removes the practicality of making one’s own decisions, for it negates the control one ought to have over the results of that choice. Here, however, we see again that the Apes of all races are aping our own societal developments, by creating machines of war and training soldiers when no real threat exists. Does any group of beings create the need to defend or attack no matter what choices some of them might make?
We get a look at side of the new astronaut we didn’t see from ‘Taylor: he’s more of a thinking man than a military reactionary. Certainly, like the earlier character, Brent has his share of action, but he seems to be more contemplative about options before doing so. The way Heston delivers any line seems to put the undercurrent continually in the territory of “I am about to chew off your foot, you bastard”, whereas Franciscus tends to suggest that “while I may not chew off your foot, it still could be a possible outcome, depending on how things go”. A slim distinction, I’ll grant you.
The effects, the lighting, the sets, the costumes; they’re all a bit dodgy. the writing is a bit laboured at times, but it’s not so bad as to be close to the level of the others. Worthwhile, especially if you can watch it right after the first one.
The ending is a bit predictable, and seems to bring the series to a logical end. However, we still have three more films to go in this run of 1970s versions. Logic? They don’t need no stinking logic!
Writing credits story by Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams using characters created by Pierre Boulle with screenplay by Paul Dehn
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.
Why, for goodness sake, am I watching this series of films, considering they are frequently dismissed as ‘more than somewhat dodgy’? Simply because they are frequently dismissed as ‘more than somewhat dodgy’, in order to specifically determine why that is (plus if it actually is the case). I’ve heard everything from “run and hide from every film except the first” all the way to “they’re all brilliant; I could watch them forever”. This is hardly a definitive situation where it’s clear that one either loves or loathes the films. Thus, the series you see beginning before you, which will include all five of the films, plus the “re-imagining” by Tim Burton in 2001.
Planet of the Apes (1968)
A very good place to start – other than the very beginning, which this happens to also be – is that I’m not a fan of Charlton Heston’s ‘style’ of acting. It’s so very specific in its style that it makes me think of nothing save for the fact that I’m watching Charlton Heston act. This sort of lookit me lookit me! thing doesn’t do anything for the appreciation of anything other than the fact that you’re watching a film with Charlton Heston in it. One would prefer ‘a good film’ or even ‘an entertaining film’ to ‘a Heston film’ really, but apparently there is no validity of a Venn diagram showing films which are both good or entertaining plus are ones with Mr. Heston, such as the one below right.
So, one does have to ignore a fairly large portion of the film’s reality in order to dig through to the story which is supposedly why we’re watching in the first place.
This is an adaptation of the original novel La Planète des singes written by Pierre Boulle and published in England as Monkey Planet which would probably make Dr. Galen go ape-shit on the publisher.
No, I couldn’t resist.
The notion of either time– or space-travel revealing a planet which has a society far different than our own goes as far back as the notion of space travel itself. Jules Verne explored the idea with both outer and inner space with his novels for one thing, and HG Welles did the same.
With an intelligent source novel, adapted by Rod Serling and Michael Wilson, but especially Mr. Serling, the resultant film being one which examines society’s mores and notions of “normality” are far from surprising. This is exactly what we get here: what is right, what is wrong, what is the way things should be, why are any of those things in the way just proposed and not other ways instead? Given the reputation of Rod Serling, it’s a wonder one of the questions isn’t “why is there a Macaque on the wing of this plane?”
Anyway, the set-up here is that four astronauts are flung into space in the late 20th Century, with the idea they’ll arrive somewhere in the late of the 40th Century. After landing in the conveniently placed lake, three of them get out and eventually make their way to the settlement of the humans, where they are scooped-up in a capture of them all by the Apes whose planet we’re titularly on.
Venn diagram showing data set “Heston / Good / Entertaining”
Let’s take a quick look back at that assignment of personnel in rocket, however. Four people, all potentially supposed to provide the start of a new civilization. We have a ‘leader type’ (Heston, owing to his ability to ‘out noble’ anyone in the room), a ‘science/research/learning type’, an ‘engineering/mechanic type’, and a type we never get to know anything about because they die during transport because the ‘engineering type’ responsible for building the ship screwed up and something went wrong with the life-support system. All of them, save for the dearly departed, are male. I suspect the ‘science type’ of being black for reasons of tokenism in the casting due to the time of release, and not for some fidelity to creating a racially-divergent population in the new time period. Now, if everything had operated according to plan and all of the crew had arrived in tact, how long would it take to populate an otherwise barren, but inhabitable planet, with only one female and three males? This hardly seem efficient. What ought to have been done, in theory, would have been to send into space three highly trained and qualified females of the three varied study areas, and one particularly enthusiastic male. Three wombs are better than one, and all that. In either scenario, we still have half-siblings subsequently breeding with one another, but it’s probable that the birth mothers would be sufficiently distant genetically that the risk of problems would be minimized.
But… back to the plot.
What we end up dealing with here speaks to the era’s question of racial superiority; or, more to the point, racial inferiority. The characters ask questions such as “do the humans have a culture” and “are they capable of rational thought” as well as “do they learn or do they mimic”. All of these were posed about African Americans in the 1960s, and fifty years earlier about women (only the white ones, obviously). Today, when watching this same film, the notion of animals occurs – dogs, cats, horses, and so on – and should they be considered as living beings as well, given we talk to our pets with the knowledge of their comprehension.
Even though the ending is one of the singular most referenced going – in a list with a burning sled or endless boxes of inventory, a trio of heroes being presented medals in front of a rag-tag bunch of rebel soldiers, or a wagon with the bodies of wanted bandits on it being driven into the distance – it’s surprising that the image would be used as a background for one of the DVD menus. If you’ve not seen this film, I shan’t spoil it for you, but I’m saddened that the DVD makers tried to.
All in all, the consideration of the issues is handled with subtlety, and is distinctly un-ham-handed. Given the time, the lack of priority given the quality of other SF movies of the period, and a host of other reasons, this is commendable. Quite worth the time to watch, even if you’ve seen it before; and especially if you’ve not seen it for quite some time, as you may be surprised at how fresh it seems.
Pity about Heston, though…
Planet of the Apes (1968) produced by APJAC PRODUCTIONS, INC. with an un-credited Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation
Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner
Writing credits screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling from the novel by Pierre Boulle
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.
Ian Alexander Martin [IAM] is the Proprietor of Atomic Fez Publishing, as well as formerly being an actor and theatre director based in British Columbia, and also was Founding Editor and Publisher of the theatre magazine The Boards. [read more]
Hmmm… maybe *I* ought to apply for the City of Vancouver Planner's position... I live in Burnaby, so that should avoid conflict of interest… || 3 days ago
Dear @CBCStephenQuinn; you are formally permitted to whack @lazinryder up-side the head for his reality-based comment. You're welcome. || 4 days ago
Ian Alexander Martin [
Entries (RSS)