Planet of the Apes (1968 film)

Planet of the Apes
Directed by	Franklin J. Schaffner
Written by	Novel: Pierre Boulle Screenplay: Michael Wilson Rod Serling
Produced by	Mort Abraham Arthur P. Jacobs
Starring	Charlton Heston Roddy McDowall Kim Hunter Maurice Evans James Whitmore James Daly Linda Harrison
Music by	Jerry Goldsmith
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release dates	February 8, 1968
Running time	112 min
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2,000,000

Planet of the Apes is a 1968 science fiction film loosely based on the Planet of the Apes novel by Pierre Boulle. The film stars Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter and veteran Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans. The film was ground breaking for its make-up techniques by artist John Chambers. The script was originally written by Rod Serling but had many rewrites before eventually being made. Changes included character names, and having of a more primitive ape society, instead of the more expensive idea of having futuristic buildings and advanced technology.

The film was well received by critics and audiences, launching a film franchise, including four sequels, as well as a short lived television show, animated series, comic books, the Planet of the Apes Lunchbox,and eventually a remake in 2001. McDowall had a long-running relationship with the Apes series, appearing in the original series of five films (one only via stock footage from an earlier film), and also in the television series, and the animated series.

Plot

Astronauts Taylor, Landon, and Dodge are in deep hibernation when their spaceship (non-canonically known as Icarus) crash-lands in a lake on an unknown planet in A.D. 3978. The astronauts awaken to find that their fourth companion and only female, 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.

File:Planet of the Apes Ship.jpg

The crew abandons their spaceship.

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 they are swimming, someone steals their clothes. Pursuing the thieves, the astronauts find their clothes in shreds and the perpetrators — a group of mute, primitive humans — contentedly raiding a cornfield. But shortly, the astronauts and other humans are being pursued by gorillas on horseback. Dodge is shot and killed during the pursuit, while Taylor and Landon are captured and taken back to Ape City; Taylor is shot in the throat, but survives due to the surgical efforts of two chimpanzee scientists, Zira and Galen. Upon his recovery, Taylor is thrown into a cage with a woman, Nova, who was captured on the same hunt. Due to the throat injury, he has temporarily lost his voice.

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are in control and are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and used for scientific experimentation.

File:POTA68-taylor cage apes.jpg

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are the dominant species on this world.

Zira and her fiancé, Cornelius, an archaeologist, take an interest in Taylor because of his lip movements, which resemble talking. While Cornelius and Zira are talking to their boss, Dr. Zaius, 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. Zaius sees some letters on the dirt and realizes that Taylor possesses intelligence, but hastily erases the letters with his cane. Taylor manages to steal paper and a pencil from Zira and convinces her and Cornelius that he is intelligent.

File:POTA68-trial.jpg

Taylor and Zaius at the "monkey trial"

Zaius orders Taylor to be castrated and he tries to escape. Running through the ape city Taylor discovers the stuffed remains of Dodge on exhibit in a museum. At the conclusion of his escape attempt and run through the ape city, Taylor is captured and while hanging in a net stuns the crowd by speaking. He is put on trial to determine his origins (in a parody of the Scopes Monkey trial). During the trial, he is treated like a beast with little or no rights. During the trial Taylor talks about his comrades and explains that one was killed and the other lost. At this point the court is directed to a group of humans that were captured at the same time as Taylor where he sees Landon, who has been lobotomized.

Later, Taylor is taken to see Dr. Zaius, who threatens to lobotomize him as well if he doesn't tell the "truth" about where he came from. But Cornelius and Zira execute a plan to free Taylor, who insists that Nova also be brought along. They flee to the Forbidden Zone, where, a year earlier, Cornelius had discovered a cave with artifacts of an advanced society. Dr Zaius, along with a band of gorillas, manages to find them. After a struggle, Taylor finds a talking human doll in the cave that proves that intelligent humans were on the planet long before the apes gained control. Taylor and Nova are allowed to escape on horseback. Zaius lets them go without further confrontation, knowing that Taylor will find "his destiny."

Soon after his escape, in the final, iconic scene, Taylor discovers a damaged Statue of Liberty half-buried in the beach. He realizes that he has been on Earth all along, and that humanity must have destroyed its own civilization with a nuclear war, thereby paving the way for the Planet of the Apes.

Production

In the late 1960s most studios were not convinced that this film was a feasible production. One script that came close to being made was written by Rod Serling, though it was finally rejected for a number of reasons. A prime concern was cost, as the technologically advanced ape society portrayed by Serling's script would have involved expensive sets, props and special effects. Serling's script was rewritten and the ape society made more primitive as way of eliminating many costly sets and special effects.

In order to convince the Fox Studio that a Planet of the Apes film could really be made, the producers shot a brief test scene using early versions of the ape makeup. Charlton Heston appeared as an early version of Taylor (named Thomas, as he was in Rod Serling-penned drafts of the script), Edward G. Robinson appeared as Zaius, while then-unknown actors James Brolin and Linda Harrison played Cornelius and Zira. Harrison, who was the mistress of 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. Dr. Zaius was originally to have been played by Robinson, but he backed out due to the heavy make-up, and long sessions to apply it, that were required. (Robinson later made his final film, Soylent Green, opposite his one-time Ten Commandments co-star Heston.)

Shooting began on May 21, 1967, and ended on August 10, 1967. Most of the first scenes in the film were shot at Lake Powell and Glen Canyon Utah, as well as near Page, Arizona. The scenes of the crew paddling away from their crashed ship were shot on Lake Powell. The ape village was constructed and filmed on the Fox Ranch in Malibu Creek State Park, northwest of Los Angeles. The concluding beach scenes, including the remains of the Statue of Liberty, were shot near Point Dume, at the south end of Zuma Beach in Malibu.

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
Nominations
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). The score is known for its avant-garde compositional techniques, as well as the use of unusual percussion instruments and extended performance techniques.

Other Awards

The movie is on several of the AFI lists but did not make the top 100 movies either time. However, the musical score by Jerry Goldsmith was picked as the 18th best film score in American Cinema according to AFI's 100 Years of Film Scores. Also according to the American Film Institute, it contains the 66th best movie line: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" See AFI 100 Years series.

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

The film's final scene, based on the surprise ending of the original novel, frequently makes "best moments in film" and "best endings" lists.

Sequels

Planet of the Apes was followed by four sequels:

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
• Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

and two short-lived television series:

• Planet of the Apes (1974)
• Return to the Planet of the Apes (animated) (1975)

The movie was "reimagined" in 2001; see Planet of the Apes (2001 film).

Marvel Comics produced full comic book adaptations of all the films, plus one original graphic novel-length sequel, Terror On The Planet Of The Apes.

Deviations from the novel

The film deviated from the original French novel in a number of ways:

• The hero is not a French journalist named Ulysse Mérou, but an American astronaut named Colonel George Taylor.
• The humans wear primitive clothing of animal skins, although they were naked in the novel.
• The technology and general settings of the apes' towns are more primitive than in Boulle's original concept. This was a deliberate decision to reduce design and construction costs. Architectural elements were based on observations of ancient cave cities.
• The apes speak perfect English, while they spoke a wholly different 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. However, Earth is featured later in the novel which followed a similair path as the earth in the film.

References

External links

• Planet of the Apes at IMDb
• Planet of the Apes at Rotten Tomatoes
• Planet of the Apes at Box Office Mojo
• Planet of the Apes Script
• The Hasslein Curve--A Timeline of the Planet of the Apes -- A massive timeline of all events from the films, TV series, cartoons, novels, comics and other tales.
• The Forbidden Zone Large Fan site with information on the films, TV shows, comics, and more.