Apes Retrospective: Planet of the Apes & Beneath the Planet of the Apes

Planet of the Apes. That title alone is so arresting: simple yet extremely informative. It tells you everything you need to know about the movie. What the title doesn’t tell you is that it is one of the best sci-fi films ever made, spawning a franchise that would tackle social issues spanning from the late 1960s to the present. With the recent release of the newest entry Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, set many generations after the latest Apes trilogy, it only felt right to prepare by going through every entry of one of the most consistent and beloved movie series in Hollywood history. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a deep dive into all the themes that permeate the entire franchise as well as the iconic characters that have helped keep this series in the zeitgeist for almost sixty years.

The idea for Planet of the Apes was first thought up as a novel by Pierre Boulle, a French author who also wrote The Bridge on the River Kwai, which became a famous film in 1957. Sensing a hit, film producer Arthur P. Jacobs snatched the film rights before the novel was even published in 1963! It took a few years but eventually Jacobs convinced 20th Century Fox to make the film with director Franklin J. Schaffner (who would win an Oscar two years later for directing Patton) and a script co-written by Rod Serling, the mastermind behind The Twilight Zone. 

The movie, released in 1968, follows four astronauts on a mission into deep space. The film opens with Taylor, played by the legendary Charlton Heston (Ben-Hur, The Ten Commandments), giving his final captain's log before going into hypersleep. In this two-minute opening scene, we learn that the crew has been traveling at nearly the speed of light for six months. However, due to science (or whatever), this equates to 700 years in Earth time. In other words, this is a one-way ticket kind of mission, with the idea being to send a crew of three men and one woman to see what's out there in the universe and start a new colony wherever they end up. It’s a perfect sci-fi set-up, offering no explanations of how or why they’re doing what they’re doing and instead forcing the viewer to go with it instead of asking questions. Right out of the gate, director Schaffner establishes full control of the tone and universe in which the movie takes place. 

This scene also proves to be the perfect introduction to Heston’s character, Taylor. Once he finishes his report, he begins to reflect on the reality of the situation he’s in, the fact that everyone who sent them on this mission is long gone, and he and his crew mates will never see anyone they love ever again. But what’s interesting about Taylor is that he doesn’t seem particularly upset by this. He’s hoping to find or create a civilization that isn’t interested in war with its fellow man. Taylor is sick of humanity’s shit, so much so that he jumped at the chance to leave and never come back. We get that insight, character detail, perspective, and exposition in just two minutes.

In the very next scene, the crew awakes from their hypersleep to find out they all now have beards and their sole woman crew member died during the trip. Oh, and they’re crash-landing on a mysterious planet as well. During the chaos, Taylor looks at the control panel and finds that they’ve been asleep for another 2,000 years in Earth time.

After the three crew members safely evacuate, they travel for days in search of food, shelter, and any semblance of civilization. We get to learn more about each member (and reinstate the fact that Taylor is the Ultimate Hater) before director Schaffner sets up a killer bait-and-switch moment for the audience. Taylor and crew eventually stumble across a group of mute, caveman-like humans, but then the big reveal comes. These humans are not only being tracked and captured, they’re being tracked and captured by apes on horseback! 

On paper, this sounds a bit silly—and if you think about it too hard it kind of is—but Schaffner and crew build up to it perfectly. When we finally see the apes for the first time, it is jarring and frightening because Schaffner similarly shoots it like a jump scare in a horror movie. One moment, the astronauts think they are the dominant beings in this world and will be rulers within weeks. Then a moment later they see what was once a zoo attraction in their time is now an apex predator. It is truly one of the best WTF moments of all time in a franchise filled to the brim with them. 

The scene also operates as prime social commentary. Not only are humans hunted, but once captured they are segregated and used for experiments, labor, and all the things that come with being considered less than human, or in this case, less than ape. This greatly echoes slavery in early American history while also being a modern allegory for the Civil Rights Movement that had just ended the year the movie came out. Sci-fi and fantasy have long served as avenues for artists to comment on society and the world at large. The blanket of the impossible can make digesting heavy themes and allegories much easier. It’s not the oldest example, but Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein is certainly one of the best. Shelley uses the veneer of science fiction to dissect what technology was doing to people at the time, and how far was too far? Does man need to chase God’s power? It’s certainly possible to miss all this as the audience. After all, they might just be enjoying the drama, but that doesn’t mean there’s not more to it. Planet of the Apes clearly followed this trend, which is why they got the creator of The Twilight Zone to help write the script.  

Once Taylor and the crew are captured and transported to the local human sanctuary, we meet two chimpanzee characters that will help define the rest of the franchise. Zira, played by Kim Hunter (who won an Oscar starring opposite Marlon Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire), and Cornelius, played by Roddy McDowall (Fright Night). The importance of Zira and Cornelius to this franchise cannot be overstated, particularly McDowall, who was so good in the role they just had him play his own character’s son in the fourth entry (we’ll get there) instead of getting someone new. These two characters are often the voice of reason in this franchise, always trying to employ empathy and compassion over hatred and anger, traits that loom large over every entry of this series. 

Both Hunter and McDowall had plenty of success before this franchise, and according to an old AMC documentary on the film series, all primary actors took their roles incredibly seriously, a factor needed to sell this somewhat absurd premise. They would spend hours looking in the mirror while in full makeup (which is incredible, by the way, especially for the time), learning how to emote and express their faces, either through exaggerated facial movements or simply letting their eyes do all the talking. Every ape performance is genuinely impressive in every way, as every single one of them also had to adopt a kind of ape-like way to carry themselves throughout, while also seeming like real characters. 

This ultimately brings us to the infamous ending. After saying goodbye to Zira and Cornelius, Taylor and his new lady companion Nova ride along the beach on horseback for a while before coming up on the Statue of Liberty, now cut in half and washed ashore. Taylor was on Earth the whole time. Mankind had finally done it. They blew themselves up and made way for the rise of apes. The final shot is the camera panning out to a perfect view of Lady Liberty with Taylor screaming and punching the sand right before her. 

And that’s it! The movie is over. One of the biggest gut-punch endings of all time, and people fucking loved it. The movie was a smashing success, ultimately grossing $32 million in 1968, about the equivalent of $289 million today, on a budget of $5.8 million. The film was also awarded a special Academy Award for its achievement in makeup by the legendary John Chambers. 

In today’s Hollywood, when a movie makes that kind of money, a sequel becomes inevitable. Back then though, direct sequels weren’t quite as popular. Other franchises like James Bond or The Thin Man were specifically built so that you could watch one entry without ever having to see any others. Each was a compact story just with the same central characters. Planet of the Apes, however, ended with such a specific punch that the only option for a sequel was to see what happened next with these specific characters in this specific situation. Producer Jacobs knew this, and the studio was just so happy with all that money that they said go for it.   

As such, Beneath the Planet of the Apes would arrive two years later in 1970 with a few caveats. The original director Franklin J. Schaffner was busy working on Patton and couldn’t return for the sequel, so they got director Ted Post (The Twilight Zone, Hang ‘em High) to jump in. Also, star Heston wasn’t interested in returning at all, but only agreed to appear as a favor to producer Arthur P. Jacobs under the condition his character dies in the opening scene. Co-writer Rod Serling is a no-show as well, but perhaps most surprising is that Roddy McDowall couldn’t return as Cornelius due to a prior commitment. No matter though, as almost all other ape actors and characters return, specifically Kim Hunter as Zira (thank goodness). 

The film opens with a quick “Previously on” prologue, something that almost all subsequent sequels would follow, and picks up with Taylor and Nova going farther into the wasteland. After a brief brush with the sky burning and intense lightning all around, Taylor disappears into a mountainside as Nova watches in terror. Not only did Heston get his way, but it actually served as quite an effective opening. Seeing the hero of the previous film and one of the biggest stars in the world at the time fumble so hard within the first 5 minutes is a great way to get the audience to sit up and pay attention. 

Unfortunately, the bulk of the movie is unable to keep that kind of momentum. The film had its $5 million budget slashed to $3 million after the studio, 20th Century Fox, had a string of financial disappointments including Hello Dolly! and Tora! Tora! Tora! This setback forced screenwriter Paul Dehn and director Post to focus less on setting up the plot and characters and instead just have more apes chasing humans. The lack of funding also meant they couldn’t afford a star of Heston’s stature to replace him. Their solution? Heston lookalike John Franciscus playing John Brent, a fellow astronaut sent to find Taylor and crew once they’d gone missing. 

The majority of the movie is basically a retread of the first in terms of plot (at least until the ending), except that again, the themes and ideas explored so well in the first one take a back seat here. This is without a doubt the biggest dig at the film. The first installment challenged audiences and critics alike, especially with the idea that man is the ultimate failure. This sequel, mostly thanks to its massive budget cuts, had to rely on action more than brains. However, it should be said that this factor helps give the film an enjoyable scrappy quality. 

The film doesn’t entirely abandon social commentary. At one point Brent and Nova are captured by gorillas and are forced to listen to General Ursus, a gorilla whose hate for anything non-ape is palpable and upsetting. There is also a moment where ape protesters, standing up for peace and freedom, are being beaten and dragged away by ape police. Feels a little too real! But otherwise, that’s about it, as the film barrels through its brisk 95-minute runtime to another WTF ending. 

Brent and Nova attempt to flee the city thanks to Zira and Cornelius. The two end up underneath post-apocalyptic New York, lost in the now overrun subway tunnels before being captured by what we learn are human descendants of survivors of the nuclear holocaust who have garnered the power of telepathy.  They also happen to worship an ancient bomb labeled with the symbols of the Alpha and the Omega, or the beginning and the end. Oh, and Taylor is there too. 

What a twist! Humans are still around! All the heroes are alive! You’d think that would be an excellent setup for a sequel right? 

“Wrong,” said the filmmakers. Instead, General Ursus and his army have tracked Brent and Nova to the underground civilization, forcing the humans to arm their doomsday bomb capable of destroying the entire planet. During the fighting, Nova and Brent are shot dead and Taylor is badly wounded. Taylor tries to get Dr. Zauis to stop the madness, but he does not care. Haters gonna hate, and Taylor did exactly that as he crawled to the control panel and hit the button. The screen goes black and a narrator says “In one of the countless billions of galaxies in the universe lies a medium-sized star, and one of its satellites, a green and insignificant planet, is now dead."

DAMN. Beneath the Planet of the Apes saw its predecessor’s ending and said “Hold my beer.” Bleak as it may be, the finale is still a knockout and the fact that they could come anywhere near as close to the impact of the original film’s ending is a miracle. 

Naturally, Beneath the Planet of the Apes was not the juggernaut the previous film was nor was it as popular with critics, but it still grossed almost $20 million, or about $160 million in today’s numbers, on that teeny tiny $3 million budget. Figures like that are undeniable, and thus Escape from the Planet of the Apes was a no-brainer.

That’s for next time though! Stay tuned for the coming weeks as we continue to take a deep dive into one of my favorite franchises of all time, Planet of the Apes!

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