“Planet of the Apes” is a pitch perfect science fiction film, that still conveys sharp social commentary and will win over the hearts of science fiction purists old and new. Heston’s turn is immortal, all the while folks like Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans, respectfully transcend their ape visages to convey very unique and complex characters all around. Schaffner’s production from the Serling script is masterful, with a massive cast of brilliant performers offering great performances. “Planet of the Apes” features a world and society that’s different from ours and yet perfectly similar, even alluding that the apes are still in their early stages of evolution as a species. This sparks an immediate rebellion, and prompts the ape society to completely re-think the way they operate. As Taylor watches his friends die, he inevitably begins to fight back, and, much to the shock of the apes, speaks back defiantly. The gorillas are police officers, military, hunters and workers, and the orangutans are administrators, politicians, lawyers and priests, while and chimpanzees are intellectuals and scientists. Meanwhile the various ape species garner their own system of classes and aristocracies, mulling over the structures of their own society. There’s the irony of our primitive counterparts becoming rulers of a jungle land while humans are servants, pets, and test subjects for medical experiments. Pierre Boulle’s source material is drastically different from the film adaptation, but none of the impact is lost, nor is the commentary on the way we relegate our animals to the lower echelons of our society. Primitive and yet completely organized in class systems that are identified through the species of apes, much like the human race, Taylor is stuck in a world he’s completely unfamiliar with, and can barely muster the strength to rebel, as the sights startle him. Though the title says it all, “Planet of the Apes” is still a rather unique genre experience, mainly for its willingness to avoid showing the apes until a good portion of the movie has passed.Ĭharlton Heston gives an iconic turn as Colonel George Taylor, an astronaut who crash lands on a distant planet after a space expedition and learns the hard way that apes are rulers of this world. And much like the aforementioned George Romero horror film, “Planet of the Apes” garners an absolutely shocking ending that is still one of the best delivered finishers in film history. Written by non other than Rod Serling, “Planet of Apes” is like an extended episode of “The Twilight Zone” filled with terror, and social commentary. If you enjoy films that make you think you simply can’t dislike Planet of the Apes.IN LIMITED RE-RELEASE July 24th and 27th - It’s pretty exciting that two of the most important pieces of cinema ever released, “Night of the Living Dead” and “Planet of the Apes” would come in the same year and pack the same intellectual punch. So far I haven’t even been able to convince my friends to see it because there seems to be such a strong prejudice against it and some sort of entrenched belief it must be bad in fact it is one of the finest films I’ve seen and I can see why it is a classic. I strongly recommend to anyone who has not seen it. Excellent commentary on religion and just about everything else.
Review: The film is philosophical, creative, absorbing and scary. Taylor is captured and taken to the city of the apes after damaging his throat so that he is silent and cannot communicate with the apes. Spaceship lands on a desolate planet, stranding astronaut Taylor in a world dominated by apes, 2000 years into the. Escaping with little more than clothes they find that they have landed on a planet where men are pre-lingual and uncivilized while apes have learned speech and technology. G 1 hr 52 min Feb 7th, 1968 Adventure, Action, Drama, Science Fiction. Synopsis: Taylor and two other astronauts come out of deep hibernation to find that their ship has crashed. Schaffner, and starring Charlton Heston, Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Maurice Evans, James Whitmore, James Daly, Linda Harrison… Sci-Fi film directed in 1968 by Franklin J.