The Big Idea: From Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Zee

My friend Gumby has taken time off from his excellent Science Post until after Labor Day so I thought I'd fill the void with a non-science post.

I have taken a recent look at the past and have decided that it was a pretty good harbinger of the future. Today's future to be specific.

I am, of course, speaking about The Planet Of The Apes movies.

For Shits and Giggles, I purchased the Legacy box set because I was one of those who, as a kid - let's face it, I WAS the target audience having been born in 1959 - went to go see the marathon of all five movies in the theatres in one day that coincided with the release of the short-lived television show in September 1974.

Most of us have seen the original Planet of the Apes. Well, if you haven't you should. The first movie was just a perfect social satire and social commentary made all the more relevant by the raging war in Vietnam - although Richard Zanuck, the 20th Century Fox Studio head, has said no such commentary was intended.

For the three of you who have not seen the movie, here is quick recap. A spaceman crash lands with two others on a planet ruled by talking apes. people don't talk and the apes do. That's why it is called planet of the apes. okay?????

The society is divided into four segments. First there are the orangutans who are the lawgivers, the learned and the politicians. Then there are the Chimpanzees who represent the scientific and the rational and then there are the gorillas who purely represent the militaristic, aggressive part of each society. Finally, there are the humans who are the weak and worthless.

The movie had it all, action and adventure and a marvelous sense of humor. And it had the last action hero – Charlton Heston – and one of the greatest movie endings of all time.

Everyone liked the first movie, but what about the sequels????

They have generally been viewed in a lesser light and in the case of Battle for the Planet of the Apes, perhaps rightfully so but in watching them recently in close proximity in time has shed a greater light on their perspicacity.

Beneath The Planet of the Apes
This first sequel follows astronaut Brent who has been spent in search of Taylor [Heston] and lands on the same planet. There he meets up with Nova, the bodacious squeeze of Taylor. In the film’s opening sequence, a series of psychedelic shots that springboard off of the ending of the first movie show the danger of the forbidden zone in to which Taylor and Nova have gone in search of the dumb-founding truth.

Well, that crazy Nova – she actually takes Brent [played by Heston look-a-like James Franciscus, sort of a Taylor-light!] back to Ape City and one of the first scenes we see is a congregation of Gorillas, Orangutans and Chimpanzees listening to General Ursus (the great James Gregory) spout things like “the only good human is a dead human”.

Come on – anyone sees the parallels here???? The cries of “the only good Al Qaeda is a dead Al Qaeda” have been heard – although in 1970, one would think that the Russians/Commies were the target of such epithets.

And then there is the apocalyptic tone of the movie, thanks to those damned mutants whose makeup scared the beejezus out of me when I was a kid, along with the production design of the underground city, whose content I will not give away as a courtesy to those three people who do not know where the Planet of the Apes is.

Escape from the Planet of The Apes.
This third movie opens up on current day Earth when three chimpanzees have cut through the time and space continuum with Taylor’s spaceship. They are treated with dubiousness until they speak and then are thrust into the media spotlight in scenes that presage the total clusterfuck that we today call the paparazzi.

The movie has a great sense of humor until it is discovered that the female chimpanzee is pregnant and then, all of a sudden, bad government comes into play. There can be no propagation of the species. And government does win out, setting up the shocking climax.

Conquest Of the Planet of the Apes/ Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
Well, I am not going to say much about these two movies because those three people who haven’t seen the original and who may not know the “secret” but, once again, the themes of authoritarian state versus slavery, man killing man (or ape killing ape) and unwanted military action are issues that resonate through until today.

Battle for the Planet of the apes really is a lesser effort but in all fairness the director of the movie did state that they set out to make a “kid’s science fiction action movie” and on that note, it scores a direct hit. There really isn’t much of a moralistic message in the movie and you can see that it really is a very low budget movie (the battle scenes are shot in almost close up with a lot of quick takes – not very impressive).

Overall, the Quintology of the Planet of the Apes will not go down in history as GREAT movies but, rather, decidedly good movies that still have the ability to resonate on a political nature, especially in today’s times.

As Troy McClure once sang:

I hate every ape I see
From chimpan-a to chimpan-zee
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me

A Post –script Spoiler Alert:

With all due respect to those three people who do not know where the Planet of the Apes is, you will not want to watch this clip:

http://www.videosift.com/video/Stop-The-Planet-Of-The-Apes-I-Want-To-Get-Off