Planet of the Apes Saga

I've been watching the Planet of the Apes saga on AMC and I have to say, it's really good. I never realized that there was such a political message and intricate storyline leading up the planet of the apes of Charlton Heston's movie.




If you are willing to suspend disbelief, the storyline is a very moving one.

As a brief synopsis I'd like to break it down for you:

In the 1970s, 2 chimpanzees from the ape controlled future came back in time. They were peaceful and trusting of humans until the gvt decided to merc them because of the danger they posed as future ultra-apes. Though the gvt was successful, the apes birthed an ultra ape child. This ultra ape child was cared for and educated by a kindly circus manager played by the man himself, Ricardo Mantalban. This chimp's name is Caesar.

In 1983, some crazy asteroid came from space and killed all of the non-primate pets in the world (for some reason only dogs and cats were effected. Here comes that suspension of disbelief I was talking about). In place of thes familiar pets, mankind takes lower primates as pets. They begin with monkeys, but as it's gradually understood how easily these pets learned and humans move onto the upper primates.



Eventually, by 1991, there is an entire slave class of Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Orangutans are being bought, sold and managed by a cruel Human population. A population that beats and degrades them. By this time, Caesar is 20 years old and has kept his Uber-apedom a secret from all but his 'father' the kindly Mr. Montalban. In an attempt to hide Caesar took up a spot as an ape slave. Soon the powers that be find that Ricardo is keeping a big secret about the uber-ape, so they begin to interrogate him. During the process, he's killed.

Caesar goes ape (pardon the pun) and instigates an uprising among the slave apes. Eventually, there's a war between humans and apes, and it leads to what can only be described as Armageddon. Eventually humans and apes live in small groups along the countryside. Some ape populations seem to keep humans along as second class citizens who are subject to bogus laws like 'though shalt not say no to an ape'.



Anyway, Caesar is still in charge and is fighting for harmony between Apes and humans. There are, of course supporters on both sides who are looking for peace, and believe Caesar can help bring it.

But just as there is good on both sides, there is also bad. The gorillas have gone bananas and want to stage a coup d'etat against Caesar and run Apeville as a military state. While conspiring, the chief Gorilla fatally wounds Caesar's son Cornelius who happened to overhear the Gorilla army's plan. Poor kid, dead, and named Cornelius. Anyway, while Caesar is watching over Cornelius the Gorilla army can take control.


While that's happening a band of radiation ridden humans driving school busses and tanks decide it's time to kill all of the damn dirty apes. So, they square off. Gorillas vs Radioactive mutant men. How awesome is that. That should be a movie unto itself. In the end, the radioactive humans get pummeled and scurry away.

This just leaves the matter of the Gorilla occupation and the murder of Caesar's son. This leads to one on one combat between the Gorilla king and Caesar. Caesar kills the Gorilla king proving that he ain't no chump, and can kick ass just as easily as any Gorilla can. Once Caesar wins the Gorilla army fall in line, and stability is restored to Apeville. Mankind lives in harmony with apes, and we all live happily ever after.......

That is until we're hunted down by apes on horseback throwing nets at us. But whatever, by this time we've de-evolved and lost our ability to think coherently or speak. So I guess we all know how this turns out.

There are many morals to be gained from this story. But, the most important one that I've been able to see is the importance of cats and dogs. If they were to one day disappear from Earth it would no doubt lead to the evolution of Apes as the dominant species while mankind would plummet into massive stupidity.

I love my cat.

[edit on 1-1-2008 by Rasobasi420]

I watched them, too. Interesting how those movies parallel our own society, yet with apes as the central characters. A little bit of role reversal, a change of perspective.

Loooool am sorry but this reminded me of a Simpson episode where the actor has to act as the human in the “Planet of the apes” musical!

Parker: Troy! Mac Parker. Ever hear of Planet of the Apes?
Troy McClure: Uh ... the movie or the planet?
Parker: The brand-new multimillion dollar musical. And you are starring ... as the human.
Troy McClure: It's the part I was born to play, baby!

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Troy McClure...what a great character. It was a shame to lose Phil Hartman.

It's a lovely story, but you forgot the ending - Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

That's where we get revenge of a sort and blow up all those damn dirty apes (sorry Mirthful). Of course we blew ourselves up too, but we showed them who the boss was!

Oh yeah, thanks Duzey,

After all of this we blow up the world.

The original Planet of the Apes film is one of my all time classics and is such a powerful story of human stupidity and shines the mirror on us for our how we treat things we do not understand or care for.

As the series progressed the amount of money spent on them reduced and to my mind, this tells in the storylines and the films in general.

I keep on thinking I must read the original book with I think dates from 19 Century.

Overall a great series, but my whole veiw on it was that after the events of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the future Heston arrives in would be very different, because of the events of the next films. Showing that there is in fact help for us all.

Yeah, the concepts were way before their time if you ask me, its good stuff.