I just finished watching the 1968 Planet of the Apes for the first time ever. I realize I’m really, really late to the party. I did a search on it, but found only a handful of threads and seemingly only one directly related.
I should point out that we should all be very, very thankful that Charleton Heston can act so dramatically to go with the score, it was so impressive. They’d be eating or something, and I’d rush out of the kitchen thinking someone’s head was getting lopped off.
I did like it a lot. I saw where the movie was going fairly quickly, but it was enjoyable all the same.
Favorite lines:
“But…you’re so damned ugly!”
“You won’t like what you find.”
And of course, “Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!”
I thought stuffing the other crewmember was pretty grotesque, not to mention lobotomizing the third.
And I was surprised at the “Flying is impossible” thing. If anything showed the predominant difference between humans and apes, that was probably it. Hasn’t mankind always dreamed of flying?
Are any of the sequels worth watching?
Oh, and lastly, since I’m female: Damn, Charleton Heston was **hot ** in this flick! Bronzed, well-muscled, especially when he was shaved. I don’t remember him being that good-looking from 10 Commandments. Of course I was fairly young when I saw it.
The first sequel is ok, but after that they are wretched. Heston insisted on getting killed off in the sequel, because he felt Taylor’s story had been told.
Always good to have new fans. Great script by Wilson and Serling, interesting direction (the zoom thing that Schaffner (sp?) does constantly looks weird on pan and scan, not so much on wide screen), and probably Heston’s second-best performance (Will Penny, being first).
I pretty much hated all the sequels. Liked the short-lived '74 series and the '75 cartoon better than any of the sequels.
The sequels aren’t as good as the original (surprise, surprise), but they’re still filled with great monkey action, drama, thrills, chills, and other good stuff.
The second one in the series is probably most likely to disappoint you, because Charlton Heston is replaced by a sort of look-alike nobody (well, Heston appears in the movie, but the role of handsome, cynical human stranger to the planet of the apes is taken over by that nobody). The third, fourth, and fifth movies tell the story of how we get from our own world to a world run by apes…and I love these flicks. In fact, I promised myself that someday I would write a book comparing the Planet of the Apes series to the master/slave dialectic from Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (this is my idea, everyone, so hands off!)
The TV series is pretty dumb. Humans get caught by the apes. Humans escape. Humans captured again. Humans escape. Ad infinitum.
On July 4, 1974, I sat through all five POTA movies at a local multiplex. Buy one ticket, see five movies. It was quite an experience, especially as it was my first time to see any of the five.
The theater had two copies of each movie, so it was being shown in two of the four theaters they had. I kid you not, they were selling bananas in the lobby, as a tie in.
Two things Heston said about the dialogue. One was his words after he saw what lay down the beach. He said he couldn’t believe the studio was nervous, or the ratings system balking, at using “Ah, damn you,* goddamit * all to Hell!” He didn’t think Taylor was cussing so much as he was literally calling down God’s wrath .
And when he uttered the “damn, dirty ape” line, in such a raw voice, he said he had a miserable cold. His croaking tone, supposedly due to an injury to his throat, was due to a very sore throat. He wouldn’t quit working though, and he says in all his film career he never missed a day due to sickness, giving him just about the lowest insurace rate in the business.
I got the 35th Anniversary edition DVD, and showed it to my girlfriend; somehow she had never seen the movie. I advised her to view the movie as a fable, not a story to examine logically (since it don’t make a lick of sense).
At the end of the fifth movieWe see that thanks to Cesar’s decision to free the humans, they did NOT become mute animals condemned by the Lawgiver; the timeline was altered…, So does that mean that the TV series could be considered in continuity to the movies? (Yes, I know, the TV series was poorly written. But still…)
The first is, IMO, among the best science fiction allegories ever to flicker upon the silver screen. Excellent cinematography, great acting, sets, costumes, makeup… and as has been mentioned that amazing musical score.
I agree that the follow-ups are not quite as good as the original, but they still have their moments. I still get kind of freaked out at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes.
I remember seeing Planet Of The Apes during its first run in the theatres. Got in on a bargain Saturday feature - it cost all of sixty cents
Great movie. Loved it.
When Heston said his famous “filthy ape” line, the whole theatre erupted and everybody shouted support. It was the first time I had ever seen such a reaction during a movie showing. The surprise ending was truly unique at the time and you could hear the sudden intake of breath throughout the theatre when everyone realized what Heston saw standing on the beach.
Seldom does a movie surprise or inspire such a reaction in an audience anymore. In its own way, a true classic.
First, I read the book (English translation, not the original French.) Then, much later, I saw the movie. Between reading the book and watching The Simpsons, I truly did not like the first movie and never saw the rest. Or the remake. I wonder if this is because I read the book or because freaking everything is spoiled for my generation by shows like the Simpsons?
I love the music from that film. It’s so raw and unstructured, it really makes you feel off-balance and in unfamiliar territory.
I own this one on VHS. I believe it’s the 20th anniversary edition. I don’t know if it was Heston’s best work, but at that time he was doing a lot of sci-fi: POTA, The Omega Man, Soylent Green. He was a really cheesy ham, but it fit for those roles.
Interesting film, with a lot to recommend it (great score, first really massive use of makeup, weird visuals), but even as a kid it bothered me that it really didn’t make a lot of sense. The ape civilization didn’t look as if it could be supported by the cities and agriculture they showed. (Serling’s script reportedly portrayed ape civilization as much like 20th century civilization, with helicopters and all. The use of the weird architecture and limited size was apparently mostly because of a shortage of money. ) The apes talking English made zero sense. The “shock” ending was interesting, but ludicrous. I really don’t buy it, and never did. as science fiction, it has plot holes big enough to fly that space ship through. The sequels, though, are far worse.
The original novel by Pierre Boulle is better from that point of view, and is definitely worth reading. Also interesting – if you can find it – is L. Sprague deCamp’s novel “Genus Homo”, written ten years earlier. In it, travelers sleep through several thousand years to find an earth mostly gone back to a more primitive world, but with intelligent apes in charge, segregated by species into castes, with gorillas as the military and chimps as the scientists. The people are immediately put, naked, into zoos. The book actually seems to have more in common with the movie than Boulle’s book does.
Great movie. I remember as a kid watching the first three repeatedly when our local TV station would put them on as Saturday afternoon filler. I still remember how freaked out I was during the first one when the astronauts and primitive humans were in the field and they start getting attacked, and then the attackers are revealed to be apes. That messes with the mind of a five-year-old.
I also saw this in a theatre during the first run; may have been my first time seeing a movie in a theatre, at least the first one I remember. I always catch the first, Beneath, and Conquest when they’re on, but could do without Escape and Battle.
I had a comic book of Beneath, along with a 45 that read the comic and beeped when it was time to turn the page. The dialogue was laughably wooden. At the end,
Right after the “turn the page” beep came the sound of the Alpha-Omega bomb exploding.
