[Beware the beast man, for he is the Devil's pawn, alone among God's primates. He kills for sport or lust or greed]
In a movie landscape full of reboots and never-ending franchises, Planet of the Apes not only keeps
going on, but actually gets better -- winning in the eyes of the critics as well as at the
box office.
Rather than simply rehashing or remaking an older film with visual updates, the Apes franchise
has repeatedly used the parable of apes ruling over humans to convey deep fears and challenges
of the society of its times, creating new, innovative stories supplemented by cutting
edge visuals.
Since 1968, the nine and counting Planet of the Apes movies-- including the latest in
the reboot War for the Planet of the Apes -- have proven that the question “what if
apes ruled over humankind?”
continues to capture our imaginations and meaningfully explore the nature of humanity.
[Director Matt Reeves] ‘I think what has been so exciting about this story from the
beginning is that really what we’re looking at when we’re looking at these apes is ourselves.
And it’s a way to hold a mirror up to human nature.
And, you know, the most human character in all of these films is Caesar, who of course
is an ape, not human.’
The various Apes films have presented analogies for nuclear war, radiation, racial tensions,
global spread of disease, religious fundamentalism, animal rights, class, and military aggression.
Meanwhile, whichever film you’re watching, all are cautionary tales warning us to be
mindful of how far we push nature in our scientific advancement, and to be wary of our own worst
selves.
At the heart of each story is the metaphor of the ape within the human -- we’re witness
the nightmare of our inner beast defeating the civilized humanistic soul.
Inspired by the 1963 novel by Pierre Boulle, the original 1968 film tells the story of
George Taylor who finds a strange world in which humans are mute savages, and the superior
race consists of highly intelligent apes.
The premise builds on the nightmare of subjugation by a superior species -- a shocking reality
to imagine given our longstanding dominance on Earth -- and demands that we acknowledge
our deep fear of inferiority.
Big spoiler for the first film coming up here:
Taylor finally discovers a toppled Statue of Liberty, confirming that the foreign planet
is in fact Earth, thousands of years into the future, following a nuclear war that destroyed
human civilization.
Playing on the timely fear of nuclear activity created by the Cold War, Planet of the Apes’
so resonated with moviegoers that four sequels came out within the next five years.
The 1970 sequel, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, explores a society of mutated humans
who live underground and worship an ancient nuclear bomb.
The 1950s through the 70s saw a slew of films pondering how society might be crippled by
radiation and mutation as a result of nuclear warfare, notably, the original Mad Max, popular
monster films and franchises such as Godzilla (1954), Gamera (1965), and Them (1954),
and horror films like The Hills Have Eyes (1977) about a family of mutated cannibals
hiding in the hills of an old nuclear testing airfield.
So Apes tapped into this zeitgeist.
It also captured the 60s spirit of youth and distrust of the older generation.
The film also depicts religious fundamentalism as well.
On the deepest level, the films were an allegory for US racial tensions surrounding the 1968
Civil Rights Act.
The fire hose on Taylor is reminiscent of the Birmingham police brutality of 1963.
In Escape from the Planet of the Apes, when two of the protagonist apes have an intelligent
and promising child named Caesar, contemporary humanity expresses disgust with the child
to cover up their anxiety towards a potentially equal being who threatens their superior status.
Scenes in Conquest of the Planet of the Apes echo the imagery of race riots and violent
protests, notably the ones of Watts, Newark and Detroit.
The vicious behavior by the humans embodies the fear of white Americans who resorted to
violence and discrimination as they felt threatened by the prospect of race equality.
Writer Rod Serling wanted to dramatize what it felt like to be the enslaved or disenfranchised
race.
The intention was to display a segmented society, defined by racial and class inequalities in
which a key reversal disrupts the ingrained caste system forcing audiences to challenge
their own need to look down on other members of their own society.
Even within ape society, we see a hierarchy aligning with color -- lighter-skinned orangutans
at the top, chimps in the middle, and black-skinned gorillas at the bottom.
In the years since, some have seen the analogy as heavy-handed.
For some viewers, the imagery of aligning black people with apes, even as a metaphor
for oppression, enters into troubling territory because it echoes longstanding racist stereotypes.
The purposely ambiguous ending of the final original film, Battle for the Planet of the
Apes, shows a statue of Caesar shedding a single tear before an integrated ape and human
audience.
While it may be a tear of joy for the end of segregation and racial oppression, it may
also mark a tragic, deep divide that we can never escape from.
Following the original films, the franchise was never truly dead or gone for long.
A TV series and an animated series attempted to fill the absence.
Tim Burton’s 2001 Planet of the Apes was a box office success, but it was dismissed
by critics as a let down and failed to gain traction.
But starting in 2011 with The Rise of Planet of the Apes, the true spirit of the original
films was revived was revived.
Rise continues the original films’ power of reversals by compelling the audience to
sympathize with the apes rather than humans.
While Caesar and the other apes in animal control display protective kindness towards
their companions, humankind continues to rear its ugly head.
And while we like Rodman and see his fondness for Caesar, we also observe him playing God
through medicine and falls victim to his hubris -- symbolized by the attempt to prolong human
life.
He ends up creating an epidemic instead.
Far surpassing the originals, the convincing visual technology helps us to sympathize with
Caesar.
And the CGI gives us the iconic image of an ape riding a horse for the first time.
Yet this CGI is only compelling when the script and characterization have given us reason
to believe in the ape’s superior humanity over the actual humans we meet.
In a short epilogue, a tense one-minute scene shows Hunsiker arriving at an airport, when
blood drips from his nose.
This small, succinct moment tells us the answer to the puzzle of how humankind arrives at
the subjugated position we know is their future.
The downfall this time isn’t nuclear war, but the spread of disease through a hyperconnected
world.
Yet both causes are the byproduct of human innovation accompanied by negligence and short-sightedness.
Again, we can’t help but feel humankind did this to itself through its own stupidity.
The new films pay respect to the original films also with a few fun Easter eggs, reinventing
characters such as Caesar in a fresh, new way.
The large orange orangutan Maurice was inspired by the actor Maurice Evans, who played Dr.
Zaius in the early films.
The female child in War for the Planet of the Apes is named Nova, a tribute to Linda
Harrison’s iconic portrayal of a savage woman in 1968.
Other characters such as Bright Eyes, Cornelia, and Cornelius, are also all tributes to characters
made famous by the original.
Dodge Landon, the apes’ abusive caretaker, gets the honor of saying one of the most iconic
lines in the Apes franchise:
On a deeper level the reboot cleverly imagines the classic series with modern enemies such
as Alzheimer’s, the pharmaceutical industry, animal cruelty, and commercial travel, as
well as one very familiar enemy -- people themselves.
Due to the increase in human lifespan, in 2010 Alzheimer’s become the sixth leading
cause of death in the United States.
And we can’t deny the predominance in our modern lives of pharmaceuticals -- with their
pursuit of profit and myriad side effects -- while animal testing of non-human primates
is a reality that troubles many.
The increased frequency of commercial jet travel also began in the late 80s, which was
again reflected in the movies of that time, as well as the 90s’ hit Outbreak.
Yet today we seem even more anxious over the threat of a global epidemic.
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes deals with other modern issues like militarism and aggressive
government regimes.
It uses its realistic CGI to not only fully imagine a massive war between an army of apes
and humans, but also to flesh out conflicting personalities and philosophies in characterizing
individual apes.
Whereas Rise gave us a simple reversal, in which the apes became humane and the humans
inhuman, Dawn shows that revolution inevitably deteriorates into a complex, sprawling situation
in which the original cause is threatened by brutality and militantly ruthless ideologies.
Our own human political conflicts continue to prove the same, time and time again.
The debates between the apes bring to mind the racial conflicts portrayed in the originals,
but the divide here is more accurately between moderates and extremists.
This accurately reflects a big challenge of our times, as our world conflicts and politics
continue to push evermore towards extremism.
[Andy Serkis]: ‘To be able to literally flip the world on its head and be able to
see human nature within another kind, really does allow us to put the human condition under
a microscope in a very interesting way.’
In War for the Planet of the Apes.
Caesar and a small group of apes, find a human child who they keep safe from harm.
Our heroes are the moderates who choose peace and empathy over division.
In addressing major problems of our day through fiction, the modern films channel the power
of the originals and remind us what great science fiction is for.
Planet of the Apes has evolved to adapt to our changing society while continuing to make
us question what it truly means to be human.