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Author Topic: Planet of the Apes  (Read 6137 times)

Corndog

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #10 on: February 28, 2020, 12:43:07 PM »
So truth be told, I watched like the first 3-4 of these and never wrote them up. Now that I have finished the John Grisham Project, this is up next on my hit list. So I will go back and rewatch those and hopefully run through this like I did Grisham.
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smirnoff

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #11 on: February 28, 2020, 02:09:55 PM »
So truth be told, I watched like the first 3-4 of these... I will go back and rewatch those



:)) ;)

Not the most apt quote, but I still enjoyed it. ;)
« Last Edit: February 28, 2020, 05:15:35 PM by smirnoff »

Corndog

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #12 on: February 12, 2021, 09:26:38 AM »
We back baby! Put the original five on hold from the library today. This was on the top of my list to clean up and rectify, so as not to "bury my reputation"  ;)
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Corndog

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #13 on: March 02, 2021, 08:53:24 AM »
Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968)

I had made plans to do a watch/re-watch of the Planet of the Apes movies for a very long time. Especially with the popularity of the newer films in the series, I felt I owed it to myself to catch back up in the series. Admittedly, a while back I actually started this marathon at speed, watching the first three films of the original series in quick succession. However, I failed to sit down and write about my thoughts on the movies, and then life happened, I got much too far away from the experience to be able to write intelligently about the films, and I ended up deciding the scrap the project for the time with hopes of eventually returning to it. Well, we’re back! And I’m excited to go down this journey and hopefully discover some interesting films and entertaining times with the original series, the Tim Burton remake, and then lastly the modern prequel series, which is much acclaimed. So I’ve seen some or all of a few of these movies, but largely this will be a new or re-discovery of Planet of the Apes. What I remember of it, it will be fun for sure, but whether these films hold up after so many years, that will be the question.

The first movie is the oddity that started it all. When a space crew which left Earth in 1973 is on its final course home, it crash lands on an unknown planet, nearly 2,000 years in the future. The crew, led by Taylor (Charlton Heston), traverses desert land and eventually finds a primitive group of what appear to be humans. Soon, the humans are raided by a more dominant and intelligent race of apes, capturing Taylor along with them. Taylor’s throat is injured in the capture and unable to speak, making the ape doctor Zira (Kim Hunter) curious about his abilities, appearing more intelligent than other humans. She pairs him with Nova (Linda Harrison) in hopes of them mating, and presents her discoveries to her boyfriend Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), who is an anthropologist with a theory of an intelligent, advanced culture which predates their own. But Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans), the Minister of both Science and Faith, distrusts Zira and Cornelius’ claims of Taylor being an intelligent human, ardent about the human’s ability to be their equals.

What a weird movie. Seriously, there is just so much going on this film that I can’t begin to describe how weird it is, but what might be stranger is for how weird it is, so much of it manages to land. It’s essentially filmed like a B-movie: odd premise, some questionably cheap production values (mixed with some that are great which makes it all the more weird), overly earnest performance from Charlton Heston which plays in stark contrast to the fun that the apes (Kim Hunter, Roddy McDowall, Maurice Evans) are having here. Like, weird. Where to start unpacking, I guess we’ll start with the story. The story feels like a cheap, B-movie sci-fi premise, but in reality, its a pretty real and very dark outlook on humanity (likely why it translated so well to the modern prequels). It has nice sci-fi elements like the time travel of the ship which lands Taylor and his team back on Earth in the distant future, the evolution of the apes.

It also comments on a couple things that are pretty edgy. The obvious allegory is perhaps human’s treatment of apes and other zoo animals as being inhumane, but certainly in the late sixties there had to be some racial undertones here as well. And as far as that approach goes, I’m not sure how far it manages to be progressive. It’s certainly a great thought exercise to have the roles of whites and blacks presumably reversed, but the apes as depicted here are also not to the intelligence and cultural level as the “previous culture”. It doesn’t subvert that historical wrong perfectly, although perhaps that is how it still managed to be a great box office hit which spawned so many sequels, by not upsetting the apple cart too much. All things considered, it at least is a thought-provoking scenario that largely succeeds in that regard.

The production of the film honestly really threw me for one. Wild, bombastic and in-your-face sci-fi score by Jerry Goldsmith, which manages to be effective. Some really cheesy camera zooms to artificially heighten tension and suspense. These approaches really make the film campy when paired with Charlton Heston, who is taking this role about as seriously as he could have Moses in The Ten Commandments. In a very weird way though, the performance works set against the ridiculousness of the ape costumes and premise. His central performance both increases the amount of camp this movie is putting off while also giving it the legitimacy required to keep it from being a complete farce. That is what is most remarkable about Planet of the Apes. It should, from the surface, have been a Mystery Science 3000 bad sci-fi movie, yet it somehow isn’t? It’s actually really good? It’s a paradox I know I’m not explaining very well. But it’s weird, it’s fun. Planet of the Apes is a really good movie.

★ ★ ★ ★ - Love It
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #14 on: March 02, 2021, 08:23:13 PM »
I have never thought about this as a commentary on race, that would be really bad. I have always thought it was a look in the mirror regarding human nature and cruelty. That cruelty includes the treatment of other species by humans. I think it also points to an empathy gap in how we treat the weak(er) and vulnerable. Then, of course, there's the whole post-human civilization narrative that continues in the next installment, and maybe throughout the initial series(?). I've seen the original and sequel, the Tim Burton (which I actually liked when it came out, but haven't seen it since then and that's more than a few years ago now), and then I saw all of the prequel trilogy in theaters, I loved the first 2/3. Glad you're getting back to this, and loved the review. It is one of the strangest movies out there. A lot of talking, too. That's actually part of what I don't like, but overall do dig this film. Now, Beneath the Planet of the Apes? Well, I look forward to your take.
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Sam the Cinema Snob

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #15 on: March 02, 2021, 09:18:43 PM »
Wait, I always thought the race commentary was pretty overt here, especially with the common racist comparison between Black people and apes in racist arguments for slavery/Jim Crow.

Corndog

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #16 on: March 03, 2021, 06:55:45 AM »
Yea, I think the Civil Rights Movement influenced this pretty heavily, just as the Vietnam War protests and Cold War pretty overtly influence Beneath, but more on that when I get around to writing my review.
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Eric/E.T.

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #17 on: March 03, 2021, 08:54:17 PM »
I've read up a little bit, trying to educate myself as well as I can with just the internet, and to be honest, I'd never really taken note of the different primate species in the film. I think for as someone as anti-animal captivity and anti-vivisection, those are where my thoughts immediately flowed for this film. Also, as someone who is anti-top-down systems, which lead to oppressive power dynamics, my mind flowed there. Granted, I've never read much about the film, maybe a review here or there, so hey, what is maybe obvious and general knowledge to some was not to me.

Beneath - well, there's the bomb, so if the racial overtones were obvious in the original, the political ones just hit you over the head in the sequel. I just thought it was cheesy as hell and more than a little creepy. But it definitely has its message, and I can see how it might work for some. Ultimately, it kept me from watching anymore of the original run of films.
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Antares

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #18 on: March 04, 2021, 05:03:28 AM »
Wait, I always thought the race commentary was pretty overt here, especially with the common racist comparison between Black people and apes in racist arguments for slavery/Jim Crow.

Alongside that you have the orangutans, light skinned and blondish hair, as the leaders of the council. The hierarchical setup of their society definitely skews towards the white>black dynamic.
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Corndog

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Re: Planet of the Apes
« Reply #19 on: March 04, 2021, 01:43:34 PM »
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (Ted Post, 1970)

Coming off how weird the original was, could you really expect anything less than the sequel perhaps being even weirder!? Sequels are always weirder, and sticking with the same kind of approach in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, the filmmakers kind of up the ante. It’s kind of amazing looking back on things that the Planet of the Apes film managed to spawn a five film original franchise (and subsequently the additional films in the 21st century. For a film so weird and different, it doesn’t seem like the prime candidate to have additional entries into the canon. However, after watching just the second film, I can see what an abundant canvas the concept allows for furthering the story and exploring new and different ideas. With this specific entry, I think the creators fall somewhere in between a rehash of the original and a creative expansion of the world building accomplished in the original.

After Taylor (Charlton Heston) and his crew go missing, Earth send a second rescue mission to track him down, but they suffer the same fate, with Brent (James Franciscus) the only survivor after crash landing on the Planet of the Apes. Brent is quickly discovered by Nova (Linda Harrison), who is alone after Taylor mysteriously disappeared. Nova leads Brent to the Ape community, where he is likewise flabbergasted by the state of affairs. After seeking help from ape ally Zira (Kim Hunter), Nova and Brent flee into the Forbidden Zone from war mongering guerilla leader Ursus (James Gregory), discovering a labyrinth of New York City ruins hidden beneath the planet’s surface. But as they escape the apes, they encounter another group that might be just as threatening, as they continue to search for Taylor.

To be honest, having seen this film once before, I had forgotten that Charlton Heston was still in this installment. Given what little I know of the history of the franchise, and the stature of an actor like Heston, I guess I had assumed they hit the reset button, and cast Franciscus as Brent as a stand-in, as he is a bright-eyed handsome man as well (though remarkably shorter in scenes with Heston). Franciscus doesn’t have near the charisma and delivery of Heston, which brings the film down some, as does the presence of the mute Nova. Nova is a pretty easy choice to bring back and elevate her role, I can see the producers capitalizing on her sexuality as an easy attention grabber. Kim Hunter and Maurice Evans also return to the fold and provide the continuity necessary to make a sequel like this work. Kim Hunter is really doing good work between the original and this sequel, selling Zira extremely well and helping set the tone for the film.

As for the topics that the film chooses to tackle, it doesn’t shy away from its message, which is perhaps its greatest strength. Where Planet of the Apes was largely a commentary on the Civil Right movement, there are quite overt references here to not only the Vietnam War protests, with Chimpanzees opening picketing for peace from the militaristic guerillas, but also a main plot around a fanatic, nuclear warhead worshipping sect which is a clear reference to the ongoing Cold War between the US and Russia at the time. Planet of the Apes was fairly obvious in its references, though some subtly was exercised by the filmmakers, but here, the references are right in your face and unavoidable. There’s certainly a chance that these overly political references could have sunk the film and ended the franchise in its tracks, but that is obviously not the case. I would love to dig more into the production/reception history of these original films.

As for how I received it, well, it certainly lost points for being so hokey and obvious, it’s not nearly as successful as the original. I think a tinge of subtlety could have helped the film. And while I could say that I could have used a little more explanation into who these fanatics were, given they didn’t come up in the original and presumably have been living literally right under the apes noses for centuries, trying to find logical sense in a movie about time travelling humans who encounter a future world run by cultured, talking apes seems a futile effort. But that’s just it, embrace the weird, embrace the ridiculous, embrace what this film is trying to do and it’s an easy one to enjoy, warts and all. There are quite obvious cues taken from the original, Brent is a stand in for Taylor, etc, but I must confess to have been quite entertained by the sprawling underworld sets, the political commentary, and even the wonderfully earnest performance once again from Heston. If I had not gotten the “You bloody bastard!” line delivery from him, perhaps I wouldn’t have liked this as much.

★ ★ ★ - Like It
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