Planet of the Apes (1968) ***½

That other science fiction epic of 1968 is one of my all-time favorite films and one of the reasons that science fiction is probably my preferred genre when it comes to entertainment. Planet of the Apes launched a franchise that led to a not so good remake over thirty years later. Charlton Heston's first words to the awe-stricken ape population have crossed into pop culture gospel where even those people who've lived in a cave for the last forty years will quote without having seen the film. The revolutionary ape creature design by John Chambers won an honorary award for outstanding achievement in makeup at the Academy Awards. Jerry Goldsmith's unique score perfectly accentuates the unique and bizarre upside down civilization that Colonel Taylor (Heston) finds himself in after his spaceship crashes on an alien planet. The whole film has Taylor, a man who finds the human race to be a plague upon the Earth, forced to defend his right to existence to a species of apes who practically view humans the same as he does only to discover in the end that humans have committed the worst possible act imaginable. It's one man's journey as he becomes the spokesman for his own species, which even he doesn't believe amounts to much and a biting examination of the public fears at the time the film was made.

The premise of the film could easily have devolved into silly nonsense given that aside from Taylor and the silently stunning Nova (Linda Harrison) the rest of the principal cast is made of gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans. The introduction of the apes helps to dissuade any notions of comedy as the hunt is a brutal assault upon the mute humans who are scavenging for food in the apes' fields. One of Taylor crew is killed almost as soon as the hunt begins and the apes use nets, whips and guns to beat and batter the humans who are essentially harmless. Those are the ones who survive as the ones killed, it is a hunt, are strung up like animals who have just been slaughtered. Taylor's trial by fire into this new world ends with a gunshot to the throat and he is hauled off to a veterinary clinic to be patched up.

Taylor's wound makes it impossible for him to speak and show that he is more than just another wild human and instead he able to witness a small slice of the new society he finds himself to be a part of. He's under the care of Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter) who is engaged to Dr. Cornelius (Roddy McDowall, who would go on to star in three of the sequels and the live action television series), who he is finally able to communicate with thanks to her notepad. Once it is discovered he can speak, it sends ripples through the ape community and talks of lobotomizing him begin to ensue. It's horrifying to think of a waking death where a person's identity is completely lost. When it is discovered that Landon (Robert Gunner), a member of Taylor's crew, suffered this fate at the hands of Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) and that the man Taylor knew was lost forever, it is a shocking revelation. Taylor's existence shakes the foundations of ape history as told by their Lawgiver and his life is in fatal danger. Zira and Cornelius, about to be put on trial for heresy, aide Taylor's escape and flee into the Forbidden Zone.

At the beginning of the film Taylor is giving his final log before entering suspended animation for the rest of his journey. He ponders if the nature of man has improved since time on Earth is passing at a faster pace than in the ship. Taylor has a pessimistic slant on humanity and utters the famous "I can't help thinking that somewhere in the universe there has to be something better than man. Has to be." It's funny because that phrase has always stuck with me. Here's a man whose main motivation to head out into the stars and colonize a new world is because he thinks of man as a flawed species which can be improved on. It's ironic that he is then placed into the daunting position of being forced to defend his right to exist. The apes view humans as little more than beasts that must be caged and hunted and Taylor must prove that he, and by certain extension his species, are worthy of being saved. He looks down on the apes for their class system and remarks that some apes seem to be more equal than others. The fact that this society mirrors his own never crosses his mind and in the end he says the human discovered in the cave was better than the apes.

That last scene has become an iconic moment in film history and one of the greatest twist endings to ever grace the screen. Taylor is horrified at the discovery that he has been brought home and it brings back the pain and anger that drove him to leave the planet in the first place. His world has been destroyed at the hands of man, that noble and majestic creature, in Taylor's words "that marvel of the universe, that glorious paradox" who have brought about their own destruction. All the pessimism he felt regarding his own race and their atrocious behaviors has been realized in the worst possible way. Appealing to God to damn their souls to Hell, we're left with Taylor, the last of his kind, on a beach, railing against people long since dead and that final haunting shot of a devastated Statue of Liberty. You can't go home again.

Favorite moment: Having just recently seen Inherit the Wind, the tribunal scene has become a new favorite as the orangutans place Zira and Cornelius on trial for scientific heresy (talk about an oxymoron). Taylor is subjected to abject humiliation as he is stripped naked due to the rank smell of his tattered rags and gagged when he tries to speak in his own defense. One of the few tongue in cheek moments of the film comes when the three leaders of the tribunal portray the three wise monkeys and their "see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil" gestures. An otherwise light moment in such a serious scene helps to make this one of the most memorable films in the science fiction genre.