Planet of the Apes is a 1968 science fiction film in which an astronaut finds himself 2,000+ years in the future stranded on an earth-like planet, in which humans are enslaved by apes. The film is based on the novel by Pierre Boulle. 1968 was a leap year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1968 calendar). ... Science fiction is a form of speculative fiction principally dealing with the impact of imagined science and technology, or both, upon society and persons as individuals. ... U.S. Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a manned maneuvering unit. ... Families Hylobatidae Hominidae Apes are the members of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, including humans. ... Pierre Boulle (February 20, 1912 - January 30, 1994) was a French novelist. ...

Cast

• Charlton Heston as George Taylor
• Roddy McDowall as Cornelius
• Kim Hunter as Zira
• Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius
• James Whitmore as President of the Assembly
• James Daly as Dr. Honorious
• Linda Harrison as Nova
• Robert Gunner as Landon
• Lou Wagner as Lucius
• Woodrow Parfrey as Dr. Maximus

Charlton Heston (born October 4, 1924), born John Charles Carter, is an American film actor noted for heroic roles. ... Roderick Andrew Anthony Jude McDowall (sometimes written MacDowall) (September 17, 1928 – October 3, 1998) was a British actor. ... Kim Hunter (November 12, 1922 - September 11, 2002) was an American film and stage actress. ... Maurice Evans (June 3, 1901–March 12, 1989) was an English actor. ... James Whitmore (born October 1, 1921) is an American film actor. ... James Daly (October 23, 1918-July 3, 1978) was an American actor born in Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. ...

Plot details

Astronauts Taylor, Landon and Dodge are in deep hibernation when their spaceship crash lands in a lake on a planet in 3978 A.D. They awaken to find a fourth astronaut has died in space and their ship has started to sink. They manage to escape in an inflatable boat and reach shore. After wandering around in mountainous terrain, they descend to a valley where they stumble across a group of people being chased by gorillas on horseback. One of the astronauts is shot and killed during the chase while Taylor and Landon are captured; Taylor is shot in the throat, an injury that prevents him from initially talking to the apes. The captives are taken back to an ape city where Taylor is thrown into a cage with another captive, the beautiful Nova. Suspended Animation is an album by Mike Pattons supergroup Fantômas. ... Ariane 5 lifts off with the Rosetta probe on 2nd of March, 2004. ... A lake is a body of water surrounded by land. ... A planet (from the Greek πλανήτης, planētēs which means wanderer or more forcefully vagrant, tramp) is an object in orbit around a star that is not a star in its own right. ... Type species Gorilla gorilla Western Gorilla Species Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei The gorilla, the largest of the primates, is a ground-dwelling herbivore that inhabits the forests of central Africa. ... Families Hylobatidae Hominidae Apes are the members of the Hominoidea superfamily of primates, including humans. ...

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are in control and use humans, who cannot talk, as slaves or for scientific experimentation. The apes are divided: the warriors are gorilla-like, the politicians orangutan-like and the scientists chimpanzee-like. This latter fact is illustrated when Taylor eventually finds Landon, who has been lobotomized after revealing his talking ability. Binomial name Homo sapiens Linnaeus, 1758 Subspecies Homo sapiens idaltu (extinct) Homo sapiens sapiens Human beings define themselves in biological, social, and spiritual terms. ... A monument celebrating the emancipation of slaves in the British Empire in 1834, erected in Victoria Tower Gardens, Millbank, Westminster, London Wiktionary has a definition of: Slavery Slavery can mean one or more related conditions which involve control of a person against his or her will, enforced by violence or... Type species Gorilla gorilla Western Gorilla Species Gorilla gorilla Gorilla beringei The gorilla, the largest of the primates, is a ground-dwelling herbivore that inhabits the forests of central Africa. ... Type species Pongo pygmaeus Bornean Orangutan Species Pongo pygmaeus Pongo abelii Orangutans (also spelled orang utan, orang-utan, sometimes incorrectly orangutang) are two species of great apes with long arms and reddish, sometimes brown, hair native to Malaysia and Indonesia. ... Species Pan troglodytes Pan paniscus Chimpanzee, often abbreviated to chimp, is the common name for two species in the genus Pan. ... Psychosurgery is the practice of performing surgery on the brain to treat or alleviate severe mental disease. ...

Cornelius and Zira are scientists who take an interest in Taylor because of his lip movements that resemble talking. In one scene, Taylor attempts to write on the dirt to call Cornelius and Zira's attention, but he become frustrated when they do not notice them. Dr. Zaius sees some letters on the dirt and realizes Taylor possesses verbal intelligence. Taylor's voice eventually heals sufficiently that he can talk to Cornelius and Zira, who take a liking to him. The political leader, Dr. Zaius, soon discovers Taylor's ability to talk and puts him on trial. But Taylor and Nova manages to escape with the aid of Cornelius and Zira. They flee to the "Forbidden Zone", where they discover a cave with artifacts of human technology. Zaius and a band of gorillas manage to find them and after a brief battle, Taylor and Nova are allowed to escape on horseback. Zaius lets them go without further confrontation as he thinks it best for everyone if Taylor just disappears. But even his experience doesn't give Taylor the "why" on how apes became intelligent, talking creatures and humans the slaves (a question we eventually would find the answer to throughout the film series). But soon after his escape, Taylor discovers the Statue of Liberty half buried in the sand of a beach. He realizes that he's really back on Earth (albeit in the future) and that mankind has finally decimated civilization by a nuclear war. For a List of scientists, see: List of anthropologists List of astronomers List of biologists List of chemists List of computer scientists List of economists List of engineers List of geologists List of inventors List of mathematicians List of meteorologists List of physicists Scientist pairs List of scientist pairs See... Binomial name Equus caballus The Horse (Equus caballus) is a large ungulate mammal, one of the seven modern species of the genus Equus. ... The Statue of Liberty Liberty Enlightening the World, commonly known as the Statue of Liberty, is a statue, given to the U.S. by France in the late 19th century, that stands at the mouth of the Hudson River in New York Harbor as a welcome to all: returning Americans... Earth, also known as the Earth or Terra, is the third planet outward from the Sun. ... The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacan, Mexico. ... Nuclear war, or atomic war, is war in which nuclear weapons are used. ...

Credits and awards

The movie was adapted by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling from the novel La Planète des singes by Pierre Boulle. It was directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. Michael Wilson (July 1, 1914 - April 9, 1978) was an American multiple-Academy Award winning screenwriter who was blacklisted by the Hollywood movie studio bosses during the era of McCarthyism. ... Rod Serling hosting The Twilight Zone Edwin Rodman Serling (December 25, 1924 - June 28, 1975) was a screenwriter, most famous for his science fiction TV series, The Twilight Zone. ... Planet of the Apes is a novel by Pierre Boulle, originally published in French as La Planète des Singes and also translated as Monkey Planet (translator Xan Fielding). ... Pierre Boulle (February 20, 1912 - January 30, 1994) was a French novelist. ... Franklin James Schaffner (May 30, 1920 - July 2, 1989) was an American film director. ...

It won an honorary Academy Award for John Chambers for his outstanding make-up achievement. It was nominated for Best Costume Design (Morton Haack) and Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical). Although he never won an Oscar for any of his movie performances, the comedian Bob Hope received two honorary Oscars for his contributions to cinema. ... John Chambers could be any of the following people: John Chambers, the creator of the R programming language and S programming language John Graham Chambers, who codified the Marquess of Queensberry rules, upon which modern day boxing is based. ... This Academy Award was first given for movies made in 1948 when separate awards were given for black-and-white and color movies. ... From Rule Sixteen of the Special Rules for The Music Awards Original Score: An original score is a substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer. ...

In 2001 the United States Library of Congress deemed the original film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Library of Congress, Jefferson building The Library of Congress is the unofficial national library of the United States. ... The National Film Registry is the registry of films selected by the United States National Film Preservation Board for preservation in the Library of Congress. ...

Themes

The film uses the depiction of ape society to attack notions of human superiority. In particular, the apes' prejudice against humans, based on religion, can be seen as an attack both on creationism (Taylor's trial bearing some resemblance to the real-life Scopes Monkey Trial) and the idea of an "evolutionary ladder" with humans at the top. The ape's religious texts have a strong resemblance to the prose used in the King James Version of the Bible. Christianity, Islam and Judaism hold the belief that the universe was created by a Supreme Being. ... The Scopes Trial of 1925 pitted William Jennings Bryan against Clarence Darrow and teacher John T. Scopes in an American court case that tested a law passed on March 13, 1925, forbidding the teaching of evolution in Tennessee public schools. ... This page is about the version of the Bible; for the Harvey Danger album, see King James Version (album). ... A Bible handwritten in Latin, on display in Malmesbury Abbey, Wiltshire, England. ...

Human arrogance and self-assurance is also attacked by the Babel-like nuclear war, where humans are brought low (and rendered dumb) by their own science. The Tower of Babel by Pieter Brueghel the Elder According to the narrative in Genesis Chapter 11 of the Bible, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. ...

The humans cannot talk and are made to work by the apes. This is similar to the relation of yahoos and Houyhnhnms in Gulliver's Travels. In Gullivers Travels by Jonathan Swift, a yahoo is a vile and savage creature, filthy and with unpleasant habits, resembling human beings far too closely for the liking of Lemuel Gulliver, who finds the calm and rational society of the Houyhnhnms far preferable. ... Houyhnhnms are a race of intelligent horses described in the last part of Jonathan Swifts satiric Gullivers Travels. ... Gullivers Travels (1726, amended 1735) is a work of fiction by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the travellers tales literary sub-genre. ...

Sequels

Planet of the Apes was followed by four sequels:

• Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)
• Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972)
• Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973)

and two television series: Beneath the Planet of the Apes was the first sequel to the 1968 movie Planet of the Apes. ... 1970 was a common year starting on Thursday. ... Escape from the Planet of the Apes is a 1971 science fiction film that is the second sequel to the Planet of the Apes movie of 1968, the first sequel being Beneath the Planet of the Apes. ... 1971 is a common year starting on Friday (click for link to calendar). ... Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is the third sequel to the 1968 science fiction film Planet of the Apes. ... 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... Battle For the Planet of the Apes (1973) is the fifth and final entry in the Planet of the Apes series. ... 1973 was a common year starting on Monday. ... A television program is the content of television broadcasting. ...

• Planet of the Apes (1974)
• Return to the Planet of the Apes (animated) (1975)

The movie was remade in 2001 - see Planet of the Apes. 1974 is a common year starting on Tuesday (click on link for calendar). ... Overview Return to the Planet of the Apes was a short-lived animates series, by De-Patie Freleng, set in the Planet of the Apes universe, originally seen in the 1968 film starring Charlton Heston. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... In cinema, a remake is a work that has the same story, and often the same title, as a work that was made earlier. ... 2001 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Film poster for Planet of the Apes (2001) Planet of the Apes is a 2001 science fiction film in which an astronaut finds himself on a planet where humans are enslaved by apes. ...

Modifications from the novel

There have been modifications from the original French novel:

• The hero is not a French called Ulysse Mérou anymore, but an American called Taylor.
• The apes speak perfect English, while they spoke a wholly different alien language in the book. Ulysse has to learn it to get acquainted, while in the movie, Taylor has a throat wound which prevents him from speaking at first.
• The Planet of the Apes is indeed Earth, although in the original novel it is a different planet that is very similar.
• The humans wear primitive clothing although they were naked in the novel.
• The technology and general settings of the apes' towns are more primitive compared to the original descriptions by Pierre Boulle.

Famous quotes

"Get your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!"

"You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you! God damn you all to hell!"

Taylor: "Doctor, I'd like to kiss you goodbye." Zira: "Well, all right ... but you're so damn ugly!"

"You chopped up his brain, you bloody baboon!"

Influences

In The Simpsons episode "Deep Space Homer" Homer is chosen to be an astronaut and in a press interview, is asked about the dangers of space. He replies that "The only danger is if they send us to that terrible Planet of the Apes". He then remembers the film's ending and breaks down like Taylor. The Simpsons is the longest-running animated television series in American television history, with 17 seasons and 356 episodes since its debut on December 17, 1989 on the Fox Network and a spin-off of The Tracey Ullman Show. ... This is the episode where Homer complains to N.A.S.A. When two of the N.A.S.A people come he gets scared and says Barney is Homer. ... U.S. Space Shuttle astronaut Bruce McCandless II using a manned maneuvering unit. ...

Another episode of The Simpsons features The Planet of the Apes: The Musical with the big number, Dr. Zaius.

External link

• Planet of the Apes (1968) (http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0063442/) at the Internet Movie Database