When the first “Planet of the Apes” movie was released in 1968, Renata Adler, a film critic for The New York Times, wrote: “It’s not good at all, but it’s fun to watch at times.” She considered it an “anti-war film and a liberal science fiction treatise,” in which the apes represent “militarism, fascism and police brutality.” She probably wouldn’t have expected it to become one of the longest-running sci-fi franchises in Hollywood history.
However, the 1968 film has held up remarkably well. Charlton Heston plays the captain of a four-person space crew that crash-lands on a planet where talking apes rule and humans have been enslaved.
The franchise combines an intriguing premise—what if apes evolved beyond men?—with other social and political concerns. The first film includes ideas about the Cold War and nuclear weapons, as well as police brutality, militarism and fascism. There are questions about free speech and religious fundamentalism, myth-making and freedom, technology and scientific study, race, viral pandemics, animal rights, and more, woven throughout the films.
In the 1970s, the first “Apes” was followed by four more, plus a live-action television show and then an animated one. In 2001, a new version directed by Tim Burton arrived, and then a film series was produced, which began in 2011.
That trilogy: “The Planet of the Apes: (R)evolution” (2011), “The Planet of the Apes: Confrontation” (2014) and “The Planet of the Apes: War” (2017), is considered one of The best movie franchises in history. The trilogy posits that a human-developed cure for Alzheimer’s had serious unintended consequences when it escaped from its laboratory: it made apes superintelligent, but killed vast numbers of humans, and then mutated to make most of them mute and less intelligent. The humanity. Then follows a saga in which the human characters change, but the apes do not; It is the story of the apes.
Part of the films’ success is their artistry, led by Andy Serkis’ impressive motion-capture performance as Caesar, leader of the apes. Serkis speaks and emotes with the kind of dignity we associate with people playing historical world leaders—which, in a sense, is what he’s doing.
There is a sense of grief in every “Ape” film, and in the trilogy it is almost palpable.
Why are these films mourning? It has nothing to do with the lost world of humans; It has always been clear, even since the conclusion of the 1968 film, that humanity has only itself and its arrogance to blame for its own destruction. The grief stems from the problems the films raise and the series’ deep pessimism that those problems will ever be eradicated for long.
Apocalyptic films are increasingly obsessed with a question posed to the viewer: in light of humanity’s treatment of the planet and each other, does the species really deserve to survive?
The “Apes” movies say no, not really. Even in the most recent installment, “Planet of the Apes: New Kingdom,” humans are not presented as heroes or particularly worthy defenders of their own species.
However, as “New Kingdom” also reveals, the “Apes” movies are not so sure that any other species endowed with senses and reasoning is better. Although Caesar taught a way of life that would produce more harmony and protect the planet, in “New Kingdom” we see power-hungry apes reproducing the sins of humanity, perpetuating oppression and repression.
The 1968 film is set many centuries after the trilogy and “New Kingdom,” so we know where things are headed, and it’s not good. That may be part of the reason the “Apes” movies have resonated for so long.
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