The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970), directed by Ted Post

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "We Got The Neutron Bomb", by The Weirdos

     At the time I write this, War for the Planet of the Apes has been out for a little bit, capping off a primate trilogy that began with 2011’s Rise of the Planet of Apes, and continued in 2014’s Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I haven’t had the chance to see it yet but by all accounts it seems to be pretty damn good, as are the previous films in the series. Seems weird that in this modern age we can have successful sci-fi franchises without spending a billion dollars a movie and one running story, rather than trying to stitch ten different movies with dozens of different characters and plotlines into one cohesive narrative, but it appears that the Apes movies have got us covered.

     Have I mentioned how I’m tired of the cinematic universe concept yet?

     War of the Planet of the Apes’ success shouldn’t really surprise anyone though. After all, the very first Planet of the Apes film, directed by Patton’s Franklin J. Schaffner, written by The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling and starring Ben-Hur’s Charlton Heston, was one of the most successful science fiction films in Hollywood history, at a time when the genre was relegated to oversized bugs and pie plates on strings. It spawned 4 sequels, a TV series, an animated series, multiple comic book series, video games, a shitty movie directed by Tim Burton and now this new reboot series. People just can’t enough of talking apes doing stuff, especially if it involves the utter destruction of the human race and everything we’ve ever built. Post-apocalyptic dystopias are like our fetish or something.

     Although movie studios aren’t always the smartest knifes in the drawer, at the very least they understand the concept of ‘if something makes money, make more of that thing’ (sometimes too well), and so two years later we got a sequel: Beneath the Planet of the Apes. Set directly after the original film, in fact Beneath actually opens with the ending of the OG Apes, because we needed to devalue that twist as soon as possible, you would think that Beneath would focus on our doomed astronaut Taylor, wandering across the desolate ruins of an Earth devastated by nuclear war and inhabited by intelligent, murderous primates, but you’d be wrong. Instead we focus on Brent, another astronaut who was sent to find Taylor and the original rocket and who also happened to crash land on this ‘alien planet’. Of course Taylor conveniently fell down a hole at the beginning of the movie, and so it is up to Brent to navigate the peril of Ape City, driven to imperialism and conquest due to an ongoing famine, and somehow find his missing compatriot. However, finding Taylor means journeying into the heart of the Forbidden Zone, the forsaken, hellish remains of Earth’s former rulers, only barely more tolerable than the Richard Elfman film. Which might not be as inhabited as was once believed…

     As far as sequels go, Beneath doesn’t stray too far from its source material, and from the overarching ‘talking apes doing stuff’ motif. Generally speaking that’s a good thing, you don’t want to fix something that ain’t broke, but I think there’s an argument to be made that Beneath takes that advice a bit too literally. Up until the third act, in fact, Beneath seems content to just do Planet of the Apes again, with little to no difference. Astronaut crash-landing on what he originally believes to be an alien planet? Check. Scene where astronaut gets thrown into a cage with a bunch of other humans? Check. Scene where astronaut discovers some artifact that proves he’s been on Earth the whole time, throwing in a bitter, recriminatory one-liner as he does so? Check. Zira and Cornelius being basically useless? All there, only with no sense of wonder and danger attached because we’ve been through all this before. We know it’s a planet of the apes guys, we saw the last one, we read the title of the movie, you’re not blowing any minds on that front.

     That is not to say that Beneath doesn’t make its own mark in the Apethology, however. Although the apes occasionally feel like ancillary characters in their own movie (it ain’t called Planet of the Humans), we do get a deeper look into their civilization and social dynamics, including some anti-war commentary that was no doubt very familiar in those Vietnam years. Perhaps more importantly though, at least in the context of the film is the introduction of the other intelligent race on the planet, a society of telepathic Mutants living in the ruins of New York City who worship an active nuclear missile. I’m not a fan of the inclusion of things like psychic powers into the franchise, as fantastical as the concept of the films are, Schaffner’s execution of it in the first film was fairly grounded, which I thought gave it a more serious, if not realistic, feel. The scenes of the Mutant city however, the subterranean bunker carved out of the melted corpse of downtown New York, and the towering golden ICBM that acts as their god, is easily the most iconic imagery in the Apes franchise, right up there with the destroyed Statue of Liberty. Kind of surprising how little of it you get, considering how much it’s been referenced since then.

     It’s a bit of a bummer too, you know? I mean the original movie was pretty grim in that classic Serling style, but Beneath is just flat out depressing. You got the astronauts, who are stuck in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, with the only remaining humans a bunch of feral slaves to some damn dirty apes. You got the Mutants, sterile lunatics who worship the world’s most dangerous phallic symbol and a proclivity for mind control. Even the Apes, the stars of the show, are showing positively human levels of barbarism as a famine is driving them towards extinction. And that ending… Man, break out the Valium. A bit of a pain to have to follow up too, I imagine.

     Planet of the Apes is a movie that never really needed a sequel, much less 4 of them. Still, if there needed to be one (and money demanded that it be so), Beneath the Planet of the Apes does a pretty good job of it, capturing the essence of the original while pushing things forward. If you liked the first one, then it’s a good bet that you’ll like this one. If you hated it, or just hate apes in general, then I’m sure you’ll be able to find something else this Halloween. Also if you live in the NYC area, you might want to consider moving out. Seems like it's going to get a bit hairy in about two thousand years.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2016 -- Planet of the Apes (1968), directed by Franklin J. Schaffner

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "All Alone", by Gorillaz

     If there’s one thing all sci-fi fans love, it’s a good ol’ dystopia. Whether we nuked ourselves back into the Stone Age, or zombies destroy civilization, or some sort of totalitarian dictatorship manages to enslave the Earth, we just can’t get enough of the downfall of our society. Perhaps it’s a sign of our modern times that the idea of the world crumbling to dust around us is so appealing, that our cynical view of the world might someday be validated, that buying free range chicken at Whole Foods really did matter in the end. Or maybe because of the fact dystopias are set in the future, we use it as a way to convince ourselves that our own lives aren’t actually all that bad, and that it isn’t too late to change things for the better. Either way, death sells.

     Just as dystopian fiction has been a great success in the world of literature, George Orwell’s “1984” and Aldous Huxley’s “Brave New World” being the most obvious examples, so too has it been explored to great success in the world of film. Terry Gilliam’s Brazil and Orson Welles’ The Trial, which depict worlds where free thought are crushed under the heel of all-consuming bureaucracy. George Miller’s Mad Max series, where the world has become a hellish desert and the dregs of humanity wage war against each other in souped up dune buggies. The Last Man on Earth (we won’t be viewing the film this year, but I think I’m going to reference it as often as humanly possible), where Vincent Price stars as the lone human against a world of nightmarish creatures. In terms of critical and commercial success however, not to mention franchise potential, there aren’t many dystopias that can compare to 1968’s Planet of the Apes.

     At this stage of the game, I think cultural osmosis has removed the need for a plot recap. Astronauts land on planet, planet is ruled by apes, Forbidden Zones, Charlton Heston, damn dirty apes and stinking hands etc., it’s all a part of the collective unconscious that is pop culture. We know what’s up with Planet of the Apes just as we know what’s up with Star Wars and Die Hard and all those other movies that people deride other people for not having seen them. So is there even a point in watching this movie, in that case? Is there a point in watching any of these movies, when they have been referenced and parodied hundreds upon hundreds of times over the years?

     Well, I’ve already started writing the article, so…

     The thing that makes Planet of the Apes worth watching is the same thing that made The Incredible Shrinking Man worth watching a few entries back: It tells a old-school style sci-fi story and it looks good while doing it. The allusions to the Cold War (which was pretty hot at this point), the speeches on man’s failings (done by the protagonist of course), the irony of a fundamentalist ape society that denies evolution, it all feels like something out of a Ray Bradbury or Stanislaw Lem book. Much of that likely has to do with the fact that Rod Serling, the narrator of The Twilight Zone and writer of 95% of the episodes, wrote the first draft of the screenplay. Although Michael Wilson (Bridge On the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia) ultimately rewrote most of the script, the infamous twist at the end and the overall tone of the film end up making Planet of the Apes feel like an extended episode of The Twilight Zone. Which isn’t a bad thing either, considering the show is still the gold standard by which any bit of television that claims to be science fiction, speculative fiction, horror or otherwise is inevitably judged. I mean, considering it could have ended up feeling like an episode of The Night Gallery, and I don’t think anyone would want that.

     When it comes to the ‘looking good’ part, you have Franklin J. Schaffner (The Boys From Brazil, Patton)and make-up artist John Chambers to thank for that. Chambers’ apes are remarkably realistic considering the era in which it was made, and despite their general similarity each major character manages their own distinctive look. It was Schaffner’s idea to portray the ape society as archaic and proto-industrial rather than the futuristic world of Serling’s original draft and Pierre Boulle’s original novel, a move which not only reduced costs but in some ways heightens the surreality of the whole thing. Overall, the film cost about 6 millions dollars to make, but not only did it make back about 5 times its budget, it spawned about 5 sequels, a TV series, an animated series, a reboot by Tim Burton, a successful reboot series in 2011 and it ended up in the National Film Registry for being ‘culturally, historically or aesthetically different’. Not a bad job, considering you can barely make a half-decent indie movie with only 6 million bucks nowadays.

     So go ahead and watch Planet of the Apes, it gets a full recommendation from me. Much like The Incredible Shrinking Man, it’s a good film for those getting into science fiction to see, in fact this might be considered ‘essential viewing’ to some people. Even if you aren’t a particularly adamant sci-fi fan though, I’d recommend Planet of the Apes because it’s just a entertaining and well-made movie, one which has held up remarkably well over the years. If you’re up for violating some ape law this Halloween, this might be the film for you.