The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2020: Battle for the Planet of the Apes (1973), directed by J. Lee Thompson

 

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "Apeman", by The Kinks

      You never really know where something is gonna go it’s been set loose into the world, huh? When Stephen King wrote that one story about a dude getting killed by a lawnmower or whatever, cocaine is a hell of a drug, I bet he never thought it would end up a multi-film franchise based on virtual reality. Similarly when noted Frenchman Pierre Boulee penned his now famous short story about a simian-centric future I doubt he would have expected it to be the premier science fiction film franchise after the demise of Universal’s Horror line. In fact he probably would have hated it. Sure Star Wars gets all the love and all the big bucks these days, but years before Death Stars and droids and what have you, it was Charlton Heston yelling that we about how we blew it all up that got the blood a pumpin’. So now that we’ve taken our step into The Undiscovered Country over on Star Trek, it’s about time we did the same for our favorite set of flicks involving people in rubber ape masks.

      Released by Apjac Productions through 20th Century Fox, Battle for the Planet of the Apes is the fifth and final film in the original Apes series, directed by J. Lee Thompson (who did Conquest of the Planet of the Apes a year prior), with the story by Paul Dehn and the screenplay by John William Corrington and Joyce Hooper Corrington. It is several years after the events of the previous film, when Caesar formed an army of apes and led a revolution against the humans, and civilization as we once knew it has been destroyed by nuclear fire. Now Caesar (Roddy McDowall, one last time) is tasked with building a new society on the ashes of the old with the remaining apes and humans, one built peace and freedom. Not an easy task, in large part because humans now occupy a servile position not unlike the ones the apes lived in under the humans, when gorilla general Aldo is not actively campaigning for their extermination. Caesar is flummoxed over what to do, wishing he could get some clue on what to do from his long-dead parents, when Macdonald (same character as Conquest, played this time by Austin Stoker) reveals that he can: Just check out the interview tape made by the government when they first arrived back in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, conveniently located within the underground archives of the destroyed Forbidden City just a couple days away from the village. Which is exactly what Caesar decides to do, taking Macdonald and orangutan scholar Virgil (Paul Williams) along for the ride. Of course that ruined city might not be as deserted as it might seem, and enemies can take many forms. It may be October, but the Ides of March might be fast approaching.

      Well we’ve reached the bottom of the cash barrel this time folks. Planet of the Apes as a series has never been cash-flush, Rod Serling wanted a futuristic city in the original and they gave him some adobe huts instead, but never understood just how cheap movies can get. Technically speaking Battle has the same budget as Conquest, 1.7 million, but at least Conquest spruced things up a bit so it looked like they were in a future city rather than just a normal ass. Battle gives us one decent looking matte painting of the Forbidden City and some blackened, melted wreckage, but the rest of it is dark dusty corridors in a boiler room and a state park with some wood huts in it. Our film’s secondary antagonist, horrifically mutated humans living in the wreckage of a once great city, are ‘mutated’ in the least possible manner; A gray splotchy ‘scar’ that half the time you don’t even notice. Even the famous ape masks, which you could argue was a large part of what made the original film such a success in the first place are showing their limitations, looking really stiff on anyone who isn’t Roddy McDowall. It’s a good thing that those masks are there though, because it’s the only thing keeping a million dollar movie from being outclassed by an average episode of Doctor Who. The old Doctor Who.      

      Of course there’s the question of whether there even needed to be another film in the first place. The first four movies did a decent job of telling how and why the Planet of the Apes came to be, and I think ending things at Conquest would have fit in science fiction’s penchant for downer endings (for the humans anyway). Most of the things you might have wanted to see you don’t get anyway because they can’t afford it; The moment human society is destroyed, the Ape-Man War, how those psychic weirdos from the second movie got that ICBM, etc. The only thing they’ve really got left to work with is addressing the time loop, and I think they manage to do so in a way that pairs well with the original film. However the scale of the film is so small because of the budget that it really damages the suspension of disbelief. The titular Battle has a certain dramatic appeal, two sides consumed by hate throwing what little remains of themselves at each other, repurposing automobiles as war machines like a prototypical Mad Max, but when you actually get there it’s like the Road Warrior if George Miller could only afford three cars. Then there’s the fact that the one tape involving an interview with fucking talking apes from the future just so happens to be a day or so away from the village our characters are located, which apparently suffers no ill effects from being downwind of a city obliterated by nuclear fire (it’s a tiny ass city by the way), and that the mutants just so happen to be able to identify Caesar on site despite him looking and dressing exactly like every other chimpanzee in the movie. Also the amount of Apes that actually live in this village wouldn’t even fill your average convention hall by, so by the time Planet of the Apes rolled around it’d look like a hairier version of The Hills Have Eyes. Just a whole mess of narrative convenience because they can’t afford to do anything else, and I can’t help but feel disappointed.

      Does that make it a bad movie? No, I wouldn’t go that far. As I said, I did like how they addressed the time loop, and tied all the films together. It also has a decent amount of action for those interested in that, and the drama between the Humans and the Apes felt like it was built well. Way better than Escape that’s for damn sure. Does that make it a good conclusion to the series? On a certain level yes, but the reason The Undiscovered Country worked for me despite not being the flashiest film was because we followed the cast (who most watchers were familiar with already) across five films before that one. The only character that really works with here is Caesar, and he starts off Battle as a fairly reasonable guy and he stays that way throughout the entire film, so his arc is more of a straight line. Moreover, while both films deal heavily in previous films, Star Trek VI does it in such a way that it is unobtrusive and so works better as its own film than Battle. So it’s a part of the tapestry, but maybe a bit frayed on the edges.

      If you’ve gotten this far in the Ape game, then there’s no point in not recommending Battle for the Planet of the Apes, but it helps that it’s not complete dog shit. If you haven’t, then similarly there’s no point in seeing it. So now we find ourselves in much the same predicament that we did at the end of the last review: Will we see an Apes film covered next year? Furthermore, will it be the critically panned Tim Burton Planet of the Apes, or will we be digging into the much more acclaimed modern Apes trilogy. As it was with Trek, only time will tell. Pour one out for Caesar and the gang if you’ve got ‘em, and let’s move forward.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2019: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972), directed by J. Lee Thompson

The Trailer

and

The Appropriate Tune: "I Am An Ape", by David Byrne & St. Vincent

       In 1968, a spaceship captained by Charlton Heston crash landed in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where human beings were as cattle to a race of intelligent, talking apes, a Planet of the Apes if you will. Two years later an astronaut from another conveniently crash landed spaceship went Beneath the Planet of the Apes, as the remnants of man’s civilization engaged in one last confrontation with their simian nemesis. A year later ape scientists Cornelius and Zira managed to Escape from the Planet of the Apes, only to find themselves back in the days when humans still ruled the roost, and who aren’t all that pleased about primate possibilities. Now another year has passed, for the Marathon and the release date of the films, and it’s time to return to our saga with Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Will it excite like Star Trek II, or disappoint like Star Trek V? Only one way to find out.

       The year is 1991. It’s been 20 years since the events of the previous film, where Cornelius and Zira were murdered by government agents attempting to prevent the ape dominated future, and their child Caesar was secretly taken in by circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban). Apes have become society’s new underclass; Originally used as pets after a space-borne virus caused the extinction of all dogs and cats in 1983, they were eventually bred into what has become a race of slaves, used for manual labor by the human populace and kept in line by a fascistic police force. Sheltered by Armando and the circus his entire life, a now adult Caesar (played by Cornelius’ actor Roddy McDowall) bristles at the treatment of his brethren, which turns into outright hatred after Armando and he is forced into becoming a slave himself in order to hide from the authorities. Abuse, humiliation, outright torture, it all serves to mask what the humans cannot or will not accept, that these apes are not just mindless, unthinking brutes. They are smart; Smart enough to know they are being made to suffer and who is making them suffer, and smart enough to know that they aren’t going to take it anymore. Destiny or not, fate or not, the war between ape and man begins today.

       I said in my review of Escape (paraphrased) that it felt like the first part of a much more exciting film, and that’s not the case. Rather it’s more akin to an opening scene, as Armando spends about three minutes at the beginning of this film giving you the cliff notes of the last one, rendering it completely superfluous. That can be forgiven however, as Conquest is indeed the much more exciting film. More action, harder hitting drama, stronger performances, they even made an effort to make things feel a bit like an alternate history 1991, complete with green, non-lethal cigarettes. All this in spite of the fact that Conquest actually had the smallest budget of all the Apes movie up to that point, 1.7 million dollars compared to 2.06 million for Escape (what they spent it on I have no idea). Maybe J. Lee Thompson had something to prove when they gave him the director’s chair.

       To me though, Conquest works because it finally gives context to the franchise. The original Planet of the Apes as well as Beneath relied a lot on the shock value of the concept, a stranger in a strange land, but it never delved too deep into things. Escape touched on it a bit, but it wasn’t until Conquest that we got answers as to how the apes came to be and why they have such animosity towards humans. More than that, as you go through the film and see every instance of beatings, torture and terror the apes are subjected to, only slightly worse than what we put real people through these days, you empathize more and more with their plight. To the point where the climax of the film, where Caesar and the apes clash with the security forces feels like a triumphant moment in spite of the implications it has for the future of the human race in that universe. Suddenly what was once a simplistic ‘man good ape bad’ dichotomy becomes a much more nuanced affair, and what was once a simple sci-fi thriller that runs on twists and sudden reveals is elevated into proper science fiction, a story that is capable of promoting actual discussion. That it took four movies to get us there isn’t the best look in the world, but at least they got there.

       I mentioned strong performances, but to be honest this entire film is buoyed by three actors: Roddy McDowall as Caesar, Don Murray as Governor Breck, and Hari Rhodes as Breck’s assistant MacDonald. Caesar is easily the highlight of McDowall’s tenure with Apes films, not just for the his incredible, sweeping speeches at the tail end of the film but the way he’s mastered the physical art of acting in the makeup, conveying so much emotion solely through his eyes. Don Murray is is positively Nixonian as Governor Breck, chewing through his lines with a manic flair, in a way that teeters on the line between comic and terrifying. Hari Rhodes by comparison is much more down to earth, but then he is that way by design, caught as he is between recognizing the ape’s growing self-determination and protecting the continued existence of the human race. No real female characters of any note, they’ve got a chimp woman in every couple of scenes but she doesn’t talk or really do anything, so I kept forgetting that was meant to be the same character. Not that the lack of women in the credits damns the film necessarily, but it is kind of weird in hindsight. Needed a couple hundred thousand more dollars to fit them in, I suppose.

       Beneath was alright, but Conquest of the Planet of the Apes is probably the first of the series since the original that I would straight up call ‘good’. I’d go so far as to call it a hidden gem, if indeed the fourth entry in a famous film series can ever be considered ‘hidden’. It’s exactly what the Apes movies needed to rev back into gear, and it’s what I needed as someone who has spent the last couple of years of my life watching these movies and pondering my life choices. A hearty recommendation from me, and a potentially nice Halloween night for you if you decide to watch it. Bananas not included.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971), directed by Don Taylor

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Born to Run", by Bruce Springsteen

     In 1968, 20th century Fox released a Franklin J. Schaffner-directed film written by Rod Serling based on a book by Pierre Boulle which, ultimately, was known as The Planet of the Apes. In the film, human astronauts crashland onto a wasteland of a world, a bizarre land where intelligent apes (gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees to be specific) rule and humans are mindless beasts. The astronauts, by which I mean Charlton Heston, try to survive this madness while being hunted by the apes, first as sport, and then once they discover his sapience, as a living blasphemy to their apes laws. At the end of his journey Heston finds out the awful truth that has been spoiled to everyone who has ever heard of a movie in the last 4 decades, and we are left only to imagine his ultimate fate as arguably the loneliest person in existence. Hope he’s not allergic to bananas.

     Planet of the Apes was an explosive success, thanks in part to the phenomenal make-up work by John Chambers, and two years later we got a sequel, Ted Post’s Beneath the Planet of the Apes. In the film, another group of astronauts, by which I mean not Charlton Heston, crashlands onto a wasteland of a world, a bizarre place where intelligent apes (gorillas, orangutans and chimpanzees to be specific) rules and humans are mindless beasts. This time around however, the astronauts that aren’t Charlton Heston must navigate a world of murderous apes but also a race of psychic mutants who have established their own society within the underground ruins, who aside from worshipping an ICBM are kind of assholes in their own right. At the end of his journey the astronaut who isn’t Charlton Heston already knew the awful truth from a while back, and while this time he’s not the loneliest person in existence, there isn't exactly that much fate left to imagine. Hope he’s not allergic to nukes.

     Beneath the Planet of the Apes wasn’t as big of a success as the original film, although they still got a lot of use out of Chambers’ make-up, but apparently the franchise was still big enough to warrant a sequel, which is why one year later we got Don Taylor’s Escape from the Planet of the Apes. In the film, yet another group of astronauts crashland onto a wasteland of a world, only this time the wasteland is known as Los Angeles, and the astronauts are actually intelligent apes (chimpanzees to be specific). As it turns out, right before that whole ‘nuke blowing up the entire planet’ thing, Cornelius, Zira and everyone’s favorite redshirt Dr. Milo managed to squeeze into a half-built spaceship and somehow got shot through the timespace continuum onto 1970s Earth. The world at large is, perhaps understandably, crazy about these wild talking apes from the future, and they instantly get sucked into celebrity status. Attending lavish parties, speaking at women’s club meetings, drinking booze, the whole shebang. Sure, humanity treats them more as fancy props rather than fellow sapient beings with their own unique culture, but what more do you expect from Americans?

     The one person who isn’t a fan of apes is Otto Hasslein, your run-of-the-mill German antagonist/scientist who happens to be on speaking terms with the President and the CIA. A man with very vague theories on time travel, Otto is convinced that not only are these apes from a future Earth, but that said apes represent an existential threat to humanity. You can’t let them just walk around free, let alone breed with any other apes, or else we’re going to be looking down the wrong side of the gun in about a couple thousand years. How exactly we get to a world of three distinct ape species when there are only two chimps is left conveniently unsaid. It’s also left unsaid why he doesn’t use this knowledge of the future to help steer man and apekind away from mutually assured destruction, but I guess you can’t bring up predestination paradoxes if you’re planning on the dramatically ironic ending.

     The first two Apes films are far from what I would call perfect films. Planet of the Apes was too goofy at various points, an issue with people meddling with Serling’s original script I imagine, and Beneath had an issue with lack of energy, but they both balance it out with the suspense of the stranger in a strange land, against all odds premise. Escape takes the awkward goofiness of the former and the lack of energy from the latter and then forgot about that whole suspense thing. The titular escape is the most dramatic part of the movie, but that comes in at the end, so the rest of the movie is taken up with talking. Minutes upon minutes of people talking to each other. Throw in some weird lounge music and some credits and you’ve got yourself a movie, according to Don Taylor.

     Escape having an excess of dialogue wouldn’t be too much of an issue if it were centered around Cornelius and Zira, since these are the characters the audience are familiar with and presumably care about, but it’s not. A lot of people talking about Cornelius and Zira sure, but the apes are almost afterthoughts in their own film, and aside from the opening and ending of the film are mostly relegated to vaguely comedic bits. Why this was the way they went with this is unclear, since Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter are easily the most charismatic actors in the cast, and most of what they’re given to work with is tone-deaf or just plain stupid. Cornelius and Zira are doctors and academics, and yet they act like they’ve never had to read a damn room in their lives, despite engaging in several acts of deception and subterfuge across two fucking movies. They might not be accustomed to man’s worlds, but I’m pretty sure if I get chained up and put up in front of a council I’m going to figure out now is not the time to act like the Dick Van Dyke Show.

     Planet of the Apes movies always have a meaning more than just seeing people in rubber masks walking around, and to me it appears that Escape from the Planet of the Apes is meant to be an allegory for the way countries (especially America) treat undocumented immigrants less as living, breathing people and more as props to push political agendas, as well as establishing the foundation for the inevitable ape-human conflict. Which is a fine plot for a movie, and it’s basically what we get here, but Escape fails to make it compelling. What we should have got was a film dealing with Cornelius and Zira’s culture shock upon entering human society, seeing first-hand the misery we inflict upon ourselves, perhaps starting off as celebrities and then becoming pariahs as they start to question the current order of things, ultimately coming to the conclusion that history will repeat itself because mankind’s vain self-interest will not allow apes to coexist on Earth. Not old white guys talking to each other in various rooms. Hell, even the damn ‘escape’ has more people talking in rooms than the physical act of escaping. It’s almost like this movie was made on half the budget of the previous film and they’re really bad at hiding it.

     Escape from the Planet of the Apes feels like the first part of a much more exciting movie that for some reason was excised and put into theaters on its own. While it’s nice to see Roddy and Kim again this movie fails to either excite or enjoy, and with the haphazard way it came into being it’s a wonder why it should even exist at all, besides setting up a potentially more interesting film down the road, which after having seen this film reeks of unfounded confidence. Unless you’re a completionist or a film blogger there’s very little reason to turn on Escape from the Planet of the Apes, especially if it’s your only film of the evening. For everyone else, you’re much better off sticking with the original or Beneath this Halloween. Chimp-tested, gorilla-approved.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2018: Circle of Iron (1978), directed by Richard Moore

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Buddha", by Macy Gray

     Although he’s been dead for decades now, martial arts cinema is still trying crawl out from under the shadow of Bruce Lee. Jackie Chan might be the most successful martial arts star of all time, and folks like Jet Li, Donnie Yen and Sonny Chiba have carved out their own legacies in the film industry, but you can never quite forget about ol’ Bruce. He had the look, the poise, the charisma, and perhaps most important of all: believability. You could believe Bruce Lee was kicking these people’s asses on screen because between his physicality and his fighting experience he could kick people’s asses offscreen as well. I mean I’ve been a fan of Jackie Chan for years, but he’s never come across as a guy who could stop my heart with one punch. But Bruce Lee? Yeah, not without an EMT crew standing by. 

That Bruce’s legacy looms so large and yet his actual career was so short is dramatically appropriate, if not entirely fair. A handful of films, a supporting role in a short-lived superhero TV show, and suddenly you’re done with one of the biggest names of the 70s. Of course that wasn’t the intention, in fact there were several in the pipeline before Lee met his tragic end. There was the infamously unfinished Game of Death, which inspired Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill films. There was the show that would eventually become Kung-Fu, which inspired David Carradine’s entire career since apparently Bruce Lee wasn’t white enough to star in his own show. For the purposes of this opinion piece however, we’re going to be taking a quick look at a story that Bruce Lee never had a chance to expand on himself. A story which, thanks to a little help by James Coburn and Stirling Silliphant, finally got to see the light of the silver screen 5 years after Lee’s death. A story that, again, stars David Carradine. It’s called Circle of Iron, and it’s our next entry in the Marathon.

In a world that is beyond time yet at the same time familiar there is a legend, as it is in all worlds. The legend states that in a far off land there lives a man called Zetan, who guards a book called the Book of Enlightenment. It is said that if you are able to complete the journey and pass the Trials set before you, then you will be deemed worthy to face Zetan in combat and look upon the Book yourself, and all your questions will be answered. However it is also said that no one has ever been able to reach Zetan, everyone who has ever started the journey has died in the attempt. That doesn’t really matter to our protagonist Cord though, he’s got his amazing strength and skills in the martial arts on his side, and he’ll go anywhere and do anything to reach that book. When you’re on a journey to Enlightenment however, it’s not the size of your muscles or the speed of your punches that matter, it is the depth of one’s mind and thoughts. Not exactly Cord’s strong suit, but any journey is easier when you have someone to help guide the way.

To say that Circle of Iron is a philosophical film would be stating the obvious; it’s stated as Lee’s intention in the foreword after all, to build a film based on the principles of Zen Buddhism. Heavy stuff, one more suited for Alejandro Jodorowsky than the guy who fought Chuck Norris one would think, but actually it’s handled pretty well. The story is structured a bit like a folktale so it’s easy enough to follow, with the philosophical portions placed within reach. It’s not an alternative to reading a book on the subject or discussing it with a monk, and it probably didn’t convert anybody in ‘78, but it does its job by giving you a basic idea of what Zen is about. Pretty novel for the time.

     The problem here, which is not the fault of the film itself, is that this is a Bruce Lee story but with no Bruce Lee in it. Jeff Cooper (Cord) tries, bless him, but if it wasn’t his stilted acting that got him it would be the fact that he looks less like a badass martial artist undergoing a spiritual awakening and more like Robert Culp cosplaying as Conan the Barbarian. They compensate for that by getting some pretty impressive names on the cast, including Christopher Lee, Eli Wallach and good ol’ David Carradine (playing multiple roles even), but then you’re reminded of the main reason why you want Bruce Lee in this or any other movie: The fight scenes. Or as they’re known in Circle of Iron ‘Count the Edits’, because the camera just can’t seem to sit still for a few seconds while someone tries to throw a punch. Seeing Carradine go through katas pretending to be a panther is funny and all, but honestly with such substantial edits it saps the interest away when you do get to them. In the age of jumpcut action movies it may not seem like a big deal, but watch Big Boss or Enter the Dragon alongside Circle of Iron and you’ll get an idea of how wide the gap is between what was and what could have been.

     That being said, Circle of Iron is a perfectly fine film and I quite enjoyed it. It looks great aesthetically, the subject matter is unique for a Western film, and it can actually be pretty funny when it wants to be, especially when David Carradine is involved. So yeah, four or so movies in and we’ve actually found a movie that I actually feel like recommending for once! Even though it’s not your typical Halloween fare, you’ll likely get a good time out of it. You’ll never want to go near oil again, but it’ll be a good time.

The Long Dark Marathon of the Soul 2017 - Fright Night (1985), directed by Tom Holland

The Trailer
and
The Appropriate Tune: "Fright Night (Nevermore)", by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti

     Upcoming worst review ever. Don’t know what happened, all attempts to write this completely snowballed, and this is the end result. Sorry.

     Fright NIght follows the story of Charlie Brewster, a typical teen in your average American suburb. Charlie has a girlfriend that he likes to neglect (Amy), he has a friend who treats him like shit (Ed, commonly referred to as ‘Evil’), a mom who has a fixation on sex, and a favorite public access television show, ‘Fright Night’, hosted by in-universe horror movie actor Peter Vincent. Who could ask for more? However, things take a turn for the worse when Jerry Dandridge moves into the house next door. Strange things start happening, people start disappearing, and Charlie is a witness to events that defy description. It’s looking like Dandridge is a vampire, a member of that damned race of blood-sucking fiends. If that’s true however, then how can he stopped? Not only that, but what happens when he knows that you’ve discovered his secret?

     Well, call Peter Vincent of course!

     This is a strange film to pin down, because all the interesting things seemed to be matched with an equally bad thing. I like the idea of having a horror enthusiast thrust into the role of monster fighter, like in fellow Marathon film Monster Squad, but the ‘neighbor does weird stuff but no one believes the protagonist’ concept has been well-worn ever since Alfred Hitchcock’s Rear Window (if you’ve seen The Burbs from last year’s list, you’ve seen about 70 percent of Fright Night). I like Roddy McDowell’s performance as Peter Vincent, but I want to strangle the kid who plays Evil Ed. The film goes for a laugh in one scene, but then has an excruciatingly long death scene the next. Great special effects and makeup, but the music is standard fare. It even has its own theme song, which seems like a thing all horror movies had at the time. Good cinematography etc.

     Fright Night is worth a watch. Hell, you might even really enjoy it, considering it has a decent cult following. When you consider how many horror movies from the ‘80s have that distinction however, it gets hard to say that it’s a must-watch movie. If you liked movies like Monster Squad, The Burbs, The Frighteners, maybe a bit of The Lost Boys too, then you’re in good hands. Otherwise, just add this queue and get to it eventually.

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.