The Sword and Laser discussion

Following the "Kaiju Katchup" the question was, what series would be next? Well, nothing matches the original Godzilla movies. But the next best has gotta the original Planet of the Apes flicks.

I went looking and there was no free option. Call me crazy but $4 a viewing for a 50 year old film is a little excessive. So I didn't see them right away. But! My library has DVDs. So off I went and got all five, partly because they were all available at once and partly because I'm pretty sure I can see them all in a one week viewing period.

Today, the original. Charlton Heston in the first of what I think of as his "genre trilogy" including Omega Man and Soylent Green. After a silly intro on a spaceship including time dilation that in no way fits the distance traveled, there's the crash landing. Of course the ship sinks beneath the waves, because deniability.

Then it's a good twenty minutes of wandering the desert before we see the first sign of animal life, that being some apparent humanoids trailing them. It's not far after that for the apes to show up, killing and capturing humans. It's all a fairly blatant role reversal.

Then, of course, the "humans can't talk" bit from the younger Ape scientists, and heavy handed hints that the power structure knows all about what humans can actually do and are suppressing the information. Heston conveniently can't actually talk right then due to a throat injury. He conveniently recovers for a dramatic moment.

Right at the hour mark is the first of two famous lines: "Take your stinking paws off me you damn dirty ape!" That's after a dramatic escape attempt. A few dozen ape villagers witness this and are wide eyed at the experience.

Soooo on to the PotA version of the Scopes trial. Can humans actually talk? Well, there's a tribunal. Three judges. I do love the Flintstones aesthetic to the ape village in general, but the trial room in particular shows the influence hilariously so. Ah, the rock chairs of the judges.

But perhaps the best part is as two sides argue and the judges do a straight up pose of the See No Evil, Hear No Evil, Speak No Evil bit. As goodreads has essentially disabled pics, here's a link:
https://9gag.com/gag/av5WRnO

There's increasingly heavy handed role reversal stuff as time goes on. Humans on the run, humans hunted, humans put in slavery, humans used for medical experiments. Slogans recast, as when one ape muses "the proper study of ape is ape."

(cutting into manageable sections)

At this point I'm wondering how in the hell Taylor (Heston's character) could possibly think he's NOT on Earth! After crash landing they walk through desert to find pine trees. Then they see tribal humans. Could this be a Star Trek type thing with convergent evolution? Would have to cover a lot of species as the humans run through corn and are then chased by apes. On horses. Then the apes speak English! Where the hell ELSE do you think you could be, Taylor?

And so we have the classic Simpsons bit, Planet of the Apes the Musical. Including the lyric, "I hate every ape I see, from Chimpan-A to Chimpan-Z..." Well, let's put the actual lyrics..

Troy:
I hate every ape I see.
From chimpan-a to chimpan-z,
No, you'll never make a monkey out of me.
(Statue of Liberty prop rises in background)
Oh, my God, I was wrong,
It was Earth all along.
You finally made a monkey...
Apes:
Yes we finally made a monkey...
Troy and Apes:
Yes, you finally made a monkey out of me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZqZdf...

So on that note, young-me thought that was ridiculous when I first saw this film (and eventually the rest) aged 10 or so, when they appeared on Creature Double Feature on Saturday nights in suburban Boston. Channel 67 IIRC. Anyhoo, older-me remembers how there was a time when every planet in the solar system and many beyond were assumed to have humanoid inhabitants that were easily communicated with. Often they had barely-different changes, like the copper people of Barsoom. Colder planet inhabitants (Saturn, for instance) generally had blue people. Culture ranged from high tech to tribal, but usually included some savage elements, like again Barsoom, high tech, with arena fighting.

So what is that? It's really the colonialists experience of other countries, reflected in SFF. An actual alien planet would be unlikely to have any life even resembling humans. In the conceit of the day, tho, they might all have that, the more convenient to pattern modern-day issues onto. Star Trek is famous for this.

So the movie ends on the reason for all we have seen. Humans destroyed most of Earth in a nuclear war, and the apes deliberately keep technology low to ensure it won't happen again. They have a conceit that they aren't deliberately violent like humans, and maybe that's true in-universe. But the best way to keep technology from destroying your world is to not have it in the first place. And so the ape elders deliberately suppress knowledge. That's also role reversal altho I wonder how much is warranted. Don't ask me about Niven's technology suppressing ARMs and our current lack of space travel or I may froth even longer...

Next update probably Sunday. Tomorrow is the Viking Festival. Also, I won't be watching any of the new movies. Two decades back I saw Marky Mark and the Monkey Bunch and that was enough for me. As with the Kaiju, classics only!

When I was a kid, I really liked the Planet of the Apes TV series.

^ Yeah, I saw mention of that while reading up on the movie series. Never saw it. Not the kind of thing that would be on an independent TV station in the 70s (when I saw the movies) and I wasn't thinking about it later. Looks to be well liked by Apes fans. 14 episodes. I might give it a look, after all the rest.

John (Taloni) wrote: "^ Yeah, I saw mention of that while reading up on the movie series. Never saw it. Not the kind of thing that would be on an independent TV station in the 70s (when I saw the movies) and I wasn't th..."

I remember it being more post-apocalyptic. Maybe a prequel? The humans weren't savage. I want to re-watch.

I've loved those movies ever since I was young, but I remember the ending of the second one scared the hell out of existential young me. I remember enjoying the series as well.

Just saw Beneath The Planet Of The Apes and...Double-U Tee Eff?!?

So, note that I have only the vaguest remembrance of the later movies. I'm not completely sure I've seen this one before. My recollection of the time-travel movie is that it's the fifth one but apparently it's next. So anyhoo, maybe I haven't seen this one before.

I suppose if anyone wants to skip spoilers, stop here. No, I'm not going to spoiler-protect a 50 year old movie.

It starts out in standard exploitation fashion. Is the star of the first in the sequel? Nope, but we've got a stand-in plus some of the other elements!

Setup is silly. It's a rescue mission, but how would they have known in 1972 that Taylor the previous mission was lost? It was supposed to be a 700 year mission. The tech gobbledygook was at least decent, something about a time bend. Hey, if they'd just said "warp" and not introduced the long mission time in the first movie, it would have made sense as an experimental space engine gone awry.

Nova's back as the unspeaking hottie. Well, she was the studio head's girlfriend and actually did a credible job in the role both times. Nova takes Brent to see Zira and Cornelius, the Voices of Reason for this particular flick. They are in for far too short a time.

And then, ah, 60s attitudes. Zira has to hide a bloody cloth she was using to repair an injury to Brent's arm as Dr. Zaius arrives for an unexpected visit. Not to worry, she pretends that Cornelias assaulted her! For bad opinions of course. And she didn't object to the assault, just that he needs to clip his nails. Er, WHAT?

So round and round, apes chase Brent and Nova, get captured, blah de blah. Invasion of the Forbidden Zone coming up. A bit of John Wayne style heroics from Stagecoach as they escape from the prison cart taking Nova and Brent to be target practice. Also I hear Rickman from Galaxyquest in my head as Brent removes his top: "I see you got your shirt off."

So, the Ape invasion of the Forbidden Zone is important because...why? Because there is a previously undisclosed technological civilization of humans living in the tunnels of New York City! Not sure why they didn't want to talk to Taylor in the first, except perhaps that "Planet of the Telepathic Mutants" doesn't quite have the same ring.

And of course the mutant humans are as big a bunch of bastards as the apes. They don't kill, but use their ESP powers to make their enemies kill themselves. It's all very Star Trek, even down to some similar music over the ape army sequences. More than once I flashed on The Cage with Pike using emotion to block ESP commands, saying "I'm filling my mind with hate!" But just to be extra weird, the mutant humans HAVE AN ATOMIC BOMB. In a chapel. Which they worship!

And then...AND THEN...the apes invade, the mutant humans can't hold them off, and it's Taylor and Brent trying to stop the mutant humans from setting off the bomb. Which apparently is a planet killer, not just a city destroyer.

So, lots o' death, and Dr. Zaius declines to help Taylor. So what does he do? He has a wildly nihilistic moment and SETS THE BOMB OFF HIMSELF. So we go from "You blew it up!" to, "think I'll do far worse and kill the entirety of the planet." Um. How did we get to THIS?

Phil wrote: "the ending of the second one scared the hell out of existential young me. "

You ain't whistling Dixie! "The planet now lies dead." WHAT?

So. I'll go on to the third. But YOW. I'm thinking 60s audiences would have been expecting something more along the lines of fragile hope and a message of coexistence. Taylor and Nova ride off into the sunset...Brent finds his own mate, or maybe dies nobly saving the two...yeah. Anything but this.

The sequels don't live up to the first movie.

Next up Escape from the Planet of the Apes. Or as I call it, Apes Go Camp!

What's left to do after your MC literally blows up the world? We've got an "other side of the train" situation where you just didn't see your hero escape! Or in this case, a flimsy situation where a previously unknown scientist salvages the spaceship and brings along two fan faves, Zira and Cornelius. They just happen to be in orbit and get flung back in time! Okay, the whole premise has been flimsy but this takes the cake.

Then it's Zira and Cornelius in then-present-day US, mostly Los Angeles. Easy to conserve budget that way! They gallivant around, getting fancy human clothes, get feted, Zira even gives a feminist speech! (Ape society is organized the same as human? Why?)

Going back in time to present day is something SF writers just seem to love. Just on Star Trek TOS alone there's several episodes, plus the 4th movie. TNG goes to current day and recent past. DS9 also, including the hilariously headcovered "Tuvok Shakur." Eh, why not.

This movie lacks the mapping of current day issues onto future situations which the others contained. It's a bridge movie. Of course Zira is pregnant, gotta make that time loop.

Ricardo Montalban has a small, great part as Armando, the circus owner. His performance is over the top hilarious, as he tells Zira that if humanity must be dominated, God willing it would be by someone as great as her. Let's not tell Armando that Zira had little power in the future and humans were dominated by ugly hunters and slavers, plus Zira herself has killed quite a few humans along the way. But anyway. Montalban chews up the scenery. Forgive me if I hoped he would say that he wished for the apes to live a life of luxury, reclining on fine...Corinthian leather.

We finally meet Dr. Hasslein, apparently the inventor of the space drive that bears his name altho that isn't spelled out. He's a thinly veiled stand in for Wernher Von Braun, because in the Apollo era if you're going to space you need a German in charge.

The timeline doesn't really fit since Zira describes a slow takeover by the apes, but the previous movies have strongly implied humanity had a nuclear war soon after Heston left in his spaceship. Or else why would there be a missile he recognized in the second movie? So the writers are playing fast and loose. But then, they tried to write themselves out of the series by blowing up the whole planet in the future, only to get dragged back in.

So take this one as campy fun. Well, there's lots of death at the end. Treat it as cartoon violence. It sets up the more culturally significant last two films.

They're playing fast and loose with time, saying that "a" future may not be "the" future. There's an interesting concept left alone here, that the future of the Apes may have been an unstable timeline that would have collapsed one way or another. Instead I think they're going for alternate futures. I dislike this when it lets worldkillers off the hook. The future of the Apes world should have been preserved, dangit. Let it be a symbol of learning to live with each other. Sigh.

Soooo the last two. They really make a mini-arc.

First up, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. It's set in the "future" of 1992. Despite knowing that apes are destined to supplant humans, they go right on ahead with the agenda. Apes are imported from natural habitats to be servants.

I'd call it a thinly veiled slave analogy, except it's not veiled at all. Ape handlers use whips and bludgeons, and the security enforcement is dressed like Nazis. Nothing subtle about it.

Budget is lower even than the 3rd movie so there's lots on lengthy Los Angeles location shots. The main action takes place in downtown LA. Amusingly, I didn't know it as a Boston young'un but recognize the area now.

Apes are experiencing a mysterious increase in IQ. Three percent in a year is mentioned. There's no explanation given. Well, I've seen sillier SFnal premises, including one in which Earth entering a new region of space makes the IQ of all animal life go up three times. So three percent? Among the less outrageous premises.

The baby ape has survived, courtesy of Armando, Ricardo Montalban chewing up the scenery again. He gets found out and has an early exit protecting the ape, who comes to be known as Caesar.

From there it's Caesar fomenting rebellion. Which we'd really expect, wouldn't we? The apes are presented as the good guys, except they were slave drivers in the future, so are they really better? Well, in this movie they're the oppressed underclass. Okay, so the "kill humans for sport" in the future, and "perform medical experiments on them," not to mention "use them as target practice," but hey! Just look at Caesar's cute mug.

Caesar gets embittered about humanity along the way, despite several humans moving heaven and earth to protect him. After his first victory he is just this side of declaring a dictatorial war when his mate manages to stammer out "No!" From there Caesar softens. So it seems the entirety of the timeline is changed by one character getting a small amount of courage at the right time.

Aforementioned mate meets Caesar as part of a breeding program, but they seem to take to each other. TBH I expected this to follow the storyline of Spartacus, with Caesar strung up but the mother and baby getting out. Nope, mom hasn't given birth by movie end and both survive.

It's on the same lines as the other Apes movies: Nihilistic and violent. Caesar references the nuclear holocaust to come. Plenty of scenes of apes and humans attacking each other. There's just the slightest smidgen of suggestion that ape and man can coexist.

Und zen zee last vun...Battle for the Planet of the Apes. Not much of a battle given the low budget for this one. They knew it was the last one, essentially the idea was to exploit any remaining goodwill and do a storyline capper of some kind.

The "battle" includes a few dozen people and about as many apes. The attackers have a schoolbus, oooh! And a few jeeps. They attack an ape village run by Caesar.

Some decent callbacks to previous movies. The attackers are underground New York dwellers, a clear setup for the group in the second movie. They even have similar coverings and start to show facial deformities like those people had. Radiation to encourge mutation.

Yep, the nuclear war happened offscreen. Caesar is trying to forge a combined ape/human society and avoid the apocalyptic future. Can he succeed? It's fairly blindingly obvious that he will, as a "lawgiver" from six centuries in the future both opens and closes the movie.

Pathos along the way as the gorillas want war and don't want to submit to Caesar's calls for peace. Only one openly defies him tho, and that one engages in the worst action possible: Ape kills ape.

Gorillas fight to protect the village from attack, and corral the friendly humans as they do so. It's clearly implied that without Caesar's actions the bad future will come to pass. So there's the will-he-or-won't-he question as he sticks by his ill son's bedside.

It all comes to a hopeful ending, in direct contrast to the nihilism of the previous four movies. Kind of like the fake capper of old silent movies and what was called the "MOS" for Moment Of Shit when the happy ending got tacked on.

Given the overwhelming nihilism of the series even in the otherwise-hopeful fifth movie, why the enduring love for the films? Fox made more sequels partly because they did very well on TV. Back then there was no video so exploitation was theatrical, TV, and any theatrical reissues you could do.

I can attest that I certainly looked forward to seeing them on TV, circa 1975 or so. I would have been too young to see them as they came out. I think it was the fun of the premise rather than any specific plot elements. Intelligent apes! With humans! Role reversal!

I think I saw this one in the theatre, I would have been 10, and it was my favorite back then. It was probably because it was the least doom and gloomy and because by that point I knew some of the actors behind the ape suits. In retrospect they probably should have stopped after 2 or even one.
As a side note, when I was around 12 or 13 I read the original novel by Pierre Boulle and loved it. If I recall correctly (view spoiler)[ in the book it wasn't our Earth that Taylor landed on, just parallel development. (hide spoiler)]

^ I did love how they kept getting Roddy McDowall back for movie after movie. Well, after "Beneath" when David Watson stepped in.

So he's Cornelius again in "Escape" and then his own son in the next two. Franchise! Then he appeared again in the TV series.

Incidentally I ran into someone at a local comics convention maybe 25 years ago, selling autographs as Dr. Zaius. It couldn't have been Maurice Evans since he died in 1989. I accepted it uncritically at the time and mentioned the Simpsons bit. He said he would have been glad to voice Dr. Zaius for them but wasn't asked. Now I'm wondering who it could have been. Booth Colman maybe, who wore the Zaius suit as a different character in the TV show? Richard Blackburn from the animated series?

I quite like this series, unsubtle as it is. It’s rare for a movie series to follow through on its premise and finish the story. A tidily complete time travel tale that ends on a hopeful note.

I find it interesting and somewhat scary that in Conquest there’s a pandemic that results in America and then the world sliding into fascism. Followed by a nuclear war.