Going Ape and Never Coming Back: Over 50 Years of ‘Planet of the Apes’ With More on the Way

‘Planet of the Apes’ (1968)

Charlton Heston is astronaut George Taylor, who, along with two astronauts — who (spoiler alert!) don’t make it to the final credits — finds himself on a bizarre planet in which intelligent, talking apes rule supreme and humans are savages. He spends most of the film trying to figure it out, as well as his own place in the universe while encountering the likes of compassionate chimpanzees Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), Zira (Kim Hunter) and the not-so-compassionate orangutan Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) — who views him as a blight on society that threatens everything by his mere existence. Towards the film’s end (and get set for a major spoiler), Taylor and a mute woman named Nova (Linda Harrison) escape the apes and set off on their own. But then Taylor discovers the shattered remains of the Statue of Liberty on the shoreline, and realizes that he’s been home all the time — that t he astronauts’ ship passed through a “time curve” and this upside down world is actually future Earth. Roll credits.

Behind the Scenes

Charlton Heston (actor, “George Taylor”): “I was quite delighted with the way it worked. It’s not a profound film, but it’s a good film. It makes some valuable observations on the human condition. It’s kind of a black satire, if you like, and it takes a rather gloomy view of the human condition — but I don’t think an inaccurate one. I think it’s important to make a strong distinction between the first film and the others. The whole structure of the ape society changed markedly in the other films. In the first film, the ape society is kind of ‘monkey-see, monkey-do’ imitation of human society, inevitably including the worst traits. The focus shifts in the sequels and there’s a great deal of carrying on about the gorillas being fascists and the chimpanzees are the good socialists. The later films just got very political; very 1960s political.”

‘Beneath the Planet of the Apes’ (1970)

Charlton didn’t want to return for a sequel — considering anything beyond the first film to just be more “adventures among the monkeys” — so James Franciscus is astronaut John Brent, who follows Taylor’s trajectory and ends up crashing on this planet of apes. He meets Nova, Cornelius (David Watson this time out — hard to tell with the monkey make-up), Zira and Zaius. After going through similar escape adventures that Taylor did, he and Nova find themselves in the Forbidden Zone, actually the remains of New York City following a nuclear holocaust. Beneath the streets they encounter mutant telepathic humans who pray to an Alpha-Omega bomb as well as the captured Taylor (Charlton appears at the beginning and the end). The gorillas (representing the military) invade and the mutants, whose powers of illusion aren’t enough to protect them from bullets, are being slaughtered. Throughout all the chaos, Taylor is the guy who, although wounded, is able to launch the Alpha-Omega bomb, not only destroying both sides but the entire planet itself. The idea was actually Charlton’s.

Behind the Scenes

Charlton Heston (actor, “George Taylor”): “I thought I’d been very clever, because as we were working on the last scene, I sold the director and the producer on the idea of having Taylor, as he’s dying, hit the bomb. They agreed that that would be very good, so we did that and I thought, ‘That finishes the series. You’ve blown up the world, and that’s the end of it.’” Ha!

‘Escape From the Planet of the Apes’ (1971)

OK, you’ve killed everybody and you’ve literally blown up the planet of the apes — how the hell do you continue the story? Enter writer Paul Dehn (who wasn’t as impressive on Beneath), who came up with the brilliant notion that while the war was being fought, Cornelius (Roddy McDowall returns), Zira and Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo) are able to fish Taylor’s ship out of the lake it sank in, figure out how to get it operational and launch it into space (OK, that part is stupid, we’ll give you that) and that while in orbit the Earth is destroyed, and the shock waves propel the ship backwards in time to six months after Taylor took off. What follows is a reversal of the first film, where the three apes (soon cut down to just Cornelius and Zira … bye-bye, Milo) are on a planet of humans. At first they’re treated as celebrities as the film goes for a light comic touch, but then a growing paranoia takes root that if these talking apes aren’t eliminated, generations hence they will pose a threat not only to the human race but to Earth itself (personal musing: if you’re a talking chimp, never get drunk and reveal too much about the future). This becomes even more paramount when Zira announces she’s pregnant, triggering an armed ape-hunt in the wake.

Zira gives birth in a circus thanks to the kindly Armando (Ricardo Montalban, who Star Trek fans know as Khan and others might know from Fantasy Island) and her baby survives. Damn humans, trying to mess with the future. You’re goin’ down!

Behind the Scenes

Frank Capra Jr. (Associate Producer): “There are people who think that Escape is the best of all of them. Obviously the first is truly the best and was the most unique. It also had the problems of dealing with the makeup, which was very difficult and important to the project. Once that was done, making sequels was not as hard. But this was a very different kind of picture. In the end, we did something that a lot of people said we couldn’t do: another successful sequel.”

‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ (1972)

The child of Cornelius and Zira has grown up to become Caesar (Roddy McDowall, playing his own son) in a world where, as Cornelius revealed in Escape, looked to replace all the dogs and cats that died due to a plague brought back to Earth by astronauts with apes. Discovering how easy it was to teach the apes to do tricks, the simians quickly went from pets to slaves, and it is into this now-totalitarian environment that Armando (Ricardo Montalban) has brought his adopted son into. Caesar is horrified, and it is only a matter of time before he leads a full blown revolution of the apes against their human masters. McDowall is the one to watch here. As Andy Serkis would do 40 years later in Rise, it’s an incredible arc to watch Caesar go from this intelligent-albeit-sheltered being to the leader of a revolution. And his speech at the close (outside of some dopey post-production editing to soften things a bit) is absolutely riveting.

Behind the Scenes

J. Lee Thompson (Director): “Roddy McDowall was marvelous. He would approach these role as if he were doing Shakespeare. And each one individually as if it was the first film. You would think, seeing him in Conquest, that he was playing that role for the first time. His enthusiasm and the way he would talk was simply amazing.”

‘Battle for the Planet of the Apes’ (1973)

The final installment of the original film series. The budget is obviously so low they could barely afford to shoot this one. Set 10 years after the events of Conquest and a nuclear war, Caesar (Roddy McDowall) goes up against a gorilla general, Aldo (Claude Akins), the latter of whom wants to stage a coup and even ends up killing Caesar’s son along the way. Everyone is distracted by the first generation of human mutants following the revolution of the apes, who are now attempting to wipe out ape culture once and for all.  Needless to say, they fail; Caesar gets to take down Aldo, and we’re offered some pat promise of a more optimistic future. Blah.

Behind the Scenes

J. Lee Thompson (Director): “I was never happy with it. It was a cheap film. It wasn’t like Star Wars or James Bond. James Bond grew in takes. The Apes didn’t. The Apes went down. The first picture grossed the most money, the second less and so on. And we had such a low budget for Battle that it was made on 20th Century Fox farmland.”

‘Planet of the Apes’ TV Series (1974)

This one-season television series stars Roddy McDowall as the chimp Galen, and Ron Harper and James Naughton as astronauts Alan Virdon and Pete Burke, respectively. Also in ape makeup is Mark Lenard (best know as Spock’s father, Sarek, in Star Trek) and Booth Colman as Dr. Zaius. The setup of the show is that the astronauts, who have crashed on a planet of apes in the future, are seeking a computer that they are hoping will help them get their ship back into space but, while they’re pursuing that, the apes are pursuing them and Galen, who is accompanying them. Every week they go to a new village, every week the apes almost catch him, every week they barely escape. Can you sense the repetition? Plus, the producers were way too focused on the human characters. Uh, didn’t anybody tell them we were there for the apes?

Behind the Scenes

Roddy McDowall (actor, “Galen”): “I think the show was ill-conceived. They had absolutely cut-and-dry proof of why the material worked through five previous films — and enormous audience appeal. When it first started, the reason the film series worked was because the audiences were primarily interested in the behavior of the apes and the chimpanzees, not in the humans. The problem with the TV series initially was that it was centered on the humans, the astronauts. By the time that switched around — and the shows were getting better — it had run out of steam.”

‘Return to the Planet of the Apes’ (1975)

A Saturday morning cartoon that lasted thirteen episodes. Same premise — astronauts from the past arrive on Earth in the future which is governed by intelligent apes. One interesting aspect is that it hews a little closer to the original Pierre Boulle novel that inspired all of this in that the apes have technology that pretty much equaled our own at the time. Hurting the engagement factor of the show is that the animation was so limited that it was really difficult to get involved. This would be the last Apes production of any sort for 26 years.

Behind the Scenes

Doug Wildey (Producer and Director): “When I first mapped out the show, I took the astronauts and kept them separate as much as I could from the other humans through the first three or four shows. At that point, I got them involved with the other humans up to a point. So the original ideas was they were astronauts arriving on the Planet of the Apes, they’re fugitives, and mainly they keep hiding to figure out what the hell they’re going to do. I put the stories together from one to thirteen in the sense that at the end of 13, the humans are almost as powerful as the apes. At the beginning, though, they’re like mice running around, hoping not to get trapped.”

‘Planet of the Apes’ (2001)

Aperaham Lincoln. That’s all that comes to mind when we think of this remake of the first film directed by Tim Burton. Mark Wahlberg is astronaut Leo Davidson, who accidentally finds himself on an alien world inhabited by (wait for it) talking apes. Once there, and captured by those apes, Leo eventually leads a revolution of that world’s humans who aren’t the sharpest tools in the shed, but are certainly further along than those featured in the original Planet. Tim Roth is fairly effective as chimpanzee general Thade, as is the late Michael Clarke Duncan as Thade’s closest adviser, the gorilla Attar. The ending will likely make you go ape (but not in a good way).

Behind the Scenes

Mark Wahlberg (actor, “Captain Leo Davidson”): “Working with real chimps was the worst. They wanted us to get acclimated with the chimps, and anytime I would go near [costar] Helena Bonham Carter, the chimps would start attacking me. They’d start, like, trying to punch me in the nuts, like my 5-year-old son. Like, really bad. Nonstop.” Of the movie itself he added, “I think we kind of set the franchise back a little bit.”

‘Rise of the Planet of the Apes’ (2011)

With the taste of Burton’s remake still there a decade later, there wasn’t a great deal of optimism greeting news that 20th Century Fox was giving the apes another shot at life. Little did we know at the time that we would be getting a brilliant reimagining. A cure for Alzheimer’s Disease, which does have miraculous short-term effects for humans but eventually becomes lethal, has an evolutionary impact on the apes that are used for experimentation. The first to be born from an affected chimp is Caesar, brought into the home of Will Rodman (James Franco), the scientist who developed the formula. Long story short, Caesar is ultimately sent to an ape sanctuary, where residents are being cruelly experimented on. Like the Caesar from Conquest, he’s an innocent forced to not only grow up, but to lead a revolution. Using the drug, he increases the intelligence of the apes around him to help them escape. By film’s end, we learn that the effect of the drug is viral, spreading across the globe and killing humans. What we don’t find out until later is that it’s impacting the intelligence of apes everywhere.

A powerful reboot with rooted characters and grounded, realistic approach, led by Andy Serkis as Caesar. No makeup anywhere, these photo-realistic apes are created by motion capture technology, showcasing the performance of each of the actors.

Behind the Scenes

Rupert Wyatt (Director): “This is about opening Pandora’s Box, and the results of that. I’m by no means a conservative; I do believe in the great things we’ve achieved as a civilization and the great strides made by taking risks and pushing the envelope. But this story is a cautionary tale, I would say, and it’s striking that balance where we see a scientist, a man who is driven to becoming this Dr. Frankenstein, and the reasons behind why he does that. The personal reasons as well as the hubris. It’s also the story of his relationship with his creation. As such, I think it makes it a much more personal story than what’s come before.”

‘Dawn of the Planet of the Apes’ (2014)

It’s 10 years following Rise. The apes believe that humans have become extinct as a result of the virus and, in the meantime, Caesar (Andy Serkis) has built an impressive, peaceful society. That is until human survivors of the virus do show up, seeking the help of the apes. They need access to a hydroelectric damn in ape territory. Wanting peace between their people, Caesar agrees, but everything goes to hell when Koba, a chimp with a deep-seething hatred for humans, instigates a war between both sides and tries to kill Caesar. It all becomes a true Apespearean drama, presenting itself as Battle for the Planet of the Apes on steroids and paving the way for War.

Behind the Scenes

Matt Reeves (Director): “The idea was not to have any overt villains, but to have every character kind of arrived at their point of view through their life experience and their point of view, that they knew or didn’t know, so that you could have empathy for everyone. You felt that you agreed with everything that everyone did, but you could feel where these things were coming from, so it didn’t feel like they were easy choices.”

‘War for the Planet of the Apes’ (2017)

It’s two years after the events of Dawn, and the murder of much of Caesar’s family sets him on a course of vengeance against the soldiers, led by “The Colonel” (Woody Harrelson), responsible. Caesar must balance his need for vengeance against the needs of his people.

Behind the Scenes

Matt Reeves (Director): “In Rise, Caesar comes from humble beginnings and he rises to become a revolutionary. In Dawn he’s confronted with having to become a leader and trying to lead in difficult times. He tries to bridge the two populations to see if he can find peace and that failed. That thrusts you into a huge escalation, which is War, but we didn’t want it to just be an escalation in action. Like, ‘Oh, it’s the apes fighting the humans.’ We wanted it to be an escalation in terms of character dilemma. We wanted to take Caesar and really push him to places that were more extreme than anything. Already his arc has been, in the first two films, huge. We wanted to push that further and to find the way to cement his status. If there were a human analogy to this, that person would be considered a god. We felt like we wanted Caesar to become the ape Moses.”

‘Tales From the Forbidden Zone’ (2017)

For those who are looking for even more Planet of the Apes, look no further than this anthology of short stories set in that universe. Published by Titan Books, Tales From the Forbidden Zone is officially described as follows: “Sixteen brand-new adventures set in the world of the original Planet of the Apes. The 1968 Planet of the Apes has inspired generations of authors. Now a who’s who of modern writers produces 16 all-new tales, exclusive to this volume, set in the world of the original film and television series. Each explores a different drama within the post-apocalyptic world, treating readers to unique visions and nonstop action.”

Behind the Scenes

The book’s co-editor Rich Handley comments, “Jim Beard and I have both been Planet of the Apes fans going back to our childhoods in the 1970s, so when the opportunity arose to co-edit and co-author an official book for the franchise, we were ecstatic. The idea grew out of an online conversation we’d had back in 2016, in which we lamented the fact that no one had ever published official Apes short fiction other than Brown Watson, which had produced three books in the ’70s containing simplistic short stories and comic strips for children — and that were published only in the United Kingdom, so most fans missed out on them.”

“Having such a strong pool of writers aboard, representing multiple genres and styles, allowed us to ensure that the stories wouldn’t all be cookie-cutter Apes tales,” he continued. “As I wrote in the book’s introduction, ‘We encouraged them to think outside the box, and not to limit themselves to proposing only tales about the most popular characters and settings from the films. After all, while an entire anthology about Zira and Cornelius alternatively bickering and then rubbing their noses together in Ape City could be fun for fans of the chimp couple (titled Zira Loves Cornelius, perhaps), it would provide a rather limited and redundant scope for everyone else.’ We wanted each story to bring something new and different to the franchise, and the authors thankfully delivered — including a few ‘What if?’ tales that were so outside the box they were actually in a separate box entirely.”

More ‘Apes’ Info

Adds Rich, “In the end, we offered a wide variety of tales (horror, romance, comedy, science fiction) set in various parts of the world, not just in Ape City — and we were able to feature not only the usual chimps, gorillas, orangutans, humans, and mutants you’d expect to see in Apes stories, but also baboons, gibbons, bonobos, and even some non-simian characters. We were told we could utilize any concepts from the five classic movies, but not the Tim Burton film (which, really, I don’t think was a problem for anyone) or the recent trilogy (which I would have loved to include, actually), and the resultant stories took place across 2,000 years of history. What really got us excited was that we were able to provide new tales involving the characters and settings from the oft-overlooked television show. As a major fan of Burke, Virdon, Galen, Urko, and Zaius (I consider the TV series as good as, if not better than, several of the films), I found those stories particularly fun to edit.”

“I know it sounds cocky, but I think we nailed it,” he added. “Since the anthology’s publication in 2017, I’ve never run across any outright negative reviews of Tales from the Forbidden Zone. Sure, there have been some reviewers who have enjoyed specific tales less than others — that’s the nature of the business and you can’t please everyone — but, by and large, the reviews have tended to be quite positive, which has thrilled me and Jim to no end. We’re proud of how Tales turned out, and Jim and I would love to see a second volume produced if Titan were interested. A lot of people have asked us to release a second volume, in fact, so I know there’s a good audience for it.”