As a long-time fan of Planet
of the Apes, I was horrified when my daughter watched and fell in love with
the 2011 “reboot” of the movie franchise, Rise
of the Planet of the Apes. She begged me to watch the 2011 movie with her,
but I heroically resisted. When she asked several more times if I’d “PLEASE”
watch it with her, my resistance became stoic rather than heroic. Finally, over
the Christmas Holidays, I relented and watched it with her, my wife and a
friend of my daughter’s.
Before I tell you what I thought, a bit of history:
The original Planet of
the Apes movie came out in theaters in 1968 and was based on a 1963 novel
by French novelist, Pierre Boulle that had been translated into English as Monkey Planet in 1964 by someone named
Xan Fielding (a former secret agent who did in Crete what Boulle did in China,
Burma and French Indochina during WWII). I was 11 years old and my mom and dad didn't let me see movies by myself yet.
After cutting my science fiction reading teeth on Spaceship Under the Apple Tree and Wonderful Trip to the Mushroom Planet, I
moved on to Red Planet, Have Spacesuit, Will Travel, The Zero Stone and thence to JG Ballard’s
Vermillion Sands, Brave New World, a REAL novel by Michael
Crichton called The Andromeda Strain
(I read it just before Dad dropped me off at the theater to see the movie in
1971) and finally, sometime not long after that, Boulle’s Planet of the Apes. The book had such a profound effect on me that
I recognized the cover of the edition I read as a kid in a line-up of some
sixteen other covers, including one with a picture of Zira on it. I read the
one with the black cover, red lettered title and white author’s name along with
AUTHOR OF BRIDGE OVER THE RIVER KWAI (which I may have seen by that point, but maybe
not). I had NOT seen Planet of the Apes and I wouldn’t see it until some years
later in a drive in theater.
All of this I tell you to let you know that Planet of the Apes is deeply rooted in
my adolescence and holds a well-nigh to iconic spot in my mind. I have never
forgotten the final scene in the movie (which Boulle repudiated by saying, “I
disliked somewhat, the ending that was used - the Statue of Liberty - which the
critics seemed to like, but personally, I prefer my own. [Had I been in charge
of the production,] I could have provided ideas. If I had been free to make
them I would have done them differently...”). It lodged itself as firmly in my
mind as the science fiction magazine ANALOG being the “only” place I ever
wanted to get published.
After seeing the movie, I watched all the others (though I
only went to the theater to see Battle
for the Planet of the Apes) “on video tape” and hated them. None of them
was true to Boulle’s intent which seemed to me to be “making fun of adults”. I
didn’t become one until 1975 (didn’t become a REAL one until 1978). I loved the
original movie for (as I saw it) making monkeys out of authority figures. As I
wasn’t much of a rebel as a teen, this was a powerful release for me…
Along comes the Twenty-first Century and I refused to go to
Burton’s remake of Planet of the Apes; I refused to go see Rise of the Planet
of the Apes in the theater despite being urged to do so by friends.
It took my daughter’s
gently finagling to bring me to the screen and watch it. A few days later,
after hearing my harangue about the first movie, she appeared at home with an unopened
copy of that selfsame movie – she’d picked it up at the second-hand story she
works at! It didn’t require as much work for me to prevail upon her to watch MY
version; though that’s more because she’s got her mother’s gracious character
rather than my heroic stoicism.
Coupled together, I strongly suggest that Rise is the true ancestor of Planet. Really.
Where the others, including Burton’s “reimaging” which intended
to make the original “better”, and the franchise following Boulle’s Planet of the Apes (Beneath, Escape, Conquest and Battle) had as their only intent the turning of the movies into a
milk cow of cash; Rise and Planet are clearly and intimately
linked.
The movie review website Rotten Tomatoes lends some evidence
to this: ranked from best (50% or more good reviews) to worst (less than 50%
good reviews), we find:
Planet of the Apes
(1968) (#1 in the franchise) RT = 89% (as well, it has been accorded several
accolades: selected for preservation in the United States National Film
Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally,
historically, or aesthetically significant"; selected by Empire magazine
as one of The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time; “widely regarded as a classic film and one of
the best films of 1968”; won one honorary Oscar and was nominated for two
others; and is on various Top 100 lists of the American Film Institute.
Rise of the Planet
of the Apes (2011) RT = 83%
Escape from the
Planet of the Apes (1971) (#3 in the franchise) RT = 78%
_______________________________________SPLAT!
Planet of the Apes
(2001) (the “reimaging”) RT = 45%
Conquest of the
Planet of the Apes (1972) (#4 in the franchise) RT = 44%
Beneath the Planet
of the Apes (1970) (#2 in the franchise) RT = 41%
Battle for the
Planet of the Apes (1973) (#5 in the franchise) RT = 38%
Planet never
really explained how Humans fell to animals and Apes rose to intelligence – as a
science teacher this always bothered me. The supposed 2000 years between Taylor
et al’s space trip and their return to Earth give nowhere near enough time for
apes to evolve and man to devolve.
Rise gives a clear
explanation that makes perfect sense to the 21st Century mentality:
genetic engineering. It also makes good scientific sense and fits in neatly
with the other movies of its ilk: Contagion,
I Am Legend and Greenpeace’s maniacal
attack on genetically engineered WHEAT in Australia.
We’re scared. But we want to live forever, so we’re tortured
by our desire for immortality and our fear of science messing things up to a point
of causing (or preventing) world-wide plague that ends up being an extinction
event for us.
Rise meshes so
cleanly with Planet that they might
have been written, directed, acted and filmed by one hand; yet they weren’t.
The only thing they had in common was our human fear of
apocalypse. In Boulle’s time, it was human engineered nuclear annihilation. In
our time, it is human engineered genetic annihilation. Maybe that’s why the two
movies resonate so clearly – and unconsciously – in my mind and reviewer’s
minds. It’s certainly food for thought. It might also be cause for hope. Thus
far we have dodged the nuclear annihilation bullet and are gradually both
increasing our knowledge of the atom and turning it to peaceful uses. Perhaps
the message is that if we can learn fast enough, we might very well dodge the
genetic annihilation bullet and gradually increase our knowledge of genetics
and turn it to peaceful uses.
Pause. Think. Consider. Move on...
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