jason stives takes us Beneath The Planet Of The Apes …
This week saw the release of the trailer for Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes, the proposed prequel to the classic 1968 science-fiction film starring Charlton Heston. While I will wait until next week’s Trailer Tuesday to go into personal feelings towards this new take on the Apes saga, I will call into question relevance. While an important series to the baby boomer generation, Planet Of The Apes lacks a sort of relevance to today’s audience, who by all accounts have never been familiar with the original. To some, this may be a prequel to the poorly received, box office hit starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Tim Burton, and to others, it’s a lazy execution in originality. Needless to say, there is something interesting about relaunching the Apes films in the new millennia, but considering that many elements of the original are not as prevalent into today’s society, it makes it hard to picture dignified classes of apes squabbling about worldly issues in a futuristic ape society.
There is also the overall original look of the apes from the original, something that now will be greatly replaced by more accurate CGI primates, and something that bothers me a little bit. While indeed I do not expect this primitive stampede back to the original costume and makeup design, there is something greatly fluid about those original character designs and how they divided up the class system in the Ape world. Of course, while the structure of gorillas, chimpanzees, and orangutans was more of a sign of the times, it still created a political dialogue around class structure and race, something that I don’t think can be fully fulfilled if the apes are all the same. Nevertheless, I am willing to give this new Apes film a shot; it can’t be any worse than watching Marky Mark land on the Ape Lincoln Memorial …or can it? Regardless, there is still great importance in the original Apes films, and here is one such example.
Beneath the Planet of the Apes (1970)
Directed by: Ted Post
Written by: Paul Dehn
Starring: James Fransiscus, Linda Harrison, James Gregory, Maurice Evans, Kim Hunter, and Charlton Heston
What’s Been Said: An effective sequel that takes an increasingly dark look at the unavoidable nature of war. — James Kendrick, The Q Network
Upon First Viewing: While not the most obvious choice to convey a message of importance of the original series, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes serves a great purpose in regards to continuity and basic science-fiction story-building. Made at a time when sequels were a no-fly zone, it’s the only film in the series that is COMPLETELY a direct continuation of the original (subsequent sequels featured elements from this and the first film that made it connect and plausible). There is under and above the skin many things wrong with this film, mainly for budgetary constraints and the overall messy nature of the film’s attempt to tie plot down and end the damn thing (the studio wanted to make sure no other Apes film were made after this), but it’s certainly more darker and cynical than its superior predecessor.
Starting immediately after Heston damns the human race to hell in rewind mode, astronaut Taylor and his mute and gorgeous lady friend Nova (Harrison) ride off into the forbidden zone, only to encounter strange natural occurrences that ultimately lead to Taylor’s disappearance and Nova’s speechless hunt back into the desert. Eventually, she meets another crashed astronaut, Brent, played by the short-in-stature Heston doppelganger, James Franciscus. Brent soon learns that Nova is his only connection to finding Taylor and a way back home and so begins a half a film rehash of all the events of the first film; talking apes discovered, meeting the human friendly chimps Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (David Watson, not Roddy McDowall in this), capture, escape, capture, forbidden zone, IT’S EARTH!
There is a lot of sarcasm behind that last sentence (but truth) and regardless, it’s the second half of the film that really takes flight but not before experiencing one of the greatest beacons in science fiction monologues and possibly one of the best non-human, militaristic performances in James Gregory’s portrayal as the Gorilla leader, General Ursus. A larger than life role originally designed for Orson Welles (literally larger than life), character actor Gregory pulls out an almost Patton-like performance as Ursus, a thick-headed military pachyderm of an individual taken larger than life steps to fulfill law and order in heavy military and religious like fashion. He is almost cartoonish, a bit garish, and yet the greatest coupe against old war stereotypes at a time when the war at home was more inevitable than a war between ape and man.
The two main elements that work for Beneath are its script and its design. Paul Dehn, noted for his screenplays to the Spy Who Came In From The Cold and Goldfinger, was given the daunting task of writing a sequel that had to have the same punch as the original but not eclipse it. What Dehn constructed was a bizarre landscape beyond the great city of the apes, filled with earthquakes, lighting storms, and in the merciless catacombs of the ruins of New York, mutant humans smarter than their surface counter parts. Here the art department takes over on the films hold, creating images just as striking as the dilapidated Statue of Liberty. The perfectly placed map paintings of a decaying New York City are, while very primitive, effective and adds a dimension to the threatening world of the apes.
Much appreciation also goes to the design of the human mutants, whose detachable faces makes for one of the more disturbing moments of the film. These telepathic creatures are of a cult like descent, praying for merciless evil to descend on the apes that have greatly tarnished their land. The dilemma between the Apes and the unseen mutants create a strong sense of white man’s burden, two races testifying ownership of the land and using unholy means of war to end an impasse. What this really acts as is a veil of cynicism towards the Vietnam War at the time, but these hints to actual world conflict seems more sensible in the first Apes film than in a sequel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg-r9U0VamA
Ultimately, many felt the same way about these views and combined with a lack of character development and the inability to recreate the shock of the original, Beneath The Planet Of The Apes didn’t do the same business as its predecessor. Upon release in May 1970, the film grossed $13 million, which was barely half what the original had made but was still financially successful. Obviously, this was good enough for 20th Century Fox, as they quickly commissioned a third film, eventually leading to a total of five films through 1973. With the upcoming release of the Apes prequel, can a traditional sci-fi concept like intelligent apes hold over a 21st century audience the same way the original did 40 years ago?
Comments are closed.