Planet of the Apes (1968)

An astronaut crew crash lands on a planet in the distant future where intelligent talking apes are the dominant species, and humans are the oppressed and enslaved.

• Director: Tim Burton
• Genre:Action / Adventure / Drama / Sci-Fi
• Runtime:120 minutes

Cast

Charlton Heston : George Taylor
Roddy McDowall : Cornelius
Kim Hunter : Zira
Maurice Evans : Dr. Zaius
James Whitmore : President of the Assembly

Astronauts Taylor (Heston), Landon (Robert Gunner), Stewart (Dianne Stanley), and Dodge (Jeff Burton) are in deep hibernation when their spaceship crash-lands in a lake on an unknown planet in the year 3978 A.D. after a 2006-year voyage at near-light speed (during which the crew ages only 18 months due to time dilation). The planet has no moon and the clouds at night are luminous. The astronauts awaken to find that Stewart has died in space due to an air leak and her body in decomposition and that their ship is sinking. They use an inflatable raft to reach shore. Once there, Dodge performs a soil test and pronounces the soil incapable of sustaining life. Taylor suggests they are on a planet in the constellation of Orion some 320 light years from Earth but admits he is not sure.

The three astronauts set off through the desert, finding first a single plant and then others. They find an oasis at the edge of the desert where they decide to go swimming, ignoring strange ‘scarecrows’. While they are swimming, their clothes are stolen. Pursuing the thieves, the astronauts find their clothes in shreds and the perpetrators — a group of mute, primitive humans — contentedly raiding a cornfield. Suddenly, gorillas on horseback charge through the cornfield, brandishing firearms, snares, and nets, which they use to capture whatever humans they can and kill those they cannot. While fleeing, Dodge is killed, Landon is captured, and Taylor is shot in the throat. The gorillas take Taylor to “Ape City,” where his life is saved by two chimpanzee scientists, Zira (Hunter) and Cornelius (McDowall). Upon awakening, Taylor—now housed in a cage with a girl who Taylor later calls Nova (Harrison), who was captured on the same hunt—discovers that his throat wound has rendered him temporarily mute.

Taylor discovers that the apes, who can talk, are in control and are divided into a strict class system: the gorillas as police, military, and hunters; the orangutans as administrators, politicians and lawyers; and the chimpanzees as intellectuals and scientists. Humans, who cannot talk, are considered feral vermin and are hunted and either killed outright, enslaved for manual labor or used for scientific experimentation. Read more