Return to the planet of the apes full movie

RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES FULL MOVIE MOVIE
RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES FULL MOVIE SERIES

That film is a parable about the ways people treat those who are different from them. Given the total destruction of Earth at the end of Beneath the Planet of the Apes, screenwriter Paul Dehn ingeniously reverses the first filmвЂ™s setup, sending chimp scientists Zira (Kim Hunter) and Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) back in time to 1970s Earth in Escape From the Planet of the Apes (1971). The seriesвЂ™ parallels with current events become even more eerily close starting with the final three sequels from the original cycle. WeвЂ™ve also seen the troubling rise of the QAnon cult, a group whose beliefs are perhaps even more absurd than the mutants worshipping a radioactive bomb. This year alone, weвЂ™ve seen protests by people insisting that masks donвЂ™t prevent transmission of the COVID-19 virus, just as the ape council in the first film dismisses findings on human biology out of personal prejudice and religious rationales.

These dominant social forces from 1970s are just as urgent in 2020.

RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES FULL MOVIE SERIES

Both movies are steeped in anxieties about the Cold War, with the Cuban Missile Crisis still looming large in then-recent memory.ДЄside from rampant nuclear destruction, these first entries in the series deal with other forms of humanityвЂ™s self-destruction: denial of science (the ape council refuses to acknowledge evolution, among other things), oppression (the ruling ape classes push around the chimpanzees who protest the war), and bizarre belief systems (the mutated humans insist that a nuclear bomb is a divine entity). The first sequel, 1970вЂ™s Beneath the Planet of the Apes, carries on from there, seeing Taylor and another astronaut, Brent (James Franciscus), battling an invading army of gorillas and an underground human faction who have been mutated by radiation and worship an active nuclear bomb. The infamous final scene of 1968вЂ™s Planet of the Apes reveals that Taylor has in fact traveled into EarthвЂ™s future and landed back on his home planet.

RETURN TO THE PLANET OF THE APES FULL MOVIE MOVIE

That movie sees a crew of near-future astronauts led by George Taylor (Charlton Heston) crash-landing on what they believe is another planet, one where apes evolved as the dominant species, and now subjugate mute, primitive humans. That was a great jumping-off point for screenwriters Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, who adapted the novel for the 1968 feature film. Still, BoulleвЂ™s experience as a POW during World War II inspired the novelвЂ™s action, with the protagonist enduring capture, enslavement, and a lowly position in ape society. Pierre BoulleвЂ™s source novel leans more on social satire - itвЂ™s explicitly set on an alien planet, where its ape inhabitants evolved parallel to humanity. Planet of the Apes didnвЂ™t necessarily begin life as an apocalyptic story. Concerns about social justice, racism, xenophobia, and viral infection seem to recur in a never-ending cycle, but theyвЂ™re often dismissed or ignored, until we encounter a year like 2020. Given how long the franchise has been in play, the Planet of the Apes movies effectively point out how long our species has been dealing with the same issues. Right from the start, the films are meant as social commentary warning humanity about our self-destructive ways, and they touch on a variety of topics that seem increasingly, ominously relevant during this turbulent year.

The franchise began as a post-apocalyptic parable, but in the course of its time-loop/prequel story, it wound up chronicling the fall of humankind and the rise of their replacement species, the apes.

Fewer films portray the apocalypse as itвЂ™s happening, and most tend to hurry through the key moments.Д«ut not the Planet of the Apes series, consisting of the original 1968 film and its four sequels, the 2001 Tim Burton remake, and the reboot film trilogy, starting with 2011вЂ™s Rise of the Planet of the Apes. But most movies and franchises dealing with the subject tend to set their stories long after the cataclysm, in order to focus more securely on humanityвЂ™s endurance and determination to survive. WeвЂ™re fascinated with stories about the apocalypse, because they go beyond the death of individuals, and into more unthinkable territory: the death of society, and maybe the planet itself. Humanity is obsessed with stories about the end of the world because we know all living things die.

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