Cast:
Charlton HestonGeorge Taylor
Roddy McDowallCornelius
Kim HunterZira
Maurice EvansDr. Zaius
James WhitmorePresident of the Assembly
James DalyDr. Honorious
Primal Deserts, Ape Theocracy, and Planet of the Apes
Decades of pop culture parodies and prequels cannot diminish the raw, disorienting shock of cinema’s most famous post-apocalyptic cautionary tale. Released in 1968 under the direction of Franklin J. Schaffner, this landmark science fiction classic marries grand adventure with biting Cold War satire. Charlton Heston commands the screen as George Taylor, a misanthropic astronaut who volunteers for a deep space exploration mission to escape what he views as humanity’s endless capacity for war and greed.
After traveling near light speed for what amounts to over two thousand years due to relativistic time dilation, Taylor’s spacecraft crash-lands in an uncharted body of water. The surviving crew marches through scorching, red-rock canyons before stumbling upon lush vegetation and a pack of wild, mute human beings. Chaos erupts when horseback riders emerge from the tall cornfields. These hunters are not men, but articulate, rifle-toting gorillas wearing leather tunics. Taylor suffers a throat wound during the raid and wakes up locked in an iron cage. He discovers a rigidly stratified simian society where militaristic gorillas enforce the peace, aristocratic orangutans dictate religious dogma, and sympathetic chimpanzee scientists like Dr. Zira and Cornelius, played with profound warmth by Kim Hunter and Roddy McDowall, conduct medical experiments.
Avant-Garde Music and Groundbreaking Practical Prosthetics
Schaffner shoots the barren landscapes of Lake Powell and the Colorado River with vast, desolate widescreen compositions. John Chambers’s revolutionary foam latex makeup allows McDowall and Hunter to emote with subtle eyebrow twitches and lip movements, setting a standard that earned an honorary Academy Award. Jerry Goldsmith supplies an iconic, avant-garde orchestral score featuring echoplex percussion, Brazilian cuicas, and stainless steel mixing bowls that makes every desert gust sound profoundly alien. Charlton Heston brings feral intensity to Taylor, screaming through broken vocal cords as he fights against religious dogma spearheaded by Maurice Evans as Dr. Zaius.
The screenplay, crafted by Twilight Zone mastermind Rod Serling alongside Michael Wilson, weaponizes evolutionary debate to skewer human arrogance, censorship, and religious fanaticism.
A Monument of Speculative Cinema
Planet of the Apes remains a peerless masterpiece that continues to provoke and entertain in equal measure. Its thematic power comes from turning humanity into the endangered beast of burden, forcing viewers to look into a terrifying mirror. If you admire dystopian classics with unforgettable climaxes, explore our reviews for Soylent Green and 12 Monkeys.
Score: 9 / 10 Stars
Planet of the Apes Ending Explained
⚠️ Major spoilers ahead! ⚠️
Planet of the Apes Ending Explained: The Forbidden Zone and Lady Liberty
Dr. Zaius puts Taylor on trial for heresy, threatening him with lobotomy to suppress the dangerous heresy of an intelligent human who can speak. With help from Zira, Cornelius, and Zira’s nephew Lucius, Taylor escapes captivity alongside a captive primitive woman he names Nova, played by Linda Harrison. The fugitives flee into the Forbidden Zone, a vast radioactive wasteland shunned by ape theology.
Taylor and Cornelius excavate an ancient seaside cave containing human artifacts, including a talking human doll and advanced dental work, proving that a high human civilization predated ape evolution by thousands of years. Dr. Zaius arrives with armed gorilla soldiers but agrees to let Taylor and Nova ride away on horseback, admitting that he always knew humanity once ruled the world before destroying itself. The iconic plot twist arrives as Taylor rides along the desolate shoreline, stopping dead in his tracks before the shattered, half-buried copper crown and torch of the Statue of Liberty jutting out of the beach surf.
Taylor realizes with crushing horror that he never traveled to a distant alien solar system. His spaceship looped back to Earth, arriving thousands of years after human nuclear war wiped out modern civilization and allowed apes to rise. Taylor drops to his knees in the wet sand, pounding the surf and cursing humanity for finally destroying the planet. For another legendary science fiction ending featuring cosmic despair, read our review of The Mist.
Frequently Asked Questions About:
"Planet of the Apes"
What is the twist ending of Planet of the Apes?
The twist reveals that the alien planet was Earth the entire time, thousands of years after humanity destroyed modern civilization in a global nuclear war.
Why did Dr. Zaius want to silence Taylor in Planet of the Apes?
Dr. Zaius knew ancient human history and feared that knowledge of advanced humans would reignite the same violent hubris that destroyed the world.
What does Taylor find on the beach at the end of Planet of the Apes?
Taylor discovers the ruined, half-buried upper torso and torch of the Statue of Liberty emerging from the beach surf.
Who wrote the screenplay for Planet of the Apes?
Rod Serling, creator of The Twilight Zone, and Michael Wilson co-wrote the screenplay based on Pierre Boulle’s 1963 French novel.
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