The Big Picture

The original
Planet of the Apes
‘ twist ending is iconic, revealing Earth as the planet all along.
The sequels involve a nuclear apocalypse, time travel, and a twist on the original’s premise.
The reboot films draw inspiration from the original saga, focusing on the ape society’s evolution.

Planet of the Apes has cemented itself as one of the most iconic sci-fi franchises in years, starting with the original 1968 film and stretching all the way to the recent reboot films – including the recent Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes. Its premise is classic sci-fi: an astronaut crash-lands on a planet where apes have evolved to become the dominant life form, while humanity went the opposite direction and became mute servants.

This premise was enough to carry five films and inspired a wealth of spinoff media – as well as plenty of parodies. But what exactly happened in the original Planet of the Apes films? This saga has embodied multiple sci-fi tropes, including time travel and hyper-accelerated evolution, and gone to some really weird places in the process.

Planet of the Apes (1968) An astronaut crew crash-lands on a planet where highly intelligent non-human ape species are dominant and humans are enslaved.Release Date April 3, 1968 Director Franklin J. Schaffner Runtime 112 Minutes

The Original ‘Planet of the Apes’ Has One of the Best Plot Twists in Film History

The original Planet of the Apes begins when astronaut George Taylor (Charlton Heston) lands on the titular planet. Taylor is the only one of his crewmates to survive; he’s locked up with other slaves and is studied by ape scientists Zira (Kim Hunter), Cornelius (Roddy McDowall) and Zaius (Maurice Evans). Taylor also starts to fall for a female captive he names “Nova” (Linda Harrison), and the duo ventures out to the “Forbidden Zone” – an area that Zaius warns Taylor about. Taylor soon learns that the warning isn’t entirely unfounded: the planet he actually crash-landed on is Earth, and he breaks down in despair upon seeing the remains of the Statue of Liberty.

The end scene of Planet of the Apes helped cement its place in film history, and a large part of that is due to the work of Rod Serling. Serling wrote the first major draft of the film, which was constantly being reworked due to cost concerns, and he was the one who came up with the film’s twist ending. Given Serling’s work on The Twilight Zone and Night Gallery, it’s not surprising that he concocted the idea of the Planet of the Apes being our planet. It’s a twist that the following films would attempt to replicate with mixed results.

The ‘Planet of the Apes’ Sequels Featured a Nuclear Apocalypse and Time Travel
Image via 20th Century Fox

With Planet of the Apes becoming a major hit, 20th Century Fox immediately rushed a sequel into production. Beneath the Planet of the Apes picks up immediately where Planet of the Apes left off, as another astronaut named Brent (James Franciscus) lands on the planet and Taylor is dragged underground. Brent and Nova soon discover that a race of mutant telepaths lives underground and that they worship a nuclear bomb. Meanwhile, gorilla general Ursus (James Gregory) leads an invasion into the center of the Earth; Taylor is shot and winds up triggering the bomb, destroying the entire planet. As sci-fi blockbusters go, it’s a very bleak ending, but that didn’t stop Fox from greenlighting another sequel. Screenwriter Paul Dehn received a telegraph that simply stated “Apes exist. Sequel required”. – even in the ’70s, Hollywood never met a film franchise it wasn’t determined to milk.

This set up the sequel Escape from the Planet of the Apes, which revealed that Cornelius and Zira – alongside fellow scientist Dr. Milo (Sal Mineo) – managed to leave Earth after repairing Taylor’s spaceship, with the shock wave from Earth’s destruction propelling them to 1973. Escapeflips the premise of the original Planet of the Apes, subjecting Zira and Cornelius to the same treatment that Taylor received when he arrived in their time. The two are eventually killed, but not before it’s revealed that Zira gave birth to a son at a local zoo, whom she named after Milo.

The Planet of the Apes Movies Finished by Showing the Ape Society’s Origins – and Inspired the Reboot Films

The original Planet of the Apes saga wrapped up with two final films: Conquest of the Planet of the Apes in 1972 and Battle for the Planet of the Apes one year later. Conquest depicted how the planet of the apes came to be: when a mysterious pandemic ravaged the Earth in 1983, humanity began testing apes for ways to combat it. Cornelius and Zira’s son Caesar (McDowall) form a resistance against mankind, which eventually leads to the birth of the Planet of the Apes. Battle ends the saga on a rather ambitious note, as Caesar attempts to lead ape society while dealing with the warmongering gorillas and the human survivors from Beneath. It ends with a flash-forward to a future where humans and apes achieve a tenuous peace, though the apes still keep their weapons locked up in case they need them.

Related The ’70s Sci-Fi Movie Charlton Heston Used To Wage a War on Sequels Charlton Heston tried to save a classic from franchise status by blowing it up.

The Planet of the Apes reboot saga draws upon elements of the original saga, most notably Conquest and Battle. Rise of the Planet of the Apes puts a modern spin on the pandemic that decimated humanity, revealing that it was born from a serum that scientist Will Rodman (James Franco) concocted and gave to a chimpanzee named Caesar (Andy Serkis). Caesar and other apes gained enhanced intelligence while mankind slowly thinned out, eventually losing the ability to speak. Caesar also attempts to lead an ape society that’s upended by the paranoia of humans and the ape Koba (Toby Kebbell). The directors of the reboot films have also acknowledged this influence; Matt Reeves cited the original Planet of the Apes saga as one of his influences for War:

“We got Fox to give us a theater and we watched movie after movie. We watched every
Planet of the Apes
movie, war movies, westerns,

Empire Strikes Back

… We just thought, ‘We have to pretend we have all the time in the world,’ even though we had limited time. We got really inspired.”

Kingdom director Wes Ball has also hinted that future Planet of the Apes films could lead up to the events of the original Apes. Even after all this time, Planet of the Apes is still a gold standard for science fiction movies, influencing the new run of films over half a century later.

Planet of the Apes is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.

Watch on Hulu