Planet of the Apes

National Review Online, July 28, 2001

Well, they finally, really did it. Planet of the Apes is out, and the critics are in (except for this one: the power and global influence of NRO did not stretch to two preview tickets — thanks, Jonah), but it is not true to say that this event marks the return of our monkey masters. They have never left. The original Planet was followed by four sequels, which was no mean feat: The second in the series ended with a supposedly conclusive atomic explosion. Even the sequels had sequels. There was a TV show (the first episode was watched by half the viewing public), a cartoon series, and even a rather serious-minded documentary. Somehow, at some moment in the process, those clever monkeys managed to carve out their own long-armed, human-hunting, ram's horn blowing space right in the sweet spot of American popular culture, up in the pantheon somewhere between Captain Kirk and Danny Partridge.

If you don't believe me, what else can explain the fact that that the orangutan priest/scientist/Machiavellian wily Doctor Zaius, the shrewd guardian of ape orthodoxy, has enjoyed an afterlife that has included an interactive advice bureau over the Internet and being feted by song in The Simpsons ("Doctor Zaius, Doctor Zaius, Doctor Zaius")? Even the altogether less important Aldo, a truculent, but ambitious gorilla, who rises to the rank of general in the course of the final two movies, is celebrated by an action figure, a 96-piece jigsaw puzzle and a loyal following on the web.

So great is the force of this franchise, that it can even bring fame to the silent. In the first two movies Nova is the beautiful, but primitive girlfriend of the marooned astronaut, Taylor. She is given a two-piece costume and a one-word script. As roles go, it's no Ophelia, but more than 30 years later, the actress who played Nova can still be seen at sci-fi and collectables conventions, surrounded by fans, most of whom were born long after the moment she said that precious, unique, loyal word, "Tay-lor." Two syllables, two films. They have proved to be more than enough for immortality.

What is the secret of the simians' success? Well, interactive Doctor Zaius wouldn't tell me ("Why do you bother me with such trivia?") but clearly nostalgia is part of the explanation. By itself that would not be enough. Just ask the hoodwinked hordes who were lured in to see the Brady Bunch movies. In our age of endlessly recycled memories, all the old icons are still out there, never, quite, allowed to fade, (they even remade Mister Magoo) shown in rerun or in syndication, on Nick at Night or AMC, available in DVD, video and retro-style lunch box. Very few of them, though, still have the genuine pull still enjoyed by those damn, dirty apes.

It helped, of course, that the first Apes movie was as good as it was. From the moment that that spacecraft crashed into the stark, strange landscape of an alien planet (in reality, a part of this country now represented in the U.S. Senate by that stark, strange John McCain) the viewer is transported to a world upside down, a world transformed, to borrow Shakespeare's phrase, into a "wilderness of monkeys," where the gorillas ride horses, humans are vermin, and the Statue of Liberty is a shattered ruin, left, like our former civilization, in fragments on a deserted ocean shore.

The script, co-written by Rod Serling, is a splendid period piece, a close cousin of the writer's other great legacy, The Twilight Zone. It features the same crackpot moralizing, the same sly references to current controversies (one of the younger chimps has evidently been to Tom Hayden's Berkeley) and the same imaginative power. Like the best of those shows, it is hokey enough to be nostalgically comfortable, but clever enough, still, after all these years, to thrill, provoke, and enthrall. The cast rose to the occasion, most of all, Charlton Heston (Taylor), the film's greatest and, ironically, most savage presence (once Taylor gets his rifle, the spaceman proves unstoppable. He triumphs: No ape ever gets to pry any weapon from Taylor's cold, dead hands). Played by Heston in a style that is part Shatner, part histrionics, and wholly compelling, it is remarkable performance, made all the more memorable by the fascinating problem with which our hero is confronted. For Taylor is an angry misanthrope who has the misfortune to land on a planet where men no longer rule.

And that is the concept that has ensured the success of these movies. As a species, we have always been intrigued by the notion of a world where the usual rules did not apply. It appeals to our barely controlled love of disorder and escape. The Romans used to celebrate it during the festival of Saturnalia, a time when the aristocrat played the slave, and the plebeian the senator. In medieval Europe, peasants used to delight themselves with tales of the land of Cockaigne, a place that was like Heaven, except more fun, not least because it was the former nobility that had to do all the heavy lifting.

The planet of the apes is a sort of reverse Cockaigne, like Hell, in a way, only worse. In this world, all of us, rich and poor, turn out to have been the nobility, and now we must pay. It is a fascinating, terrifying idea, and one that proved strong enough to sustain the Apes franchise through the distinctly less impressive sequels that followed. The scripts were weaker and, critically, the power of the original concept was diluted by the fact that in the later movies, humanity was in, at least with a chance.

The second movie, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, has its moments, but had to weather a finale that involved grotesque mutants (my guess is that those folks needed no make-up: their features had already been permanently scarred by the uncontrollable laughter triggered by the sight of some of the screenplay) making their quavering way through a hymn in praise of the particularly nasty nuclear weapon that they have chosen to worship. The last three films are best seen as a separate trilogy, and they are burdened somewhat by an unattractive and not particularly subtle sub-text about race relations in mid-20th-century America.

Those wanting to know more about this politicized angle need to contact Mr. Eric Greene, the author of the wonderfully odd Planet of the Apes as American Myth — Race, Politics and Popular Culture. Despite its leaden prose and leftist polemic, Mr. Greene's book is a fascinating and insightful read, even if, at times, the author appears to have been left a little deranged by his obviously intense and repeated exposure to the Apes movies. To the best of my knowledge, he remains the only person to have spotted the sexism inherent within Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Without Mr. Greene's help, I would not have realized that Caesar's choice of mate (Would it be the "demure chimpanzee" Lisa or a "voluptuous and eager" alternative?) revealed that "even in the ape world…women's roles are divided into the stereotypes of either virgin or whore." Who knew?

The ability of the franchise to endure and to survive the occasional missteps of the later films (if you think that the hymn-singing mutants were absurd, just wait until the moment that the monkey statue starts to cry) is a tribute to the strength of its original notion, a notion made all the more seductive by its choice of protagonists, the apes. Planet of the Dogs just would not have packed the same punch. The choice of apes was the masterstroke. It made the films, somehow, believable.

For deep down, we know that, when it comes to the animal kingdom, the apes are in a class of their own, they are different, they are smarter, and they are family. They really could have made this their planet. A few million years ago, at the critical evolutionary moment, it was between them or us. We got lucky, that was all (something to do with monoliths from outer space: it was all explained in 2001: A Space Odyssey), but we never have quite escaped our simian past, and, all too often, it shows. As the 17th Century playwright Congreve, once admitted, it is not possible to "look long upon a monkey without very mortifying reflections."

We use the apes as humanity's distorted mirror, and as its chattering reproachful goad. That is why they so intrigue us, and that is why the Apes movies, with their unsettling suggestion that evolution was not, perhaps, for the best, have had such a grip on our imagination. And so, as soon as I can get my stinking paws on a ticket, I shall go to Tim Burton's new film.

So long, of course, as Doctor Zaius gives me permission.