Planet of the Apes (1968)

Was the ending shocking?

• As shocking as Heston's hairpiece.

• I was gob-smacked!

• I did see it then and yes, it was very shocking. Much like the ending of Psycho, it hadn't been done 100's of times at that point and was indeed a very shocking and satisfying ending.

• A real kick-ass ending. Yes, very shocking yet completely plausible and satisfying.

• Yup, and it freaked me out as a little kid.

• what happened at the end of Psycho?

• guuuurl

  http://i.imgur.com/2FDK1.gif

• >>what happened at the end of Psycho? It turns out it was set in the present day all along.

• Damn Apes!!!

  Spoiler%20Alert%21

• I watched it recently. The apes ironically enough were creationists.

• The 1970's produced some really great dystopic future movies. Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green - and the list goes on.

  LuciferTheLightBringer

• I'm curious, too, OP. For those who saw it when it first came out, what was the reaction to the end?

• Yes, it was shocking, I remember the reaction in the movie theater the night I went to see it.

• I saw it when it first came out, and it freaked me the fuck out. It was pretty daring at the time. And seeing Charlton Heston in his loin cloth and being aroused made me realize that it was men I liked, and not women. That was the first sign for me that I was gay. I might have been ten or so. He was handsome as hell back then.

• I wasn't born when it came out, but I didn't know how it ended when I watched it on DVD. That moment made the movie and the franchise for me. Without it, it would have just been another bad 70s flick.

• r8, ok, i thought about it. was it that his mother was dead?

• Didn't Twilight Zone do the twist like twenty times during its run? I think it was written by the same person too.

• Very. The audience roared with surprise. Loved it.

• it was quite shocking. This was in the prehistoric age before special effects were all the rage, so it was quite stark looking and not something an audience would have seen before.

• I was a little kid and saw it at a Saturday matinee with a bunch of other little kids. The end of the film made us all go primal with glee and grunting. We were all white kids in a boring white neighborhood.

• I still get a little goose pump/surge of blood to the heart when you first see the gorilla on the horse and the alarm sound goes off

• i watched it on TV in the 70s when i was probably 10. I remember asking my dad if it could really happen like that. He said, Sure it could.

• I thought The Crying Game was the most shocking movie!!

  Chaz%20Bono

• Only to anyone who had never read a short story or seen a Twilight Zone.

• [quote] I still get a little goose pump Oh, dear.

• Great ending. But I don't get why the possibility didn't enter anyone's head. What are the odds of the English language and even cultural traits and fashion will be perfectly replicated in a planet that hasn't had any involvement with humans from Earth? Best not to overthink it. I love the series of films. What's not to like about Victor Buono playing a telepathic mutant in a rubber mask?

• I still wonder why that finally shot is so grainy.

• Why didnt the astronauts have a clue when they heard all the apes speaking English?

• The Astronauts roaming around nude, bear like, was intriguing as a kid... And hot..

• The ending was a jolt, but the ending of the sequel (Below the Planet of the Apes) was just plain terrifying to a kid. Especially since I'd developed such a crush on the heroes.

• I've rubbed out many a fine load watching James Franciscus prance around a bombed out NYC subway station in his glorious bare feets in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes.

• Was Beneath the Planet of the Apes where the humans wore Snuggies and they worshipped the bomb and pulled off their masks at the end?

• Yes, R32. With everyone's favorite actress Natalie Trundy as the High Priestess. She was in Escape From The Planet Of The Apes as the psychologist. She must have been the Sheila Allen/ Monica Lewis/Lorraine Gary of her day.

• They had no clue because they probably thought they landed on a planet in an alternate universe.

• The later Planet of the Apes movies were pretty schlocky, but the original still holds up. It was the first modern science fiction movie and changed the genre. I wasn't around back then, but I've been told the ending was shocking, because for the entire movie the audience believed it was an alien planet. And then the big reveal happened.

• You and me both, R31, although I was paying more attention to his torso and legs. And that gorgeous face.

• I have never recovered.

• R36, I paid attention to all of him, too. He was easily one of the most strikingly beautiful men ever on screen. The ending of the original was a really nasty shock to those of us who weren't prepared for it because we were very much in the middle of a Cold War with the Soviets and this outcome was still considered a big possibility.

  R31

• Taylor and Nova follow the shoreline and eventually discover the charred remnants of the Statue of Liberty, thus revealing that this "alien" planet, that previously had a human civilization long before apes ruled, is actually post-apocalyptic Earth.

• I saw the film in Amsterdam, and the audience couldn't figure out what that last shot meant. It's seems strange, but apparently the Statue of Liberty isn't quite a worldwide landmark. Or maybe seeing it half-buried in sand disguised it. But I do remembwer an atmosphere of bewilderment and, after the house lights came up, a sea of puzzled faces around me.

• Really, R40? I wonder if they would have recognized it if it had been the top of the Chrysler Building.

• R40, if you knew and they didn't, I think it was your duty to get up and scream "Het was het Standbeeld van de Vrijheid!" (If that's wrong, blame google translate)

• When I saw the ending as a kid, I was flabbergasted.

• The audience "gasped" at the theater, it was that shocking and surprising.

• And what's really good about that shock ending moment is there's no musical "sting"- it's just Chuck's anguished cries and the sound of the ocean.

• Bump

• My reaction to the entire movie (and my good friend Binny Streeter who I saw it with) was to laugh hysterically all the way through- including the end because that great actor Charlton Heston broke down screaming oh so convincingly. I was about 14 or 15. When the first ape said, "human see human do" we could not contain ourselves from then on, and of course good ole Chuck, a bad enough actor for a 15 year old to pick up on- made the comedy even better.

  charlie

• The other audience members must have loved you, r47. Were you also high on pot, because it sounds like it.

• Thank you, R39, for copying and pasting the film's wikipedia entry.

• The ape masks and makeup are still pretty amazing, even by today's standards.

• Love Planet of the Apes, but there's always been something that bothered me - aside from Heston and then James Franciscus in the sequel never wondering why the apes are speaking English - is that there were no ruins of the previous human civilization. They were obviously in the New York City metro region yet there weren't and remnants of buildings or even any foundations left, it was just wilderness. Yeah, I'm a big nerd.

• Wasn't NYC destroyed by a nuclear weapon? Hence the horribly disfigured human survivors living below St Patrick's Cathedral. I didn't get why they worshipped a nuclear weapon though other than the fact that they were established as a bunch of meanies.

• GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!

  Chuck

• It turned out he was wrong. It was Earth all along. Yes they finally made a monkey (Oh they finally made a monkey) Yes they finally made a money out of him. He loves you, Dr. Zaius!

• I think Chuck saying those lines were pretty shocking...

• The most shocking thing about that movie for me as a kid (and for my parents) was that they let the astronauts run around buck naked for what seemed like half the movie. I mean bare, hairy-ass naked. Or maybe the real most shocking thing was when I got hard watching them.

• I remember being stunned. I saw it on the Classic late show as a kid. Special effects were no where near what I was used to, but somehow it was more interesting.

• I really hate to say this, because I loved the movie back in the day, but when you think about it, the whole thing makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Aside from the issues already brought up in this thread -- Why aren't Heston and the other astronauts tipped off by the fact that the apes speak English? Why aren't there ANY ruins, even after 2000 years? -- there's another huge whole in the plot: The spaceship is on some sort of exploratory mission, presumably hundreds or thousands of light years from earth -- yet somehow, after Heston and the other astronauts go into hibernation, the ship finds its way back to earth. Really, how ridiculous to think it could somehow go completely off course in such a spectacular way and just happen to find its way back to the home planet.

• Well, it was quite shocking when Charlton showed his ending!

• Charlton Heston gets my vote as the worst actor ever to become a big star- just nudging out Robert Redford- who is a very competent director. R48, no, no pot yet for me then. And a lot of the theatre was laughing by the way. We were not the only ones. I just remember we had a really good time, if not as we necessarily intended. We used to see every movie that came to that particular summer theatre.

  charlie

• r58, I think they were on their way back to earth after their mission was complete.

• There are a lot of ruins -- buried in the Forbidden Zone, which we see in the first sequel.

• There were ruins in the second movie....after they went into the Forbidden Zone. That's why you didn't see any in the first movie. The apes FORBID people from going into the desert, where the ruins were.

• I love how even in a post-Apocalyptic world, NY is the center of the universe.

• Bet your ass, baby/R64.

  Mayor%20Bloomberg

• Well, we know you're trying to turn it into the "forbidden zone" for most people, Miss Bloomberg.

• But there still should have been ruins everywhere, not just what was once Manhattan. I guess you just have to enjoy the movie for what it is.

• "I think they were on their way back to earth after their mission was complete." You may have remembered a plot point I forgot, R61. But if that's true, then it's all the more unbelievable that it didn't occur to the astronauts that the planet on which they landed, with apes speaking English, was Earth.

• Who had time to ponder anything with a bunch of bloodthirsty gorillas on your tail.

• They used to have a series in the 70's and one night they showed the movie before it so I first saw it on TV when I about 5. The ending went over my head. But I remember freaking out when the alarm went off and the apes on horseback are beating back the grass to find the humans.

• Charlton Heston was ridiculed by the media after the release of Michael Moore's documentary 'Bowling for Columbine'. I think that Moore overdid it. Charlton Heston was definitely neither bad nor stupid. He was a courageous man, that had a deep respect for good people and deep respect and love for his wife. Their marriage lasted 64 years until Heston's death in 2008. It was the first and only marriage of Heston. Interesting facts about him: He had a fondness for drawing and sketching, and often sketched the cast and crew of his films whenever he had the chance to do so. His sketches were later published in the book Charlton Heston's Hollywood: 50 Years In American Film. Unlike many of his contemporaries, Heston continued to act on the stage. He appeared in Long Day's Journey Into Night opposite Deborah Kerr, Macbeth opposite Vanessa Redgrave and The Caine Mutiny with Ben Cross. His final stage role was opposite his wife Lydia Clarke in Love Letters at the Haymarket Theatre in London in the summer of 1999. When he met Toshirô Mifune around 1960, he was extremely taken with the Japanese star and claimed that if Mifune spoke English "he could be the greatest star in the world". The two actors exchanged Christmas cards since their meeting until Mifune's death.

  http://i2.listal.com/image/1310953/936full-charlton-heston.jpg

• I passed out in the theater at the revelation. My parents threw a soda in my face to revive me.

• Soylent Green is people.

• If Taylor and Nova were folllowing the coastline, how could they find the ruins of the Statue of Liberty on the beach? The statue is on Liberty Island. The shoreline of the Manhattan Island and Liberty Island (or even Hoboken/Newark/Wherever) aren't crashing waves types of places. More like river shores, with the current sort of plunking along rapidly. Should we believe the landscape was dramatically re-sculpted from the nuclear disaster, maybe? Maybe some engineers here might have an explanation. Could a statue like Liberty float? It's hollow inside, maybe an air bubble somehow could keep it aloft in the water. I know. Just a movie. Did the actress who played Nova ever work again?

  too%20lazy%20to%20Google%20fanboy%20sites.

• I know that Chuck Heston was a NRA conservative fundie, but I always see pic of him in the 60s fighting for civil rights. Not something I can see a normal conservative doing.

• Very true, R75. At the time this was a brave, progressive thing.

• それでも世界選手権や五輪ではPチャンが優勝なんでしょう

• R73, 'Soylent Green', what a 'dark' spooky movie! Edward G. Robinson gave also an amazing performance in it. Unforgettable movie, yes! \t

• R74, do you find math hard?

• Planet of the Apes... There is nothing like the original version, right guys?

• You have to place POTA in its cultural context. We were living in a cold war nuclear mutual destruction world. NOBODY thought AMERICA could ever lose at ANYTHING. The whole angst of disbelief at the end is based on on this kick in the collective ego.

• love this movie, and see it as a slap to the religious right, coming when new ideas and rebellion were once again upsetting the status quo. you got the religion-based politicians (the blond-adjacent orangutans, led by Dr. Zaius, who knows the religion is bunk but it's working out well for his kind) using the military (black gorillas) to keep a tight rein on science (brunette caucasian chimps). one of my favorite scenes: early on, tight shot of the astronauts naked from the waist up, they see something in the distance and Heston says something like 'better check that out' and the other two guys kneel down right next to him out of sight- Two Guys One Chuck! also the court scene that ends with a 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' reference.

• why doesn't this movie get more love from DL? the only frau astronaut is dead before they come out of their coma, and the obviously last-minute tacked-on love interest is mute

  Planet%20of%20the%20Gaypes%21

• Gays, open your eyes! Hot!

  http://www.nerdbloggers.com/storage/Charlton-Heston---Planet-of-the-Apes--C10102110.jpg%3F__SQUARESPACE_CACHEVERSION%3D1305569920853

• Oh yeah it freaked me out! It's on Netflix. I'm pulling it up on Apple TV. Good for a rainy day.

• [quote]Didn't Twilight Zone do the twist like twenty times during its run? I think it was written by the same person too. Yes, Rod Serling wrote the original screenplay, although it was rewritten several times.

• Here is a link to the first part of a screenplay written by Pierre Boulle for a proposed sequel.

  http://pota.goatley.com/scripts/planet_of_the_men_1.pdf

• Part 2:

  http://pota.goatley.com/scripts/planet_of_the_men_2.pdf

• I found that movie endings held more of a shock value in general because it was a pre-internet time and there weren't a bunch of people around who enjoyed broadcasting spoilers. Face it; we all know the ending of a movie now before we see it as it gets discussed so often.

  anonymous

• r87/88 could you summarize the screenplay?

• [quote]could you summarize the screenplay? The working title is "Planet of the Men". Taylor and Nova pass into the Forbidden Zone and start to build a human colony. Taylor works to ignite the sparks of sentience and intelligence in the humans, and rebuild civilization. They have a son, who becomes a leader among the younger humans. Among the apes, the chimpanzees are starting to rebel against the established authority, engaging in protests and demonmstrations. Zaius pardons Cornelius and Zira, provided they keep quiet about what they know. There is an election among the apes for Minister of Science, Zaius beats Cornelius in a landslide (vote fraud?) Zaius uses his authority to bring about a declaration of war against the human colony. Cornelius & Zira & Lucius go to the colony to warn Taylor of what is coming. The ape army, led by an idiotic gorilla marches on the colony. The humans, however, have prepared defenses and stolen weapons from the apes. The apes attack and are defeated in a lopsided battle, having vastly underestimated their enemy. Taylor's son seizes the moment and leads the humans on a march to the city to destroy the apes. Taylor pleads with his son and the other men to pursue peace with the apes, but is killed, seeing everything he wanted to avoid coming to pass. Meanwhile, the apes are so stunned by their defeat and impending doom that they begin to revert to their original animal state. Zira and Cornelius are captured, and feeling their sentience slipping away, take poison and die in each others' arms. The men destroy the ape civilization and take the captured apes for use as servants and pets. Everything comes around full circle. In the final scene, Zaius is an exhibit in a human circus as a parody of the creature he used to be, barely able to speak his own name.

• There's no Charlton Heston thread so far so i had to send this here... Charlton Heston reads between takes of Diamond Head Sexy man...in a serious way...

  http://acertaincinema.pemomo.com/workspace/media/charlton-heston-reads-between-scenes-of-diamond-head.jpg

• Ah, Diamond Head! I remember the scene with a bare chested, sarong wearing James Darren dancing with Yvette Mimieux. Now THAT scene got this little 11 year old all hot and bothered.... but in a good way.

• :) Kisses R93,