This was the first in a series of movies that spun off from a very original idea that Man might one day surrender dominance on Earth to other animals. The story begins with astronauts in deep space as Heston, the space ship commander, talks about their lengthy absence from Earth and the differences that would have occurred over time. Each of the astronauts goes to a special chamber to sleep and the intention is that they all wake up when the ship returns to Earth. Part of the romance of the idea is that the astronauts are away from Earth for a relatively short 18 months in human years that extends because of the speed of their travel to an absence of 700 Earth years. But something goes wrong and 2000 years after departing, they crash land in a large lake.

Anxious to find out what has happened in the intervening years the three male crew members abandon the sinking space ship after finding their sole woman astronaut dead and working out that the atmosphere was OK for humans. They have no clue where they are but they do know the Earth year date and set out to explore their new surroundings. They make it to the shore in a very small raft, which begged the question of what they were meant to do if the woman lived, and with very meagre equipment and supplies that would only last 72 hours. The planting of the American flag confirms the territorial ambitions of the space journey, despite the apparent hopelessness of not knowing where they were.

There are obvious tensions between the three crew members that are soon put aside when the boys take a skinny dip in a lake, only to find that someone or something has stolen their clothes. They set out to find their clothing and stumble upon a group of humans who appear to be quite backward. Their puzzlement turns to horror when a band of Apes on horseback descend upon the group to round up and/or kill them. One of the crew gets shot dead and the other two get separated, with Heston sustaining a shot to the throat that becomes pivotal to the plot.

Heston ends up being transported back to the town where the Apes live. He is viewed as a bit of an oddity as some of the Apes believe he has the ability to understand them, something the other humans shoed no signs of. Heston is looked after eventually by animal psychologist Dr Zera who, in conjunction with Dr Cornelius, an archaelogist, starts the process of finding of what or who Heston might be. He cannot speak because of the shot to the throat but that is not seen as unusual as the other humans do not ever speak. The two doctors eventually find that Heston can communicate by writing, a startling revelation in a world where the humans are viewed as so much lower on the evolutionary scale than Apes. All the Apes are even more startled when, during his capture after an attempted escape Heston tells the Ape captors to ?Take your paws off me you damned stinking Ape!

Dabbling with the human is a dangerous idea and Dr Zaius, head of the Ape scientific community decides to try Heston and his doctor friends with heresy for suggesting that a human could reason and speak like an Ape. The trial does not go well but before things are finalised Heston escapes again to be joined by his mute new human ?wife? and the two doctors. They travel to the Forbidden Zone where Dr Cornelius attempts to show them the fruits of his previous labour. Dr Zaius arrives in an attempt to stop them but Dr Cornelius? belief that there was a pre-history to the dominance of Apes is confirmed by the artefacts in the cave in the Forbidden Zone.

Rather than try to take Heston and his new wife back to the Ape community he and his wife are freed to set off to discover more of their new world. It does not take long before Heston is confronted by his worst nightmare as a badly damaged Statue of Liberty lying on its side confirms that he has landed back on Earth. He is confronted with the reality that human beings had indeed forfeited their right to dominate the planet. His despair at this tragic outcome for his species is overwhelming and we are left to contemplate what he might do from there on as the film closes.

The movie made a spectacular impression back when it was first released because of the realism of the Apes? makeup. That realism is maintained to this day as the Apes look as good now as they did way back then. The questions raised by the folly of Man are beautifully crafted around the notion of an upended world where the Apes have taken over at the top of the natural order. The fabulous makeup adds to the believability of the whole movie as it is quite possible to accept the Apes as a dominant species with their very human like expressions and thinking.

The world in the film is not presented as a better one that we should be striving for. The dominant Apes have little regard for ?lesser? species and the Ape leaders have a vested interest in maintaining an ignorant public beneath them as they cling to power based on a false view of history. Dissent is frowned upon and adherance to a mantra of dubious accuracy is demanded of the all the Ape subjects. It could be argued that the real world we live in is not too much different to the one portrayed in the film, although in this one we have the benefit of being top species. Sadly the Apes did not appear to have invented DVDs so without we humans this review would not have been possible.

THE EXTRAS

There is a huge amount of extra material, befitting the film?s status as a science fiction classic. The second disk has a very detailed documentary that explores how difficult it was to make the film. It is hard to imagine now how much trouble Producer Jacobs had when trying to interest the major studios in making the film. By sheer persistence he brought together cast and the Director and made the whole thing happen. There is an extraordinary segment on John Chambers, the man who made all the Ape masks in latex, utilising skills he learned making prosthetics during the Second World War.

There are also Dailies, Outtakes, Original Theatrical trailers, film review, posters, original sketches of costume designs, still photos of actors next to their pictures in Ape character, merchandise and a collection on the costumes, statues, masks and prosthetics. It is truly a mine of additional information for the true Planet of the Apes lover.

CONCLUSION

When a space ship lands on an unknown planet the three surviving crew members must try to make their way into a world where the Apes are the dominant species. Man has been relegated to a very secondary role on the planet and the senior Apes are intent on maintaining their dominance by whatever means necessary. Join Charlton Heston is his journey to find out what caused this turnaround on the Planet of the Apes.