About the movie
Franklin J. Schaffner’s 1968 version of the Planet of the Apes is loosely based on the original 1963 novel called La Planéte des Singes by Pierre Boulle. “Planet of the Apes” was reconfigured from the satire of Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel “Monkey Planet” to a more pointed commentary on humanity’s propensity to self-destruct. Schaffner centres the story around several astronauts from 1972 who crash-land on an “unknown planet” that is inhabited by a species of evolved apes in the year 3978. The apes can talk, walk, and make decisions of their own and don’t prefer to coexist with the human race. While primitive species are often kept in cages and experimented on where the humans are from, things are a bit different on this planet. Instead, people are kept in cages while the so-called primitive apes rule the area. There have been a lot of reboots throughout this franchise, but without a doubt, the 1968 Apes version has gone down in history as iconic. Still, there might be some unanswered questions about the ending and what it all really means. At the end of the movie, George Taylor (Heston) finds out that he’s been on planet Earth the entire movie. He comes across a major telltale sign that he is, in fact, on his own planet when he sees the Statue of Liberty in shambles, indicating that Earth has somehow gone into an apocalyptic dive. As soon as Taylor thinks he’s made it through his massive ordeal, that he’s conquered and survived it all, he realizes that he’s basically back to square one.
Symbolism
the dystopian thematic of a world in a phantasmagorical display of primal humans and intelligent primates that upends the existing hierarchy of creations and reconstructs the fundamental doctrines of the Origin of Species. It is an advanced society of chimpanzees and orangutans that talk smart, which the 20th-century American astronaut George Taylor is hard to stomach with human pride. He then becomes a deformed kind of human slave of the apes in this new brave world where from their God to a prison guard, the apes are the master of the humans. What a wonder this brave new world, has such apes in it.
Dr Zaius knew of a human civilization that existed before his kind, but he knew that sometimes, things are better off left unsaid … or buried in a cave. When the iconic ending ensued, it was obvious Taylor was disgusted by the human race that quite literally imploded upon themselves. Nuclear war is what happened on Earth, and the message that’s attached to this realization is loud, clear, and relevant to what was going on in society in the 1960s. There are many politically driven messages pushed throughout Planet of the Apes, but without a doubt, the most powerful comes with the final scene that shows Taylor and Nova (Harrison) being allowed to leave to find their “own destiny,” as Dr Zaius puts it.
Schaffner did a really good job of leaving it up to viewers to decide who the actual protagonist really is. Taylor is obviously “meant” to be the hero, and the guy who ultimately comes out on top, but his ideologies on what’s right and what’s wrong are tested, paired with how humankind destroyed itself without any help from another species. “Planet of the Apes” predicted a return to barbarism and savagery for humankind, starkly set against the rise of other species. It depicted a realm of regressive cave people and warned of impending cultural collapse. Crash landing on the planet clean-shaven in white NASA-style overalls, even Taylor, intelligent, independent and strong, falls prey to the unravelling process, soon dressed in animal skins and progressively angrier and more primal as events proceed. An enduring beacon of hope, the Statue of Liberty appears in the film as a totem of a civilization lost and buried. They remind us that we are here by the grace of nature, that we mess with the world at our own peril and that it is only our vanity (and our ability to destroy ourselves) that separates us from other animals.
Space-making for non-humans
The architecture of the past was based on the primitive basic needs of humans, to protect from the natural environment. Hence it was only seen as a protective place, human instincts were based on survival like all other animals. Human conscience evolved as time went on and so did our need for a place to stay, survival needs became vague and the idea of a place of protection now became home. Eventually, with the inevitable changes of progress these homes and ideas of spaces changed. while humans blinded by their own conscience changes their means of living, inner instinct changes have detached them from the natural flow of ecosystems whereas the other animals still are dwelling in their early ways. This is What allowed homo sapiens to become undisputed masters of the animal kingdom, it is the sheer power of their intellect. In its turn, the intellectual progress of mankind corresponds to the laws of evolution, as we know them. According to these laws – everything that helps a particular species to survive and to grow to dominate others is “good” and everything that weakens this specie is “bad”. If we were to treat animals as equals, it would contradict the laws of nature, for which we would eventually be required to pay a heavy price, these themes are central to the movie, planet of apes (1968).
The spaces imagined for a world dominated by apes aren’t completely fictional we can see the traces of the inspiration for it from past places of habitation like caves derivative of natural forms of earth and mountains, the spaces seem to be part of the land it merges with them visually as compared to human spaces which often stands out in natural spaces. The whole civilization seems to be part of mountains and nature.
The structures are never straight, they have an organic form to them, and they replicate the texture and form of nature around them, the wobbling lines of trees, the volume of mountains and the openness of the water.
Landscapes
Planet of the Apes begins with an opening act every bit as astonishing in its sparsity After astronauts Taylor, Landon and Dodge have crash-landed on their new mysterious world, they trawl across the landscape looking for food, shelter and some clue as to where in the universe they actually are. Shot on location in Arizona, these scenes made full use of the natural landscape, every frame filled with imposing cliffs, craggy mountains and barren desert. Every time I watch the film, I find these scenes both breath-taking and captivating. They lead to a parade of questions, as I look to the distance and pick out far-off mountains and stretches of water. Are there other ape settlements there? Are there other Forbidden Zones? If half the Statue of Liberty is protruding out of the ground on one beach, is a bit of the Eiffel Tower somewhere else? Is Big Ben hiding just behind that cliff?
Conceptualizing a settlement
The village settlement doesn’t look like a built mass, but something with has emerged from the earth. Scattered houses with an abundance of trees and mountains, the built is separated from the unbuilt but a part of it.
“When Rod Serling came up with the ending it was generally agreed that we had to do everything we could to make it as unearthly as possible. We didn’t want to give away the ending. So, the challenge was to make up a style of life that these people might have developed because they would be strong, and good with their hands. We kind of invented an architecture that was as far from anything Earth-like as we could go. We were inspired by Gaudi and the Goreme Valley in Turkey. I had an artist, Meutner Hubner, still a very famous and fine motion picture ilustrator, putting all those pieces of research together to get a look, having no idea how we would ultimately build it.”
These colonies are outright large cities that when located at the core of the new civilization are mostly brown with curved organic shapes and set in green idyllic environments, we can see the celebration of the return to a basic way of living can be seen: cottages made of raw wood and adobe structures resembling primitive settlements are used to show the loss of technological and building knowledge and tools. The built spaces seem to be like a craving for stone, huge monolithic free spaces almost feel monumental. The design is simple to meet the functional need of survival. The set designer wanted to find an architectural style for the ape’s culture which would look quite unlike anything people had ever known in America and yet didn’t seem futuristic or phoney or anything. I came up with a suggestion. Inspiration was taken from a Spanish architect named Antonio Gaudi His architecture suggests a kind of arboreal past; some of the columns of his buildings seem like giant trunks of trees. I took this to the art director and he agreed that this was inspirational. So the city of the apes in the picture was built in that fashion. Which suggested that these people were – well, trees were nostalgic to them for having lived in them at one time.
The idea was to put forward that a primitive city would be less costly to build and would therefore save money better used in the make-up department, although using a real city for location shooting, as they would later do on both Escape and Conquest, would presumably have been inexpensive. A more plausible explanation is that a contemporary-looking Earth city could provide a strong clue about the twist ending. Mentor Huebner returned to the film project to construct an unfamiliar urban landscape. While an asymmetrical architectural design was quickly established, his sketches reflect the changing concepts of the apes themselves, with motor vehicles, street lamps and modern clothes eventually giving way to a medieval level of technology. Closer to filming, a series of paintings by an unknown artist depicted the initial trek by the astronauts through the Forbidden Zone.
Reimaging of human-occupied spaces for apes like bridges, amphitheatres, and public halls. Built with abode or stone to still keep in touch with their sense of cave-like structure.
Human-like spaces like hallways, meeting rooms and churches.
Even the cages to capture human they use is built from wood with an organic shape, almost childlike.
The architecture of the past was based on the primitive basic needs of humans, to protect from the natural environment. Hence it was only seen as a protective place, human instincts were based on survival like all other animals. Human conscience evolved as time went on and so did our need for a place to stay, survival needs became vague and the idea of a place of protection now became home. Eventually, with the inevitable changes of progress these homes and ideas of spaces changed. while humans blinded by their own conscience changes their means of living, inner instinct changes have detached them from the natural flow of ecosystems whereas the other animals still are dwelling in their early ways. This is What allowed homo sapiens to become undisputed masters of the animal kingdom, it is the sheer power of their intellect. In its turn, the intellectual progress of mankind corresponds to the laws of evolution, as we know them. According to these laws – everything that helps a particular species to survive and to grow to dominate others is “good” and everything that weakens this specie is “bad”. If we were to treat animals as equals, it would contradict the laws of nature, for which we would eventually be required to pay a heavy price, these themes are central to the movie, planet of apes.
