Planet of the Apes 1968

The 1968 version of Planet of the Apes, directed by Franklin J. Schaffner, calls back to many of the cultural and political issues that triggered an uprising in 1960s counterculture. Based off of the 1963 French novel, La Planete des Singes by Pierre Boulle, the film follows an astronaut, Taylor, played by Charlton Heston, who has crash-landed on an unfamiliar planet with his small crew. Soon after, he is separated from his comrades and forced into slavery by an indigenous and dominant race of apes.

The film touches on the American Civil Rights movement through the brutality and disrespect shown to Taylor, although he decides to oppose the movement’s theme of nonviolence. While in captivity, he is incapacitated with a fireman’s hose, which was used during several civil rights riots, most notably by Bill Connor in Alabama against civil rights protestors in 1964.

Another political issue that the movie touches on is freedom of speech. In Schaffner’s film, the humans are mute and Taylor, the one man who can speak, is seen not as a miracle, but as a threat. The apes believe that he may be a missing link, and fear that his existence is scientific heresy, which could dismantle their society and the entire foundation on which their culture rests.

There are other connections to issues like Feminism, through the character Nova, given to Taylor as a gift but given no personality and dehumanized even by Taylor himself, the Gay Liberation Movement through the apes constant attempts to emasculate Taylor and his violent refusals, separation of church and state, experimental advances in science through risky brain surgery performed on Taylor’s friend Landon, played by Robert Gunner, who has been subjected to a labotomy that has rendered him catatonic, and more.

But, the underlying countercultural element that plays the biggest role in the film is environmentalism and the anti-war movement. The movie’s closing scene (no spoilers) shows the astronomical effects that nuclear war and the overuse of natural resources may have.