S01E23 — Planet of the Apes

SPOILER ALERT: This episode and transcript below contains major spoilers for Planet of the Apes.

Featuring hosts Timothy Haynes, Donna Haynes, Rebekah Edwards, and T. Josiah Haynes.

This universe now spans an incredible 10 movies… so how do the 1968 and 2001 films, roughly based on the classic French book by Pierre Boulle, line up?

We say ‘roughly’ because… let’s just say they used the book as *inspiration* and not so much as *canon*. Spoiler alert: Josiah goes on some rants in this episode.

Final Verdicts

If you haven’t listened to the episode yet, we recommend waiting to read our verdicts. (But you’re probably grown, so do what you want!)

The Planet of the Apes book takes place on a truly alien world and delves deep into themes of imitation and intelligence, while the movies (especially the 1968 version) flip the script by setting the story on a post-apocalyptic Earth. The book’s subtle sci-fi twists are replaced by the films’ iconic, jaw-dropping reveals.

Tim: The 1968 Movie was better

Donna: The 1968 Movie was better

Rebekah: The 1968 Movie was better

Josiah: The 1968 Movie was better

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Full Episode Transcript

Prefer reading? Check out the full episode transcript below. It’s AI-generated from our audio, and if we’re being honest… no one sat to read the entire thing for accuracy. (After all, we were there the whole time.) 😉 We’re sorry in advance for any typos or transcription errors.

[00:00:00] Rebekah: Hey, welcome to the book is better podcast. We are a family of four who reviews book to film adaptations. Uh, it’s a clean podcast and today’s big spoiler warning. We’re going to spoil a lot. If you’re into apes. and planets and planets with those apes that are in charge. Uh, so we’re going to spoil every single possible iteration of that concept.

So, um, our spoiler warning, we are going to spoil the book planet of the apes. Which was originally written in French. We are not spoiling any of the French copy. But I assume that it’s the same story. Uh, we are going to spoil the 1968 Planet of the Apes. We are also going to spoil several of the things that happened in those subsequent films that occurred in the 70s.

We’re going to spoil the 2001 Planet of the Apes, which uh, Spoiler for this show is a different story than the 1968 one, 

and then we’re probably going to 

spoil a lot of stuff from the 2011 rise of the planet of the apes and some of their subsequent films near the end of our list. And here’s the best part.

In our fun fact, we are also going to spoil the endings of several other movies. Before each of them. Um, so I, we usually start off by introducing ourselves and giving a fun fact. I’m going to give you a little context on the fun fact. Then I will introduce myself and answer, but. If you do not want spoilers to, uh, like shocking movie endings that we’ve seen, like if you hate spoilers, I might recommend you skip until you get to, when we start talking about the plot of planet of the apes, because, uh, yeah, we’re about to talk about the endings of movies.

So according to Wikipedia, Rod Serling, who’s the creator of the twilight zone wrote a script of planet of the apes and sent it to 20th century Fox. They could not fully realize the film based on his script due to the complexity of the sets and special effects that it would require as it was based on the original book.

Michael Wilson rewrote Serling’s work and at the suggestion of director Franklin Schaffner, the apes were conceived as being more primitive. Which, I will say, I noticed on, uh, watching the film that they seemed more primitive than the book. Yeah. This significantly reduced the cost of the original film.

Wilson also kept Serling’s general story and his iconic ending, which appears on multiple lists of the best movie endings of all time. It was number 33 on an IMDb audience poll, a number one on a Business Insider list, uh, that was dated 2020. So. Introduce yourself. And the fun fact for today is what is the greatest and or worst movie ending you’ve ever experienced.

So I’m Rebecca, I am the daughter slash sister of the podcast. Um, I had to come to mind and to be totally honest, both of them were like awful. I don’t know if I have it in my head of like, Oh man, I really love that. Cause I like happy endings. 

[00:03:06] Josiah: So you can have two bad ones. 

[00:03:08] Rebekah: That’s, that’s perfect. Um, I love happy endings.

So that’s. That’s not like that surprising because that’s what I go towards. So the crazy ones I remember watching the movie saw with my friend, um, Ashley, uh, in her house, we were watching it on a laptop. I don’t know if I wasn’t allowed to watch it or that, like, I don’t know why we were watching it there or in that context.

So imagine it’s like an 11 inch screen, like a tiny laptop screen and we watched the movie saw, I don’t know if any of you have actually seen this movie, but the again, spoiler warning for saw the end of the movie is that you realize you’ve been with these two guys in this dirty bathroom, they’ve been like chained up to the walls the whole time and there’s a dead guy who looks like he’s been shot in the back of the head and like has been laying in the middle of the floor the entire two hours of this movie.

The ending of the movie is that that guy wasn’t dead and he stands up and he was the guy like he was like the guy, the bad guy. And, uh, I remember me and Ashley just like school, like we were squalling, we like stood up and we’re walking around the room because it was So shocking. Like I could not handle it.

So that was one. My other one actually also comes from what I guess could be considered a horror film. Have any of you ever seen the movie life? It’s like a slightly newer one, 2017. Okay. I had really wanted to see this movie. The trailer got me. I was so excited. And so I think I thought I’m not going to explain the plot.

Oh, nice. I’m not going to explain the plot, but what ends up happening at the end of this movie is you’ve gone through this entire journey of like, is this. Really, really dangerous alien thing going to kill the whole crew or is one of the crew going to escape and make it back down to Earth? 

[00:04:54] Josiah: Oh, that movie.

So there’s like two 

[00:04:56] Rebekah: pods. Yeah, there’s two pods that take off and they make you think that like the pod that went off into space far like that was going away from Earth had the alien in it. And that the one that went back onto Earth was like the remaining living crew member. And like the last scene of the movie is that you see.

That the crew member you thought was headed back to earth was actually in the pod that was like leaving the solar system. And then you see the other pod like land and you’re like, Oh, the world is over now. The world is going to end. And I, I think I screamed at that one too. That was pretty wild. 

[00:05:29] Josiah: Well, I’m Josiah.

I’m the brother and son of the podcast group. I have a couple endings. Maybe I won’t, uh, spoil as much. I just remember that The ending of Inception really stays with me. I don’t think I understood at the time when I was a teenager and I loved it the first time. I don’t think I fully understood how it made me ask and answer questions about human consciousness that stay with me to this very day that I think are slightly relevant for planet of the apes.

Um, as far as like, what is consciousness? What is sentience? Uh, so that stayed with me. I think an underrated ending, Rebecca, you’ll like this, is hairspray. 

[00:06:20] Rebekah: Oh, interesting. Underrated. Yes, 

[00:06:24] Josiah: I was, I was spoiled with hairspray as a teen, as a kid and as a teen. I did hairspray in high school. I was Edna Turnblad, which was fun.

And I, in my little teenage brain, I’m like, Oh yeah, musicals are just good like this. And now I realize, Oh no, most musicals aren’t that good. Hairspray, hairspray. It’s special for a reason. Hairspray is so relentlessly upbeat and feel good. You just can’t help but tap your foot and enjoy yourself. And I was also thinking another musical, another play that I was in big fish, which I do like the ending of the musical even better than 

[00:07:05] Rebekah: the movie, 

[00:07:06] Josiah: but the movie still makes me cry.

It’s such a feel good, but cry of, you know, a son and a father spoiler alert, I guess. Reuniting before one of them passes away, the older one, the father, 

[00:07:21] Rebekah: the 

[00:07:22] Josiah: old guy 

[00:07:23] Tim: watching you. That was a tough one for me because you played the part of the father in college. And, uh, I did not cry at the movie, but I cried when you did that.

That was 

[00:07:35] Josiah: so much mom and 

[00:07:37] Rebekah: I balled together holding hands in the back of a theater. 

[00:07:39] Josiah: I guess I was the first Edward Bloom in Tennessee. That’s my, that’s my humble brag that I get to tell, but I was also, you’re talking about all these big twists that made me go, and I am also thinking of a character death in the Sopranos, which I won’t spoil.

But basically what happens is, you know, that they’re doomed and then you see inside their mind, uh, them running away successfully. You see them running away successfully from the mob and then it flashes to reality where this character says that’s what I should have done because I’m about to die and it’s, uh, absolutely heartbreaking that you get to see what they should have done while it did not do 

[00:08:28] Rebekah: I hate that just a little bit of description.

Yeah, every time 

[00:08:31] Josiah: I’ve rewatched the Sopranos three times, I’m crying for hours every time that character dies. 

[00:08:38] Donna: Dang. So that was a lot. Donna. Oh my. It was, but it’s some things I had not seen. I’m the wife and mom of the group. Today I am Ape Mother Delphigan. 

[00:08:54] Tim: Where did that part come from? 

[00:08:56] Donna: I made it again.

[00:08:58] Tim: Oh, we just made it up. 

[00:09:00] Rebekah: Yes, 

[00:09:00] Donna: because 

[00:09:01] Rebekah:

[00:09:01] Donna: can. 

[00:09:01] Tim: It’s made up and the point doesn’t matter. 

[00:09:04] Rebekah: Now, Josiah did not say I can’t name myself on this app because I’m the host, which is stupid. Josiah is darn dirty ape. 

[00:09:11] Donna: So I’m surprised that Rebecca didn’t say La La Land was a horrible ending. I was shocked that she didn’t pick it.

[00:09:23] Josiah: I almost mentioned it as a joke, you know. 

[00:09:27] Donna: A few endings that were memorable for me. There’s a love story, it’s a remake, it’s called Sabrina, and Harrison Ford. Oh, you love that movie. stars in it and he makes a surprise decision at the end. And it’s, I say it’s a surprise. If you’re really watching, I guess it’s not, it’s the ending.

They’re building. This isn’t really about surprises. This is about feel good. And when I watch this movie, I’m like emotionally affected by this beauty of the love story. So I would say Sabrina. Um, the movie Logan, I watched it when I was in my early fifties. We went to the theater. We got to the end of the movie.

It’s hard for me to even verbalize how affected I was. The concept that Wolverine could die, it messed with my mind. And my whole, I sat in the theater thinking, Oh no, I’ll never be 40 again. I’ll never be 30 again. I can’t redo anything. That’s a lot. And it sounds crazy because it was a movie, but the way they handled it and everything that went on, um, it’s not only Dr X or Professor X, but it’s also Captain Picard.

It’s a Star Trek captain. It’s these people who have filled my life’s Uh, my whole life’s entertainment. Yeah. So, 

[00:11:16] Rebekah: that’s a good and a bad. Mom, one other thing I thought you were going to say, which I think everybody has seen except maybe dad, you and I went to see The Departed together. I know 

[00:11:26] Josiah: about the ending.

Yeah, I looked it up on YouTube after you. Mentioned it. 

[00:11:32] Rebekah: Both of us came home and we’re like, what? Why? And then Josh goes, you guys know the movie’s called the departed. And I’m like, we didn’t know that’s what it meant. 

[00:11:43] Tim: Best film of the year. Didn’t 

[00:11:43] Donna: mean the departed everybody. Yeah. 

[00:11:47] Tim: Okay. Well, my name is Tim and I am the dad.

and father of our wonderful crew. 

[00:11:54] Rebekah: Those mean the same thing. 

[00:11:55] Tim: Yeah. Dad and father. Yeah. Well, one was the beginning and one was, and one was the rest of it. I’m also the husband and I have a title for this podcast. I am the director of science and religion. Oh, no contradiction in that, according to the movie.

Um, of course not. And I have mine’s fairly simple. I remember watching the perfect storm and getting to the end of the movie and realizing you’re talking about this. No one survives. Oh, so it was based on nothing. They knew that this ship of this boat full of people went out. 

[00:12:43] Rebekah: Doesn’t make for an interesting story.

[00:12:45] Tim: The rest of it was fiction because you, you’re, you think, well, somebody wrote the story, somebody wrote it down, somebody survives. Nope. Nobody survived. The whole movie was made up about a true story. And I hated that based 

[00:13:02] Josiah: on a true story 

[00:13:04] Tim: based on a true story. And most 

[00:13:06] Josiah: of it was fiction. Oh, obviously, I do want to just mention that, uh, Citizen Kane has an iconic ending that Does stick with me to this day.

[00:13:16] Rebekah: Still have never seen it. I actually do want to watch it though. I heard it’s an iconic ending. Iconic, yeah. Okay, well, dad, why don’t you start off by telling us a summary of what happens in the Planet of the Apes that’s the same across the book and both films? 

[00:13:31] Tim: Wow. That would probably be fairly short. Um, I am a fan.

I saw, I saw the original movie, um, when it was originally out and I saw the next movie and the next movie and I watched the television series and I, I’ve watched every iteration. Which explains a lot 

[00:13:48] Rebekah: about why we saw it a lot growing up. Yeah. Yes. 

[00:13:51] Tim: Why Planet of the Apes was part of your career. Yeah.

childhood. So the things that are the same, the plot summary, a man from earth crash lands on a planet and soon discovers it’s ruled by apes and that humans are considered dirty, stupid animals rather than sentient beings. The apes are generally divided into three sub races, chimpanzee, orangutan and gorilla.

all with distinctive tendencies and traits. The man is able to communicate with and win over some apes, but eventually must part from them to return to Earth. But a surprise awaits. The rule of apes is the fate of earth. And I guess that 

[00:14:36] Josiah: is true on all of them. That does summarize all three somehow. 

[00:14:40] Rebekah: I’m so proud of that.

Did 

[00:14:43] Josiah: you specifically write that we’re dirty, stupid animals? Okay. 

[00:14:46] Rebekah: Yes. I had just finished the 2001 when I wrote that, and I was like, uh, anyway. Okay, so we’re going to talk about differences. We have our three different kinds. We usually do setting characterization and plot and timeline, but there were a few things because the book and both of these films are so different.

There were a few things that I thought we should just discuss first that kind of fit into multiple categories, partly so that you have context for everything else that we talk about. So the first of these. That really threw me off because I had seen the 1968 film growing up and I was familiar with the story and I’ve watched all of the new like prequel rebooty kind of stuff.

Um, I actually called mom and dad in the midst of reading because the book is set on a truly alien planet. So there’s characters that go and they visit this alien planet, um, that is lit by the star beetle juice. 

Mm hmm. 

And they’re actually on an alien planet. However, the 1968 movie and every subsequent version of this story has basically revealed that earth itself is the planet that they land on.

You just think that they’ve landed on a different planet. And at the end of the films, you discover, Oh, they’ve been on earth the whole time. Now in the book. Uh, the main character does go back to Earth, discovering that apes also rule there, but he truly was on an alien planet. And it literally took me out of it so much, I had to call and ask Dad for sure, is this what actually happened?

So, that was the first thing that I thought needed pointed out. 

[00:16:22] Josiah: I do think the 2001 film is an alien planet. It has two moons. 

[00:16:27] Rebekah: Okay. So that’s weird though, because when he goes back to earth and he like lands on earth, they have a statue of fade where Abraham Lincoln would have been. And it says something about how fade saved us.

So it seems to try to imply 

[00:16:43] Tim: that the ending doesn’t make sense. Well, I watched a YouTuber make sense of that, that, okay, remember in 2001, I won’t go too far, but in the, in the 2001 one, they, the chimp went into this time dilation first. Mm hmm. But it comes out of it last, so there’s a time problem. Uh, so when the main character, Wahlberg, goes back to Earth in that same vessel, the thought is that Fade goes back and beats him there by a long enough length of time that he brings the apes into power.

Because that’s kind of what it says in the fade memorial that used to be, uh, the Lincoln Memorial. No, I 

[00:17:32] Josiah: mean, it’s an interesting idea of how to make that work. It probably is the explanation that they never got to explain, but it is dumb. 

[00:17:41] Rebekah: Okay, so, my original point then, to clarify, cause I also, I thought, well maybe they just did a bad job explaining it.

So then it turns out that the book, yeah, they did the book. And then 2001, technically they do land on an alien planet, but in the 1968 film and it’s, uh, you know, the other ones, the ones that came after it, they were actually on earth the whole time, but we don’t know what that prequel series that started with rise of the planet of the apes.

We don’t know if they’re trying to say that this is the place where that happened or whatever, but we’ll get into that later. Um, the next thing that I thought was kind of wild is that the main character is incredibly different in the book and in both films. So why don’t you guys kind of help me flesh that out a little bit.

[00:18:29] Tim: Okay. In the book, Elise Miro, and I’m sure I don’t pronounce that right. The correct pronunciation 

[00:18:36] Rebekah: is Ulysse Miro. 

[00:18:39] Tim: Okay, you’re the one that speaks French, not me. It’s Ulysse Merleau. Merleau, sorry. Merleau is a journalist on the space expedition. He was invited to join it. Um, he is from France. The mission is led by the aging Professor Entel and joined by Entel’s physician follower, Arthur Levine, who is younger.

Entel ultimately loses his mind on display at a zoo while Levine Levine is killed in the ape arrest. Uh, Maru is a classy, albeit emotional man with some science knowledge. So French. 

[00:19:19] Rebekah: He’s very French. 

[00:19:20] Tim: He is very French. And he, and he speaks a lot in the movie about, uh, gentlemen and ladies and, and things like that.

And it doesn’t really sound like the, the mid 19th, uh, mid 1900s. It sounds like the turn of the century before. So the early, 

[00:19:39] Donna: early 1900s. In the 1968 film, the leader, George Taylor, is neither French nor proper. He’s kind of like a cowboy. Uh, that’s the, probably the best word I can think of to describe his personality.

He’s the head of a mission of four astronauts that departed earth in the seventies. His crewmates were Dodge and Landon and a woman crewmate named Stewart who died on the journey. Dodge is killed in the initial arrest once they get to the, this ape planet. Landon lives For a while, but we find out he had brain surgery and it totally messed with his communication skills and his cognitive abilities and he becomes a mute.

Taylor is the star. He’s jaded. He’s rough around the edges. And he’s determined he’s gonna live, um, whether, whether or not he causes trouble, he’s gonna make it. He’s that character. He 

[00:20:54] Rebekah: also smokes a lot, including on the spacecraft and on this new planet. It really threw me off. 60s and 70s. Like John Heston, man.

It was a thing. It was a 

[00:21:07] Tim: cigar. 

[00:21:07] Josiah: Yeah. Oh man. I’m just thinking in a spaceship, even in the, even in the sixties, I feel like you should have known you can’t recycle that. You can’t recycle that out of your atmosphere. You know, 

[00:21:20] Rebekah: it’s really, you know, it’s really funny. One of the things I wrote down as I was taking notes, like watching the original film was, This was before the era of hyper realism in movies where like movies do their best if they’re trying to use like modern day or close technology where they will like consult like we talked about with the Martian, they consulted with NASA and like all of this stuff and everything was so on it, but like at this point, a lot of movies that had to do with space and all sorts of stuff like it.

A lot of these did not do that at all, including the fact that like they land on this planet, the water starts coming in. I mean, he goes check, he goes do an atmosphere check and bro clicks a button and there’s a green light and it’s like the atmosphere is good. And I’m like watching and reading like hyper realistic sci fi like that is so far from like the number of, yeah, it’s like, Oh, it’s like the polar opposite of that.

[00:22:15] Josiah: Planet of the Apes came out the same year as one of the first films to do a more realistic sci fi. Oh. It’s crazy that that’s true, but 2001 A Space Odyssey. Oh. It’s the same year as Planet of the Apes. Can’t believe. Maybe that’s why, maybe that’s why the 

[00:22:36] Rebekah: incredible 2001 Planet of the Apes was released that year to celebrate 2001 A Space Odyssey.

[00:22:43] Josiah: Well let me tell you about the main character in 2001 quote unquote film. Maverick astronaut, 

[00:22:50] Rebekah: Captain Leo Davidson. 

[00:22:53] Josiah: Yes, Mark Wahlberg plays Captain Leo Davidson, a maverick astronaut who takes an unscheduled flight to chase his chimp astronaut buddy. Um, and as a side note, sacrificing the lives of all of his other human friends.

And all of humanity, 

[00:23:14] Rebekah: I guess. 

[00:23:14] Josiah: And all of humanity, yep. He has two compatriots who did indeed land on the planet, a female doctor and the ship’s captain, but we don’t know this until the near the end and it happened in the long ago past because of unexplained electromagnetic time dilation. Electromagnetic storms.

I believe Tim Burton has gone on record saying, Oh, you know, if you made another movie, it could have made it make sense. No, Tim Burton. That’s your job. 

[00:23:43] Rebekah: I think you could have. I think you could have just made it made sense the first time. 

Oh my gosh. So 

yeah. So each of these books kind of starts off differently and again, they all crash land on the planet.

Sorry. Each three of the movies starts off differently. All three stories have them crash landing on the planet. It did. Oh my gosh. All three versions of this story, one of which is a book and the other two of which are films do begin differently, but they do have someone crash landing on a planet. All three of them are dudes.

Uh, and you know, that’s pretty much a lot of what they have in common, but it is, it threw me off a lot that, um, it threw me off a lot that basically the, uh, The third one that we covered, the 2001 film was like, instead of having a crew, it was just like one guy, Mark Wahlberg’s just a guy, you know, anyway.

Um, so that was on how they alter the main character. So they also set up the why and how they like arrive on the planet. Some of that we’ve kind of covered a little bit, so feel free, but. I wanted to say like they all start in very different years and then they all have like different reasons that they go like to the planet that they’re on and what happens immediately upon arriving.

[00:25:07] Tim: Well, in the book. Um, the book is set in the year 2500. So it’s already quite a bit in the future. The book itself. Um, in that a journalist, a professor and his physician follower embark on a two year journey during which they will travel near the speed of light. before arriving at a planet near the star Beetlejuice.

Uh, they land and are soon greeted by a group of nude, savage human beings with whom they spend a brief time before being arrested by apes. And, um, they know that although their journey takes two years, it’s going to be 700. I think is what it is. They originally 

[00:25:49] Rebekah: think that, but, heck, oh, well, yes, they originally think that.

I don’t know that they established that that is different, but yeah, 700 sounds right ish. 

[00:25:57] Donna: In the 1968 film, four astronauts go on a six month journey that left Earth in 1972 and was scheduled to return after an exploratory mission. We did mention that the female Crew member died on, on the trip. They never 

[00:26:17] Rebekah: really established why.

The comment about which Charleston Heston’s character made, Uh, he establishes why. He says later that she was supposed to be their new Eve or something. Like he, did you notice that at the end of the film? He’s like, or no, it might be towards the beginning because he’s talking to Landon and Dodge. Or something.

Anyway, he makes a comment that she was basically there to be their baby factory. 

[00:26:41] Donna: That’s interesting. You’d think they take four women and a couple 

[00:26:45] Rebekah: men and one. Yeah, exactly. I’m like, why not take three women and one dude? 

[00:26:51] Donna: Hmm. 

[00:26:51] Rebekah: Yeah. Seems more efficient. 

[00:26:54] Donna: Anyway, should’ve worked that out, director of science and religion.

Yeah, what’s wrong with you? So they crash land on a planet that they believe to be in the orbit of the constellation Orion. They travel on foot for days beyond the ocean, eventually locating a group of savage humans, and they immediately get arrested. 

[00:27:21] Josiah: And that’s it. Well, in the 2001 quote unquote film, 

[00:27:25] Rebekah:

[00:27:32] Josiah: lone astronaut Mark Wahlberg goes through an electromagnetic storm.

To chase after a chimp. He had trained to pilot a spacecraft. What a surprise. The chimp got lost in the electromagnetic storm. So Mark Wahlberg is chasing after him into the storm and he sees time pass rapidly for a moment on the Spacecraft display, then crashes into a swampy area. He soon comes across a band of humans, all of whom can speak to him, which is 

[00:28:17] Rebekah: that 

[00:28:21] Josiah: is an insane change that I’ll get into more.

Uh, they can all speak to him and Mark Wahlberg is caught up in their arrest slash hunt, I guess all of all of the books. It’s really like a hunt. Of the humans that live in like capture all of them. But it, so that ends up kind of being consistent across all three stories. 

[00:28:42] Rebekah: Yeah. The three, I thought it was interesting that like.

They all had very similar, like once the crash land occurs, then there’s some hunt where they get like, you know, caught up. Like, so there’s, there is that factor, but I did think it was interesting that they keep re imagining in such different ways why on earth this has happened, like why they crash land and the fact that they start in completely different years and all that’s very interesting.

Not well in some cases, but not all cases, not literally on earth. Um, okay. So that’s like how they begin. The endings of each of the three works are also quite different, although they also have common threads. 

[00:29:23] Tim: The book ends with, uh, Elise, uh, however we pronounce that, Nova and their child returning back to Earth.

to prevent the child being in danger forever because he has been set free and he can walk around in ape society but they’ve decided they’re going to to kill, uh, to kill the child to prevent, you know, to prevent it from spreading that disease of speaking. Um, but the ending for this one they land thousands of years later to find that apes have taken over earth as well.

We assume they go back to space as the manuscript includes this part of the story, but it’s, it’s a surprise ending 

[00:30:10] Rebekah: of 

[00:30:11] Tim: its own that he lands back in Paris, right? That he lands in Paris and, and it’s controlled by apes. 

[00:30:20] Rebekah: Yeah, and he makes a comment to say that, like, it looked very much like when he left. So there’s a lot of it that remained the same, whereas in some of the other works, it kind of seems like when the apes take over, they kind of, the cities and everything is completely undone.

Here, it kind of just seems like they used infrastructure that was already there, which I thought was also interesting. 

[00:30:40] Josiah: I do want to mention that the book does have a kind of odd framing device at the very beginning and the very end of the story. Yes! That to, to a couple, it finds the Planet of the Apes story in like a message in a bottle in space.

Uh, and yeah, so technically the books ending of him landing back in Paris and there being apes, there is the plausible deniability of this is just a fictional story that doesn’t have to make sense. And so as you’re trying to figure out like, okay, how did earth turn back into or turn into a planet of the apes 

[00:31:28] Rebekah: and one of the travelers, right?

[00:31:30] Josiah: Well, yes, the couple, the framing story are apes, and so one of the options for an answer is it is a, it is science fiction that doesn’t make any sense in universe. 

[00:31:42] Rebekah: Because that’s what the, that’s what the female ape at the end says that she just, they, the author went too far saying that humans could ever have been sentient or whatever.

[00:31:53] Josiah: Yeah. As she made up her chimpanzee face. Yes. 

[00:31:58] Donna: Yes. And I enjoyed reading the book and seeing some of that play out the, the, the similarities and the differences, uh, for sure I did, I did think that the way they adapted it was one thing and, uh, the 1968 film ends with Taylor and Nova escaping from an orangutan led crew of religious zealots.

And I did think it was interesting that Dr. Zayas. As much as you don’t like him, called them off and very cleverly knew what knew what they were facing. And that was a very clever decision for him. I thought, uh, they ride a horse down the beach and they come around this long stretch and they see the head of the Statue of Liberty laying on the ground, partially buried and stuck up and Charlton Heston gets off that horse, falls to the ground and just loses it.

And they see they’ve been on earth the entire time. It’s a very, it’s a very effective ending. 

[00:33:12] Josiah: It makes me sob. 

[00:33:14] Rebekah: Yeah. You said you cried. I, if you haven’t seen this movie, like I knew that that was where they were. Cause I had seen the movie growing up. And so when I rewatched it, it wasn’t like a surprise, but even with it not being a surprise.

And even though You know, his character, is it Davidson? Is that right? No, Davidson is the one from Taylor. Um, when Taylor has already decided, like he lives here now, like he can’t get home. He’s going to like live here. It’s not like he thinks he can go back, but I think this, the like awful realization that his planet is this planet.

And that like the human race is gone. Like it just breaks him in this really emotionally jarring way. It’s so good. 

[00:33:58] Josiah: And it’s presented against, without music, just the, the washing up on the beach of the foamy waves, like the waters of time, washing away the sands that were sentient humanity. 

[00:34:14] Donna: Yeah. I don’t know.

That’s super poetic. 

[00:34:18] Tim: At the beginning of the film, he’s very, he’s very cynical about humanity. Um, and his crewmate was, you know, top of his class and he was all these kinds of things. And so Taylor is very cynical and said, you know, all of all of those humans, you just wanted their accolades. And that’s when he does that strange laugh toward the beginning.

You miss humanity. I don’t miss humanity. And then in the ending, he realizes he is on Earth. So. 

[00:34:51] Josiah: So, the 2001 film ends with Mark Wahlberg successfully flying back to Earth, which in itself is so stupid. Yeah, that’s so unbelievably I was watching it and he set his he set his destination on what autopilot or whatever.

He set his destination for Washington D C. Why would you ever do that? Because in reality, if the humans were still there, spoiler alert, they’re not, you would be shot down. You would be, you would be destroyed before you landed in front of the Lincoln Memorial. So he crash lands in, in between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial.

And guess what he finds there instead of a statue of Abraham Lincoln, it is Abraham Lincoln. It’s General Thane in there. Ape braham, Lincoln! That’s so good! The apes have taken over Earth! Oh no! And so some people might think that, Oh, it’s been on Earth the whole time. I think that, uh, Dad, Mm. Listen to someone who had, uh, maybe the right idea that Fade followed Mark Wahlberg and because of the time dilation stuff that we established in the beginning of the film established as if this film established anything, uh, that Fade would have gotten there earlier than Mark Wahlberg.

So that’s probably the explanation, but it’s not. It doesn’t make any sense and it’s dumb. So that’s how that movie ends. 

[00:36:37] Rebekah: So I thought it was funny. You messaged in our group as you were watching this and you said, I’m watching the 2001 version and spoiler alert. Wow. I hate everything about it, which, you know, I think you’re doing a great job that doesn’t come across at all in the way you’re speaking about it as we share facts.

Um, but it was funny cause they, I didn’t tell Josh that you started. Said that, and we watched it like the same day and just a little bit later, . And he looks at me like 45 minutes in. He goes, is this the worst movie ? Like so fast. So he agreed with you. No idea. So let’s talk about how the setting changes from the book to 

[00:37:18] Tim: the films.

Well, one of the, one of the. Changes in setting was that the planet in the book is described as green and lush while both films Show both some lush areas and some desert areas Uh, with little to no life present, so it’s only partially populated planets, you know, 

[00:37:42] Rebekah: I think one of the reasons they did this for the 1968 film was to set up the thing at the end, like that you don’t know is coming, that they’re on earth because when they land and like they’re in the desert, he tests the soil and he’s like very little to no carbohydrates.

It’s unlikely anything could grow here, which obviously is something that can be present in like areas of earth. But I think that they set it up that way to make you think they’re not on earth. Right? Like that seems on me. There’s lot, there’s 

[00:38:09] Tim: a lot of things that are set up to make you believe that it’s an alien place from the music.

Yeah. The way that the camera runs. Um, yeah, the settings, all that, 

[00:38:18] Rebekah: but notably, they don’t do what in the book was the biggest thing that was like, oh, they’re definitely not on earth. Which was the sun of that planet was Beetlejuice, which is much larger than the sun. And so he talks a lot about how the red Beetlejuice star like fills the sky during the day.

So the sun is much larger than what we see from Earth. So I did think that was interesting 

[00:38:41] Tim: too. Yeah. So the size and relative, the relative size, 

[00:38:45] Rebekah: the book says that they were traveling towards the planet. Beetlejuice, the 1968 film says that they’re traveling to a planet in the orbit of the constellation Orion.

I looked it up. Beetlejuice is in Orion. So technically they were supposedly going to the same place. Um, although it’s not, you know, specified in the same way. 

[00:39:05] Donna: The book describes the humans on the planet as always being naked, but the films choose not to go that way, obviously lowering their rating to something people could watch.

Um, and they clothe them in like just a drape of cloth to cover themselves. Um, I will say I found a piece of that said Charlton Heston I had had made comments after the filming of of the original movie because he was like in a loincloth most of the movie naked. He said it was so hot and he was rolled around on the ground when the apes would beat him and he had to be sitting and laying around.

He said even the fake rubber rocks hurt so bad. His skin was so sore. from being so exposed to the sun because they were out in the West, they filmed over in the West and it was spring into late summer that they filmed the first movie. And he said it was miserable, but you don’t see it on film because he’s awesome.

Yeah, exactly. So I thought I did find that funny. Because Charlton Heston is such a man of men has always been considered that, you know, he said it was just grueling. 

[00:40:36] Josiah: Here’s another trivia about the clothing of the film Mark Wahlberg. Put it into his contract. He only agreed to the film if he did not have to wear a loin cloth because he did not want to remind people that he used to be an underwear model.

Marky Mark. 

[00:40:55] Rebekah: Marky Mark. Dang. That’s wild. 

[00:40:58] Josiah: Uh, 

[00:40:59] Rebekah: another setting change. Okay. So here we arrive upon Rebecca’s first problem with the movies. Um, in the book, Ulysses teaches Dr. Zira the French language and she teaches him the simian language. This goes on for months. Like it is not quick. It happens over a long period of time, you know, cause learning a language is like a thing.

Both 

films show, including, I will point out the one that doesn’t take place on the planet earth. Both films show everyone speaking English and for some inexplicable reason, no one is surprised in any way that they just all speak the same language. 

[00:41:45] Josiah: Yes, in the 2001 catastrophe, it does make sense because those apes are from the spaceship that Mark Wahlberg was on.

So what you’re saying is the 2001 movie 

[00:41:58] Rebekah: had the most reasonable explanation. 

[00:42:02] Josiah: But it doesn’t make sense that Marky Mark does not think about that. Trivia, do you remember what the planet in the novel is named? I believe it’s named that by the astronauts. Soror? Soros? Soror? Soror, which is Latin for sister, as in sister planet.

Oh, okay. I didn’t realize that. That’s cool. Well, there are also some strong religious undertones in both movies, though it is less so in the book. I think that the world building is there in the book, that the religion and the science Might be intertwined. Is that true? It’s just not as major a plot point.

Well, the thing is in the book and it’s kind of interesting. I don’t mind either version in the book. He’s accepted into society for months, which is a big deal as a child that might talk, which is the, which is the catch. And so the fact that he’s accepted into society, honestly, the novel is a little more, or a little less anti religion.

[00:43:10] Rebekah: Yeah. I just, I remember watching it during the 1968 one, they started getting into the sacred scrolls and the like this. And there was like basically a Bible that, you know, Dr. Zayas was using and like he, it was why he was new to be warned about this. Taylor guy and why basically he believes him to be somewhat of an antichrist.

I don’t know. I just thought it was very fascinating, like how they, how they did all of that. ’cause it felt like they wanted to make religion this really, really major part of it. 

[00:43:41] Josiah: Yeah. And in the 2001 film, the religious undertones are, I mean, I didn’t even wanna start, I didn’t even wanna start because what was Tim Burton trying to say?

With the 2001 film, he was clearly trying to say something because Helena Bonham Carter’s character is this altruist Tyrion Lannister, that’s not a joke that any of you know about or care about. By the ending of Game of Thrones, the most interesting character has turned into the audience avatar who just says whatever the audience is supposed to believe so that the audience is told to believe it.

Helena Bonham Carter says, Oh, we shouldn’t, we shouldn’t test dangerous things on these human animals. Oh, religion should not stop us from pursuing science. Oh, guns are so terrible. It’s all of these altruistic, unlikable preachy nesses of Helena Bonham Carter. That’s clearly Tim Burton trying to say these things, 

[00:44:43] Tim: but they don’t hold up.

Okay. So In both films, there is some sort of a forbidden zone where the apes may not travel. That is not part of the book. Right. 

[00:44:55] Rebekah: And that I feel like has to do with the religious undertones of everything because it’s all based on trying to hide the origins of the humans or whatever 

[00:45:05] Tim: things that challenge what we tell you.

[00:45:09] Rebekah: Yeah. Um, there’s a few major things that play into lots of little tiny pieces we don’t have to talk about as far as the way that characters are changed. But I did find it interesting. There is only one character whose name is consistent across all three works, book, and both movies, and it is Nova. So in the book, Nova is the character with whom, uh, the main character, Ulysse, uh, essentially becomes very attracted to, although he admits, He has trouble seeing her as someone he can love, but he does, you know, sleep with her and stuff, and they have a child together.

She’s later able to develop some speech and learn a bit after having their child together. Um, and he essentially partners with her. In the 1968 film, he Charlton Heston’s character, uh, Taylor meets Nova. She’s a beautiful mute savage. There is some suggestion of a physical relationship between the two of them, and they obviously partner, but it’s not as explicit as in the book.

The 2001 film keeps the name Nova. Nova is played by a character, an air by an actress named Lisa Marie. But here’s the kicker. She’s not the main human female character that was played by Estella Warren. That person was named in the cast as Dana. Dana is significantly involved in the plot. She’s the love interest to Mark Wahlberg’s, uh, Uh, character, sort of.

She’s in love with him. He doesn’t really seem to be that interested in her. And has no other characters. Nova, Nova is barely present, and I don’t think has any speaking lines. Does that sound right? 

[00:46:45] Tim: I think she’s supposed to have one speaking line, but I missed it when I watched the movie, so I’m not sure if it was not edited out.

But she’s in the credits. Her name and character are in the credits. Wild. Interesting. They did keep her name. 

[00:46:59] Rebekah: Fun fact, actually, they do keep one other name, but it’s only the name. It has nothing to do with the character, but Dr. Zayas. It’s in the book in the 1968 film, the orangutan, um, doctor who’s kind of in charge of Dr.

Zira and Cornelius in a way, and he kind of throws some wrenches into their plans. Oh, he’s the director of science and religion. Correct. Uh, they keep that name because general fades father who was cameoed by 

[00:47:28] Tim: Charlton Heston 

[00:47:30] Rebekah: Exactly. Uh, that is General Thade’s father’s name is Zaeth. So they do keep that name, but again, it has nothing to do with that character.

Similarly to how they changed Nova’s name. 

[00:47:39] Josiah: Have I already mentioned Charlton Heston’s Line when his character dies, how much I hated it when he died. Well, you have mentioned how much you hated the movie curse them all, just like he says that the Statue of Liberty, as if Tim Burton is inviting me specifically to compare the two of how is it different?

Nuclear weapons destroyed humanity versus. What is, what is Zaius in the 2001 film saying about it? Is he saying, curse the humans who had guns? Because they will destroy 

[00:48:19] Tim: society. Humans will destroy the world. That allowed 

[00:48:23] Josiah: ape society to flourish! What is his character? A secret human? He is. He is Charlton Heston.

He’s 

[00:48:33] Rebekah: a secret 

[00:48:34] Josiah: human. 

[00:48:34] Tim: Preserved. Yeah. It is also interesting that he would, that he would say that line just in case anybody didn’t notice through the makeup that it was Charlton Heston. You didn’t notice? I didn’t. I mean, he was 33 years older. I don’t know. Helena 

[00:48:52] Josiah: Bonham Carter was deigned to be a part of such an awful project.

[00:48:59] Rebekah: Yeah, I’m genuinely kind of shocked. When you said he did that cameo, I about lost it. 

[00:49:03] Josiah: The 2001 film introduces some all new characters, such as the aforementioned Ari, or Airy. Did we, did, how was it pronounced? Who cares? They never say her name. I was literally listening the whole 

[00:49:16] Rebekah: time. 

[00:49:17] Josiah: When her, her first or second scene, there’s like this nameless ape behind her who says, come on Ari.

And I remember noting, that’s how they’re going to introduce her name. Some nameless ape walking away from her, just aimlessly saying it. I had subtitles on. I’m 

[00:49:36] Rebekah: so sad that I missed that because I was writing my notes of like the changes that I noticed because I didn’t realize it was a completely different plot.

And I literally wrote down Zira. Thinking that’s who she was supposed to be the whole time. And I was like, I guess they just changed her character a lot. And then I get to the end and I’m like, I never heard them say her name. And so I had to look it up. I didn’t know what her name was. I had to look it on.

I think I looked at it on the credits, but. 

[00:49:59] Josiah: And there’s also General Fade. Oh, yeah. Was played by Tim Roth. And we do like Tim Roth from Lie to Me. And he was in a couple of Quentin Tarantino films that were fun. Totally. Yes, General Fade films. 

[00:50:12] Tim: say, I think he’s out of his mind. 

[00:50:17] Donna: Yes. 

[00:50:18] Rebekah: And 

[00:50:18] Donna: what is any so 

[00:50:19] Tim: strange in comparison to all of the other apes?

[00:50:23] Donna: Another characterization change is the romantic undertones between the main character. And the zero of the book. So if you remember in the 68 film that was played by Kim Hunter, she was a doctor who had been doing things with humans to try to develop them more. I don’t. And also for research purposes, like research, you know, improve medicine.

And she wasn’t the over the top person that Helena Bonham Carter was in the toe. There are different people. She was a she was a doctor. and was, uh, engaged to Cornelius. Uh, I did think it was interesting that they had some different, uh, different thoughts from each other, but I loved their relationship.

However, the Zira in the book and the films always had some affection for the main human that came. There is a kiss between all three mediums, book and both films. There’s a kiss between Zira and the lead. human. The 68 version doesn’t put any real emphasis on a romantic relationship or anything like that.

When Taylor says to Zira, I’d really like to kiss you, There’s intrigue, like she’s curious, but she’s also looking to her fiance like, Oh, he’s standing right there. I don’t know. And then she brings out this incredibly iconic thing, but you’re just so ugly 

[00:52:17] Rebekah: and it’s 

[00:52:17] Donna: great because of course. Charleston Heston is a huge heartthrob of Hollywood at that point.

Um, the 2000 version changes that female character drastically. Um, so while she, it’s a completely different thing. So while she and Davidson connect, she’s not engaged either. So both of those things go on. Um, and it’s the Helena Bonham Carter character that’s so lusting over Davidson. Um, and they do have a kiss at the end as well.

So 

[00:52:56] Josiah: about what you just said, mom, I think that the screenwriters wanted to make a more romantic connection between Ari and Davidson in the 2001 version. But the studio said No, that’s just unsettling. We’re not gonna do that. I’m surprised that I do believe there’s a kiss in the final cut of the film. Uh, a kiss goodbye.

It’s not fully romantic. But I also think that Ari being pursued by General Thade unsuccessfully is a vapid. empty symptom of what I assume was dime, dime store feminism that they were going for, that Ari isn’t available to any male character, which in theory would be a nice, strong female trait. But in practice, Uh, she’s she what’s left is very annoying and so I’m not saying that she should have been romantically available.

I’m just saying, uh, if you’re going to make strong female characters, you can’t just take away traits that are bad. You have to add traits that are good. You know what I mean? He 

[00:54:13] Donna: just was trying to hype up AIDS madness. So they thought, well, if he’s hot into her and he sees her intrigued by Davidson, well, maybe that’ll ramp up his crazy.

[00:54:27] Josiah: I don’t know. While we’re still on characterization, what do you think about General Thade’s craziness? Was it cool and interesting? Was it too far, not enough? I think it was over the top. Okay, thank you. He was saying to you felt like he was so much constantly 

[00:54:44] Tim: problem. He was less crazy in the Hulk movie where he played, um, abomination, abomination, which he was crazy, but he was less crazy in that one.

[00:54:59] Donna: Think about the way they put this together. in the 68 film. Zaius, he was zealous. He was passionate about his beliefs, but he also was very wise. Yeah. And I disagreed with his beliefs. Right. But compare that to the 2021 thing, it’s like, oh, 

[00:55:24] Josiah: God, and here’s the thing. Zeus as a character represents religion and science against progress or accepting truths outside of the accepted dogma.

What does General Zade represent? To me, what, what General Zade, Zade, Zade, lol, what General Zade represents is that one crazy guy is bad. It’s like, yeah, we all know one crazy guy is bad. What are you trying to say? What’s the, what’s the theme of this? And so I think General Thade is a huge 

[00:56:02] Tim: miss. I did like, however, the short little bit that we got, uh, in the 1968 film, uh, with Lucius, who was the nephew of Dr.

Zira. And, uh, I liked his character. I thought it was really neat. He was a teenager and he had some of the stereotypical, Um, things of a teenager or the traits of a teenager in 1960s, you know, don’t trust anybody over 30 and, you know, Charlton Heston says, keep doing that and all of that questioning authority.

I thought it was a really nice character. He didn’t have a lot of time on screen, but I think it was one of those, uh, likable very quickly engaging characters. 

[00:56:44] Rebekah: Okay. So now I know we’ve talked a lot about pieces of the plot and how the timelines are different, but let’s talk about a couple of the additional changes.

So another major thing I think is interesting, and we’ll get into some of the prequel series here as well, is that the way that the humans become savage and the apes rise is different across the three works. Okay. So. In the book, there’s no clarity of whether on the alien planet or on earth, exactly what happened because both on the alien planet and on earth, assuming that this is not just a piece of fiction, which obviously it could have been, um, both situations, the humans were in charge first and then the apes took over, um, Ulysses, right?

Implies a plague or something like a major cataclysmic event may have been the cause. Um, and there is discussion of how it seems that the apes have been able to do nothing but imitate, but not create what the humans of the alien planet had once established. So it does seem like there’s some missing thing there, but outside of that they do not get into here’s how all of this happened to begin with.

[00:57:55] Tim: Gotcha. The 68 film, uh, doesn’t really establish any of that, uh, but the third through the fifth films in that original series do go back and start what appears to be an alternate timeline. Who’s pregnant and Cornelius travel back to 1970s Earth. Through that time dilation that they didn’t explain anything about, um, their son who would eventually be named Caesar ends up leading an ape, uprising, and fathering a race of more intelligent apes, uh, in this alternate alternative future.

Though apes and humans live in harmony 17 year, 700 years later, and I’m not sure I would say they live in harmony, I would say they live. Well, perhaps at the same time. 

[00:58:41] Rebekah: Harmony. Sorry. Maybe harmony is not the same thing. They live, they’re both intelligent and they are, neither of them is like over the other technically.

Is that correct? 

[00:58:50] Tim: Yeah. And in the television series that picks up on all of that, um, it is also, uh, they do live in communities together and humans talk and it was a different part of the planet perhaps or whatever, but. Yeah, in the, the new, the new prequel is a little different than that. 

[00:59:12] Rebekah: When we scheduled this episode, I assumed that the new prequel series that started with Rise of the Planet of the Apes in 2011 was connected to the original series that started in 68 with the Charlton Heston movie.

Then I got more into this. And so for our listeners, I wanted to clarify because I had to research this just to clarify the book is kind of the loose inspiration for all of this stuff. The 68 film. There are five total in that series. And like dad just said, that also had a short television series in the late seventies, I think, um, that was in that same universe, follow the same plot line, whatever.

The 2001 film was supposedly some sort of a reboot that technically completely stand on, stands on its own and the rise prequel series thus far, the good one that we all, I like a lot. Um, and the new movie just came out when this episode is releasing, um, the kingdom of the planet of the apes that is also technically not connected to the 1968 series.

However, there are some Easter eggs that suggest there may be a point at which they try to tie it back into that, but there are some inconsistencies. Um, the reason I want to point it out here is because in the 68 films, 68 and beyond, um, like you just said, there’s like, You know, Zira and Cornelius go back to the past and they have a son and that all this stuff happens, but that is considered an alternate timeline completely.

Like it’s not technically considered the way that apes took over on earth in the first timeline, if that makes sense. And so I just, yeah, I wanted to clarify that. 

[01:00:56] Tim: The new prequel series with the dawn of the planet of the apes, uh, and all of that, in my mind. That one goes back to the first film, not the series of films, but the first film and says, how could this have started?

[01:01:14] Rebekah: They have actively not, they’ve actively like not connected them, but there are Easter eggs, but they, it has, there’s inconsistencies enough to suggest that they’re technically separate stories kind of based on the same idea. If that makes sense. At 

[01:01:28] Donna: least gave themselves. a fallback because their baby’s named Caesar and the, and James Franco calls his monkey Caesar.

[01:01:37] Tim: Right. And that would have become a very important name over time. But what I’m, what I’m saying is not that it’s connected to the whole series, but connected to the first film, because in the first film, they don’t establish how the human society, human civilization died and the ape civilization started.

I think the prequel series with the dawn of the planet of the apes and through the new kingdom of the planet of the apes all of that is kind of an explanation of how that may have happened that doesn’t include Zira and Cornelius going back in time and having a child. 

[01:02:16] Donna: It’s all that virus, ALZ, 113. 

[01:02:20] Rebekah: Yeah.

Now, how did the, how did the apes rise and humans become whatever they were in the 2001 film, Josiah? 

[01:02:27] Josiah: Let me tell you, Rebecca, that the 2001 quote unquote film establishes the explicit backstory of intelligent apes, as Mark Wahlberg’s ship, which entered the time dilating electromagnetic storm after Mark Wahlberg.

That means in this universe that they were actually earlier in time Yes, by thousands of years, and the monkeys on the ship are what became the intelligent apes led by CMOs. 

[01:03:04] Rebekah: They call them enhanced. They were led by CMOs. They were, they called them enhanced, genetically enhanced 

[01:03:10] Josiah: chimps. I guess. That’s why 

[01:03:11] Rebekah: they were being trained to pilot ships.

Yeah. 

[01:03:14] Josiah: Yeah. And because 

[01:03:15] Rebekah: of their enhancements, the, 

[01:03:16] Josiah: the chimp, they got lost in the electromagnetic storm. They piloted that really well. 

[01:03:24] Tim: He was so advanced. I have one tiny little thing here. The book refers to them as monkeys over and over and over. The movies tend to refer to them as apes, but. In one of the movies, and I think it’s probably the third, the third, well, I think it’s the third movie that, um, that Zira reminds people, that reminds Taylor, or one of the other characters, apes don’t have tails.

Monkeys have tails. They are, there is a difference. And so they see a difference. So I was just surprised that the book is they’re apes and apes and are there monkeys and monkeys and monkeys and everything else is apes. And I wonder if it’s the difference between the scientific classification at the time of the writing of the book and the time as the movies began to come out.

[01:04:16] Rebekah: I will say with that in the Mark Wahlberg film, there is actually a point at which he calls the monkeys and all of the apes. stare at him and look offended, because as if it’s very racist, 

[01:04:25] Josiah: they say they’re lower on the evolutionary chain and that’s a mess of a movie. Hey, in the novel, Oh, finally I get to talk about the novel.

It’s so weird. You gave me all the 2001 film stuff for some God forsaken reason. Uh, no, I love it. I think it’s funny. Ulysses is the main character in the book. He sleeps with Nova. Before the capture and during it, during it. 

[01:04:52] Rebekah: Not during it, but like after they’ve been. While, while living in captivity. During the big ape hunt.

During captivity. We gotta redo this real quick. 

[01:05:02] Josiah: Okay, I’m gonna redo that. 

[01:05:04] Donna: No, don’t redo it, just go on. 

[01:05:06] Josiah: Nova becomes pregnant. Leading Ulysses to believe that he is called to restart the race of intelligent humans. While the main characters all have some level of interest in Nova, the films do not show this degree of intimacy.

The 1968 film somewhat implies it, but there’s never any physical intimacy. 

[01:05:31] Rebekah: They wrote into the 1968 film script that Nova was pregnant. They filmed scenes, um, that revealed her pregnancy in the draft that did not make it to the end. Taylor was killed by the bullet of an ape sniper, while Nova, who was pregnant with his child, escapes and vanishes into the forbidden zone.

So, there were obviously multiple changes that go into this. However, Linda Harrison, the actress who played Nova, thought it was Heston who rejected the idea of Nova’s pregnancy. So then those scenes are deleted, they write it so that a setup for a second movie can happen. And according to screenwriter Michael Wilson, it was quote, at the insistence of a high echelon Fox executive who found it distasteful.

Why? I suppose that if one defines the mute Nova as merely humanoid and not actually human, it would mean that Taylor had committed an unspeakable act, essentially, um, which I think is interesting. I 

[01:06:24] Donna: also considered Nova’s pregnancy as a distraction from the film’s ending. 

[01:06:30] Josiah: Um, the, the book’s big wow moment for me was, oh my gosh, Nova’s going to have a kid.

Is it going to talk or not? And that’s a huge deal. So I do think that that is the book’s, oh no moment. What does this mean for not only like humanity, simianity, all of that. 

[01:06:50] Rebekah: I have a question, mom and dad, because you have watched all of the originals, obviously more than once. Um, do you like the second movie?

Because I read the plot of the second movie last night, and I was like, wow, why would you set this up for a sequel? This is 

[01:07:06] Tim: terrible. It wasn’t set up for a sequel. The first one was supposed to be the only movie. And then they decided it made so much money, how do we make it? So they’ve walked into the forbidden zone, how do we deal with that?

I think the way they dealt with it was strange. Um, and it was, it was awkward. They brought in a new actor to basically go through the same things that Taylor had already gone through. Uh, and then to end up in the forbidden zone and be killed. Um, And then the whole planet was destroyed. Do you 

[01:07:41] Rebekah: know how the, yeah, hold on, yeah, did you know that that’s how the second movie ends?

[01:07:44] Tim: What? 

[01:07:45] Rebekah: They blow the planet up. 

[01:07:47] Josiah: Wow. The 

[01:07:47] Rebekah: entire planet. I knew that the third, I 

[01:07:49] Josiah: knew that the third, fourth, and fifth film, I think, took place on our more modern day Earth. I think the fifth film might jump ahead in time, but. But I assume that something bad 

[01:08:01] Tim: happened to the Planet of the Apes. We’ve talked about bunches of strange things about the 2001 film.

Um, it’s completely different plot. In it, it, there’s some really disturbing things. The humans are sold, but not for science. They’re not just used for experimentation. They’re just sold. They can talk. And they can talk. They are undeniably sentient. They can talk and think and all of that. Um, there is a complex subplot about a human rights faction, uh, that RE is part of, uh, and they’re trying to establish separate but equal rights and conditions for humans, which is, which by 

[01:08:38] Rebekah: the way is a bad era in our 

[01:08:41] Josiah: country.

[01:08:43] Rebekah: The whole plot is completely different. So the 2001 movie ends almost, well, not quite ends, but near the end of the movie, there’s this big fight scene where all of the humans come to follow Mark Wahlberg who doesn’t want them to follow him or whatever. And he doesn’t plan to stay if he doesn’t 

[01:08:58] Tim: have to.

[01:08:59] Rebekah: Yeah, exactly. He’s never planned to stay, but there’s this huge ape army and it’s obviously got more people in it than the humans could ever hope to have. And they’re armed better and all of that stuff. They have horses, the humans basically don’t have that many. And so I also would just like to say, I really tried, I tried to connect and try to be like, okay, let me just think about this as if it’s a separate story.

What about this? Do I like, what about this? Can I find value in? So the way That Mark Wahlberg’s character decides to come up with this is that he’s like, Oh, there’s these fuel cells are nuclear or whatever. Like they’re designed to last forever. And so then he, I’m just, this is not an exaggeration. He clicks like three buttons and somehow he makes the power cell explode out of the middle of the ship.

Like somehow that would have been designed to do this as some sort of weaponization. Then he just yeets the apes. 

[01:09:55] Tim: Acceleration. It would have, it was the ship that was designed for space and so it would have just been something to cause it to accelerate. 

[01:10:03] Rebekah: It did not come from what looked like engines. It came from the part of the ship he walked into that was like the place you would be as a human.

Yeah, 

[01:10:10] Tim: not the engine room. That was bad editing and things like that. I agree. 

[01:10:15] Rebekah: Yeah. 

[01:10:15] Josiah: You know. What, it was badly written? Oh, that’s so interesting. Okay. Okay. Can you, I checked out at the fight scene, can you talk to me about what you thought about the fight scene? 

[01:10:29] Tim: It was supposed to be a feel good conclusion.

The humans who can speak and think are finally going to be taken seriously and they’ll be part of society now that they have rebelled and they’ve decided ape and human can live together. That’s supposed to be what you get out of it. What you do get out of it, however, is that there’s this overwhelmingly militaristic ape society.

and this underwhelmingly non militaristic human society that somehow conquers them enough to where now we’re all going to live together. Two days ago, we were buying you out of cages to play with our children as their slave, and now we’re all going to be good together. Um, 

[01:11:23] Josiah: And do you know what they always say?

Violence is always the answer. 

[01:11:29] Rebekah: That’s what I’ve heard. The other thing I thought was really interesting about the book that I really liked was they explain this months long preparation for Ulysses big reveal. So what’s going to happen on the planet is that thousands of scientists. That are on some council, uh, science scientists, faith based and political apes, which kind of all of that plays in at the same exact time for them, they gather periodically and have scientists come up and show like demonstrations of things they’ve discovered, whatever.

And so zero comes up with this idea that if least get up, gets up and gives a speech like a full speech, that’s clearly not just rehearsed in the simian language that Dr. What’s his name? Dr. Zayas won’t be able to deny it, like won’t be able to stop essentially him from being found out as a an alien and be a sentient human.

And so he like learns their language. He practices the speech over and over like there’s this whole long thing. So after that point in the book, which is like three fourths of the way through it. He’s given respect. They give him clothing, which was like a big deal because he was naked the entire book before this, um, by the way, so glad that they close on everybody in the booth.

It would have been so much more complicated. Um, he was actually given a research position, uh, and he went with Cornelius in the book to find that like human city that Cornelius is. looks at and finds and researches or whatever. And so he’s part of that mission. It’s not like under the table. It was like an actual thing that was a planned thing to do.

Um, the 1968 film does use like a hearing with some apes in charge, but there’s no resolution. The rest of the film, they deviate completely because they’re like having to run from The authorities and yes, they discover the area that Cornelius was researching where the humans may have been before when they were intelligent, but it was like they had to run away and, um, you know, sneak off and do all of that.

[01:13:30] Josiah: I love that council scene where he successfully delivered the speech cause I thought, I thought that Zaius was going to take him down and in the book he was successful and not only was I thinking, Oh, that’s so, that’s such a triumphant moment that didn’t happen in the iconic movie. I love it, but also what is the rest of this book about?

[01:13:49] Rebekah: Yeah, 

[01:13:49] Josiah: yeah. I thought that was interesting. I mean, it’s the pregnancy, but also, um, were any of you whiplashed when Zira says, we’re going to get you off of the planet? And then you’re going to rendezvous with your ship and go back home. And, like, one page later, he’s getting on his ship. 

[01:14:12] Rebekah: There was no tension.

It was like, oh, okay, it worked. It just happens. Okay, they did it. Great. So glad that was easy. Yeah, not so easy. 

[01:14:20] Tim: It was almost like Pierre got to that part of the book and his publisher said, I need this by tomorrow or we’re not going to be able to publish it. And he said, okay, okay, we’ll do it this way.

[01:14:33] Donna: Well, we’ve been kind of reviewing with some of our comments what we thought about some of this, but let’s look at what the general public thought. Uh, the book rating on good reads is 3. 98 out of five. The movie rating might be a little disparity between these two. 

[01:14:52] Rebekah: The 

[01:14:53] Donna: 68 film has an 87 percent critics rating on rotten tomatoes.

And a 44 percent rating for the 2001 release. Not as fresh. The production cost 1968 was 5. 8 million. Side note, the makeup budget, which was 345, 542

when adjusted for inflation Goes to about 2 million, but related to the cost in 68. It is still one of the highest makeup budgets for theatrical release. They spent about 17 percent of the total 5. 8 million. on makeup. While the 68 version cost 5. 8 million, the 2001 version 100 

[01:15:47] Rebekah: million. 

[01:15:48] Donna: Opening weekend 1968 3.

6 million. The movie was number one at the box office for three weeks. All three weeks it grossed over 3 million. Which I thought that was pretty cool. 2001, 62 million for the first weekend. 

[01:16:07] Tim: The makeup artist, John Chambers, who was best known at the time for creating Spock’s ears, grafted the apes prosthetics, then had other makeup artists come in and receive training on how he wanted the characters to look.

Characters, which was great. Yes. Characters, Cornelius and Dr. are on display at the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle. Chambers won an honorary Oscar at the 41st Academy Awards for his work on Planet of the Apes long before there was a best makeup category. That’s really cool. 

[01:16:41] Donna: One of the things that I found interesting was the makeup took about three hours.

per ape. Wow. Many days of filming were 12 hours long. When the actors ate meals, they had to sit in front of a mirror and make notes about any changes in their mouth or around their jawline or anything like that. Um, they bought them all long thin cigarette holders so they could stick just a very small stick in their mouth to puff.

Kim Hunter, who played Zero, had a lot of issues with claustrophobia and she was freaking out to sit through the makeup session. So she started taking Valium every morning before she went in. She finally Through the middle of this thing said, I don’t think I need this anymore. And the first day she was off of it, her makeup artists threatened to walk out if they didn’t get, get some value in her because she was driving him and saying wild.

[01:17:45] Rebekah: Land of the apes was also a big deal. Um, because it was the first one to invest a lot of money in merchandising. So I feel like that’s, we’re used to that now, even so far as things like the dune popcorn bucket that got a lot of weird press. Um, that’s like a typical thing for us now, but it was the first one.

It had almost 300 licensed items. And so at the time it was the largest merchandising effort of all time, worth close to a hundred million and would spurn a lot of, uh, A lot of other inspired films and IPs would follow in their footsteps. 

[01:18:20] Josiah: When I think about merchandising films, I think of Star Wars being the first big, big, big one.

I guess that was like 10 years later. I assume it was exponentially more than planet of the apes, but sure. Planet of the apes, you know, might’ve started a trend or proven that it would work. We just 

[01:18:38] Rebekah: have now we just have Harry Potter, which literally has Like a theme park and all of these books and movies and so many board games and literally Barnes and Noble 

[01:18:49] Josiah: is always new Christmas gifts to buy every year 

[01:18:53] Rebekah: every year at Barnes and Noble.

There’s a full Harry Potter section with everything you can imagine so. 

[01:18:58] Donna: We mentioned earlier that they did a lot of rewriting of Rod Serling’s original script. The biggest thing they changed was he had the apes much more technologically savvy. Yes. More humanistically walking their day. Which is how the book like, yeah, originally introduces them.

They felt like it would be so much more money. That would make it too expensive to do the sets. If they kept it more ape like movements. And I think it’s interesting that the, the subsequent movies all the way up to this latest set of them do that same thing. It shows them as intelligent and, and reasoning and, and, and all those things, but they’re still, their movements are still ape like.

Okay. Well, 

[01:19:47] Rebekah: let’s talk about our final verdicts. I will go first because why not? Um, I, When dad suggested doing Planet of the Apes, my first thought was, oh gosh, that’s way too many movies. Well, no, my first thought was, that’s way too many movies. That’s so much. My second thought was I hate things said in the past.

So I didn’t know, you know, what I was going to think about it. I will say I thoroughly enjoyed the book and we’ll reread it. It’s definitely one I’ll put on my list of like re listeners. Um, The 1968 film I thought for its time in particular was really good. There were like a few things that took me out of it to the point where I will say that I think the book is a smidge better for me than the 68 film.

I know the ending is less iconic, but The 68 film had a few things that took me out, like the, the failure of anyone to notice that all of them speaking English is very weird. The 2001 film I also think was trash. It was like, I don’t think that in a couple of weeks. I watched it yesterday. I think in a few weeks I’m going to forget most of it other than what we talked about here, because I reinforced it by talking about it.

Um, but I did not find it all that intriguing. Um, I thought that the way that changed the plots and just completely created new characters, I just didn’t really get it. I didn’t understand the racism angle versus the like animal and sentience angle. And so for sure, for me, like the book is, It’s better than both of those by like a little tiny bit of 68 way, way better than 2001.

But I, I am now super engaged in this like prequel series again, and I do really enjoy it. And so I think that if I had to say if they were all four in the running, I would say the prequel films have really grabbed my attention. They’re good rewatchers for me. 

[01:21:40] Donna: I’m going to be pretty close to what you said.

I don’t know that I’ll go back and read the book again. Um, However, I hope it’s not just because the 68 movie was a part of my growing up. It was, that franchise was very popular as I was a kid and a teenager. But when we watched it again, I enjoyed it. I didn’t feel like, oh, I’ve got to get through this again for the podcast.

I genuinely enjoyed watching it and following. The movie was engaging to me. Um, and I found merit in it and I would watch it again. The 2011 series, I’m excited to Watch through it. We didn’t cover it as much here or anything. But, um, but I can remember having seen it before. We enjoyed those like I was ready for the next one to come out.

But going back to 2000 and one, I think Tim Burton just wanted to do a thing and He, he just took a lot of, of ideas and mush them around and maybe some, maybe the reason it was difficult is because a lot of it did seem to be like a statement. So, yeah, original film, I’m gonna pick it over the book. Um, although I did like the book, but I did like the movie better and I do like most shocking endings.

I can take them. There’s only a few that I kind of scoff at. But, uh, but the ending and just added to added to the enjoyment of the whole thing and So yeah, that’s me. I’m going to go movie with this one. 

[01:23:25] Josiah: My final verdict, that’s a toughie, but what’s easy is the 2001 film, bottom 25 films of all time. It’s really, really bad.

Down there with Dougal. Maybe not the bottom 10 because there was some, some nice stuff in the costume design. The makeup design I thought was a little too derivative of the 68 film, but you know, you’re deriving from something that’s great. Uh, so, and it was around the time of Lord of the Rings 2, so practical effects were probably going to be better than CGI.

Probably a good option, but, so, it wasn’t the worst film of all time, but it’s, uh, it’s one of the worst scripts of a big budget movie I’ve ever, I’ve ever had to listen to. As far as the 68 film and the book, I think they’re both so great. And I think I’m gonna give it to the movie because of the ending being more iconic.

The book was a lot better than I thought it would be. Knowing that it was gonna be different, I was pretty sure that it didn’t have the same ending. I was expecting it to be kind of a Die Hard or a Jaws, where the movie was clearly the better one. But I do think the book was really good. Like clo close to a five out of five for me.

Um, 

[01:24:42] Rebekah: yeah, 

[01:24:42] Josiah: some really cool stuff that made me question, what is humanity and how should we treat, uh, animals and things like that, that science fiction really should make you do. So I’ll give it to the movie, the 68 movie for this time around, but it was a pretty close for me. I really enjoyed the book more than I thought I would.

[01:25:07] Tim: Well, for me, um, it’s probably pretty clear cut. I enjoyed the book. I’d never read it before. Um, so listening to it this time was the first time after seeing all of the iterations earlier and including the prequel movies. Um, but I preferred the Charlton Heston film. Uh, I think that there were things about it that I look at now.

And I think Eh, I’m not sure why or, you know, some of it was a little bit cultural at the time, uh, maybe, but I think it still stands, it stands up and I really, really believe that the people playing apes are apes. Um, you know, it just, it’s very believable. And so I really like the 68 film. Um, I do think that although the 2001 Burton film used the concept of a planet of the apes, um, I’m really glad that the 2011 reboot of prequels, um, I like the story and I think they’ve done a very, very good job with it.

Some of the iterations after the first film were strange. The second film was strange. I liked the third one a little better. Um, As they got to the end of those and they got into the TV series, things got really low quality. Um, so did a lot of other things that they’ve made many sequels out of, but, um, I enjoyed it and I’m glad that the group did it.

It’s one of my all time favorites. 

[01:26:48] Rebekah: Yeah. Happy to do it. Honestly, it was, it was way more enjoyable than I expected it to be. I know that sounds silly maybe, but I ended up really liking it a lot. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a five star rating or review. It helps out the show so much. If you have feedback, questions, ideas for future episodes, you can email us.

Book is better pod@gmail.com. You can all. You can also find us most places online at bookisbetterpod. After we do Pitch Perfect in a couple of weeks, we also have a series coming out that for the entire, what is it, almost two months of the summer, we’re going to be releasing an episode on each of the Harry Potter books.

So get excited to join us for the summer of Potter. Thanks so much for listening and until then.

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