428 – Planet of the Apes

For our tenth year podcasting, we’re featuring a series of special episodes looking at some of our favorite sci-fi movies.  First up: Planet of the Apes. Movie Synopsis:  A spacecraft from Earth plows through space at near light speed. Alone in the cockpit, George Taylor muses about the world he’s left behind forever and the future of mankind.  At their current speed, centuries have passed on Earth in what has been only six months to them.    Everything he knows is gone to dust, but does man still make war against his brother? Keep his neighbor’s children starving?  He joins the remainder of his crew in suspended animation. They awaken when the ship crashes in a lake on desolate world.  Only three of the crew have survived and they escape the sinking craft to reach the shore.  It isn’t promising, it seems a desolate, uncompromising world and they have but three days of rations. After a long trek, they encounter lush fields and primitive, mute humans.  When they are attacked by gun-wielding, horse riding gorillas, Taylor is separated from the others, shot in the throat and captured.  Unable to speak, he tries to convey his intelligence to Dr. Zira, a Chimpanzee scientist on animal behavior. Trapped in a world upside down, Taylor makes friends with Zira and her fiancé Cornelius and also begins to learn that the Minister of Science, an orangutan name Dr. Zaius has a particular interest in him.  When he attempts to escape to avoid castration, Taylor manages to regain his voice and shocks the apes with his ability to speak. Brought before a tribunal of the ruling Orangutans, Taylor is unable to convince them he is from outer space.  The fate of the other astronauts is made known to him.  One had been killed in the raid that captured Taylor, the other was lobotomized and is now a vegetable.  With no corroboration, Taylor has no hope, and the orangutans make a show of demonstrating that Taylor isn’t really a reasoning, intelligent creature.  Zira and Cornelius try to make a case that Taylor is a missing link between apes and humans, who must be their primitive ancestors.  This is scientific heresy and they are indicted on charges. Zaius talks privately with Taylor.  In private, it’s clear Zaius understands Taylor’s intelligence is real and knows something more, but he believes Taylor to be from a tribe of advanced humans somewhere on the other side of the Forbidden Zone.  If Taylor will just confess and give over the info on his tribe, they won’t cut off his nuts and lobotomize him. That night, now fugitives from the law, Zira and Cornelius spring Taylor from his cage and they escape to the Forbidden Zone.  There, Cornelius, an archaeologist, had previously found the remains of an ancient civilization.  When they arrive at the dig, Zaius and his gorilla soldiers aren’t far behind.  Taking Zaius hostage, Taylor forces him to give Cornelius the opportunity to present his evidence. What Cornelius has found is all too familiar to Taylor:  Eyeglasses, dentures and an artificial heart valve.  Zaius dismisses Taylor’s explanations, but he cannot dismiss the talking human doll.  Trussed up, Zaius reveals to Taylor that he knew man came first and that he was an evil, destructive creature who destroyed himself and turned a paradise into the Forbidden Zone. Taylor leaves and heads further into the Forbidden Zone – a free man searching for answers.  He finds them when he comes across the ancient ruins of the Statute of Liberty.  The Planet of the Apes is Earth.  Taylor has been home all along.