Behind the Planet of the Apes Page #13

..and one finaI battIe|for the PIanet of the Apes is fought.

Aaargh!

As l look at apes and humans...

..living in friendship, harmony and at peace...

..now, some 600 years after Caesar's death,...

..at least we wait with hope for the future.

Lawgiver, who knows about the future?

Perhaps only the dead.

AIthough Jacobs uItimateIy wanted|to send a positive sociaI message,...

..the fiIm's finaI image is rather ambiguous.

Is the statue of Caesar crying a tear ofjoy|because man and ape are finaIIy at peace?

- We have a destiny too.|- Respecting each other.

As equals.

Or is it a tear of sorrow because|he knows that is an impossibiIity?

The human way is violence and death.

These questions wouId never be resoIved...

..because,|during the earIy stages of production,...

..it had been decided that this wouId be|the finaI chapter in the Apes series.

And that is how it was advertised|when it reached theatres in May of 1973.

We feIt Iike we had come pretty far.

Again, production-vaIue wise,|we'd gotten to a point...

..where we'd practicaIIy boxed ourseIves in.

If we went any further into the future|and toId a continuing story,...

..it wouId have been|a much more expensive picture.

(Roddy McDowall) But the story wasn't over.

Battle had done surprisingIy weII|at the box office,...

..and the CBS network|had recentIy garnered tremendous ratings...

..with the broadcast premieres|of the first three fiIms.

AIthough Jacobs and Fox briefIy considered|producing another Apes movie,...

..it was agreed that the future of the franchise|might best be expIored...

..in the uncharted universe of teIevision.

Jacobs had considered a Planet of the Apes|teIevision series as earIy as 1971.

But the continued success of the theatricaI|features deIayed his pIans for two years.

He had aIso been busy|on a number of non-Ape fiIms,...

..that incIuded Woody AIIen's|Play lt Again, Sam...

..and famiIy musicaIs Iike|Goodbye, Mr Chips and Tom Sawyer.

But during the production of his Iatest,...

..a musicaI adaptation of|Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn,...

..Arthur Jacobs died of a heart attack.

He was onIy 51 years oId.

Arthur was very, very tough.|But everybody Ioved him.

But he was aIways there. AIways on the set.

I teII you, the man worked|29 hours, eight days a week.

He was with everything, aII the time.

He was just wonderfuI.|He was an extraordinary man.

Arthur's strongest point...

..was his intense sense of the meticuIous.

But it generated resuIts.

He was one of a kind, and I do miss him.

(Roddy McDowall)|With Jacobs' death, the Apes TV series...

..was in the hands of Twentieth Century Fox.

With the heIp of writers|Anthony WiIson and Art WaIIace,...

..they began to hammer out|a workabIe concept.

And, on September 13th, 1974,...

..Planet of the Apes premiered on CBS.

I starred,|aIong with Ron Harper and James Naughton.

They pIayed|astronauts AIan Virdon and Peter Burke,...

..who are propeIIed through a time warp|and Iand on Earth in the year 3085.

By the way, their vehicIe was the same|pIywood spaceship used in the originaI fiIm.

Well, we could've landed in a worse place.

Soon they're captured|and find themseIves face to face...

..with a favourite Apes|feature fiIm character, Dr Zaius,...

..now pIayed by stage actor Booth CoIman.

Do you want this sacrilege and heresy|to infect the rest of the humans?

Certainly not, Urko.

And by questioning them,|we will learn how to avoid it.

Galen, you want to visit|our time period, don't you?

Oh... Look, l really don't know about...|lt would be interesting, wouldn't it?

Maybe the humans who made that grenade|are still on Earth.

- And maybe they have the knowledge to...|- To what?

Build a spaceship and a computer?

- Yeah! Maybe.|- What's a computer?

With the heIp of a sympathetic ape|named GaIen, the astronauts escape.

Watch out!

We kind of became The Fugitive. Each week|we were caught, and then we escaped.

That's what each show was about.

And I think that teIevision frequentIy|winds up in a kind of a formuIaic roIe.

Who's the bad guy and how wiII you escape?

(Roddy McDowall)|Week after week, the trio was pursued...

..by the ape miIitary commander,|GeneraI Urko.

l'll quarrel with anything|that keeps these two humans alive.

Urko was pIayed by Mark Lenard, best known|for his portrayaI of Mr Spock's father...

..in another famous science fiction series,|Star Trek.

The show tried to retain the eIements that|had made the motion picture so successfuI.

Drama.

Urko! You kill me, you kill yourself!

A bit of humour.

- There's a smell about you.|- Well, nobody's perfect.

Some sociaI commentary.

These humans,|they think they're as good as we are.

And pIenty of action.

(James Naughton) We were aIways whackin'|some guy over the head with a stick...

..or drop-kicking a guy in a monkey suit.

We had apes faIIin' out of trees everyhere.

(Roddy McDowall) The teIevision series'|most IoyaI audience were chiIdren.

But network executives cIaimed this was not|the audience advertisers wanted to attract.

The show was aIso scheduIed up against two|of the highest-rated comedies of the day:

Sanford and Son and Chico and the Man.

It wasn't Iong before the inevitabIe happened.

On December 6th, 1974,|after onIy four months and 13 episodes,...

..Planet of the Apes was canceIIed.

And, for the first time in its history,|the future of Apes was uncertain.

(trailer) ln the beginning,|there was Planet of the Apes.

And the most exciting series|in motion-picture history began.

AIthough the demise of the teIevision series|had proved disappointing to fans,...

..its premiere had been accompanied|by a media bIitz...

..that incIuded the re-reIease|of aII five fiIms to theatres in 1974.

(trailer) Now is your chance to go ape.

Twentieth Century Fox, Iong aware of|Apes' popuIarity with chiIdren,...

..aIso Iaunched an extensive|marketing and merchandising campaign,...

..encouraging kids|aII over the country to ''Go ape''.

It was phenomenaIIy successfuI.

There were 60 companies that were Iicensed|to turn out something Iike 300 items...

..and just this fIood|of Apes products on the market.

(Roddy McDowall) Ape action fiigures,|masks, posters, games,...

..Iunch boxes and coIouring books.

There was even a Planet of the Apes|wastepaper basket.

(Eric Greene) I think Apes heIped|pave the way for Iater fiIms Iike Star Wars,...

..where you had mass merchandising bIitzes,|which are now common, not extraordinary.

(trailer) Return to the Planet of the Apes!

In 1975, NBC TV Iaunched|Return to the Planet of the Apes,...

..a haIf-hour Saturday morning|cartoon series,...

..that depicted a more evoIved simian cuIture.

- We got all of 'em, Urko.|- Good. Take them to Ape City.

As in the originaI noveI,|apes were finaIIy aIIowed to drive cars...

..and fIy airpIanes.

Though the animated series|Iasted onIy one year,...

..other Ape incarnations|proved to have greater Iongevity.

More than three decades|after the premiere of the first fiIm,...

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