Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Escape from the Planet of the Apes
Directed by	Don Taylor
Written by	Pierre Boulle (characters) Paul Dehn (screenplay)
Starring	Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, Bradford Dillman
Release dates	May 21, 1971 (U.S. release)
Running time	98 min.
Language	English

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is a 1971 science fiction film that is the second sequel to the Planet of the Apes movie of 1968, the first sequel being Beneath the Planet of the Apes.

The preceding film, Beneath the Planet of the Apes, ends with a nuclear weapon destroying all life on the apes' future Earth.

Escape from the Planet of the Apes begins by establishing that three apes (Cornelius, Zira, and Dr. Milo, played respectively by Roddy McDowall, Kim Hunter, and Sal Mineo) escaped the Earth's destruction. They have managed this by salvaging and repairing the astronaut Taylor's spaceship (which sank in the first movie) and piloting it through the shock wave of Earth's destruction sending the ship through a time warp back to the 20th century.

The apes arrive on present-day Earth, splashing down on the Pacific coast. The navy hauls the ship to the beach, and the apes remove their helmets. They are quickly transported to seclusion for examination and are later moved to a secluded area of the Los Angeles Zoo. Milo is killed by a mean-spirited gorilla who was agitated by an argument between himself, Zira and Cornelius, leaving the two remaining apes under the observation of two scientists, Stephanie and Lewis. Both discover the apes' power of speech. The apes then are brought before the Presidential Commission, where they reveal publicly their ability to speak, and are welcomed as guests.

The apes at first become celebrities, but they are soon watched by a scientist, futuristic consultant Dr. Otto Hasslein (Eric Braeden), who discovers Zira is pregnant and fears for the future of the human race. He is determined to force the issue, gets Zira drunk to get information out of her, and convinces the Commission to have the apes taken for proper questioning. Both are questioned under numerous means, and Hasslein learns for himself how the human race will eventually meet its downfall and be dominated by simians, and will eventually lead to Earth's destruction.

The government and the U.S. President order that the unborn child's birth be "prevented" and that both be sterilized, though Hasslein prefers they die. But after the ape Cornelius accidentally kills an orderly while imprisoned (the orderly teased Zira), Hasslein uses it as an illustration of the future danger the apes present, thus calls for the apes' murder. Running for their lives, Cornelius and Zira (assisted by Stephanie and Lewis) find shelter in a circus run by Armando (Ricardo Montalban), and there Zira gives birth to a son whom she names Milo.

Hasslein, knowing Zira will imminently give birth, orders a search of all circuses and zoos. As a result, Armando must let the apes go. The drama climaxes aboard a derelict ship in an abandoned ship yard. Hasslein tracks the apes down. He shoots down both Zira and the infant ape she carries. Cornelius and Hasslein end up in a shootout. Cornelius kills Hasslein, and in retaliation a police officer returns fire and shoots Cornelius in the heart. Stephanie and Lewis watch in horror as Cornelius gasps a final breath before falling three stories, then Zira tosses the baby over the side of the ship before crawling to lay with her husband.

The survivors, however, are unaware of the real fate of the infant ape; Cornelius, Zira and Armando switched babies before their final escape. Armando now watches over the infant Milo, who will grow up to become Caesar, the main character in the third and fourth sequels, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes and Battle for the Planet of the Apes. The film ends by showing the baby ape Milo sitting in a cage, plaintively speaking the words "Mama? Mama?" with the voice of a human child.

Trivia

• The ending of this film was purposely written so that the writers would have something to work with, in case Fox wanted another sequel.
• The story of the plague that killed off all dogs and cats as well as that of Ape slavery and subsequent uprising is a possible retcon of both prior movies, where the apes do not know of their true past. Cornelius's claim that he had read history scrolls (kept secret from the masses) that detail the human downfall could be a way to rationalize the change, but it doesn't explain why he's just as clueless as the rest of Ape society in the previous movies. (He possibly had access to them off screen during the presumed months prior to Beneath, when Zaius made Cornelius his proxy, or while he and Zira were traveling in the spaceship.)
• The concepts of Ape slavery and Ape uprising became the central theme of the next sequel, Conquest of the Planet of the Apes. Aldo, the legendary Gorilla that Cornelius believes was the first Ape possessing the power of speech, will make his (altogether different) speaking debut in the fourth sequel, Battle for the Planet of the Apes.
• Many of the scenes in this movie were inspired by the original Pierre Boulle novel. Zira's pregnancy parallels Nova's pregnancy in Boulle's original work. Also, the scene in which scientists give Zira an ‘intelligence test,’ especially her decision to make the boxes into a staircase to get closer to out-of-reach food, is based on a similar scene from the novel (in chapter 16, when Earth astronaut Ulysse Merou is tested by ape scientists). Additionally, just as happened to Zira and Cornelius after humans became aware of their intelligence, so Merou is initially lionized by ape society, before soon arousing their fears.
• This movie marks the first appearance of Dr. Otto Hasslein. The character was referred to in both previous Planet of the Apes movies, but was never seen until this film.
• James Bacon is the only actor to have appeared in all five of the Ape movies, playing an ape, except in "Escape", where he played General Faulkner, a human. Along with Natalie Trundy and Lou Wagner, he is one of the few actors to play both an ape and a human.

External links

• Planet of the Apes Yahoo Group -- The internet's largest community of PLANET OF THE APES fans.
• Planet of the Apes Yahoo Discussion Group -- A meeting place for Escape from the POTA fans.
• Escape from the Planet of the Apes at IMDb