Return to the planet of the apes

Movie
German title	Return to the planet of the apes
Original title	Beneath the Planet of the Apes
Country of production	United States
original language	English
Publishing year	1970
length	Cinema and ; Blu-ray Disc: 95 minutes DVD: 91 minutes
Age rating	FSK 16
Rod
Director	Ted Post
script	Paul Dehn (Story: Paul Dehn and Mort Abrahams , ; characters: Pierre Boulle )
production	Arthur P. Jacobs
music	Leonard Rosenman
camera	Milton R. Krasner
cut	Marion Rothman
occupation
	James Franciscus : Brent; Kim Hunter : Zira; Maurice Evans : Prof. Zaius; Linda Harrison : Nova; Paul Richards : Mendez; Victor Buono : Fat man; James Gregory : Ursus; Jeff Corey : Caspay; Natalie Trundy : Albina; Thomas Gomez : priest; David Watson : Cornelius; Don Pedro Colley : Negro; Death Andrews : Skipper; Gregory Sierra : Verger; Charlton Heston : Taylor;
synchronization
chronology
← Predecessor ; Planet of the Apes	Successor → ; Escape from the Planet of the Apes

Return to the Planet of the Apes (original title: Beneath the Planet of the Apes , correctly translated into German: Unter dem Planet en der Apes ) is an American science fiction film from 1970 by Ted Post . The film is the sequel to Planet of the Apes from 1968.

action

A spaceship from Earth crash landed in an arid landscape on an unknown planet. There are two astronauts on board, Brent and the captain. Your mission is to find the missing astronaut Taylor and his crew. When Brent checks the Earth's time on the appropriate instruments shortly before the crash, he reads the year 4955 (in the original sound: 3955). Since the two astronauts flew the same trajectory as Taylor, Brent assumes that Taylor and his crew also crashed. When the skipper dies shortly afterwards and is buried by Brent, a woman on a horse approaches him: it is Nova, the mute woman who fled the monkey town with Taylor in the first film in the series. Brent discovers Taylor's dog tag on her neck and asks her to take him to Taylor, but instead she leads him straight to the city of the apes.

There is currently the meeting of the Citizens' Council taking place, at which Gorilla General Ursus incites the monkeys to militaryly conquer areas in the so-called "forbidden zone" in order to gain land for food and to subjugate the people suspected there to the ape people. Ursus explains that only apes have the ability to distinguish between good and bad, and that only a dead person is a good person.

Brent and Nova visit the philanthropic chimpanzees Zira and Cornelius, who give them provisions and new clothes. But Brent and Nova are arrested by monkeys on their retreat and taken to the zoo. When both are to be used as targets for target practice, Zira enables them to escape. When this is discovered, they are pursued by Ursus' soldiers into the "Forbidden Zone" and have to hide in an underground cave. There Brent realizes that it is the former Queensboro Plaza subway station of New York City and that he is therefore on the earth of the future.

In the meantime, General Ursus takes the blessing from the orangutan priests to wage a holy war against the people. When the gorilla army under General Ursus and Professor Zaius set off, pacifist chimpanzees stand in their way and demonstrate against the war. However, the gorillas let them get out of the way and march on towards the forbidden zone.

Brent and Nova explore the cave system and are led by an increasingly louder buzz to a group of people who became mutants due to radioactive radiation following a devastating nuclear war . They have telepathic abilities and worship an atom bomb , which they call a sacred weapon of peace.

The mutants try to repel the advancing gorilla army by means of telepathic hallucinations, but they do not succeed. Brent is locked in a cell where he meets Taylor. One of the mutants then uses the power of his thoughts to force the two men to fight each other. During their fight, Nova appears and utters her first word: "Taylor". Distracted thereby, the mutant can be overwhelmed and killed. When Brent tells that the mutants have an atomic bomb with the label " Α Ω " on it, Taylor explains that Judgment Day has come.

The gorilla army storms the cave system and shoots wildly. Nova is killed in the process. After the monkeys got into the chapel with the atomic bomb and killed the mutants, there is a firefight with Brent and Taylor. Taylor is shot and asks Zaius for help, but Zaius only explains that the humans are capable of nothing but destruction. After Brent has also been killed, Taylor detonates the atomic bomb with the last of his strength, which destroys the planet.

synchronization

The German synchronization was created by Berliner Synchron GmbH . Ruth Leschin conducted the dialogue book, Dietmar Behnke directed the dialogue.

role	actor	German voice
Brent	James Franciscus	Heinz Petruo
Zira	Kim Hunter	Renate Danz
Prof. Zaius	Maurice Evans	Konrad Wagner
Fat man	Victor Buono	Gerd Duwner
Ursus	James Gregory	Wolfgang Amerbacher
Cornelius	David Watson	Claus Jurichs
Taylor	Charlton Heston	Wilhelm Borchert
teller	Paul Frees	Joachim Nottke

Production history

After the success of the first installment, 20th Century Fox Production Director Stan Hough pushed for a sequel. So producer Arthur P. Jacobs turned to writers Rod Serling and Pierre Boulle , who should make suggestions for another film. Jacobs didn't like any of them. Finally, co-producer Mort Abrahams turned to author Paul Dehn, who published a first synopsis on September 13, 1968 under the working title Planet of the apes revisited . Many of his ideas found their way into the film. His idea of introducing a half-human, half-monkey, was rejected by the studio, however, because it was feared that the mere suggestion of this topic (conceiving a child between a human and a monkey) would lead to an age limit for the film in the USA would. Ted Post was eventually hired as director. However, after Charlton Heston refused to star in the sequel, Post also threatened to withdraw. Richard D. Zanuck personally tried to persuade Heston and told him that it would be difficult to continue without him. Heston relented, but wanted his character killed right at the beginning of the film. As the script evolved, it was suggested to Heston that Taylor should disappear right at the beginning of the film and only reappear at the end of the film and then be killed. Heston finally agreed, if only reluctantly. It was Heston who suggested the end of the film by detonating the atomic bomb himself and destroying the earth.

To save costs, many extras no longer used the elaborate monkey makeup with prostheses known from the first part, but rather slip-on rubber masks. In addition, parts of the sets from the film Hello, Dolly were used .

background

Charlton Heston has a different German voice in this film than in the first part. The archive recordings from the last film (which are shown at the beginning) were also dubbed with the voice of Wilhelm Borchert instead of Wolfgang Kielings .

In the German synchronization, Brent can be heard saying the year 4955 instead of 3955.

The film is the only one in the original five-part series in which Roddy McDowall did not play the role of Cornelius, as he was directing another film at the time. However, it appears at the beginning in an archive recording from the previous film.

Natalie Trundy , wife of producer Arthur P. Jacobs, made her first appearance as Albina in the Planet of the Apes film series and then played in the three other sequels (as a human woman and as a chimpanzee).

The bomb in the film is an allusion to the actually theoretically conceived cobalt bomb , which, unlike in the film, would not cause the entire planet to be blown up, but rather greatly increased radioactive fallout .

There is an unintentional 'mistake' in the film. The underground subway station that Brent descends is Queensboro Plaza, but in reality it is above ground. In addition, the real station has a central platform and not side platforms as shown in the film.

Reviews

"With his sequel, the filmmaker Ted Post has now exceeded all fears: He sorts the ape rulers of the world into pacifist" pigeons "(chimpanzees) and militant" hawks "(gorillas), rushing them into battle according to the dramaturgical laws of adventure novels from the previous century against a remnant of humanity who idolizes a cobalt bomb in the New York subway tunnels, and in the end makes tabula rasa. "

- The mirror

“Instead of Charlton Heston, we see James Franciscus wandering around and fleeing from the monkeys. [...] The socially critical component in this film is also disappointing: because the pacifist chimpanzees want to stop the army with protest marches, they are locked in cages. This parallel to the sixties and an implicit call against the atomic bomb are the rare socially critical points that appear in the entire film. The worship of the atomic bomb represents an interesting thought: God is no longer unimaginable, but manifests himself in the feasible total destruction. "

- Thomas Vesely - everything film

"The sequel is no longer as oppressively satirical as its predecessor, but not without its appeal in the context of the series."

- Lexicon of international film

“This sequel […] is even more unclear than its predecessor, especially with regard to the intellectual background. So there really only remains the renewed admiration for the technical achievements in the treatment of this not uninteresting science fiction material. "

- Protestant film observer