History Film / PlanetOfTheApes1968

-->'''Dr. Zaius:''' Don't look for it, Taylor. You may not like what you find.

-->'''Taylor:''' You maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Notable for its [[ItWasHisSled famous]] EarthAllAlong ending: Taylor escapes from the apes, finding a new life with his love Nova, and eventually discovers the ruins of the Art/StatueOfLiberty. He realizes that Man destroyed himself in some iteration of WorldWarIII, sent the planet back to the Stone Age, and allowed the apes to conquer.

** Ape society seems clearly divided between chimp, gorilla, and orang-utan. There's a story that during film production the cast would segregate themselves by the ape costumes they wore.

* HamToHamCombat: Creator/CharltonHeston and Creator/MauriceEvans spend much of the movie engaging in this as Taylor and Dr. Zaius verbally spar over and over.

* LargeHam: Charlton Heston ("''It's a '''MAAAAAAADHOOOOUSE!!! A MAAAAAAADHOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUSE!!!!!!!!'''''")

* {{Expy}}: The Lawgiver is basically Ape Moses.

Adapted from [[Literature/PlanetOfTheApes Pierre Boulle's novel]] and co-scripted by Creator/RodSerling, this classic 1968 sci-fi film [[Franchise/PlanetOfTheApes launched a screen franchise]] that has continued, with various sequels and reboots, into TheNewTens.

* HumanPopsicle: The four astronauts.

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: There were concerns that censors would object to Taylor's cry of "God damn you all to hell!" under [[https://productioncode.dhwritings.com/multipleframes_productioncode.php Section V of the Hays Code]]. The problem was avoided when the producers and Heston explained that the phrase was not an expletive. Rather, Taylor was, literally, calling on God to damn [[spoiler:the entire human race for destroying civilization]].

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: Apes, actually. The whole series, really.

* MohsScaleOfViolenceHardness: It gets a 5, due to the disturbing nature of some of the violence, like [[spoiler:humans being mercilessly hunted for sport, Dodge's (Jeff Burton) stuffed corpse being seen in the museum, and Landon (Robert Gunner) being lobotomized offscreen]].

* SacredScripture: The Sacred Scrolls, written by the deified Lawgiver.

* MonkeyMoralityPose: The Three Wise Judges. Meant to be a private gag for the film crew, but ExecutiveMeddling meant the shot stayed in the movie.

-->It's a madhouse! '''A madhouse'''!

* ShoutOut: To ''Literature/AnimalFarm''. When asked if he knows why all apes were created equal, Taylor replies that "some apes seem to be more equal than others".

* TheTheocracy: Ape society runs pretty heavily on laws created by [[{{Expy}} the ape version of Moses]], and is fairly intolerant of acts of heresy. It's also implied that the ruling caste are deliberately holding back scientific progress to prevent SocietyMarchesOn.

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: Played straight with the "alien" apes on the titular planet. It should have been Taylor's first clue as this trope is ''brutally'' subverted and deconstructed as in the end, [[spoiler: Taylor was on EarthAllAlong]].

* AliensSpeakingEnglish: It should have been Taylor's first clue...

* SpiritualSuccessor: As Creator/JamesRolfe pointed out in his review of the film, it's easy to consider this story a missing episode of ''[[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 The Twilight Zone]]''. Many of the same themes pop up: a fantastical (and somewhat goofy) science-fiction situation, AnAesop about the follies of Man, and the MandatoryTwistEnding. It helps that the initial draft of the screenplay was actually done by Creator/RodSerling, and that a previous episode of ''The Twilight Zone'' ([[Recap/TheTwilightZoneS1E15IShotAnArrowIntoTheAir "I Shot an Arrow into the Air"]]) dealt with the same story situation and even had a similar TwistEnding. Additionally, a lot of ''Planet of the Apes'' actors would later turn up on ''The Twilight Zone'''s other Spiritual Successor, ''Series/NightGallery''.

* TimeMachine: The spaceship slows down the passage of time within it, and so allows one to travel into the future.

* TimeTravel: Taylor and his crew are on a near light speed traveling, which results in them being transported 2000 years into the future whilst the spaceship and everything in it only ages 18 months

[[quoteright:275:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_planet_of_the_apes13194.jpg]]

* AwfulTruth: Dr. Zaius, and possibly the entire orangutang caste, knows the true history of their world and the origin of ape society.

%% * GettingCrapPastThe Radar: Due to overwhelming and persistent misuse, GCPTR is on-page examples only until 01 June 2021. If you are reading this in the future, please check the trope page to make sure your example fits the current definition.

* AdaptationalLocationChange: The film is [[EarthAllAlong set on Earth]] while the PlanetOfTheApes original novel actually takes place on another planet. [[spoiler:The novel's protagonist does return to Earth eventually, resulting in an ending similar to the movie where it's revealed that apes also took over the planet]], the scene takes place in Paris, however, instead of New York City.

** "You do this out of fear. Because you're afraid of me! ''WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, DOCTOR??''"
::: [[JerkassHasApoint Eventually we find out]]

* GettingCrapPastTheRadar: There were concerns that censors would object to Taylor's cry of "God damn you all to hell!" The problem was avoided when the producers and Heston explained that the phrase was not an expletive. Rather, Taylor was, literally, calling on God to damn [[spoiler:the entire human race for destroying civilization]].

-->'''Dr. Zaius''': Then answer me this--if man was superior, why didn’t he survive?