History Film / PlanetOfTheApes1968

* SchizoTech: The apes use modified M1 carbines as their main weapons, but don't think airplanes are possible (nevermind interplanetary travel) and use horses and carts instead of motor-powered vehicles. It is possible that some technologies are being delayed by Dr. Zaius and the orangutans just like the knowledge of human civilization, but it is never confirmed.

** While the archaeological site and the doll are both present in the novel, Dr. Zaius is not aware of man's past preeminence, and this is discovered only when Nova is subjected to an experiement that unlocks her ancestor's GeneticMemory.

* ViewersAreGeniuses: Viewers are expected to understand the subtleties, such as slowly making new discoveries and realizing that apes' cruelty towards humans represents ''our'' monstrous, self-destructive acts.
* VillainsOutShopping: After the hunt, a trio of gorillas pose for a picture amidst their prey.

* WhamLine: '''"TAKE YOUR STINKING PAWS OFF OF ME, YOU DAMNED DIRTY APE!!!"''' Made all the more powerful when you realize that Creator/CharltonHeston was ''sick with the flu'' at the time, but the director felt that the hoarseness of his voice would add impact to that line. It did.
* WhamShot: The Statue of Liberty at the end. (At least, [[ItWasHisSled if you don't already know the ending.]])

* SchizoTech: The objects in the ape society have varied levels of technology.
* SecretPolice: Dr. Zaius is essentially running an Inquisition. [[spoiler:He knows full well that ape society's view of humanity is not entirely true, and ''because'' of what he knows, he's deeply involved in making sure that that stays true, prosecuting Taylor's collaborators for heresy rather than letting out the fact that humans are actually sentient beings.]]

* SleeperStarship: The crew hibernate during the trip, though apparently the method doesn't entirely stop them from aging. [[spoiler:And if something [[CryonicsFailure goes wrong with the process]], they [[AgeWithoutYouth age normally]].]]
* TheSmartGuy: Dodge, for the brief time we knew him. Landon says that he'd walk naked into a live volcano if it meant he could learn something that no one else knew.

* StatusQuoIsGod: At the beginning of the film, Taylor believes humanity to be bastards, but changes his mind after meeting the apes, but goes right back to thinking it after seeing the ruins of the Art/StatueOfLiberty. In the sequel, he's become even more misanthropic.
* TeleportationMisfire: A misjump takes the astronauts to the eponymous planet. Which is actually [[spoiler:Earth thousands of years into the future]].
* 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 society from changing.

* TimePassageBeard: Taylor sports one when he comes out of hibernation.
* TomatoSurprise: EarthAllAlong.
* TwistEnding: EarthAllAlong. Considering Creator/RodSerling had a hand in the 1968 screenplay, [[Series/TheTwilightZone1959 it really shouldn't have been that surprising]]...

* ScienceMarchesOn:
** Orangutans, chimpanzees, and gorillas were though to be single species when the movie was made. Now there are three known orangutan species, two chimpanzees, and two gorillas, which makes the idea of they all coming together to make a single civilization even less plausible.
** Gorillas are depicted as violent brutes and chimpanzees as friendly and peaceful. Jane Goodall and Diane Fossey's field observations would later flip these stereotypes on their head.

* CrystalDragonJesus: The ape's religion is definitely Abrahamaic; they outright have "God", who made apes in his image and condemned humans. References to The Lawgiver as the writer of the Sacred Scrolls that serve as basis for the Ape religion, with no apparent divine nature of his own, put their religion closer to Judaism or Islam than Christianity.

* FantasticRacism:
** The way apes hate humans. [[spoiler:For good reason...]]
** Ape society seems clearly divided between chimp, gorilla, and orangutan. There's a story that during film production the cast would segregate themselves by the ape costumes they wore.

** [[spoiler:Taylor finds Landon lobotomized by the apes]].
** Taylor himself becomes more desperate to escape after learning that he himself is scheduled to be not only lobotomized and emasculated, but also stands to lose his two best friends.
* ForbiddenZone: The film prominently features an area which contains the important information that [[spoiler:they were really on Earth the whole time.]] The area is actually called "The Forbidden Zone" and is also an inhospitable desert, so there's some practical reason beyond the withholding of scientific information.

* 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, [[NotHyperbole literally, calling on God to damn]] [[spoiler:the entire human race for destroying civilization]].
* GoneSwimmingClothesStolen: The astronauts' immediate reaction to discovering a (freshwater) lake just outside of the ForbiddenZone is to go SkinnyDipping. While this happens, their clothes and equipment end up being stolen and/or destroyed by the primitive humans.

* HeroOfAnotherStory: An Ape organization called the Anti-Vivisection League is mentioned a few times as a rare group that fights for human rights and tries to prevent people like Zaius from sterilizing human slaves. None of the lot members physically appear, though.
* HistoryRepeats: [[spoiler:After humanity blew itself up with nuclear weapons, all surviving descendants of theirs have regressed into primitive, dumb animals much like ''Homo ergaster'' and ''Homo erectus'']]. Meanwhile, the Apes are repeating the exact same history of segregation, oppression, and violence as the humans they despise so much.
* HollywoodScience: Averted. This movie shows a great deal of respect and knowledge of science, far more than would be expected from Hollywood.
* HopeSpot: What was the jungle in the end of the movie? It turns out to be ruins of the Statue of Liberty and it WAS EarthAllAlong.

* HumanAliens: The apes and the humans look exactly like the ones on Earth. Justified, since it was EarthAllAlong.

* HumansAreMorons: Unlike other examples of this in SpeculativeFiction, this is one example where humanity is ''less'' civilized than the apes, as opposed to usually being the ''slightly more'' civilized ones. [[spoiler:This is because humanity managed to blow itself to damn near the brink of extinction, losing its civilized qualities in the process.]]
* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Taylor feels this way at the beginning, but after meeting the apes, he changes his mind. Then comes the ending, which is when it's all but confirmed. Downplayed, as what we see of the Apes suggests that [[MirroringFactions they have all the same flaws that the humans had]] and it's only their primitive technology that keeps them from doing as much damage.
* HumansAreUgly: When Taylor wants to kiss Zira goodbye, she says he is "so damned ugly."
%%Belongs in the SleeperStarship subtrope* HumanPopsicle: The four astronauts.
* HumiliationConga: Taylor spends the bulk of the film enduring this. Serves him right though, considering what a JerkAss he is.
* InNameOnly: Adaptation of the novel. Pierre Boulle was apparently impressed enough with the adaptation that he submitted his own proposal for a sequel titled ''Planet of the Men'', which would've ended with [[spoiler:the humans taking over the planet and ultimately turning Dr. Zaius into a zoo exhibit]].
* InThatOrder: "If they catch you, they will dissect you. And kill you. In that order." [[note]]Technically, cutting up a living subject is vivisection.[[/note]]

** He also starts off as a cynical misanthrope who couldn't wait to get away from the human race. By the halfway point of the movie, he's forced to become humanity's vocal proponent. [[spoiler:And then the ending reveals he was right about [[HumansAreTheRealMonsters humans being bastards]] all along.]]

-->'''Taylor:''' Dr. Zaius, I know who I am But who are you? How in hell did this upside-down civilization get started?\\

* KangarooCourt: Zira and Cornelius vs. the ape government.
* KillerSpaceMonkey: The apes, and the gorillas in particular. Until the truth is revealed at the end.
* LandOfOneCity: The planet is implied to have only one civilized area surrounded by a continent of wilderness: Ape City.

* LastNameBasis: Taylor's first name doesn't even pop up in the film, it was revealed later.
* LegendFadesToMyth: The religious myth held by the apes in the first movie turns out to be a distorted version of ape rebellion and the human war that allowed apes to come to power, as depicted in the sequels. Kind of. [[spoiler:Zira and Cornelius' mucking about with Time Travel in ''Film/EscapeFromThePlanetOfTheApes'' changes the course of history, causing the rebellion to happen in a different way - and with a different leader - than it had in this timeline. In that movie the Apes had more awareness of the true history than in this movie and the next.]]
* {{Lobotomy}}: One of the astronauts gets lobotomized by the apes.

* MeaningfulName: Played with with Dodge, who [[spoiler: gets shot, failing to live up to his name]].
* 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 sort of irony as two of the judges refuse to hear and see the truth, while Dr. Zaius knows the truth but refuses to speak it.
* MonumentalDamage: Overlaps with MonumentalDamageResistance. In the 40th century, the Statue of Liberty - though severely damaged - is the only part of New York City still recognizable (until ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'', anyway).

* MotherlyScientist: Chimpanzee Zira, notable psychologist and zoologist, calls Taylor "Bright Eyes," at least until he manages to write his own name, to her surprise. [[spoiler:She ends up kissing him goodbye - even though, as she tells him, "You're so damned ugly."]] She's sort of like a reverse Jane Goodall.

* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: In the "What have you done" variant.
* ANaziByAnyOtherName: Dr. Zaius. Despite being the high-ranking Science Minister, he is still consumed by the ideology that Apes are the superior species and Humans are nothing more than corrupt violent savages, "the Devil's pawns," and therefore it is his duty to pacify them. [[spoiler:It is revealed that he ''knows'' Humans used to have a great civilization, but believes that since they destroyed themselves, Apes are still the superior species.]]
* NoEnding: The movie abruptly ends after the EarthAllAlong reveal. Until ''Film/BeneathThePlanetOfTheApes'' came out, the audience had no idea what was next for Taylor.
* NotSoAboveItAll: The ape society as a whole. For as much is they like to look down on humans, the fact that the apes hunt non-sapient humans for sport, have political corruption and religious fanaticism shows that the apes are rather hypocritical and likely to follow in humanity's self-destructive footsteps.

* OnlySaneMan: Taylor has the only rational response to a world where apes rule over men.
-->Apes! Apes wearing clothes! It's a madhouse! '''A madhouse'''!

* PersecutionFlip: The apes keeping humans in cages and using them for experiments.

** Dr. Zaius warning Taylor when the latter sets off to find more about the planet. [[YouCalledMeXItMustBeSerious Even calling Taylor by name, acknowledging him as his equal.]]

* PostHistoricalTrauma: You maniacs! You blew it up! Damn you!! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!!!
* PragmaticAdaptation: In the original novel, the apes live in a society that is identical to the 1960's, when the book was written. Due to budgetary reasons, their city is more primitive with the most advanced things they have been automatic guns, pens and hoses.

* SacredScripture: The Sacred Scrolls, written by the deified Lawgiver. The sequels reveal that, aside from the sections read out, there are restricted volumes revealing [[spoiler:the history of how the apes took over the Earth, which Zaius is apparently familiar with]].
* ScaryScarecrows: Just before leaving the Forbidden Zone, the three astronauts find several things that could be scarecrows, but might in fact be human corpses that were strung up by the apes, long ago.
* SceneryPorn: For starters, the Forbidden Zone scenes, shot around the Colorado River and Lake Powell in Utah.
* ScienceMarchesOn: during the times when the book was written and the film was made, bonobos were thought to be a subspecies of chimpanzees, but nowadays they are recognized as their own species. This is surely why they're not mentioned in either (but does provide for several horrifying in-universe possibilities).

* BlandNameProduct: The astronauts wear "[[UsefulNotes/NASA ANSA]]" patches.

%%* FairForItsDay

* EternalEnglish: It's 2,000 years in the future, and the apes are still speaking perfect English. Although they don't call it that... Cornelius just says it was the language taught to him by his father and his father before him.

* EvolutionaryLevels: The apes' evolution to intelligence in a couple of thousand years. {{RetCon}}ned in the sequels.

** Every example of humans brawling with apes hand-to-hand underestimates what a CurbStompBattle such a squabble would actually be. Even an adolescent chimp can toss a human around like a ragdoll if aggravated, and the larger apes could quite literally rip a human apart.

* CassandraTruth: Even the Apes who support Taylor don't believe him when he says that he came from another planet. [[spoiler:Subverted, as the ending reveals they were right and he was wrong.]]
* CharacteristicTrope: EarthAllAlong.
* ChewingTheScenery:
-->''You cut up his braaaaaaiiiinnn, you bloody baboon!''\\
''It's a madhouse!'' '''''A MAAADHOUSE!!!''''' (Lampshaded in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6luDsjJqgjA the trailer]].)\\
''YOU MANIACS! YOU BLEW IT UP!'' '''''OH, DAMN YOU! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!'''''
* ColorCodedCharacters: Chimpanzees wear green, gorillas wear black/purple and orangutans wear orange.

* CompositeCharacter: Taylor is a sort of mix between the protagonist Ulysse, who tries to prove to Zira that he's intelligent, and the misanthropic professor Antelle who's tired of humans in the book.
%%* TheConstant: The Statue of Liberty.
* CryonicsFailure: Stewart's death while in HumanPopsicle state.
* CrystalDragonJesus: The Lawgiver is basically Ape Moses.

* DeadpanSnarker: Taylor, even when [[TheVoiceless mute.]] Also Cornelius.
* DeadGuyOnDisplay: This is what happened to [[spoiler:Dodge]], whose body is placed in an ape museum about humans. In the comics, it's revealed he's an interesting display because he's the only dark-skinned human they've seen.
* DespairEventHorizon: The revelation of [[EarthAllAlong the ending]] drop-kicks Taylor right across it. He spends his final seconds on screen crying and screaming insults to those who made [[spoiler:the end of the world]] happen.

* DevelopingDoomedCharacters: It's at least half hour until we encounter the title characters, and all but one of the humans you meet till then either end up dead, or worse, lobotomized.
* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:After Zira and Cornelius get hauled away to be tried for heresy,]] it is revealed the planet of the apes [[EarthAllAlong is actually Earth]], thousands of years after WorldWarIII. Taylor was home all along, and the home he was hoping to get back to is gone. His final howl of despair implies [[DespairEventHorizon the realization has completely broken him]].

* DubNameChange: Of all the characters, Cornelius alone got his name changed for the Spanish dub. He was renamed "Aurelio."
** This change is particularly mystifying, because "Cornelius" (being a name of Latin origin) ''does have'' a Spanish form: "Cornelio".

* ApocalypseHow: Taylor gets a HeroicBSOD when he learns that the planet is actually Earth after the collapse of civilization. Like audiences on his time, he immediately assumed this was the result of nuclear war: "You maniacs! You blew it up!"

* AgentMulder: Zira is an unorthodox "animal psychologist" who thinks that humans can ''become'' intelligent and talk with the adequate stimulation. Upon meeting Taylor, she takes his attempts to communicate as genuine and signs of a greater intelligence in him, even though she still thinks of him as a gifted animal.

* AnimalIsTheNewMan: The astronauts land on a planet where apes rule the world while humanity takes on the role of animals. Since the planet is EarthAllAlong, it makes more sense.

* ApocalypseHow: "You maniacs! You blew it up!"
* ArchEnemy: Dr. Zaius to Colonel George Taylor, Cornelius, and Zira.

** "You do this out of fear. Because you're afraid of me! ''WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, DOCTOR??''"[[note]][[JerkassHasApoint Eventually we find out.]][[/note]]
* ArtificialGravity: In the opening scene; we clearly see Taylor walking over to his cryosleep pod to get inside.

** A major contributor to the stigma between the humans and the sentient apes is the idea that humans are not apes, and (to some) not animals. While the apes in the first film may be forgiven for it by not being advanced enough to be able to prove the former through genetic sciences, the humans [[spoiler:in the modern day in later films]] have no excuse whatsoever.
** The ship with the protagonist is sent into space to colonize a new planet. That's why it contains three males and one female. A population ''that'' low would die out from inbreeding within several generations, even assuming the single female would reproduce constantly. For breeding, it would be far more efficient to have several females for each male, since a single male can impregnate multiple females, whereas a single female can only undergo one pregnancy at a time.
** Gorillas are portrayed as warlike and violent, chimpanzees as reserved and rational, and orangutans as wise and social. Gorillas are [[GentleGiant very gentle and docile]] animals (though angering them is an ''extremely'' bad idea) while chimps have been known to exterminate other tribes, including the infants, to take the females and food. Orangutans have a completely anti-social society; males leave upon puberty and live on their own, attacking anyone that comes into their territory. Again, probably a case of [[ScienceMarchesOn Primatology Marched On]].
** Every example of humans brawling with apes hand-to-hand in the film series ''seriously'' underestimates what a CurbStompBattle such a squabble would actually be. Even an adolescent chimp can toss a human around like a ragdoll if aggravated, and the larger apes could quite literally rip a human apart.
* ArtisticLicenseGeography: The fact that most of the landscapes resemble the American southwest (namely Arizona and Utah, along with [[CaliforniaDoubling California]]) given both the ending and [[http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20090917142552/planetoftheapes/images/thumb/8/8f/Cornelius_map.jpg/300px-Cornelius_map.jpg Cornelius' map]], which shows [[spoiler:NYC's islands, only with less water around them]]. Justified, since, you know, there's been a nuclear war.
-->The Forbidden Zone was once a paradise!
* ArtisticLicenseLinguistics: It's weird that the Apes still speak recognizable English more than a thousand years after human civilization was destroyed.
* AwfulTruth: Dr. Zaius, and possibly the entire orangutan caste, knows the true history of their world and the origin of ape society.
* BigApplesauce: The end of the film, which lets Taylor know where he really is.
* BigBad: Doctor Zaius. He spends pretty much the whole film plotting against Taylor. [[spoiler:Though in the end it is revealed that he is an AntiVillain.]]
* BlackDudeDiesFirst: [[spoiler:Technically (in more ways than one) averted, but]] Dodge didn't live up to his name.
%%* BreakTheHaughty: Taylor
* CaptainsLog: Taylor is making an entry at the beginning of the film.

* AgentMulder: Zira instantly believes Taylor is more than special the second he first demonstrated writing "My name is Taylor." She then believed that there were more intelligent humans like Taylor out there somewhere.
* AgentScully: Cornelius; unlike Zira, he doubts his theories even after Taylor kept demonstrating intelligence. He refuses to believe there's more beyond civilization due to not wanting to get in trouble by Ape law.
* AliensSpeakingEnglish: At first, played straight with the "alien" apes on the titular planet. It should have been Taylor's first clue as this trope is subverted and deconstructed as in the end, Taylor was on EarthAllAlong.

!!The first movie contains examples of:
* TwentyMinutesIntoTheFuture: When the movie starts out, the year on the ship's onboard calendar reads 1972. When they crash-land on the titular planet, [[spoiler:it's 3978.]]
* AdamAndEvePlot: This was actually the initial plan. It was scrapped when the only female crew member died in transit.
* AdaptationalAlternateEnding: In the original 1963 novel, ''La Planet De Singes'', the titular planet really was an alien planet the whole time, which Taylor (named Ulysses in the novel) and Nova escaped by sneaking into an experimental space flight, only to discover that Earth had undergone a similar ape revolution as the alien world. A similar ending was eventually used in the 2001 remake.
* AdaptationalLocationChange: The film is [[EarthAllAlong set on Earth]] while the 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.
* AdaptationalModesty: The wild humans were nude in the book. In the film, they wear loincloths.
* AdaptationNameChange:
** Ulysse from the book becomes Taylor.
** Antelle becomes Landon.
* AfterTheEnd: As revealed at the end of the movie.
* AgentMulder: Zira; she instantly believed Taylor was more than special the second he first demonstrated writing "My name is Taylor." She then believed that there were more intelligent humans like Taylor out there somewhere.

* ArcWords: "Somewhere in the universe, there must be something better than man..."

* CassandraTruth: Subverted. Even the Apes who support Taylor don't believe him when he says that he came from another planet. [[spoiler:It's not until the end that we find out they were right and he was wrong.]]

* HumansAreTheRealMonsters: Taylor feels this way at the beginning, but after meeting the apes, he changes his mind. Then comes the ending, which is when it's all but confirmed.

* DownerEnding: [[spoiler:After Zira and Cornelius get hauled away to be tried for heresy,]] it is revealed the planet of the apes is actually Earth, thousands of years after WorldWarIII. Taylor was home all along.

--->'''Homorius:''' Why are all apes created equal?\\

'''Homorius:''' [[DramaticallyMissingThePoint Ridiculous! That answer is a contradiction in terms.]]

* ForbiddenZone: A really notable example.