>If we hadn't blown ourselves up in a nuclear war, been taken over by pale-skinned vampires in over-sized Jawa hoodies, or found out our favorite candy bar was made out of people - we would have at least been enslaved by apes. By the time Chuck and co. found the talking doll, I remember thinking he had to be pretty thick if he didn't see it coming that he was in fact on Earth - especially since he had recently starred in so many other end-of-the-world movies.
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Slack,
This movie was first shown in the theaters in 1968. Other films such as Star Wars, Soylent Green, Omega Man, etc. did not appear until the 1970's - so original audiences had not been influenced by them - and Taylor (Chuck) would not have been, either.
The generally innocent feeling of the early 1960's had been eroded by 1968 (the Assassinations of MLKing and Bobby Kennedy, the Vietnam War - etc. etc!). But the more jaded feeling of the late 60's had not Quite Yet pervaded the entire population (hence, "Don't trust anyone over 30" - widely quoted by youth & young adults of the era, and thus a bit of comic relief in the movie).
I had later seen Planet/Apes on TV as an adult, and I found the ending to be Very shocking.
I had not (quite Yet!) entirely acquired the more global cynicism which Taylor so eloquently gives voice to.
*btw, I have not read the book - but I understand (from someone who has) that the ending is Quite different.
(I won't give spoilers here because I heard about it years ago, and might get part of it wrong.
I will just say that from what I do remember, it would be hard to make a believable ending of it - even harder than the Heston version is to believe.)
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hachmom-1
8 years ago
I've read the novel several times, and the biggest problem would be to keep secret on film, a visual medium, what isnt revealed to the reader until the very end, especially given the characters appear at the beginning as well (literally finding a message in a bottle).
It is not our abilities that show who we truly are...it is our choices
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Fletcherj119
8 years ago
I also have read the novel several times. So when the Wahlberg movie came out I heard there was a twist ending. As soon as he launched his ship near the end, I knew what was going to happen.
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liscarkat (18410)
a year ago
There was no shortage of jaded, cynical people before the late 1960s. Vietnam wasn't the first war (there were a couple of pretty big ones earlier in the century--seriously! Look it up!), and MLK and RFK weren't the first people to be assassinated (not even JFK was!). Most people then were actually more sophisticated than most people today, when so many thirty-somethings still talk and act like teenagers. The 1968 audience was no more likely to be shocked by the end of the movie than a 2016 or 2023 audience would be.
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FarmerTed (186)
9 months ago
Yes. Even after Pearl Harbor quite a number of US citizens were reluctant to enter a so called world war. Isolationism was quite strong before PH. Even men who wore a brush cut and were clean shaven had a number of misgivings about Vietnam. An older neighbor during the 1960's was very unhappy as to how his tax dollars were being used and he was not the only one. The world moralized before the latest batch of 20 something people today and will do so long after that generation is rotting in a cemetery or an urn. As to the movie I was a young boy in 1968 and did not see it until the mid-1970's. I had not seen any post apocalyptic film prior so the ending was a surprise to me.
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