Planet Of The Apes Themes

Words: 513
Pages: 3

Jessica Brumer

Planet of the Apes

The first film adaptation of the “Planet of the Apes” was created in 1968 by Rod Serling. The film appears to be heavily influenced by the year in which it was made, one of America’s most tumultuous years in history,

In that it was created in 1968, one of America’s most tumultuous years in history, the movie “Planet of the Apes,” by Rod Serling, seemed to be heavily influenced by the real life conflicts that were occurring at that time. Present in this film were themes such as the Vietnam war, the issue of race in the civil rights era, and the idea of human’s ability to destroy the world. This movie brings all of these together in its powerful finale.
I can say that I truly enjoyed both the movie and the novel, “Planet of the Apes.” The novel focused more on the theme of tests being done on animals and the fine line that was crossed between civilization and human vs. animal instinct. Meanwhile, the film focused more on common themes of its era such as the dangers
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In this iconic scene, George Taylor and Nova have escaped imprisonment by the apes and are now riding off into the sunset on horseback down the beach’s shoreline into the forbidden zone. Suddenly, he stops and looks out into the distance to find the buried, ruined remains of the Statue of Liberty. This is when Taylor realizes the unfortunate truth that he is not on another planet like he had always believed, in fact he was back on Earth. Then, Taylor recites his infamous “Damn them, damn them all to hell!” line as he is shattered by this truth. Furthermore, after humanity had had been debilitated and weakened by a nuclear war, the apes evolved and took control over Earth too and evolved into more intelligent beings over many years. This goes back to the theme of fear during the Cold War reflecting the time of the film’s production in