Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) is the third film sequel to the 1968 science fiction
film Planet of the Apes. It explores mankind's future history as
established in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and is
considered to be the most violent of the sequels. The film was directed by J. Lee
Thompson. In this sequel an attempt is made to explain the beginnings of the rise of apes to dominate the planet. Critics
were not pleased with many aspects of this film, which they felt tried too hard to emulate the first 3 movies. Its over-the-top
depictions of animal cruelty were fictitious and were criticized as an attempt to parallel race issues of the time
inadequately.
Cast
Plot summary
Building upon the description given by Cornelius and Zira before the Presidential Committee in the previous film, an epidemic disease has made extinct the world's cats and dogs,
leaving humans with no animals to keep as pets. In time, humans notice the
apes' capacity to learn and adapt; thus they are taught to perform
menial household tasks. By the year 1991, the United States of America has
turned into a series of autonomous city-states, while human society overall has become a more oppressive culture, wherein apes used as an
outright slave labor force by humans.
Armando (played by Ricardo
Montalbán) and Milo, a young chimpanzee who rides horseback in Armando's circus, visit Central City. He warns the young chimpanzee to be careful in the
city; should anyone find out he is the offspring of the two intelligent apes
from the future, it would lead to their deaths. As they walk through the streets of the
city, seeing the apes cleaning streets and delivering packages, they are disgusted by the atrocities done to the apes when they
fail to comply. Watching an ape being beaten and drugged, Milo shouts “Lousy human bastard!”; Armando quickly tries to take
responsibility by explaining to security officials that it was he who shouted. As the
crowd around them becomes agitated, Milo runs away, followed by Armando.
Hiding in a stairway, Armando says that he will go to the authorities and try to settle matters by bluffing his way out of
trouble, explaining that his ape had escaped. In the meantime, Milo must hide among his own kind (doing so by sneaking into a
crate of newly-imported orangutans), and soon finds himself among the apes that are being
trained for slavery. He goes through the violent conditioning process and is sold to the head of
Central City, Governor Breck. Breck, knowing only the Ape's assigned number, uses an old family method to give
him a name: taking out a dictionary, he allows the ape to flip through it and point to a word,
thereby naming himself. Milo's finger comes to rest on "Caesar". So christened, Caesar is then
put to work by Breck's chief aide, Mr. MacDonald, a descendant of slaves himself, who sympathizes with the apes to the thinly
veiled disgust of his boss Breck.
Meanwhile, Armando is being interrogated under the supervision of Inspector Kolp, who suspects his "circus ape" may be the
offspring of the two civilized apes from the future. Kolp's men put Armando in a machine which forces people to tell the truth. Rather than confessing, Armando
breaks loose of his captors and commits suicide by throwing himself out of a window. Learning of
the death of his father figure, the only human he loved, Caesar loses faith in human kindness
and begins to plot an ape rebellion.
Caesar secretly teaches the other apes the art of combat (although orangutans are not seen
with the rest of the apes, much less fighting) and bids them gather weapons such as knives,
guns, and blowtorches. However, at this time, Breck discovers
from Inspector Kolp that the manifest of the vessel that "delivered" Caesar lists no chimpanzees aboard. Suspecting that Caesar
may be the ape that the authorities have been hunting, Breck's men bring Caesar in and connect him to a machine, forcing Caesar
to speak. Hearing the confession, Breck orders Caesar's immediate execution. Caesar survives his "execution" as he noticed that
the power levels of the machine had been turned off; therefore Caesar pretends to die. This occurred because MacDonald had turned
off the machines' electric supply. Once Governor Breck leaves, convinced that the threat to humanity has been eliminated, Caesar
overpowers the attendant of the machine and proceeds to begin the rebellion against Breck and Central City. MacDonald had
previously learned that Caesar was indeed the talking ape who had been largely regarded as a myth by the public.
Caesar leads an ape revolt on Central City against their human keepers. The apes emerge victorious, after killing scores of
riot police sent to stop them. After breaking their way into Breck's command post and killing most of the personnel in the
facility, Caesar has Breck marched out, entertaining the intention of executing him. MacDonald
appeals to Caesar's humanity to show mercy on his former persecutor. Caesar does not listen, and
in a rage declares how from this point on, apes everywhere will repeat what has happened
in Central City, dominating the Earth after the downfall of human civilization,
and instructing apes to enslave the humans that are left. Lisa, who would later become Caesar's wife, voices her objection, making her the first ape (besides Caesar) to speak. Caesar immediately reconsiders his
position and orders the apes to put down their weapons just as they are about to use their rifle butts to kill the tyrannical
Governor Breck. "If it is man's destiny to be dominated, then it is God's will that he be dominated with compassion and understanding," says Caesar. The humans'
slavery of the apes comes to an end, and the world has seen the birth of the Planet of the Apes.
Paradox
The movie implies that Caesar started the Ape rebellion. However, this is a temporal
paradox, as Caesar is himself the child of two of the talking apes of the future, a future that is a result of the Ape
rebellion. Specifically, the existence of Caesar creates a predestination paradox
and an Ontological paradox.
The movie could also be seen to imply that the uprising of the Apes, whilst nearly simultaneously gaining the power of speech,
could have happened regardless of whether Caesar existed in this time period.[citation needed] In the film's climax, a Gorilla, whom Caesar calls Aldo, is seen beating Breck. Aldo is the name of the Gorilla whom Cornelius believed was the
first Ape to speak against his master. A possible implication is that the Ape rebellion might eventually have occurred with Aldo
leading it, and it would have been far more violent, but now the timeline has been changed with Caesar leading the rebellion, in
the end proclaiming that the Apes must remain compassionate. Thus, the original timeline (with Aldo leading the rebellion) that
resulted in the destruction of Earth in Beneath the Planet of the Apes, might not be the same timeline as the now
Caesar-led rebellion, and thus there is the possibility that Earth will not be destroyed.
The world Cornelius was talking about could have possibly been the apes slowly evolving and learning to speak on their own and
Aldo saying "No" to a man.[citation needed]
Another possibility is that Aldo could have killed Caesar after Aldo killed Cornelius.
It has also been speculated that Conquest, and Battle for the Planet of the Apes may take place in an alternate
timeline from the first two films, that Cornelius and Zira's journey to the past and the events of Escape from the Planet of
the Apes may have changed the future but this theory is left intentionally ambiguous.[citation needed]
Paul Dehn, the man who wrote or co-wrote all of the sequels, was quoted in several interviews at the time (which are quoted in
the book 'The Planet of the Apes Chronicles' by Paul Woods) stating the story he was writing was a circular timeline:
- "The whole thing has become a very logical development in the form of a circle. I have a complete chronology of the time
circle mapped out, and when I start a new script, I check every supposition I make against the chart to see if it is correct to
use it."
- "While I was out there [in California], Arthur Jacobs said he thought this would be the last so I fitted it together so
that it fitted in with the beginning of Apes One, so that the wheel had come full circle and one could stop there quite happily,
I think."
However, it should also be noted that screenwriter Paul Dehn stated in several interviews at the time the he was writing the
story as a circle and that it was his intention that the end of Conquest dovetail with the first film. Thus, inconsistencies
between films were just that: inconsistencies - and not an attempt to suggest that the future had changed.
Trivia
- Paul Dehn, who took over the Apes series as screenwriter, has said that the Ape insurrection was based on the
Watts riots.
- The original ending consisted of the Apes killing the Humans after overpowering them during the rebellion, but test audiences
reacted badly to the grim ending, so the studio re-edited the ending with existing footage. The plot twist of the chimpanzee Lisa
saying the word "no" was added to the film via dubbing a new voice-over and Roddy McDowall was brought back to record the
following dialogue "If it is man's destiny to be dominated, then it is God's will that he be dominated with compassion and
understanding", in order to create an upbeat ending where humanity may still have a chance to make peace with the Ape
Rebellion.
- The riot scenes were filmed at Century City, Los Angeles,
California, specifically in the Century City Mall and surrounding office complex (which is clearly seen in the film). This
development had just been completed and businesses had not yet moved in.
- Several of the Futurist buildings are the actual school buildings at the University of California, Irvine. The school's Social Science tower, which was still
under construction at the time of filming, is the predominant one. It was turned over to the film crew for use as a set before it
opened to students.
- Lou Wagner, who played "Zira's" Nephew, "Lucius", in the first film, appears this time as a Chimpanzee 'busboy'. The
character is established near the beginning of the film as being 'deathly' afraid of fire; later, at "Caesar's" (Roddy McDowall)
silent urging - early-on in the ape-uprising - he overcomes his fear when he finds the courage to 'accidentally' tip a pan he's
filled with cooking sherry into a fondue-cooker's flames, and with great pride and satisfaction, sets a section of the restaurant
where he works ablaze. He is joined once again by veteran "Apes" actor, Buck Kartalian ("Julius", the Compound 'Cage-Keeper'
["You know what they say: Human see, Human do..."] in the original film), as "Frank" a red-jacketed Gorilla 'waiter', who begins
his own personal 'rebellion' when he suddenly refuses to politely & obligingly light a patron's cigarette, as he had been
trained and conditioned to do.
- James Bacon (well-known Los Angeles writer & columnist), along with Natalie Trundy (wife of Producer Arthur P. Jacobs),
are two of the few cameo-performers/personalities/actors to play both an ape and a human in the various "Planet of the Apes"
productions. Additionally, Mr. Bacon is the only actor to appear in all five films in the "Planet of the Apes" series. He played
an ape in all of them except for "Escape from the Planet of the Apes" (1971) in which he played a human, "General Faulkner". It
was also the only one of the films in which he was credited.
External links
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