Jerry Goldsmith’s soundtrack, for instance, rejects conventionality in favour of creating a disquieting tone through a percussion-orientated score full of dissonant noises and irregular rhythms. Various hallmarks of the era can be found in Schaffner’s film. Released in 1968, Planet of the Apes was part of the wave of fresh, experimentally inclined films that came to be known as New Hollywood. Revisiting the film now and looking beyond its iconic moments and images, what emerges is an unnerving, exciting sci-fi, with a sharp satirical edge that astutely exposes and explores the anxieties of the time. This is in addition to multiple spin-offs across other media, including comics, video games and television series (both live action and animated), and of course a hilarious Simpsons parody featuring a bedraggled Troy McClure singing “I hate every chimp I see / From chimpan-A to chimpan-Z.”Īmid all this clutter, memory of the original film has become diluted – everyone recognises the image of the Statue of Liberty denoting the twist ending, as well as Heston’s classic “take your stinking paws off me” line, but details of the film as a whole are hazy. Since the release of Franklin J Schaffner’s original Planet of the Apes in 1968, itself an adaptation of Pierre Boulle’s 1963 novel, there have been four sequels, an unsuccessful reboot helmed by Tim Burton, and another much more successful reboot that has spawned two sequels.
