What Parents Should Know
More than a stirring parade of talking apes (as if that
weren't enough!), this five-movie series offers some
thought-provoking comparisons to our own cultural history.
Quality varies significantly from movie to movie, with the
story a consistent driving force throughout. There are some
serious themes and disturbing images in this film that may be
too much for kids and sensitive preteens, so parents are
advised to watch this with their teens only. A few scenes of
humans and chimpanzees being hunted can be a bit unnerving, as
can scenes depicting a world dominated by talking monkeys and
bomb-worshipping mutants. The key themes are slavery, racial
unrest, and revolution. Teenagers will likely catch the thinly
veiled social and political content, but they'll love it for
the wild, compelling story. And the apes! Good golly, the
apes!
Families who watch this film may want to discuss the subtext. How do you see battles for supremacy hurting the world? What can each individual do to change that through his or her behavior?
Common Sense Media Review
Titles reviewed in this series include:
Planet Of The Apes, Escape From The Planet Of The Apes,
Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes, Beneath The Planet of the
Apes and
Battle For The Planet Of The Apes.
Apes and humans duke it out for supremacy of a war-torn Earth in one of the most popular -- and certainly one of the most parodied -- science fiction sagas of all time. Earth astronaut Taylor (Charlton Heston) travels 2,000 years to a future Planet Of The Apes where humans are hunted by simians. Following the same trajectory, astronaut Brent (James Franciscus) goes Beneath The Planet Of The Apes to find his lost comrade. The two reunite, and bear witness to a battle between apes and underground mutants.
Intelligent chimpanzees Cornelius and Zira (Roddy McDowall and Kim Hunter) Escape From The Planet Of The Apes to present-day Earth. Deemed a threat, both are hunted down and killed, and their secret offspring, Caesar (Roddy McDowall again), grows up in a world where apes are man's slaves. Outrage spurs him to rebellion, a Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes.
Benevolent Caesar presides over a peaceful ape city where humans are treated with relative kindness. Opposing him is hot-blooded gorilla Aldo, who wants all humans exterminated. Their Battle For The Planet Of The Apes will determine whether man and ape can at last live together in peace.
It's been more than three decades since Planet Of The Apes first hit theaters, long enough for the series to have gained popularity with a whole new generation of kids. If the two generations are anything alike, kids seeing it for the first time will sit gawking in slack-jawed amazement as talking, leather-clad gorillas charge on horseback across their TV screens, bullwhipping and netting humans in the tall corn. Now that's entertainment!
Images like that can lodge in a viewer's head and stay there, which is probably why the series is still so widely referenced (and parodied nowhere better than on The Simpsons ). For parents who don't like the idea of that stuff gunking up their kids' brains, here's another way to think about it.
Even in its least inspired moments, the series offers more than mere monkey-based entertainment. Beneath the hair and the latex lies some very relevant subtext, messages about war and humankind's destructive nature, commentary about slavery, racial unrest, revolution. These movies offer a palatable means -- now digitally mastered, with THX sound -- for imparting worthwhile, thought-provoking ideas.
The Star Trek saga -- a more even series of sci-fi movies -- also examines the nature of humankind, as its characters travel through space, spreading good old-fashioned Earthly values.
Common Sense Media is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing information to help parents make media and entertainment choices for their families.
0 |
