'Planet of the Apes' (1968) – Ending Still Sends a Powerful Message

*There are spoilers throughout this article.

I think most people have a personal relationship with the movies that they watch. Sometimes there is an instantaneous connection with a film; at other time's there is a disconnect. There are those movies that I love – like Animal House for example, and there are those that I just don't like – The English Patient is one of those. Whether or not we connect to a film is a very personal thing, and that is how it should be.

My First Reaction 

When I first saw Planet of the Apes (1968), I was very young. I was watching Batman, Lost in Space, and Star Trek on TV, and I was entertained by these shows but certainly not understanding everything I saw. I enjoyed it as a kid watching something that was entertaining.

When I first saw this movie, it was something was very different. I knew what the title was, and I figured it was going to be about an alien world populated by apes. I was already hooked on space stories from my TV viewings, but this was a little more than I was ready for at such a young age.

The Apes Were Mean

Taylor (the amazing Charlton Heston) and his crew crash on the alien planet. They encounter humans, but they are like cave people. The astronauts take off all their clothes and swim in a lake. The cave people steal their things, so now they are physically reduced to being like the cave people. 

The ape soldiers

The apes – the soldiers are gorillas – appear, and in my kid's mind they are very mean. They treat the humans terribly, round them up, and throw them in cages. Taylor conveniently gets shot in the throat, so that means he won't be able to talk. All the other humans are mute, so it makes him like one of the crowd. 

Good Apes

Taylor in captivity

Taylor is taken to a place where doctors examine him. Here he meets good apes in Cornelius (Roddy McDowell) and Dr. Zira (Kim Hunter).  They are chimpanzees and apparently scientists too. They treat the wounded Taylor and are kind to him.  

As Taylor observes the society he realizes that orangutans are the officials in society – led by the zealous Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans).  When Zira tells Zaius that Taylor displays intelligence, he seems leery about it and dismisses anything that would mean the humans are more than just animals. 

Taylor Speaks

In a scene where Taylor escapes and runs wild through crowds of apes in the streets, the gorilla soldiers chase him and eventually get him caught in a net. With the treatment from Zira and Cornelius, he has gotten his voice back and speaks the famous line, "Take your stinking paws off me, you damned dirty ape!" Humans are considered animals, but now one has spoken in public.

Taylor's hearing is a sham

A hearing is held to determine what to do with Taylor. Zaius and other officials listen to what he has to say, but it is obvious that they are not convinced by his story. Zira and Cornelius realize that they have to save Taylor. Along with their nephew Lucious (Lou Wagner) they help Taylor and his female companion Nova (Linda Harrison) escape. 

The Forbidden Zone

The group travels to the place that the apes have determined is off limits. The doctors are hoping to find evidence of an advanced human civilization that Taylor believes came before the apes' civilization. 

Zaius and the human baby doll

They find an archaeological site that has artifacts from a human civilization, and Cornelius presents them to Dr. Zaius as proof of Taylor''s claim. Their findings include a human baby doll that says "Mama." Zaius breaks down and admits that he has always known about the humans that came before them, and that they were a dangerous race. 

Taylor and Nova get on a horse with a rifle and provisions, and Zaius warns Taylor that he might not like what he finds out in that zone. Taylor ignores him and they ride away.

The Statue of Liberty Scene

The heartbreaking final scene

When Taylor rides the horse along the beach with Nova, he is fairly confident that he is going to find more humans somewhere. This is when the gut punch happens – Taylor finds the battered remnants of the Statue of Liberty sticking out of the sand along the beach. 

Watching this for the first time and being so young, I wasn't sure what I was seeing. I remember asking my father how could the statue be there on an alien planet. My Dad said that it was not an alien planet – it was Earth! 

Taylor gets off his horse, falls to his knees, and curses at those who destroyed the planet. Endings were not supposed to be this way in my young mind. It felt painful when I grasped that humans messed things up so much that apes would take over the world. It couldn't end like this. I remember crying because as a kid I was scared by the implications about what I had just seen.

Fun Fact: The idea for the action of the film not taking place on an alien planet but on Earth came from Rod Serling (creator of the Twilight Zone), and it was his idea that Taylor (and the audience) would find this out when he/we saw the Statue of Liberty in the last scene.

The Ending Today

I recently watched the film again, and it is still entertaining. I felt differently about it now; it was more devastating that the symbol of liberty that represented to the world what our country was like would end up like this. It is a shocking and powerful message that Serling wanted us to get from this final scene. 

Now I see that Taylor's heroism was based on the ideals that statue stands for, and seeing it broken like that makes him know it was all over. The arrogance of humans reached such an extreme that we destroyed ourselves. Seeing the statue knocks Taylor off his high horse – figuratively and literally. Were we any better than the apes if the world could end up this way? 

In 2026 I think the ending is a warning to us – considering the state of things in the world right now. We should not be so pompous and believe we are not vulnerable to an ending we cannot conceive. Maybe we will not be replaced by apes but perhaps something much worse – like AI or maybe Terminator style robots. 

I think the final message of the film is that peace is the answer, and that is something we should all work towards if we don't want an unhappy ending for the human race; otherwise, one day one of us humans may be kneeling in front of something that proves we did the unthinkable to ourselves, but by then it will too late to do anything about it.   

Please check out the iconic final scene of the movie here!