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| - The spaceship enters a desolate planet’s orbit, a year after the opening scene, crashing into a lake in the middle of a mountainous desert. This is the 'Forbidden Zone', a place still haunted by the aftermath of nuclear war. The astronauts awake due to the flashing red lights. Taylor, Dodge and Landon, get out of the cryo beds but then notice that Stewart has died of old age through an air leak in her sleeping chamber. Taylor and his two surviving companions abandon ship as they discover that the hull is sinking into a large lake. The men escape on a raft, make for land, and theorize that the planet they are stranded on may be in orbit around the star Bellatrix in the constellation of Orion. They walk through great stretches of mountains and desert, at last finding an oasis guarded by what
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| abstract
| - The spaceship enters a desolate planet’s orbit, a year after the opening scene, crashing into a lake in the middle of a mountainous desert. This is the 'Forbidden Zone', a place still haunted by the aftermath of nuclear war. The astronauts awake due to the flashing red lights. Taylor, Dodge and Landon, get out of the cryo beds but then notice that Stewart has died of old age through an air leak in her sleeping chamber. Taylor and his two surviving companions abandon ship as they discover that the hull is sinking into a large lake. The men escape on a raft, make for land, and theorize that the planet they are stranded on may be in orbit around the star Bellatrix in the constellation of Orion. They walk through great stretches of mountains and desert, at last finding an oasis guarded by what appear to be humanoid scarecrows. The men soon encounter primitive men and women who are mute. Taylor believes that they have discovered a new Garden of Eden. With a smile he quips, "If this is the best they’ve got around here, in six months we'll be running this planet". But the planet has more to offer, principally a new order of primates. In this upside down world there are three castes: gorillas (who are the workers and soldiers), chimpanzees (scientists and intellectuals), and orangutans (governors and politicians). It seems the humans have invaded crops cultivated by the advanced but rural apes. Gorilla soldiers with modern firearms and horses soon kill many of the humans, with pockets captured for subsequent experimentation by the chimpanzees. In the melee, Dodge is killed and Taylor and Landon are wounded and taken as prisoners. Wounded in the throat, Taylor cannot talk, but he does manage to steal a pencil and notepad to communicate with Dr Zira (Kim Hunter), an animal psychologist, and Dr Cornelius (Roddy McDowall), her fiancé and an archaeologist. When Dr. Zaius (Maurice Evans) learns of the human and his ability to reason (and his understanding of technology; namely, of airplanes and flight), he orders Taylor emasculated and secretly has Landon lobotomised. Taylor escapes, only to be captured again; ever defiant, he utters his first words among the apes: "Take your stinking paws off me, you damn dirty ape!" greatly shocking the apes. After a trial, Cornelius and Zira help Taylor and his new girlfriend Nova (Linda Harrison) escape, and the four, along with Zira’s nephew Lucius (Lou Wagner), head into the Forbidden Zone to prove that man was once superior to the ape. Followed by Dr. Zaius and a group of gorilla soldiers, the five manage to return to a dig Cornelius had begun some time previously. Taylor manages to capture Dr. Zaius, and within the cave, they discover a human doll that talks, thus proving that humans once held superior technology and that apes somehow descended from them. Although Dr. Zaius eventually regains control of the situation by having the cave blown up and places Cornelius and Zira under arrest for heresy, he lets Taylor and Nova go free stating that he won't like what he finds out there. When Zira asks what Taylor would find, Dr. Zaius quotes "His destiny." The film’s coda has Taylor discovering that he is not on an alien planet, but rather on Earth, where the human 'maniacs' killed each other in a great war and now are dominated by apes. As Taylor screams with frustration and Nova watches on with painful naiveté, the camera pulls back to reveal a half-buried Statue of Liberty, America’s greatest symbol of freedom now nothing but rubble.
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