Of course i’m talking about Planet of the Apes, a story written by Pierre Boulle and brought to life on the big screen by Arthur P. Jacobs (APJAC).
For those that don’t know the premise Charlton Heston, AKA Taylor the Astronaut travels forward in time to a world run by apes. In part 2 the world gets destroyed but not before the Ape City scientists, Doctors Zira, Milo & Cornelius escape in Taylor’s ship and find themselves back on Earth just a few years after Taylor left.
Upon arrival (in part 3) all three apes are put into quarantine at the local zoo. Whilst there Dr Milo is killed by a lowly gorilla and Doctor Zira and Cornelius reveal their ability to talk. For a little while they are celebrated until Dr Zira lets slip news of the world’s end.
The powers that be think this future event can be stopped by eliminating the talking apes now and the talking apes must become fugitives in order to survive. Dr. Zira is pregnant and gives birth to her child whilst on the run when they befriend Armando the traveling circus Master.
Armando’s Circus was celebrating the birth of their own ape child and with a quick switcheroo the fugitive apes hit the road and are soon cornered and killed leaving authorities to believe any threat has now been vanquished.
In part 4 of the franchise Armando’s baby chimp has all grown up. With cats and dogs all long dead due to a deadly virus years before the humans have co-opted apes, at first as pets but now as slaves, and are treating them harshly and cruel.
A new organisation, Ape Management, keeps unruly apes under control. Apes not doing what they’re told get sent here for re-training.
In this environment Armando brings the now fully grown ape to town. The ape gets upset by what he sees and yells at guards who are beating on a unruly ape.
Armando and the ape make a run for it and Armando gives the ape instructions to mingle in with new ape arrivals to get papers required to live. With rumours of a talking ape rife the authorities become suspicious of Armando. He is arrested and interrogated before jumping through a window to save his ape.
As per instructions from Armando the talking ape mingles with the new arrivals and is soon taken to Ape Management for training. He impresses the higher ups who decide to keep him for themselves. He is handed a dictionary and told to choose his own name and after some flicking through points directly to his new name. From now on this ape will be known as Caesar.
Caesar’s ability to think, speak, read and write is kept secret from all of the humans. He uses the ape slaves over time to gather a mass of weapons and then, with the help of said slaves, declares war on the human oppressors.
We all know the good guys always win and this case is no different. Part 5 starts off in the simian world of the future. With Caesar long dead and every ape now having the ability to think, speak, read and write it’s time to see if humans can live together with apes in peace.
So back to the title of this post…
Giving birth to your Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great, Great Grandfather!
That’s exactly what Doctors Zira and Cornelius did. They came from a long line of talking apes yet also gave birth to the first talking ape ever to be born.