It would be easy, in the early moments of the sequel, to think that Beneath the Planet of The Apes is merely a direct copy of the original. Astronauts crash land on a planet (the one the audience now know to be Earth) on a rescue mission to find those from the first film. They are gradually whittled down to one – Brent (James Franciscus) – who just so happens to bear a striking resemblance to Taylor (Charlton Heston) from the first film. He meets Nova (Linda Harrison), the primitive human being who accompanied Taylor and discovers the Ape City. The similarities threaten to make this very boring.
Yet this time things play out differently. Brent has the help of Chimpanzees Cornelius (David Watson) and Zira (Kim Hunter) thus avoiding detention and finds his way into the Forbidden Zone. This is where there is more to the series than just the Apes. For Brent finds, deep below the ground, the existing human race who have now evolved to the point that they are telepathic. The problem is that they are in a cult-like society where they misguidedly worship a Nuclear bomb leftover from the human civilisation’s apocalypse. Worse still, they’re mutating due to radiation damage.
Meanwhile the gorillas led by General Ursus have decided that they must go to the Forbidden Zone to plunder the resources there.
This all makes for a fascinating episode in the series and one they would partly re-jig in later films. Firstly, the lines are blurred as there’s no discernible good nor evil. All three groups, the humans from the past, the humans of the future and the apes bring violence and are culpable for the destruction their own planet has suffered. There’s also a deeply melancholic outlook in the plot that the human race will inevitably self-combust as the opportunity to create a progressive and equal society is lost due to fear and misplaced faith in the bomb as a deterrent or something to be revered.
It is gloomy to see that the evolved human society might now communicate in a far more advanced manner but still has not learned to abandon hostility. They use their telepathy to brainwash their foes into turning on one another. As Brent tells them “damn you and your hypocrisy”. Like the first film, this is an anti-war movie with the slogan “Ban the Bomb” implicitly running through it.
There are other reflections on the society of the late 1960’s when this film was made. The more progressive and youthful chimpanzees in Ape City peacefully protest against impending violence reminiscent of the CND. The mysterious mutants and their Ape enemies resemble both the sides in the Cold War.
The themes and concerns about fear of the unknown, of racial and religious bigotry are still as relevant now. When the gorillas enter the human city and immediately set about sacking it, smashing it all in the name of “heresy” it reminds one of Islamic State’s vandalism in Palmyra or the Nazis book burning.
Despite it being similar in plot and pace to the first film in the opening half hour or so, it builds upon that and introduces some complex concepts. The presence of Charlton Heston also links to the original well and he gets more than just a cameo run out. Audiences were enamoured enough although this would be the last big-scale truly cinematic entry in the series as sets and effects would be reined in going forward.
A highly underrated film both in the Apes franchise but also generally, it portrays the dominant being on Earth in its various evolutionary stages still set on a course of self-destruction. It’s a damning view of its warlike nature. Even if the mutants don’t fight, they still command their prisoners to fight each other to the death, with Taylor and Brent’s grapple being symbolic of the wider power struggle. Maybe it’s not got the shock factor of the original, perhaps it hasn’t dated well yet it is thought provoking and that’s the key to all good dystopian sci-fi.
Athon 