Escape from the Planet of the Apes (1971)

Escape from the Planet of the Apes is the third in the Apes cycle and in a cunning about turn sees the Apes arrive on the planet of the humans.

Cornelius, Zira and Dr Milo escape the destruction of the Earth, as seen at the end of the second film, by salvaging Taylor’s spaceship from where it crashed in the first film, repairing it and piloting their way back through the timewarp to modern day Earth.... well, Earth of 1971 or thereabouts.

This has to be one of the best openings of any film, ever.  At first it seems as though some of the astronauts lost in the previous two films have managed to find their way back home and are about to be welcomed back to Earth right up until they reveal that they are not who or even what they appear to be.  It’s a great shock moment as the helmets are removed and the three chimpanzees are revealed.  And the rest of the film is just a good and continues to shock and surprise all the way to the end.

Interestingly, I‘ve read that these spacesuits were once the silver Mercury type and are the same ones that appeared in such shows as Get Smart but as real world spacesuits shifted colour to the Apollo white so too did their fictional counterparts.  This will need a bit of research but what is a fact is that at least one of these ape suits ended up in the Mos Eisley Cantina on the  back of a Star Wars alien.... but then didn’t quite a few of the things we’ve been looking at over the last few months.


Steve